Entertainment

Cult movie: BFI compilation a timely reminder of how important Play For Today was

Donal McCann, Joseph Reynolds and Brenda Fricker in Your Man From Six Counties
Donal McCann, Joseph Reynolds and Brenda Fricker in Your Man From Six Counties Donal McCann, Joseph Reynolds and Brenda Fricker in Your Man From Six Counties

Play For Today

THE world of televisual drama would be a much poorer place without the input of Sydney Newman.

During the 1950s and 60s the Canadian producer worked as head of drama at both ITV and the BBC and it was on his watch that classic shows like The Avengers and Doctor Who came into being and that ground-breaking social realist drama series like Armchair Theatre and The Wednesday Play arrived on our TV screens.

In 1970 The Wednesday Play on the BBC was forced by sports coverage to move to Thursday nights and morphed into the Play For Today brand. Over the next 14 years it would deliver more than 300 single dramas designed, in Newman’s words, to “rattle the cages of the establishment” and offer rising playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Mike Leigh and Ken Loach the chance to cut their television teeth in front of mainstream audiences.

As Play For Today hits 50 the BFI have compiled a fascinating four-disc Blu-ray set that cherry picks some of the stand-out moments from those five decades of drama. As you’d expect, the results vary but overall the quality is astounding.

A four-disc set like this allows us to merely dip a toe into that unique legacy –well, what else could you do when faced with such a varied and weighty world of dramatic productions bar a mega-disc box set? – but it’s a fascinating glimpse into an era when TV drama really tried to push back boundaries and actually make a difference and a chance to revisit some of the finest one off dramas ever to grace the small screen.

The range of styles and subjects tackled swings from classic pieces like Bergman’s The Lie that's reimagined by Alan Bridges as a nightmare of middle class infidelity and lies to gentler pieces like Peter Terson’s Shakespeare or Bust that tells a tale of three miners who take a canal boat trip to Stratford upon Avon.

Moods and cultural comments change from play to play but there’s a standard on show, both in writing and acting from casts that include the likes of Brian Glover and Frank Finley, that’s hugely impressive.

There’s a rare female voice in the form of Julia Jones, whose Back of Beyond remains a powerful study of loneliness and isolation in the Welsh countryside and even some light relief, courtesy of Leon Griffith, future creator of Minder, who gives us a thoughtful story of Asian life in 70s Britain with A Passage To England.

Best of the bunch though is Colin Welland’s Your Man From Six Counties which traces the story of Jimmy (Joseph Reynolds), a young Belfast kid who, when his father is killed in a bomb blast, takes sanctuary with his uncle Danny (Donal McCann) and his wife Mollie (Brenda Fricker) in the wilds of the Irish countryside.

An intelligent study of the impact of 'the Troubles' on ordinary people, it is, like so much on offer here, a powerful piece of work and a timely reminder of how important Play For Today really was.