The Play for Today logo, seen here in the opening title sequence from 1976.

Play for Today was a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. Over three hundred original plays, mostly of between an hour and ninety minutes in length, were transmitted during the fourteen-year period the series aired, and it is by far the most famous programme of its type to have been screened on British television. Image File history File links Playfortodaytitles. ... Image File history File links Playfortodaytitles. ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... Corporate logo of the British Broadcasting Corporation The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national public service broadcaster of the United Kingdom (see British television). ... BBC One (or BBC1 as it was formerly styled) is the oldest television station in the world. ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday. ... 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

It was in fact a successor to the 1960s anthology series The Wednesday Play, with the title being changed after the transmission day moved and became variable. Occasionally Wednesday Plays would be repeated under the Play for Today banner, as would examples from another earlier anthology series, BBC Two's Theatre 625. There were also some groups of plays transmitted that - for various reasons - did not go out under the Play for Today banner, but which were funded from the same department, used much the same production team and are generally regarded in episode guides and analysis as being part of the Play for Today 'canon'. The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive. ... The Wednesday Play was a British television drama anthology series, which ran on BBC ONE from 1964 to 1970. ... BBC Two (or BBC2 as it was formerly styled) was the second UK television station to be aired by the BBC. // History The channel was scheduled to begin at 7:20 pm on April 20, 1964 and show an evening of light entertainment, starting with the comedy show The Alberts... Theatre 625 was a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. ...

Plays could cover all genres, although comedy was usually reserved for the separate Comedy Playhouse strand. In its time, Play for Today featured gritty contemporary social realist dramas, historical pieces, fantasies, biopics and science-fiction. Most pieces were written directly for television, but there were also occasional adaptations of stories from other media, such as novels and stage plays. Comedy Playhouse was an occasional BBC television anthology series of the 1960s and early 1970s, consisting of one-off plays with the potential to be turned into regular sitcoms. ... Social Realism is a term used to describe visual and other realistic arts depicting working class activities as heroic, especially common in communist countries. ...

Writers who contributed plays to the series included John Osborne, Dennis Potter, Stephen Poliakoff, Alan Bleasdale and John Hopkins. Several prominent directors also featured, including Stephen Frears, Alan Clarke, Michael Apted, Mike Newell, Ken Loach and Mike Leigh. Some of the most famous plays broadcast in the strand include Edna, the Inebriate Woman (1971), Nuts in May (1976), Bar Mitzvah Boy (1976), Abigail's Party (1977), Blue Remembered Hills (1979), and The Flipside of Dominick Hide (1980). John James Osborne (December 12, 1929 – December 24, 1994) was an English playwright, the first of the Angry Young Men of the 1950s. ... Dennis Christopher George Potter (May 17, 1935 – June 7, 1994) was a controversial English dramatist who is best known for several widely acclaimed television dramas which mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social. ... Photo of Stephen Poliakoff by Tristram Kenton Stephen Poliakoff (born December 1, 1952) is an acclaimed British playwright, director and scriptwriter, widely judged amongst Britains foremost television dramatists. ... Alan Bleasdale (born March 23, 1946 in Liverpool, England, UK) is a British television dramatist, best known for several powerful social drama serials based around the lives of ordinary people. ... John Hopkins (sometimes credited as John R. Hopkins; born January 27, 1931 in London, England, UK; died July 23, 1998 in Woodland Hills, California, United States) was a British film and television writer. ... Stephen Frears (born June 20, 1941) is a British film director. ... See also Alan Clark, Allan Clarke. ... Michael Apted (Born February 10, 1941 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom) is a British director, producer, writer and actor. ... Michael Cormac Newell (born March 28, 1942) is an English director and producer of motion pictures for the screen and for television. ... Ken Loach (born June 17, 1936) is a British television and film director, known for his social realist style and socialist themes. ... Mike Leigh (born February 20, 1943) is an award winning British film and theatre director. ... Edna, the Inebriate Woman is a one-off British television drama transmitted by the BBC under the Play for Today banner in 1971. ... 1971 (MCMLXXI) is a common year starting on Friday (click for link to calendar). ... Nuts in May (aka Play for Today: Nuts in May) is a 1976 film written and directed by Mike Leigh, originally broadcast as part of the BBCs Play for Today series of television programs. ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... One of the Play for Today series on BBC1. ... Abigails Party is a 1977 play for stage and television created by Mike Leigh. ... For the album by Ash, see 1977 (album). ... Blue Remembered Hills is a television play by Dennis Potter, originally part of the BBCs Play for Today series. ... This page refers to the year 1979. ... The Flipside Of Dominick Hide is a British television play which has attained cult status. ... 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday. ...

Some instalments in the series spun-off into full-blown series. Probably the two best-remembered examples of this are Rumpole of the Bailey, which was produced as a one-off in the Play for Today strand in 1975 and three years later became a series for Thames Television with the same star, Leo McKern, and Boys from the Blackstuff, a hard-hitting 1982 BBC2 drama serial by Alan Bleasdale which spun-off from his play The Black Stuff, made in 1978 although not screened until 1980. Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole in the episode Rumpole and the Old Boy Net (1983). ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... The classic Thames Television logo (1969 - 1989), featuring a geographically incorrect montage of London landmarks. ... Image:Number Two. ... Boys from the Blackstuff is a British television drama serial of five episodes, originally transmitted from October 10 to November 7, 1982 on BBC TWO. The serial was written by Liverpudlian playwright Alan Bleasdale, and was a sequel to a television play called The Black Stuff, which he had originally... 1982 (MCMLXXXII) is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... BBC Two (or BBC2 as it was formerly styled) was the second UK television station to be aired by the BBC. // History The channel was scheduled to begin at 7:20 pm on April 20, 1964 and show an evening of light entertainment, starting with the comedy show The Alberts... Alan Bleasdale (born March 23, 1946 in Liverpool, England, UK) is a British television dramatist, best known for several powerful social drama serials based around the lives of ordinary people. ... 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ... 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday. ...

Two plays were controversially pulled from transmission shortly before broadcast due to concerns over their content: these were Dennis Potter's Brimstone and Treacle in 1976 and Roy Minton's Scum the following year. In the case of Brimstone and Treacle it was due to concerns over the play's depiction of a disabled woman's rape at the hands of a man who may or may not be the devil, and with Scum the worry was its supposed sensationalism of life in a young offenders' institution (then still known as a borstal). Brimstone and Treacle remained untransmitted until it was shown on BBC Two in 1987, and Scum until BBC Two transmitted it in 1991. In the meantime, however, both had circumvented their withdrawal by being re-made as films: Brimstone and Treacle was filmed in 1982 with Sting in the lead role, while the cinematic version of Scum appeared in 1979 with most of the same cast and directed by the man responsible for Play for Today version, Alan Clarke. The film version of "Scum" was shown on Channel 4 in 1983, much to the chagrin of Mary Whitehouse, who instigated a private prosecution - despite the fact that the Independent Broadcasting Authority had specifically approved the broadcast of the film, the High Court found in her favour, but Channel 4 won on appeal. Brimstone and Treacle is a 1970s play by Dennis Potter about a middle-aged middle-class couple living in a North London suburb who are unfortunate enough to have their beautiful undergraduate daughters life reduced to a severely handicapped existence by a hit_and_run driver. ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... Scum is a film made in 1979 portraying the brutality of life inside a British borstal. ... The Devil is the name given to a supernatural entity, who, in most Western religions, is the central embodiment of evil. ... BBC Two (or BBC2 as it was formerly styled) was the second UK television station to be aired by the BBC. // History The channel was scheduled to begin at 7:20 pm on April 20, 1964 and show an evening of light entertainment, starting with the comedy show The Alberts... 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... BBC Two (or BBC2 as it was formerly styled) was the second UK television station to be aired by the BBC. // History The channel was scheduled to begin at 7:20 pm on April 20, 1964 and show an evening of light entertainment, starting with the comedy show The Alberts... 1991 (MCMXCI) is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Film refers to the celluloid media on which movies are printed. ... 1982 (MCMLXXXII) is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Sting in Budapest, 2000 Gordon Matthew Sumner, CBE (born October 2, 1951), usually known by his stage name Sting, is an English musician from Newcastle upon Tyne. ... This page refers to the year 1979. ... See also Alan Clark, Allan Clarke. ...

The programme officially ended in 1984, although there was one further series not broadcast under the Play for Today title in 1985. The general trend in 1980s television production was away from one-off plays and towards a concentration on series and serials. When one-offs were produced, they tended to be more filmic and less theatrical than Play for Today and its predecessor series had been, and its style of dialogue and character-driven one-offs became increasingly rare and unpopular. 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the year. ... The 1980s decade refers to the years from 1980 to 1989, inclusive. ...

Nonetheless, the series is generally remembered as a benchmark of high-quality British television drama, and has become a byword for what many continue to argue was a golden age of British television. In 2000, the British Film Institute produced a poll of industry professionals to determine the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century, and five of the programmes included in the final tally were from Play for Today. Some of the better-known plays in the series, such as Abigail's Party, The Black Stuff, The Flip Side of Dominick Hide and several of the Potter plays, have been made available on VHS and DVD. This article is about the year 2000. ... The British Film Institute (BFI) is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to encourage the development of the arts of film, television and the moving image throughout the United Kingdom, to promote their use as a record of contemporary life and manners, to promote education about film, television and... 100 Greatest British Television Programmes was a list compiled in 2000 by the British Film Institute (BFI) chosen by a poll of industry professionals, to determine what were the greatest British television programmes of any genre ever to have been screened. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the... Top view VHS cassette with U.S. Quarter for scale Bottom view of VHS cassette with magnetic tape exposed The Video Home System, first released in September 1976, better known by its abbreviation VHS, is a recording and playing standard for video cassette recorders (VCRs), developed by JVC (with some... DVD-R writing/reading side DVD-R with purple dye, 4. ...

References

• Evans, Jeff. The Penguin TV Companion (1st ed.). London: Penguin Books. 2001. ISBN 0-140-51467-8.
• Vahimagi, Tise. British Television: An Illustrated Guide. Oxford. Oxford University Press / British Film Institute. 1994. ISBN 0-19-818336-4.

London is the capital city of the United Kingdom and of England. ... Penguin Books is a British publisher founded in 1935 by Allen Lane. ... 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... Oxford is a city and local government district in Oxfordshire, England, with a population of 134,248 (2001 census). ... Oxford University Press (OUP) is a highly-respected publishing house and a department of the University of Oxford in England. ... The British Film Institute (BFI) is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to encourage the development of the arts of film, television and the moving image throughout the United Kingdom, to promote their use as a record of contemporary life and manners, to promote education about film, television and... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ...

External links

• Play for Today site at The Mausoleum Club
• Section on the series at the TV Cream website
• Kettering Magazine Issue #4 contains a history of the much underrated role of comedy in the Play for Today strand.