Play for Today Season 13, Episode 17: A Matter of Choice for Billy

1

Soft Targets

A story about a homesick Russian journalist in London at the end of the cold war

75 min

2

Three Minute Heroes

Out on the streets, young people looking for fun. They come together at nights to listen to their music. For as long as the song lasts, they're heroes. Three minute heroes.

75 min

3

The Remainder Man

Jack's obsession with the possibility of nuclear war sees him usher his family down into his home made fall out shelter after a nuclear strike hits the country. Will their time in confinement draw them together or push them apart?

75 min

4

Intensive Care

A man holds a lonely vigil at the bedside of his dying father.

75 min

5

A Mother Like Him

A family of five orphaned children are going to be split up into different homes. What will happen if the eldest is officially made their foster parent?

75 min

6

John David

After giving birth to a Down's Syndrome baby, Judith decides she doesn't want to keep him. Obliged to register the birth she arbitrarily chooses John David as the name. A few months later she learns the baby has died.

75 min

7

Aliens

In June 1940 Italy entered the war. With Britain threatened by a German invasion thousands of Italians were seized and thrown into security camps, with other friendly aliens - and Nazis.

75 min

8

Another Flip for Dominick

Two years after his journey to the past, Dominick Hide has been promoted to instructor and is no longer a time traveller. Then one of his pupils, Pyrus Bonnington, goes missing during a visit to 1982 London. Hide must track him down and prevent Pyrus damaging the past, but will the temptation to re-visit his own history be too strong to resist?

75 min

9

Last Love

Annabel, an upper-middle-class widow, falls in love with Jack, a self-made man of humble origins. Her grown-up children do not approve.

75 min

10

Gates of Gold

In 1959 County Antrim, two traveling evangelists help a mentally retarded teenager

75 min

11

Wayne and Albert

Wayne goes to live with his grandfather Albert. Initial generation gap hostilities between them are eventually overcome as a mutual respect develops through a their shared love of carpentry and snooker.

75 min

12

Atlantis

Goff and Lytton have a dream - a canal boat of their own on which to cruise the inland waterways: The reality is the boatyard of Josh Adkins and a rusting hulk called Atlantis.

75 min

13

The Last Term

Devon 1940. The boys of the local public school are alerted after a German parachute drop and as members of the Local Defence Volunteers they prepare to put their youthful enthusiasm for war into practice.

75 min

14

Reluctant Chickens

Malcolm is a GP wrestling with ideas of retirement, while his wife Jo is a frustrated, would-be novelist. Together they dream of a more contented life, but are hampered by the arrested development of their children who won't leave home.

75 min

15

Shall I Be Mother?

Susan and Jenny are aged 13 and 14 and in care. Jenny's mother has died, Susan hasn't seen hers for years Both influence the close, stormy relationship that develops between the two girls.

75 min

16

The Falklands Factor

The 18th century writer Samuel Johnson writes a political pamphlet protesting the British going to war with Spain after the 1790 invasion of the Falkland Islands.

75 min

17

A Matter of Choice for Billy

When his father leaves Belfast to seek work in England, a young man looks after his sister

75 min

18

Floating Off

A businessman tries to keep his son from finding out about an unconventional deal he and his secretary are making with a merchant bank.

75 min