My favourite Star Trek and Twilight Zone episodes usually involve time travel so I was bound to like The Flipside, especially as Caroline Langrishe is in it. Other reviewers have mentioned the special effects aren't up to much, but credibility is achieved by subtle changes in language. In the imagined 2130, to be complaisant means to be content. To be dupe is to be very keen. The word actually has become obsolete, actually. Some things don't change, people drink wine, play scrabble, and take things with a pinch of salt. Dominick's wife works for travel company Tom Cook, they certainly got that bit wrong!
Watching it in 2021, an additional piquancy is that, as time marches on, over a quarter of the period between when the play was made and 2130 has elapsed. So we also observe the changes since 1980. The football pools have been superseded by the National Lottery. Real ale was a trendy new expression. A surly London barman blames the "common market" when Dominick, apparently a dim witted foreigner, fails to understand he has to pay 25p (only 25p!) for his half pint of real ale. These days I doubt even such a mildly politically incorrect observation would get past BBC censorship.
External reviewer Kevin Lyons describes it as, I paraphrase, 'a rare play explicitly telling us that maybe what we have now is actually as good as it might get'. Well said. In fact I would suggest the years 1980-2000 were indeed as good as it got.
Watching it in 2021, an additional piquancy is that, as time marches on, over a quarter of the period between when the play was made and 2130 has elapsed. So we also observe the changes since 1980. The football pools have been superseded by the National Lottery. Real ale was a trendy new expression. A surly London barman blames the "common market" when Dominick, apparently a dim witted foreigner, fails to understand he has to pay 25p (only 25p!) for his half pint of real ale. These days I doubt even such a mildly politically incorrect observation would get past BBC censorship.
External reviewer Kevin Lyons describes it as, I paraphrase, 'a rare play explicitly telling us that maybe what we have now is actually as good as it might get'. Well said. In fact I would suggest the years 1980-2000 were indeed as good as it got.