The Wednesday Play: Nuts In May (1976)

19 December 2012 Rob Buckley The Weekly Play, UK TV 3 Comments

Nuts in May, featuring Alison Steadman and Roger Sloman. Also pictured is Mike Leigh

To end this year and my current season of Wednesday Plays, I’m going to leave you with what is arguably the best of all the plays that have ever aired on British TV (discuss): Mike Leigh’s 1976 Play For Today Nuts in May. Starring Alison Steadman and Roger Sloman as the eccentric married couple Candice Marie and Keith, it sees the nature-loving duo going on a camping holiday and putting vast amounts of work into ensuring that they have the perfect vacation. But when less high-minded campers arrive, things get a little… strained.

Voted the 49th greatest British TV programme by the BFI, the play has influenced everyone from Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer through to Ben Wheatley, the director of the recent Sightseers*. So put your feet up and enjoy the hilarious and near to the bone Nuts In May. As always, if you like it, buy it to support those nice people who made it in the first place.

* Although he hadn’t seen it before he was about to make the movie, so ended up removing bits to make Sightseers less like Nuts In May

Author

  • Rob Buckley

    I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.

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