As we approach the 40th anniversary of Channel 4 on 2 November 2022 – an anniversary which is being marked by a two-day conference at BFI Southbank on 23-24 September – it seems timely to look again at the early years of Channel 4 in the 1980s when a remarkably diverse array of drama […]
Category: 1980s
By Tom May During its run from 1970 until 1984, the one-off drama series Play for Today employed seven different title sequences. In my article for the Special Issue on ‘Play for Today at 50’ for the Journal of British Cinema and Television , I provide a historical analysis of these. Focusing on how the […]
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Play for Today: The Top 21
This is the conclusion of a series of posts in which we have published selections of ‘top’ Plays for Today by a range of writers, researchers and media professionals. The brief was that such lists should not necessarily consist of what were considered to be the ‘best’ Plays for Today but could also include personal […]
This is the last in a series of posts in which we publish the ‘top’ Plays for Today identified by a range of writers, researchers and media professionals. The brief was that such lists should not necessarily consist of what were considered to be the ‘best’ Plays for Today but could also include personal favourites, or […]
This is the latest in a series of posts in which we publish the ‘top ten’ or ‘top five’ Plays for Today identified by a range of writers, researchers and media professionals. The brief was that such lists should not necessarily consist of what were considered to be the ‘best’ Plays for Today but could […]
In February 1980, The South Bank Show featured an item, presented by Richard Hoggart, on the scarcity of television drama concerned with the conflict in Northern Ireland. There were probably two main reasons for this. The BBC in Northern Ireland had little experience of drama production and, unlike English Regions Drama in Birmingham and BBC […]
Wednesday 14th and Thursday 15th October 2020 Beginning on BBC1 on Thursday 15 October 1970, and continuing until 1984, Play for Today was one of the most important series ever of British television drama. Running to over 300 individual plays and regularly commanding audiences of several millions, the series won a reputation for artistic experiment […]
Philip Martin, who died last December, was the author of two Play for Todays – Gangsters (1975, which subsequently spun off into two BBC series, 1976-78) and The Remainder Man (1982). Forgotten Television Drama pays tribute by publishing an article in three parts, drawn from extensive interviews with Martin conducted by Tom May last year. […]
by Katie Crosson Written by Carol Bunyan, produced by John Norton and directed by Alistair Clark. Broadcast at 9.25pm on Tuesday 3 March 1981. Carol Bunyan has had a prolific career across theatre and television, but her association with Play for Today is often left out of selections, lists of favourites, commemorations and histories of […]
This is the latest in a series of posts in which we publish the ‘top’ Plays for Today identified by a range of writers, researchers and media professionals. The brief was that such lists should not necessarily consist of what were considered to be the ‘best’ Plays for Today but could also include personal favourites, […]
Forgotten Television Drama 