Classic TV

Classic shows that have almost been forgotten, as well as shows that should probably have been forgotten

The Weekly Play

The Wednesday Play: Comedians (1979)

20 November 2013 Rob Buckley Post a comment

One of the finest plays broadcast by the BBC was Comedians by Trevor Griffiths. Griffiths had previously written the BBC’s esteemed 13-part look at the collapse of Europe’s ruling dynasties in the run up to and at the end of the First World War, Fall of Eagles. A socialist playwright dedicated to writing for television, nevertheless, in 1975, he wrote Comedians for the stage. It proved popular enough to transfer to Broadway, after which the BBC asked him to adapt it for TV. 

The play is set in a Manchester evening class for aspiring working-class comedians that’s taught by Bill Fraser and includes Jonathan Pryce among its students, each student representing a different style of comedy. The action switches from classroom to stand-up club and back again, as Fraser gives notes on performances, praising the conventional, damning the unconventional. Except everything’s not quite as it seems and the play deals in serious analysis of the choices made by comedians in their acts.

“…A joke that that feeds on ignorance starves it’s audience. We have the choice. We can say something or we can say nothing. Most comics feed prejudice and fear and blinkered vision, but the best ones, the best ones… illuminate them, make them clearer to see, easier to deal with. We’ve got to make people laugh till they cry. Cry. Till they find their pain and their beauty.” 

Enjoy!

The Weekly Play

Charley Says: Beware of plays about nuclear war, particularly Threads (1984)

12 November 2013 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Threads

With the threat of nuclear war hanging over everyone’s heads for several decades, it was no surprise that TV would cover its potential horrors in some depth. We’ve already looked at The War Game, which wasn’t just one of the best ever plays about nuclear war, it was also one of TV’s best ever plays.

Up there with The War Game, however, was Threads, a TV movie written by Barry Hines and directed by the marvellous Mick Jackson (Life Story, The Bodyguard). Commissioned by BBC director general Alasdair Milne after he’d watched The War Game, it is a documentary-style account of a nuclear war and its effects on the city of Sheffield in northern England. Harrowing to say the least, it’s a pretty raw account of all the things that would happen both during a nuclear strike and after, right down to genetic mutation, massive depopulation, a return to a medieval-like economy and all fun of a nuclear winter, which it was the first play to ever depict.

And you can watch all of it below. If you like it, buy it on DVD, of course, to reward the lovely people who made it in the first place.

However, when the movie aired overseas, networks realised it might be somewhat stronger than the local audiences were used to. Canada was particularly frightened about its possible effects on audiences, so two TV stations put out these disclaimers before they aired Threads:

So remember children: Don’t just be afraid of nuclear war, be afraid of realistic depictions of nuclear war.

The Wednesday Play – The Realm of Never: Moratorium (2001)

23 October 2013 Rob Buckley Post a comment

To a large extent, modern television has turned its back on the play, both here and the US. Does that mean the play is dead? 

Not at all. Public access television in the US, for example, has enabled amateurs and semi-professionals to create their own plays and broadcast them to the masses, and YouTube and Vimeo allow others to do the same. The Realm of Never was a series of plays produced between 1999 and 2008 at Queens Public Television in Flushing, New York. The plays were designed to mimic the likes of Playhouse 90 in look and feel, right down to being videotaped,. Cheap they may have been, but that’s the beauty of the play – it doesn’t matter so much about the budget so much as the performances and end result

Each of the plays had a supernatural theme aimed at exploring the human condition. The 2001 episode, Moratorium, wonders what would happen if a virus were unleashed that had a very interesting side-effect: omniscience. And it’s this week’s Wednesday Play – enjoy!

 

Charley says: Scream if you have the wrong pram

22 October 2013 Rob Buckley Post a comment

To some extent, these public information films we’ve been looking at were works of art. Small wonder then that the occasional one would draw on actual works of art for inspiration*.

To warn mothers (only mothers pushed prams in the 70s) about the risks inherent in overbalancing prams, this public information film uses Munch’s ‘The Scream’ to fill its viewers with horrors. I’m not entirely sure it works, but it’s a nice try.

* Yes, I’m aware that was probably the clunkiest intro to any article ever. Sue me