WPlay 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. A handful of these plays, including Rumpole of the Bailey, subsequently became television series in their own right.
WAbigail's Party is a play for stage and television, devised and directed in 1977 by Mike Leigh. It is a suburban situation comedy of manners, and a satire on the aspirations and tastes of the new middle class that emerged in Britain in the 1970s. The play developed in lengthy improvisations during which Mike Leigh explored the characters with the actors, but did not always reveal the incidents that would occur during the play. The production opened in April 1977 at the Hampstead Theatre, and returned after its initial run in the summer of 1977, for 104 performances in all. A recording was arranged at the BBC as a Play for Today, produced by Margaret Matheson for BBC Scotland and transmitted in November 1977.
WBlue Remembered Hills is a British television play by Dennis Potter, originally broadcast on 30 January 1979 as part of the BBC's Play for Today series.
WThe Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil is a play written in the 1970s by the popular playwright John McGrath. From April 1973, beginning at a venue in Aberdeen, it was performed in a touring production in community centres on Scotland by 7:84 and other community theatre groups. A television version directed by John Mackenzie was broadcast on 6 June 1974 by the BBC as part of the Play for Today series.
WThe Flipside of Dominick Hide is a British television play first transmitted on BBC1 on 9 December 1980 as part of the Play for Today series.
WHard Labour is a 1973 television film, directed by Mike Leigh and produced by Tony Garnett which was broadcast as part of the BBC anthology series Play for Today. The film stars Liz Smith in her first major role. The film is the most clearly drawn in all Leigh's work from the background in Higher and Lower Broughton where he grew up. "Though elements of autobiography are buried in all Leigh's films and plays, only Hard Labour is set in Salford, – the scenes in the Stones' house were shot in a house just two doors along from where the Leighs had lived in Cavendish Road."
WHome is a play by David Storey. It is set in a mental asylum, although this fact is only revealed gradually as the story progresses. The five characters include seemingly benign Harry, highly opinionated Jack, cynical Marjorie, and flirtatious Kathleen. As they interact we come to realize their delusions and pretensions are similar to those of people living in a supposedly normal society.
WNuts in May is a television film devised and directed by Mike Leigh, filmed in March 1975, and originally broadcast as part of the BBC's Play for Today series on 13 January 1976. It is the comical story of a nature-loving and rather self-righteous couple's exhausting battle to enjoy what they perceive to be the idyllic camping holiday. Misunderstandings, awkward clashes of values and explosive conflicts occur when less high-minded guests pitch their tents nearby.
WOur Day Out is a television play about poor children from Liverpool, England. It was written by Willy Russell and first aired on 28 December 1977, at 9: 00 p.m. on BBC2. It was later converted into a full length stage musical.
WPenda's Fen is a British television play, written by David Rudkin and directed by Alan Clarke. It was commissioned by BBC producer David Rose, and first broadcast on 21 March 1974 as part of the corporation's Play for Today anthology series.
WThe Price of Coal is a two-part television drama written by Barry Hines and directed by Ken Loach first broadcast as part of the Play for Today series in 1977. Set at the fictional Milton Colliery, near Barnsley in South Yorkshire, the episodes contrast "efforts made to cosmetically improve the pit in preparation for a royal visit and the target-conscious safety shortcuts that precipitate a fatal accident ".
WRumpole of the Bailey is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer. It starred Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, an elderly London barrister who defended a broad variety of clients, often underdogs. The TV series led to the stories being presented in other media including books and radio.
WScum is a 1977 British television play written by Roy Minton and directed by Alan Clarke. It was intended to be screened as part of the Play for Today series. Instead the production was banned by the BBC after it was completed in 1977, and not aired until Channel 4 showed it on 27 July 1991. In the interim, a theatrical film version was released in 1979. The original version features Ray Winstone, John Blundell, David Threlfall, Martin Phillips, Phil Daniels and Davidson Knight.
WThe Spongers is a 1978 television play by Jim Allen which was directed by Roland Joffé and produced by Tony Garnett. First broadcast on 24 January 1978 on BBC 1, it was originally screened as part of the Play for Today series.
WZ for Zachariah is a post-apocalyptic science-fiction novel by Robert C. O'Brien that was published posthumously in 1974. The name Robert C. O'Brien was the pen name used by Robert Leslie Conly. After the author's death in 1973, his wife Sally M. Conly and daughter Jane Leslie Conly completed the book guided by his notes. Set in the United States, the story is in the form of a diary written from the first-person perspective of sixteen-year-old Ann Burden, who has survived a nuclear war and nerve gas through living in a small valley with a self-contained weather system.