Review Play for Today (1970)

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
PLAY FOR TODAY, the British television anthology drama series transmitted on BBC1 between 1970 and 1984.

Please feel free to chat and post about this series.

Memories of seeing it? Best plays? The cast?

Feel free to post here...



 

michaellevenson

Moderator
Staff member
PLAY FOR TODAY, the British television anthology drama series transmitted on BBC1 between 1970 and 1984.

Please feel free to chat and post about this series.

Memories of seeing it? Best plays? The cast?

Feel free to post here...



If you like this sort of drama there's a rather good two series of plays you can purchase on DVD.
It's called Village Hall, two series of seven plays. Different cast in each one but linked by the Village Hall that in each episode is hired out by a group .
Starring these among others; Pat Troughton, Ron Moody, Keith Chegwin!!, George Cole, Lewis Collins, Norman Jones, Colin Welland, Zoe Wannamaker,John Le Mesurier, Anton Rodgers, Gerald Flood, John Woodnut, Ian Hendry and Cyril Luckham
Pat Troughton is in "The Magic Sponge" a comedic tale about a soccer club players award dinner finding out their evening in the Hall has been double booked with a first aid class. George Cole's play is also soccer related as two teams and the officials have to get changed in the Hall , and the red and yellow cards start flying before the game even starts.
 
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michaellevenson

Moderator
Staff member
I'm still going through this series for the first time and come across a rather interesting play, anticipating Bake- off by about forty years.
Dad's Army's John Le Mesurier judges a pie baking contest in the Hall, with all the bitching you'd expect.
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
There is one I remember about a lonely old lady. A young girl she befriends ends up saying something horrible to the old lady near the end of the play and the old lady ends it all by throwing herself down a steep hill covered in shale or something. The camera is the old lady's viewpoint as she tumbles down the cliff.

Really upsetting episode to me as a kid. And I have no idea what episode it was or even if it was, indeed, a Play for Today, but I am fairly certain it was.
 
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