Play for Today Season 9, Episode 12: The Chief Mourner

1

Nina

The story of two Soviet dissidents living in London and slowly coming apart under the strain of his drinking and her enforced separation from her child

75 min

2

Victims of Apartheid

George, a black South African, finds it hard to settle down in London after his experiences in South Africa.

75 min

3

A Touch of the Tiny Hacketts

A young man is declared a hero when he catches a burglar until it's discovered that the burglar is a dwarf.

75 min

4

Dinner at the Sporting Club

A story about young boxers whose fighting provides entertainment for diners at a sporting club

75 min

5

Donal and Sally

Adolescent love can be difficult at the best of times, but Donal and Sally have special problems - problems which alarm their families and the instructors at Strathvale Centre.

75 min

6

Sorry

Consists of two plays ""Audience"" and ""Private View"" about a brewery worker and writer who incurs the wrath of the autocratic government

75 min

7

Butterflies Don't Count

"Whether priest or thespian, never once let yourself doubt that the role you're playing is real. Lead your little flock from childhood to the grave via God's sweet sacraments and let no doubts intrude - ever."

75 min

8

Soldiers Talking Cleanly

A freelance TV presenter has been hired by the BBC to film a documentary about the British army stationed in Germany. Unfortunately the budget is so low he is only allowed to film soldiers talking, and all bad language must be censored.

75 min

9

One Bummer Newsday

What happens to provincial journalists when there's nothing in the news and they have a paper to fill?

75 min

10

The Out of Town Boys

"This could be a bit special, Maggie. This could be the first case of an office block falling down during the topping-out party."

75 min

11

Vampires

Three boys watch horror films on late night TV and see a man in a local cemetery whom they believe to be a vampire.

75 min

12

The Chief Mourner

For a successful man with public responsibilities Alan Berry is strangely reluctant to help the police when his wife is murdered.

75 min

13

Waterloo Sunset

A young man and an old woman try to fit in when their neighborhood goes West Indian

75 min

14

Blue Remembered Hills

The play activities of seven children living in the countryside during the summer of 1943 end in tragedy; the children were played by adults in childrens clothing. The title is taken from A.E. Housman's 1896 poem: "Into my heart an air that kills; From yon far country blows; What are those blue remembered hills..." It's 1943 on a summer's afternoon and 7 children play in the fields & woods of old England. The children's roles are all played by adults to act as "A magnifying glass to show what it's like to be a child." "When we dream of childhood," said Dennis Potter, "we take our present selves with us. It is not the adult world writ small; childhood is the adult world writ large." Since Potter viewed childhood as "adult society without all the conventions and the polite forms which overlay it," he repeated the device he had introduced 14 years earlier (in "Stand Up, Nigel Barton"); children's roles were cast with adult actors in this naturalistic memory drama of a "golden day" that turns to tragedy. On a sunny, summer afternoon in bucolic England of 1943, seven West Country children (two girls, five boys) play in the Forest of Dean. Their games and spontaneous actions (continuous and in real time) reflect their awareness of WWII, but no adults are present to intrude. As the group moves through the woods and back to the grassy hills, their words and actions illustrate how "childhood is not transparent with innocence." When the two girls push a pram into a barn to play house, the casting concept is heightened, doubling back on itself in a remarkable moment: adults are suddenly seen to be acting as children who are pretending to be adults, and lines from Housman echo across the years: "That is the land of lost content/I see it shining plain/The happy highways where I went/And cannot come again."

75 min

15

Who's Who

A story about a dinner party given by the managers and employees of a brokerage house

75 min

16

The Last Window Cleaner

The Irish troubles as seen by residents of a boarding house called ""The Crumlin View""

75 min

17

Ploughman's Share

"Ploughman. Nobody calls you that. You're a has-been. Your head and heart went into a museum wi' that lot you keep in there. Face it: you're redundant."

75 min

18

Degree of Uncertainty

"I'm 37 years old, remember? I'm not a dead-pan, genned-up, discreetly nymphomaniac ex-head-girl like the majority of your female students. I'm an innocent. I'm vulnerable."

75 min

19

Light

A village in Cheshire. A deserted cinema. A poet murdered by Stalin. A blown fuse. Victor Silvester. Pickets on trial. Trimmers and fishwires.

75 min

20

Coming Out

A closeted homosexual writer is content to lead a double life

75 min

21

Don't Be Silly

A young wife tries to cope with her abusive husband.

75 min