• 4
    plays
  • 3
    collected

Screen One

Specials 1989 - 2023

  • 1989-12-12T00:00:00Z on BBC One
  • 1h
  • 19h (19 episodes)
  • United Kingdom
  • English
  • Drama
Screen One is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 between 1989 and 1993. Following the demise of the BBC's Play for Today which ran from 1970 to 1984, producer Kenneth Trodd was asked to formulate a new series of one-off television dramas. However, while Play for Today's style had often been a largely studio-based form of theatre on television, the new series was to follow the lead taken by Channel 4's television films many of which had been released in cinemas. The result was Screen Two which ran from 1985 to 1994 on BBC2. In 1989 the Screen One strand began broadcasting on the more mainstream BBC1.

19 episodes

1989-12-12T00:00:00Z

Special 1 First and Last

Special 1 First and Last

  • 1989-12-12T00:00:00Z1h

With Alan Holly has a secret ambition. After a life of suburban rectitude, he sets out one morning from Land's End to walk the length of his native land; a Britain he has never known.

His boots are new, his health uncertain, he has not walked more than a dozen miles in his life. His progress is overseen by far flung family and friends with mixed feelings of loyalty, exasperation and growing anxiety. As the journey assumes epic proportions, Alan's arbitrary tenacity and courage has a decisive impact on the lives of those he meets and the family he has left behind.

This gentle comedy follows the antics of several British families on holiday in France. The 'Perfect' Marriot family watches 'Topless' try to turn topless beaches into bottomless ones and 'Prat' discipline his family like boy scouts. But will they be able to withstand the charms of 'Early Bird' or the savagery of her husband?

1990-12-11T00:00:00Z

Special 3 Dark City

Special 3 Dark City

  • 1990-12-11T00:00:00Z1h

A new BBC film. This Screen One special, a political thriller written by David Lan , is inspired by events in the townships of South Africa. At the same time as protesters weave through the shanty town of 'Dark City', the mayor's home is burgled. These two apparently unconnected events lead to the death of a councillor. Seven people are put on trial and only one person can prove their innocence.

1991-01-01T00:00:00Z

Special 4 Happy Feet

Special 4 Happy Feet

  • 1991-01-01T00:00:00Z1h

1991-06-19T23:00:00Z

Special 5 Skulduggery

Special 5 Skulduggery

  • 1991-06-19T23:00:00Z1h

Four boys struggle with the often ridiculous and sometimes dangerous business of growing up on an East London estate. With music by Carl Davis.

1992-01-01T00:00:00Z

Special 6 Adam Bede

Special 6 Adam Bede

  • 1992-01-01T00:00:00Z1h

This first film adaptation of George Eliot 's classic novel was written by Maggie Wadey , who wrote the much-praised adaptation of Precious Bane.

Two young men, the carpenter Adam Bede and the squire Arthur Donnithorne , find themselves competing for the love of the beautiful dairymaid Hetty Sorrel. It is a triangle which eventually leads to tragedy for all of them.

When Adam Bede was published in 1859 it was greeted as the work of a major new talent. Charles Dickens was sure the author was a woman. He was right, for George Eliot was the pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans , a country girl who told her publisher that Adam Bede would be full of "the breath of cows and the scent of hay".

1992-10-31T00:00:00Z

Special 7 Ghostwatch

Special 7 Ghostwatch

  • 1992-10-31T00:00:00Z1h

A Screen One Special drama for Hallowe'en by Stephen Volk, starring Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene, Mike Smith, Craig Charles.

Ghosts no longer inhabit stately homes and rattle chains. They live in ordinary council houses like that of Mrs Pamela Early. For months she's suffered strange noises, awful smells and bent cutlery, but is hers really the most haunted house in Britain?

BBCtv turns the cameras on ghoulies, ghosties and things that go bump in the night.

1992-12-20T00:00:00Z

Special 8 The Hummingbird Tree

Special 8 The Hummingbird Tree

  • 1992-12-20T00:00:00Z1h

Network TV premiere for this story of first love adapted by Jonathan Falla from Ian McBarrack 's semiautobiographical novel, set in Trinidad in the 1940s and starring Patrick Bergin Susan Wooldridge.

Alan, a 12-year-old white boy, is facing disapproval from his parents over his friendship with Jaillin, their Indian kitchen girl. But their concern turns to alarm when the relationship threatens to become more than a childhood crush. With the island's first free elections looming, the children find themselves trapped in a conflict of class, caste and prejudice.

1994-02-06T00:00:00Z

Special 9 Bambino Mio

Special 9 Bambino Mio

  • 1994-02-06T00:00:00Z1h

Colin Welland makes his return to writing for television since the success of his Chariots of Fire screenplay in 1981. Welland, who made his name as a writer in the heyday of The Wednesday Play, based this film on the true story of a woman's fight to adopt a Third World child after finding she cannot have a baby of her own. Its showing coincides with the Year of the Family.

Julie Walters makes her second Screen One appearance in the last 12 months (having starred last year in Wide Eyed and Legless) as Alice, a wealthy widow whose luxurious life in France is no compensation for childlessness. Walters is joined by Georges Corraface, who played the title role in 1992's ill-fated Christopher Columbus: the Discovery, as her new partner Jean-Paul.

Edward Bennett ,who made last year's infertility drama You, Me and It, directs.

1995-01-20T00:00:00Z

Special 10 The Plant

Special 10 The Plant

  • 1995-01-20T00:00:00Z1h

A dramatic tale of bizarre and sinister events that strike an unassuming suburban street.

When a live television gardening programme descends on Brown Gardens, Connie, the show's researcher, appears to possess an uncanny insight into its residents.

While a love affair develops between her and the enigmatic Max, the television gardeners dig up more than they bargained for.

1996-03-09T00:00:00Z

Special 11 Trip Trap

Special 11 Trip Trap

  • 1996-03-09T00:00:00Z1h

The Armstrong family - Ian, Kate and their two children - live in a comfortable country house. But the house conceals a terrible secret.

1996-07-06T23:00:00Z

Special 12 Killing Me Softly

Special 12 Killing Me Softly

  • 1996-07-06T23:00:00Z1h

A drama based on the true story of Sara Thornton who, in 1990, was sentenced to life imprisonment forthe murder of her husband. This year, at a retrial, she was found guilty of manslaughter.

1996-08-30T23:00:00Z

Special 13 Truth or Dare

Special 13 Truth or Dare

  • 1996-08-30T23:00:00Z1h

A tale of passion, deceit and betrayal, starring Helen Baxendale, John Hannah.

When three university friends turn up unexpectedly, twenty-something lawyer Lorna is led into a dangerous world.

1996-12-21T00:00:00Z

Special 14 Gobble

Special 14 Gobble

  • 1996-12-21T00:00:00Z1h

A Screen One comedy, written by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman , starring Kevin Whately

As Christmas celebrations get under way, Britain is rocked by a deadly new food scare - "mad turkey disease".

1997-03-08T00:00:00Z

Special 15 Deacon Brodie

Special 15 Deacon Brodie

  • 1997-03-08T00:00:00Z1h

A Screen One drama, based on the true story of one of Scotland's most notorious criminals, starring
Billy Connolly

Edinburgh 1788: the city is rocked by the news that Deacon Brodie - master cabinet maker and respected town councillor- has been found guilty of a string of crimes and sentenced to death.

1997-07-25T23:00:00Z

Special 16 Hostile Waters

Special 16 Hostile Waters

  • 1997-07-25T23:00:00Z1h

Action thriller, based on a true story, starring Rutger Hauer, Martin Sheen, Max Von Sydow

In October 1986, a Russian submarine carrying nuclear missiles collides with an American nuclear submarine off the coast of Bermuda.

1998-02-15T00:00:00Z

Special 17 Our Boy

Special 17 Our Boy

  • 1998-02-15T00:00:00Z1h

When his son is killed in a hit-and-run, everyone grieves - but Woody's pain has no limits. Searching for a way to react, his life and sanity slowly falls apart.

Stephen Poliakoff introduces his drama about an unexpected pact between two women.

Actor Duncan Preston introduces Victoria Wood's comedy drama about two ill-matched sisters.

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