As you’ve probably noticed from previous weeks’ entries in this strand, such as Scum, Contact and Penda’s Fen, director Alan Clarke was responsible for many of British TV’s finest – and toughest – plays. BBC2 Playhouse‘s Diane, starring the then 20-year-old Janine Duvitski (Waiting For God, Abigail’s Party) whom Clarke more or less plucked straight out of drama school to play the 13-year-old protagonist, is one of Clarke’s toughest, dealing with incest on a council estate.
Written by ‘David Agnew’ (actually Clarke using a BBC pseudonym after re-rewriting Anthony Read’s initial script), it’s harrowing, subtle but still humane, and still packs a punch.
Of course, Britain wasn’t the only country in the 70s and 80s worried about everyday hazards. Germany was also concerned enough to create its only public information films*. Below is one example, warning people of the hazards of incorrect forklift truck usage. I think it’s pretty clear what happens if you do things wrong.
With The Wednesday Plays, I have tried as much as possible to steer clear of sci-fi, since – and let’s face facts here – there’s plenty enough of that on this ‘ere blog already. However, doing so has meant steering clear of possibly the most famous ‘double bill’ in Play For Today history: The Flipside of Dominick Hide and Another Flip For Dominick.
Set in both the 1980s and 2130, the first play sees time-travelling researcher Dominick Hide (Peter Firth) return to his own past to investigate an ancestor. There he meets a woman, Jane (Caroline Langrishe). And that’s all I can say without spoiling it for you.
So popular was the first play that writer Alan Gibson bowed to popular demand and brought all the characters back for a sequel two years later, about which I can tell you even less because I’ll spoil the first play if I do. Let’s just say it involves another time-traveller and leave it at that.
While being quite slight things that probably won’t impress the hard-core SF fan, they are, as with most BBC sci-fi plays, more about relationships and people than concepts. Both plays contrast the society of the future with the conventions of English society as it was then, as well as the differences between relationships. They also largely rely on Peter Firth’s endearing performance to draw in the viewer, particularly since he seems to know remarkably little about how to survive in the present day for a man whose job it is to know all about the past.
Since their original airings, both plays have been repeated several times and are available on DVD as well (for a mere £6, too). But you can watch them both below. Enjoy! Don’t forget, if you like them, buy them so that the creators are rewarded.
It was the 70s, so in a typical bit of victim-blaming for the time, poor innocent cyclists are abused by the police for not being able to paint a vivid picture of what their stolen bikes looked like.
Forget Sherlock. Forget Elementary. This is how you update Sherlock Holmes for modern times. May I present Holmes and Yoyo, a show I’d only ever heard about, never seen. Watch the title sequence and be amazed by its audacity.
