Drama Out of a Crisis: A Celebration of Play for Today

I have a confession to make. I never had much regard for Play for Today.

Then again I was never the target audience. I was still at school when the strand finished so I was never going to appreciate those dramas on industrial strife, life on the dole and the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The plays tended to have a more left of centre viewpoint, something not appreciated during the Thatcherite 1980s.

Plays like Our Day Out or The Flipside of Dominick Hide were more accessible to me. Although I remember films like Spend, Spend, Spend or the controversy caused by the showing of Psy-Warriors.

It was only when several productions were repeated some years later on Channel 4 that I began to appreciate them. By then I was older. Over the years the highly regarded Plays for Today have been repeated. The not so good ones are left in the archives.

This celebration has been timed for the 50th anniversary of Play for Today starting. The shock was to learn that 37 of the plays have been wiped. Missing and unlikely to be recovered. Cultural vandalism by the BBC.

It ran through some of the greatest hits. Clips from Abigail's Party, Licking Hitler, Penda's Fen. Omissions were Rumpole of the Bailey, Blue Remembered Hills.

The changing face of Britain was noted. The latter years of the strand had more women writers but diversity was generally neglected.

Controversy came from the non transmission of Scum and Brimstone and Treacle. Both were remade as feature films, although the BBC later broadcast them in the 1990s.

What Play for Today was responsible for was fostering writers and directors who would later go on to make feature films, some through Channel 4's filmmaking arm in the 1980s. It eventually led to the formation of BBC Films as well. Small scale independent British movies.