Play for Today (1970)
Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.
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Episode 1 - Long Distance Information
Release Date: 1979-10-11A fanatical Elvis Presley fan is working as a disc jockey when his idol dies
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Episode 2 - Cries from a Watchtower
Release Date: 1979-10-18A watchmaker finds his livelihood is threatened by cheaply imported digital watches.
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Episode 3 - Comedians
Release Date: 1979-10-25Budding comedians take an evening class taught by a retired performer and, for their final exam, must perform for an impresario in a nightclub.
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Episode 4 - Even Solomon
Release Date: 1979-11-01Stephen Piper is a quiet young man. A virgin, he shows no interest in sex, and is cruelly scorned by an aggressive female neighbour when he rebuffs her advances. He lives with his mother, an overbearing woman who mocks him for being wet. But Stephen has a secret. An accurate and heartfelt depiction of the challenges he faces and a fascinating glimpse at the gender politics of the day.
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Episode 5 - Just a Boy's Game
Release Date: 1979-11-08In Glasgow, a young man's sole aim is to be as tough as his dying grandfather once was
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Episode 6 - Billy
Release Date: 1979-11-15A 4-year-old boy is abused by his father
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Episode 7 - A Hole in Babylon
Release Date: 1979-11-29Exploration of the events leading up to 1975 Spaghetti House siege in London and the motivation of its three protagonists, T-Bone Wilson, Archie Pool, and Trevor Thomas.
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Episode 8 - The Slab-Boys
Release Date: 1979-12-06The story of a young man who works in a carpet factory
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Episode 9 - Katie: The Year of a Child
Release Date: 1979-12-13A teenage girl from a family of Irish Travellers is left to look after her brothers and sisters while her father is away.
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Episode 10 - The Network
Release Date: 1979-12-20What do Rose from Devon and Christina from Stuttgart have in common? And in what way is their fate linked to that of wealthy Fiona Dunkerley?
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Episode 11 - Chance of a Lifetime
Release Date: 1980-01-03A young man quits school and joins the army.
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Episode 12 - Keep Smiling
Release Date: 1980-01-10Family picnics should not be like this: bugging devices, men with X-ray eyes. Mary doesn't understand what terrifies Simon, nor the bizarre events of the next six months.
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Episode 13 - Dreams of Leaving
Release Date: 1980-01-17A journalist moves to London and gets caught up in the big city and his romance with a rich debutante.
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Episode 14 - Thicker Than Water
Release Date: 1980-01-24Various characters have adventures on the way to a black pudding festival in Normandy.
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Episode 15 - Murder Rap
Release Date: 1980-01-31An Englishman's home is his castle, and Wally aims to prove it.
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Episode 16 - Instant Enlightenment Including VAT
Release Date: 1980-02-07Weekend enlightenment seminars serve as a form of brainwashing.
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Episode 17 - No Defence
Release Date: 1980-02-14Mr. Germanou arrives from Cyprus with his family to settle in England. But on his arrival he's arrested for an historical rape with seemingly no defence.
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Episode 18 - That Crazy Woman
Release Date: 1980-02-21Twenty years ago, at the age of 56, this extraordinary woman became a national hero by walking from John O'Groats to Land's End. One of the last great English eccentrics (even though she was Russian) in the last days of English innocence.
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Episode 19 - A Gift from Nessus
Release Date: 1980-02-28The marital and career problems of a middle-aged, middle-class man in Glasgow in the 1960s
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Episode 20 - Kate, the Good Neighbour
Release Date: 1980-03-06A compassionate elderly woman comes to the realization that she can no longer care for herself or others.
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Episode 21 - Buses
Release Date: 1980-03-13A story about the regulation of the bus industry in 1930
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Episode 22 - Shadows on Our Skin
Release Date: 1980-03-20The problems of an 11-year-old boy living in the Catholic part of Londonderry
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Episode 23 - Ladies
Release Date: 1980-03-27The A Shift at the MHS department store are organising a wedding gift presentation for Elaine. But what's on Miriam's mind, and why does she seem so out of sorts?
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Episode 24 - The Vanishing Army
Release Date: 1980-04-03A story about the highs and lows of peacetime army life
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Episode 25 - Not for the Likes of Us
Release Date: 1980-04-10"I dunno, years of putting up with it, waiting on you all, for what? Eh? To become a 14-stone invisible woman?"
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Episode 26 - The Executioner
Release Date: 1980-04-17Jan and Meg Citron are on holiday in Germany. Their car is stopped by the police. A simple traffic offence? But their seemingly innocent past is ripped open and life will never be the same again.
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Episode 27 - The Imitation Game
Release Date: 1980-04-24During World War II, an idealistic young woman joins the Army Transport Service
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Episode 28 - A Walk in the Forest
Release Date: 1980-05-14A writer gets involved with a Soviet dissident