TV Cream
The Wednesday Play
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242Wednesday Play, The: An Introduction
The stand-alone TV play, though long superceded by the series and serial (and often, subsequently and wrongly, seen as old-fashioned for that...
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178Crack in the Ice, A
Dramatisation of Nikolai Leskov’s short story The Sentry, about a private in the nineteenth century Russian army who rescues a drowning man.
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131
In Camera
Harold Pinter, Jane Arden and Catherine Woodville find themselves pay for their various sins by finding themselves trapped together in hell –...
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139
Pale Horse, Pale Rider
Wednesday Play instigator Sydney Newman bought some productions from the Canadian Broadcasting Company to the strand, a tradition which lived on into...
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162
Big Breaker, The
Rupert ‘Maigret’ Davies is a scheming Welsh councillor going after Daphne Slater, the infirm wife of his nephew (Nigel Stock). Alun Richards’...
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131
Mr Douglas
Michael Goodliffe is the titular ageing, embittered Scot who descends upon London during George III’s coronation – and reveals himself to be...
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127
Malatesta
Adapted by Rosemary Hill from the story by Henry de Montherlant. Patrick Wymark is the titular malevolent Renaissance man, a patron of...
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115
July Plot, The
Roger Manvell’s dramatisation of the infamous assasination attempt on Hitler, carried out by Colonel von Stauffenberg.
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142
First Love
Another Canadian production, of Ivan Turgenev’s tale of a young boy’s naive infatuation with an older girl.
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128
Tap On the Shoulder, A
1965: the strand sheds its adaptation-heavy beginnings and really gets into its stride. James O’Connor’s story of a gangster’s meteoric rise through...
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131
Sir Jocelyn, The Minister Would Like A Word
Simon Raven’s dramatisation of the political machinations among university grandees debating whether a prestigious new college building should be a traditional chapel...
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141
Navigators, The
The first appearance of the wry and touching Julia Jones in the strand was this highly popular working class romance centring around...
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127
Fable
Polemical fantasy by John Hopkins in which Britain is depicted under the rule of apartheid – but with the whites as the...
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119
Dan, Dan, The Charity Man
Misfortunes of a comical door-to-door pedler (Barry Foster) told in the humorous cut-and-paste style of films like A Hard Day’s Night, with...
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137
Ashes to Ashes
An effective genre thriller by Marc Brandel with Scott Forbes playing an intimidating game of cat and mouse with Toby Robins in...
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154
Wear A Very Big Hat
Written by Eric Coltart. A young woman’s audacious choice of headgear leads to social unpleasantness on a night out in Liverpool.
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164
Confidence Course, The
Dennis Price’s US-style assertiveness training weekend in a conference centre humiliates such needy participants as Yootha Joyce and Joan Sanderson with various...
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143
Campaign for One
Tense drama during a space mission when astronaut Barry Foster loses his grip on reality while in orbit. Jeremy Kemp is Ground...
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130
Horror of Darkness
More from John Hopkins. Couple Glenda Jackson and Alfred Lynch’s quiet London lives are disrupted by the arrival of old art college...
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143
Little Temptation, A
Ageing poet Denholm Elliot leaves his wife for single mother Barbara Jefford, but her daughter’s antipathy and the attentions of Jefford’s housemate...
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167
Moving On
During the Korean War, Welsh MO David Collings is courtmartialed for accidentally killing a fellow soldier. Bill Meilen writes, Jack Watson, Eric...
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116
Cat’s Cradle
Hugo Chateris’s tale of retired couple Leo Genn and Barbara Murray moving out from town into a country cottage, but coming up...
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153
Three Clear Sundays
Second go-round for ex-con turned writer James O’Connor. Tony Selby plays a convicted murderer reflecting on his life and circumstances in his...
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131
Interior Decorator, The
Millionaire Michael Finlayson buys and furnishes a sumptuous Georgian townhouse with help from master decorator Barry Foster. As Foster shows Finlayson’s wife...
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84
Auto Stop
David Hemmings is a young man hitching his way across Europe to Athens, accumulating a string of casual relationships on the way....
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97
Good Shoe Maker and the Poor Fish Pedler, The
Jean Benedetti’s dramatisation of the famous trial of Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti in ’20s Massachusetts, accused of murder during a payroll...
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181
Cemented with Love
Sectarian divisions in Ulster – a long-running source of material for The Wednesday Play – gets its first treatment here, in an...
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112
Knight in Tarnished Armour, A
By Alan Sharp. Bored teenager Paul Young fantasises his way through an impoverished Scottish adolesence.
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1211
For the West
Highly controversial offering from Michael Hastings. The story of the Belgian Congo massacres, given a necessarily bloody production which caused much consternation,...
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130
And Did Those Feet?
Maverick writer David Mercer’s first play for the strand departs from much of his previous work, and in the process goes further...
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1111
Man Without Papers, The
Study of an American beatnik (Benito Carruthers) from the creator of Z-Cars, Troy Kennedy Martin. Bob Dylan supplies the songs, garage band...
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118
Pistol, The
Troy Kennedy Martin’s adaptation of From Here to Eternity author James Jones’ novel in which a platoon of US Army officers find...
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151
Seven O’Clock Crunch, The
Peter Jeffrey’s marriage to Zena Walker comes under strain as he eyes friend Nigel Stock’s carefree bachelor lifestyle with mounting envy. Written...
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108
Alice
The Wednesday Play wasn’t afraid to approach the same source material from different directions, as here, with Dennis Potter’s exploration of the...
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123
Girl Who Loved Robots, The
Peter Everett’s near-future take on the film noir genre, with a detective on the trail of an embittered former astronaut for the...
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106
Designing Woman, A
More tragicomedy of manners from Julia Jones. Lancashire housewife Rhoda Lewis’ obsession strains relationships with family, friends and husband Reginald Marsh.
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78
Up The Junction
Possibly the most celebrated of the strand’s early successes, Nell Dunn’s slice of the highs and lows of working class Battersea life,...
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147
Trial and Torture of Sir John Rampayne, The
Jack Hawkins is the eponymous Old Tory bigwig whose bluff, traditional values are brought crashing round him one fateful night. With Ian...
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122
End of Arthur’s Marriage, The
Director Ken Loach made a rare foray into the territory of the musical by directing this script from future Cavatina composer Stanley...
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184
Tomorrow, Just You Wait
James Chase is a factory-working teenager in desperate love with Janina Faye. Tony Selby, Charles Lamb and Joss Ackland feature. Words by...
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141
Bond, The
By Terry Wale and Dawn Pavitt. Portrait of a superficially perfect marriage between young couple Barry Lowe and Hannah Gordon.
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1411
Stand Up, Nigel Barton/Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton
Two outings in two weeks for Dennis Potter’s semi-autobiographical hero. Upwardly mobile Keith Barron goes to Oxford and is disowned by his...
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171
Coming Out Party, The
James O’Connor ends the strand’s first full year with a raucous and touching comedy set around a London family’s Christmas. With George...
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2353
War Game, The
The first Wednesday Play to be banned (famously decried by the then Home Secretary as a danger to the mentally unstable), Peter...
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108
Boneyard, the
Wednesday Play series producer James MacTaggart was succeeded by Peter Luke at this point in the series, leading the overall tone of...
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111
Man on Her Back, A
By series producer Peter Luke, with William Sansom. An uneasy love triangle develops between Norman Rodway, a pianist in a slightly shabby...
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172
Rodney, Our Intrepid Hero
Baroque goings-on at Graham Crowden’s exclusive organisation dedicated to the facilitation of illicit pleasures, exposed by ace reporter Jim Norton. Script by...
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168
Calf Love
An Edwardian teenager travels to Prussia to study German. Lodging at the house of Warren Mitchell, he becomes infatuated with his two...
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2021
Silent Song
Frank O’Connor and Hugh Leonard’s dialogue-free study of the antics and hardships of two Trappist monks (Milo O’Shea and Jack MacGowran) in...
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240
Who’s A Good Boy Then? I Am
The uneasy relationship between elderly couple Thora Hird and Ron Moody and a cheerful stranger who moves in with them (Ronald Lacey)....