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The Wednesday Play Season 3 Episodes
Season 3 Episode Guide
11 Episodes 1965 - 1965
Episode 1
Alice
72 mins
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 ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND (1865), designed to resemble the original Sir John Tenniel illustrations.
Episode 2
The Girl Who Loved Robots
75 mins
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.
Episode 3
A Designing Woman
75 mins
Milly has been at it again.
Episode 4
Up the Junction
72 mins
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.
Episode 5
The Trial and Torture of Sir John Rampayne
75 mins
An elderly right-wing politician is kidnapped, seemingly as part of a student prank. But his captors have a more alarming agenda.
Episode 6
The End of Arthur's Marriage
70 mins
A simple-minded man on the outs with his wife and her family must take a large amount of his father-in-law's hard-earned money to buy a house, in the belief that home-ownership will make him responsible and respectable. Instead, he throws it away on a mad spending spree with his daughter.
Episode 7
Tomorrow, Just You Wait
75 mins
Jimmy is young, earning good money and going out with a smashing girl. What more could a man wish for?
Episode 8
The Bond
Fri, Apr 10, 197075 mins
Newlyweds Chris and Sally are young and attractive, with successful careers and a beautiful home. Their future is rosy. However, trying to make marriage work is not easy.
Episode 9
Stand Up, Nigel Barton
75 mins
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.
Episode 10
VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, for Nigel Barton
80 mins
Seven million people watched "Stand Up, Nigel Barton," and this audience increased to 8.75 million viewers when "Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton" was shown the following week (December 15, 1965). Dennis Potter ran in the 1964 General Election as a Labour Party candidate, and this experience was the springboard for the play. The political idealism of Oxford graduate Nigel Barton sets him campaigning as a Labour candidate, but he becomes disillusioned and disenchanted by empty political rhetoric, prompting him to speak his true thoughts. Potter added a sardonic sidebar by having politico Jack Hay speak a counterpoint commentary directly into the camera. The two plays were written in a reverse order from the sequence as aired. Commissioned by the BBC in the summer of 1964, "Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton," went before the cameras in April 1965 and was scheduled for June transmission. However, the play's political implications prompted the BBC to withdraw it on the scheduled air date. It was postponed for six months. During that time, Potter wrote the prequel, "Stand Up, Nigel Barton."
Episode 11
The Coming Out Party
65 mins
A boy begins a search in Notting Hill shortly before Christmas.