[1982] Play for Today - “England’s Greens and Peasant Land”, A planning decision must be made, and the motorway extension must go through on either the Golf Course or the Allotments - will the greens survive or the peasant lands?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-attAo4DiZI

#OldBritishTelly #PlayForToday

[1979] Play for Today - "Who's Who", slice-of-life look at class divisions among employees of a brokerage house. Written and directed by Mike Leigh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWuzq7W8m8c

#OldBritishTelly #PlayForToday #MikeLeigh

52 years ago today:
Play for Today
S1E18: The Foxtrot
An odd menage a trois results when a woman and her lover are visited by her long-lost husband
Airdate: 1971-04-29
https://themoviedb.org/tv/13654/season/1/episode/18
#PlayforToday #BBCOne #tvseries

50 years ago today:
Play for Today
S3E22: Speech Day
Three underachievers have fun at a school speech day
Airdate: 1973-03-26
https://themoviedb.org/tv/13654/season/3/episode/22
#PlayforToday #BBCOne #ClassicTV

[1977] Play for Today - "One Day at a Time", a play which takes a simple setting, an AA meeting, and explores the lives and problems of the cross-section of society who attend it and who are all united by a common illness; alcoholism.

Starring Stephanie Cole, Benjamin Whitrow, Josie Kidd, Don Henderson and Madge Ryan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZW7C6IPdos

#OldBritishTelly #PlayForToday

[1977] Play for Today - "The Kiss of Death", Mike Leigh directs this whimsical tale about Trevor (David Threlfall), an unusually bashful mortician's assistant, whose moods and personality really make up the subject of the film. A natural landscape for Leigh's offbeat and bleakly humorous world-view.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Scbcj-ADeI

#OldBritishTelly #PlayForToday #MikeLeigh

Finally got round to ticking off The Flipside Of Dominick Hide/Another Flip For Dominick from my to-watch pile. So pleased I did.

Lovely early 80s time-travel SF from BBC Play For Today. Some great world building with the kitsch styles, and the oddball word use and vocabulary (reminded me of The Year Of The Sex Olympics).

Plenty of whimsical humour which actually hit the mark, too.

Need to resume "Out Of The Unknown".

#sciencefiction #timetravel #vintage #playfortoday

[1978] Play for Today - “Destiny”, a small town shopkeeper is conned into standing for an extreme right-wing party at a by-election and later discovers he’s financed by the corporation that has dispossessed him of his business. Starring Colin Jeavons, Iain Cuthbertson and Nigel Hawthorne.

https://youtu.be/YTKMoJDiqDk

#OldBritishTelly #PlayForToday #ColinJeavons #IainCuthbertson #NigelHawthorne

The original #PlayForToday version of Up The Junction is grittying its way across #BBCFOUR now, fresh as a daisy.

Good evening from Thaxted. I cooked a proper dinner tonight including #vegan Yorkshire puds (from a packet) and honestly tea was a triumph! Sometimes you need a plate of veg and #gravy.

I watched another #PlayForToday this time "A Photograph" which was captivating in both performance and plot. Lovely to see Stephanie Turner pre #JulietBravo and John Stride of #TheMainChance - playing a similar character but much less sure of himself than David Main was. A solid 8/10 for this one. Pax!

Good evening from Thaxted. Today was my bonus #ChristmasEve holiday day, given by work, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it! Watched lots more #PlayForToday on #YouTube and have found it pleasing to be tucked away inside with the wind and the rain howling around the house. Lots of cuddles with Clio the cat, and started in on the plates of picky bits for tea - the kind of plate made up of oddments of salad items, cheese, crackers and chutneys. All very tasty. A lovely day all round. Pax!

Watched a very good #PlayForToday from 1984 that is just as relevant today. The scenario isn't obvious at first, but soon becomes apparent that there exists a specialist who given a phone call will help you put an end to family "problems". The cast put in an excellent performance with well-written dialogue around a central premise. #LeonardRossiter leads this #farce in what would be his own final year of life. Excellent viewing and certainly thought provoking. #BBC #television #drama

Been decades, time to watch this gem again
#PlayForToday

https://youtu.be/7iSM2iXSYSA

This image of Whitby is from 'Stronger Than The Sun', a television drama written by Stephen Poliakoff and directed by Michael Apted. It aired as part of the Play For Today strand in 1977.

Read more and see more pictures from of 70's Whitby here:

http://whitbypopwatch.blogspot.com/2017/06/stronger-than-sun.html

#playfortoday #bbc #drama #Whitby #1970s

Play for Today episode 3.1, "The Reporters" (1972)

A dull tale of regional newspaper reporters - an ambitious young upstart (Michael Kitchen) & a former national journalist on the way down (Robert Urquhart).

Not much happens. Kitchen is torn between his ambitions and his relationship with his girlfriend (Juliet Bravo) but doesn't give her much thought when the Express offers him a job.

The highlight is Michael Kitchen's astonishing bouffant hairdo.

#ArchiveTV #BBC #PlayForToday #1970s

... then in the third play "A Coming To Terms for Billy" (1984), #KennethBranagh and #BridBrennan walk out of the same house onto the same street, but this time both are on video #PlayForToday (2/2)

Interesting bit of TV history from #PlayForToday's Billy trilogy, recently repeated on #BBC4. From "Too Late to Talk to Billy" (1982) - James Ellis throws #KennethBranagh out of the house (on video) and he ends up on the street (on film) ... (1/2)