Future stars got in on the act ago
BBC’s Play For Today raised the curtain on top quality drama 50 years
PENNIES From Heaven and The Singing Detective writer Dennis Potter helped launch the new Play For Today season 50 years ago declaring “television is the true national theatre”. Over the next 14 years, some 300 episodes were broadcast, bringing together top scriptwriters and actors, as well as directors like Mike Leigh, David Hare and Ken Loach.
The BBC’s Thursday night offering catered to the growing public demand for drama and included original work as well as TV adaptations of plays and novels.
Each episode was between 50 minutes and an hour and forty minutes long, with some, like Rumpole Of The Bailey by John Mortimer and Alan Bleasdale’s The Blackstuff becoming series.
The first play to be broadcast was The Long Distance Piano Player, by Alan Sharp, starring musician Ray Davies and other memorable moments over the years included Alison Steadman in Nuts In May and Abigail’s Party by Mike Leigh, Sir Anthony Hopkins in Hearts And Flowers by Peter Nichol, and Dame Helen Mirren in Stephen Poliakoff ’s Soft Targets.
Dennis Potter’s other contributions included Blue Remembered Hills, which saw adults playing the parts of children, while his play Brimstone And Treacle was banned for a time.
Many dramas which began life on Play For Today are now hailed as classics including Edna The Inebriate Woman starring Patricia Hayes, Spend Spend Spend about 1960s football pools winner Viv Nicholson, and Bar Mitzvah Boy.
Some plays reached audiences of more than eight million and time-travel drama, The Flipside Of Dominick Hyde, proved so popular it was followed by a sequel with Peter Firth returning for his adventures in the past in Another Flip For Dominick.