Acting
Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.
A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983.
Children's drama series following the lives of students and teachers at Grange Hill comprehensive school.
Roguish comedy drama following the misadventures of small-time crook Arthur Daley.
Anthology series of half hour plays produced in BBC's Television Centre's studios.
Mixed Blessings is a British sitcom produced by LWT for broadcast on the ITV network between 1978 and 1980, It was created by comedy-writer Sid Green and starred Christopher Blake and Muriel Odunton. White Thomas Simpson and Black Susan Lambert are a young couple who wed without their families' knowledge, forcing them to navigate the challenges of introducing their families to their relationship. The show explores themes of cultural differences and family dynamics within the context of a mixed-race marriage.
Black and Blue was a BBC TV comedy-drama series, first broadcast in 1973. The show consisted of six 50–60 minutes episodes, each a separate self-contained playlet. The only connection was the Black and Blue humour theme. The first episode was broadcast on 14 August 1973, with the finale on 18 September 1973. The first, Secrets, was wiped, only surviving thanks to a domestic videotape copy made from the master by producer Mark Shivas.
Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series of single plays that ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation, and later by Thames Television from mid-1968.
The positronic brain of robot RB-34 (Herbie) has an unforeseen 'extra': he can read human thoughts. So his take on the First Law of Robotics is unorthodox: he tells human beings only what he believes will not hurt their feelings. Can renowned robopsychologist Dr. Susan Calvin 'fix' RB-34? Or are there areas of her own psyche where she would rather not hear the truth?
Two strangers, both married to others, meet in a railway station and soon find themselves in a brief but intense affair.
The young daughter of a park ranger in Tanzania is distressed to learn that she and her father must permanently return to England, thus separating her from the one thing she loves most, a pet Bushbaby. Fearing what the future holds she decides to set the pet free but while doing so misses the boat back to England. After meeting up with a friendly native they try to resolve the situation together. Things take a turn for the worse when it is falsely reported that the native has kidnapped her, thus putting a price on his head
Barbara lives in a fantasy world of trying to become a great woman pilot like her heroine, the late Amy Johnson.
"By local custom, a man may turn from a wife who cannot give him more than one son. But Charles assures Maria that he is a 'modern educated man'. When war drives them back to their village, events force Maria to re-think their marriage." - Radio Times, 1976
Peter Nichols adapted his own hit play to the screen, based on his experiences in hospitals. A riotous black comedy that's as timely today as ever, it contrasts the appalling conditions in a overcrowded London hospital with a soap opera playing on the televisions there. In an ingenious touch, the same actors appear in the "real" story as well as the "TV" one, thus blurring the distinctions even further. Jack Gould directs such outstanding British actors as Lynn Redgrave, Colin Blakely, Eleanor Bron, Jim Dale, Donald Sinden, Mervyn Johns, and, in only his second film, Bob Hoskins. The renowned Carl Davis composed the score.
A British play about homelessness by Jeremy Sandford, writer of "Cathy Come Home", first broadcast as a BBC Play For Today. It details the deterioration of Edna, a homeless alcoholic and was made at a time when vagrancy was still a criminal offence.
43-year-old Janet Nottage tells her husband, pompous academic Leo, that she is having a baby. This throws him into turmoil. Later, on seeing Janet next to a freezing lake, he decides on a decisive course of action.
A happily married couple divorce for tax purposes, but their lawyer, not knowing the real reason for their divorce, falls in love with the wife.
When an elderly woman is hospitalised, the truth behind her illegal adoption of 14 children is revealed.
Love collides with social class and colonialism when Aba Appiah, born to privilege, falls in love with Joe Quansah, son of a fisherman. Her father, retired civil servant Kofi Appiah, has other plans for her, and seeks to block their marriage. The resulting conflict has complex and unexpected consequences.
The trustees of Midwestern University have forced three teachers out of their jobs for being suspected communists. Trustee Ed Keller has also threatened mild mannered English Professor Tommy Turner, because he plans to read a controversial piece of prose in class. Lost episode of BBC Play of the Month.
