Film Studies: 5 BBC Plays for Today Revisited

The BBC Play for Today strand ran from 1970 to 1984, an anthology series of one-off made for Television plays covered a broad range of genres from social realism to science fiction and anything in between. Now widely regarded as being part of the ‘Golden Age of British Television’, these plays also allowed a variety of then new writers and directors to express themselves on screen in an inventive and original platform allowing for experimentation in terms of style and themes, for many this was the start of a fruitful career. This course considers what made some into landmarks of TV drama, why they so often courted controversy and what shifted in the television landscape to bring about their decline, did audiences change and/or was this also a shift in political terrain. This course will make use of a mix of informal feedback, lecture using PowerPoint slides, some focused group discussion/creative tasks in breakout rooms and feedback. Sometimes funny, sometimes tragic and often both at the same time are we right to lament a time when the writer and not the viewing figures seemed to have the creative hold on television? The Elephant’s Graveyard (1976), Blue Remembered Hills (1979) Edna, the Inebriate Woman (1971), Abigail’s Party (1977), Nuts in May (1976).