Play for Today Pilgrimage

Zoë: I loved this play. It is set in a very superior English auction house as a pre-sale paintings exhibition is being readied for public view. The credits roll to the sound of an auctioneer calmly accepting bids in the hundreds of thousands. This soundtrack fades as the opening scene is revealed - porters in dust coats setting up partitions and hanging pictures, while suave, suited men stroll about, discreetly overseeing things.  Peter Vaughan, the man who is clearly the senior porter climbs down from a step ladder and announces it is time for a tea break. All the porters down tools and we head with them below stairs. Peter Vaughan's character, Les Stone, acts as mother, pouring milk into everyone's mugs of tea and handing them around. After a discussion about the technicalities of lighting and the unreliability of the electricians with whom the porters work, Les reveals that the Princess of Wales will be visiting tomorrow. This news is received with excitement by almost all t...

  "You 'aven't got any mates? I couldn't live without mates!" Phil - Shot entirely on film, The Fishing Party is a gentle comedy about a trio of middle-aged Yorkshire miners going on a fishing trip to Whitby, where they have to contend with seasickness and the appalling snobbery of a guesthouse landlady, reluctantly aided by her henpecked husband. It begins with a cheerful brass band theme written by composer Sidney Sager (fondly remembered for his excellent score for Children of the Stones ), just to confirm that the viewer knows that we are in the North. The three miners, Art (Brian Glover), Abe (Douglas Livingstone) and Ern (Ray Mort) begin their visit with a mug of tea at a seafront stall, where the stallholder warns them that the holiday season is over. The miners seem offended that he has taken them for "trippers" rather than serious fishermen and there is an exchange where the dialogue felt a little too contrived. Fortunately, the play soon find...

Zoë: As a lifelong fan of Ray Davies I was thrilled when Phil B suggested that we start this blog by watching the first ever Play for Today, which starred arguably the most famous member of the Kinks. The play was broadcast in October 1970 which I think means Davies must have been about 26 years old at the time that it was made. I am sorry to say that, after witnessing his performance, albeit through the smudgy lens of decaying video imagery, I understand why he did not go on to take the world of cinema by storm. I wonder if Alan Sharp, the author of The Long Distance Piano Player was inspired by They Shoot Horses Don’t They , which came out the year before and concerns a dance marathon and anomie. Perhaps for him it seemed perfectly reasonable to substitute a rainy northern English town for Santa Monica and a single piano player (Davies) for a varying cast of characters. Or possibly he was inspired by Alan Sillitoe's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner , which came out in ...

Zoë: Phil B and I have been friends on Twitter and Facebook for some years - and have even met in actual real life, once. When I noticed that he was Tweeting about watching old episodes of Play for Today , I was immediately interested. I am much older than he is and I remember not only Play for Today on the television, but its predecessor The Wednesday Play ( and even The Afternoon Play each weekday afternoon on the radio.)   Although I was too young to understand the plays properly, I liked both The Wednesday Play and Play for Today, when I got a chance to see them. I think I thought they were rather sophisticated, although I don't know what that means really, let alone why it struck me as an attractive quality. Now I wonder if the plays were a transitional form, made by people who saw television as an extension of theatre, rather than a different thing altogether, cinema on a small screen. Certainly television has since progressed - or if that is not the right word at least...