Category: BBC Scotland

Maurice Roëves (1937-2020)

Post author By billysmart
Post date July 24, 2020
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I had the good fortune to interview the actor Maurice Roëves (who has died at the age of 83) on two occasions. Maurice had an extraordinarily prolific 55-year career in film, theatre and especially television, the span and range of which (“beginning with an episode of Doctor Finlay’s Casebook in 1966 and concluding with a […]

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1960s 1970s Audience Research BBC BBC 2 BBC drama BBC Scotland Billy Smart Iain Cuthbertson Sutherland's Law The View From Daniel Pike This Man Craig

The BBC Television Audience Research Reports and BBC Scotland Drama, 1964-82: Recorded Opinions and Invisible Expectations

Post author By billysmart
Post date April 1, 2017
1 Comment on The BBC Television Audience Research Reports and BBC Scotland Drama, 1964-82: Recorded Opinions and Invisible Expectations

Between the 1950s and the 1980s, the BBC’s internal Audience Research Unit compiled up to 700 television Audience Research reports per year, attempting to cover the complete spectrum of BBC TV programming. What I’m going to do today is consider the value of this material, in relation to my own work on the development of […]

1960s 1970s 1980s BBC BBC Scotland BBC Store BFI Mediatheque Billy Smart Directors Forgotten Television Drama Play For Today The Wednesday Play Writers

The Wednesday Play (BBC1 1964-70) and Play for Today (BBC1 1970-84): canon formation and commercial availability

Post author By billysmart
Post date November 9, 2015
14 Comments on The Wednesday Play (BBC1 1964-70) and Play for Today (BBC1 1970-84): canon formation and commercial availability

'Play For Today: Plaintiffs & Defendants' (BBC1, 14 October 1975), one of ten Play For Today titles added to the BFI Mediatheque this year in association with the Forgotten Television Drama project.

This article was first published as a blog post on the Critical Studies in Television site on 12 December 2014. I’ve re-posted it here in the light of the launch of the BBC Store last week, and added a postscript listing the Wednesday Play and Play For Today titles that have been added to the […]

1970s Actors Audience Research BBC BBC Scotland Billy Smart Conference paper Iain Cuthbertson Scotland Sutherland's Law Writers

Sutherland’s Law (BBC Scotland 1973-76): Presenting Scottish landscape to a UK audience

Post author By billysmart
Post date June 30, 2014
10 Comments on Sutherland’s Law (BBC Scotland 1973-76): Presenting Scottish landscape to a UK audience

This post presents a forgotten BBC Scotland drama series of the 1970s and explains its historical significance and distinctive form. I’ll discuss its treatment of landscape before finally considering how the programme represented tensions between rural and city Scotland.