Episode List
Season 1
Dec. 9, 1964
The July Plot
Dramatisation of the failed plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler in July 1944 by a conspiracy of high-ranking German Army officers.
Jan. 27, 1965
Fable
In Great Britain a reversal of African apartheid comes into place, and the country is governed by black people with whites as the subservients.
Feb. 24, 1965
The Confidence Course
Three swindlers advertise a self-assertiveness seminar, lure a dozen victims to a hotel and attempt to persuade them to enroll in their course. However, a man claiming to be the critic-essayist William Hazlitt (1778-1830) attacks the consumerist values outlined by the motivational speaker.
Mar. 3, 1965
Campaign for One
Astronaut Osborne is stuck in a malfunctioning capsule. As he goes round and round the Earth, he starts telling jokes and secrets. When the time comes to bring him down to Earth, he can't face it as he feels like a sexual failure.
Jun. 2, 1965
And Did Those Feet?
Lord Fountain hates his illegitimate twin boys as he does not seem to be able to produce legitimate heirs.
Oct. 13, 1965
Alice
Written for THE WEDNESDAY PLAY (1964-70), which the BBC retitled PLAY FOR TODAY in 1970, ALICE has the earliest airdate (10/13/65) of the Potter productions to survive on tape. After THE CONFIDENCE COURSE (1965), it's the second of the nine Potter plays seen on THE WEDNESDAY PLAY. In this look at Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), aka Lewis Carroll, Potter mixed biographical drama with a psychological profile to explore the roots of Dodgson's creativity. Dodgson tells stories to ten-year-old Alice Liddell, leading to recreations of scenes adapted from ALICE'S ...
Oct. 20, 1965
The Girl Who Loved Robots
Night club girl Victory Ducann is found murdered, the main suspect is an astronaut, but police are prevented from approaching him as he is due to fly off to the Moon.
Nov. 3, 1965
Up the Junction
From the BBC's 'Wednesday Play' series, this play was the first to seriously tackle the issue of abortion. It paints a realistic portrait of working class Londoners at work and play, but has a potent political agenda.
Dec. 8, 1965
Stand Up, Nigel Barton
Semi-autobiographical TV play by Dennis Potter, from the BBC's 'Wednesday Play' series. It deals with the experiences of Nigel Barton, a young man from a poor mining community who wins a scholarship to Oxford University. The villagers accuse him of snobbery, while the rich University students treat him like a peasant. Uncertain of which sphere he should be moving in, Nigel tries to reconcile himself with his proud but stubborn father, and also succeed at University, despite its pretentions which apall him.
Dec. 15, 1965
Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton
Candidate Nigel Barton goes from idealism to cynicism as he becomes disillusioned and suspicious of hollow campaign promises.
May 18, 1966
Ape and Essence
Eighty years after a nuclear war ravaged the British Isles, a team of scientists from New Zealand come to conduct a survey.
Nov. 2, 1966
Where the Buffalo Roam
BBC TV play from the 'Wednesday Play' series. Hywel Bennett plays a mentally disturbed Welsh teenager obsessed with Wild West films. His volatile temperament loses him the few people who might have been sympathetic, and helped him. Instead, he spirals down to inevitable destruction.
Nov. 16, 1966
Cathy Come Home
From the BBC's influential 'Wednesday Play' series. This tells the bleak tale of Cathy, who loses her home, husband and eventually her child through the inflexibility of the British welfare system. A grim picture is painted of mid-sixties London, and though realistic the viewer cannot but realise that a political point is being made. One of the consequences of this film was the enormous public support for the housing charity 'Shelter', whose public launch came shortly after the programme was first shown.
May 3, 1967
Message for Posterity
BBC TV play, from the 'Wednesday Play' series. An elderly painter, once radical and confrontational, is given a final commission - to paint the portrait of the elderly establishment figure who represented a totally opposing set of values when they were both young. Both men are now old and of little consequence to the modern generation, but the painter sees his opportunity to make an artistic statement by means of the portrait.
Oct. 11, 1967
Sleeping Dogs
A black barman upsets a colonial Governor who has just retired and returned to England. He locks the barman in the cellar and treats him like an animal.
Apr. 3, 1968
Light Blue
An African-American trumpet player spends a few hours in an English provincial town, with a girl who happens to be white. As a result, each learns to care for the other, not as a "cipher of a divided society" but as a vulnerable human being.
Sep. 4, 1968
The Gorge
From of the BBC's 'Wednesday Play' series. A comedy in which a teenage boy reluctantly accompanies his ghastly family on a coarse bank-holiday day out to local beauty spot and tourist trap, the Cheddar Gorge.
Nov. 20, 1968
A Beast with Two Backs
Part of the BBC's celebrated 'Wednesday Play' series of the 1960s, this early work by Dennis Potter is set in an isolated New Forest community in 19th Century Britain. A young local girl is murdered by a mentally disturbed youth, but the villagers blame a stranger, an Italian traveling showman and his bear, rather than see the rot in their own camp.
Feb. 19, 1969
The Big Flame
Dock workers under the threat of redundancy, work day and night in an attempt to keep employed by running the workforce themselves.
Apr. 16, 1969
Son of Man
Dennis Potter's controversial reading of the life of Christ, with Jesus portrayed as a hearty, fiery, well-meaning carpenter who believes that people should try to love their enemies rather than fight all the time, but who is racked by self doubt as to whether or not he is the popularly anticipated Messiah.
Oct. 22, 1969
Close the Coalhouse Door
History of the mining industry in the N.E. of England told by means of family drama, comedy sketches, and song !
Feb. 4, 1970
Mad Jack
Play dealing with the life of British Army lieutenant Siegfried Sassoon, and his protests against the inhumanity of the First World War.
Apr. 15, 1970
Wine of India
In the year 2050, advances in medicine have resulted in a need for population control. People reaching the age of 100 must submit to a government controlled euthanasia program. The story centers around a 100-year old couple who must now make plans for their funeral.
Season 1
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