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The Wednesday Play Season 8 Episodes
Season 8 Episode Guide
26 Episodes 1968 - 1969
Episode 1
Mrs. Lawrence Will Look After It
75 mins
When an elderly woman is hospitalised, the truth behind her illegal adoption of 14 children is revealed.
Episode 2
Spoiled
75 mins
A schoolmaster invites a nineteen-year-old student to stay with him and his wife to cram for imminent exams.
Episode 3
The Gorge
75 mins
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.
Episode 4
A Night with Mrs. Da Tanka
75 mins
A lonely bachelor, seeking his long-lost sweetheart at a boarding house, meets a serial divorcée.
Episode 5
Charlie
75 mins
James has come in search of his feckless older brother, Charlie, to ask him to come home and settle down.
Episode 6
Anyone for Tennis?
75 mins
Garry committed suicide to escape disgrace and imprisonment. Does he now have the chance to change the circumstances leading to his downfall?
Episode 7
Mooney and His Caravans
75 mins
A couple move to a caravan park, where the owner is a petty dictator.
Episode 8
The Lower Largo Sequence
50 mins
A man seeks his inner island.
Episode 9
Hello, Good Evening and Welcome
50 mins
A talk-show host is required to examine his conscience and also the ethics of "good television".
Episode 10
A Bit of Crucifixion, Father
75 mins
A doctor advises a woman not to proceed with her latest pregnancy, contrary to her strict Catholic upbringing.
Episode 11
Nothing Will Be the Same
60 mins
A family becomes increasingly suspicious of the relationship between the mother and a mysterious stranger who starts to follow her around.
Episode 12
A Beast with Two Backs
71 mins
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.
Episode 13
On the Eve of Publication
55 mins
An author hosts a dinner party to celebrate the publication of his new novel.
Episode 14
The Fabulous Frump
70 mins
A fashion editor competes for the affections of a designer with their new male model.
Episode 15
Smoke Screen
70 mins
A successful advertising executive who promotes a brand of cigarettes is reproached by his family when his mother contracts terminal lung cancer.
Episode 16
Doctor Atkinson's Daughter
75 mins
After a year as a Volunteer Service Overseas worker, a young woman returns home in search of love and understanding.
Episode 17
The Apprentices
75 mins
A portrait of the life of some Northern apprentices.
Episode 18
Birthday
75 mins
A woman unwittingly springs a surprise at her sister's 27th birthday party.
Episode 19
The Big Flame
85 mins
Dock workers under the threat of redundancy, work day and night in an attempt to keep employed by running the workforce themselves.
Episode 20
A Serpent in Putney
75 mins
An off-beat romance in bed-sitter land.
Episode 22
Bam! Pow! Zap!
75 mins
A young man bitterly regrets his part in an attack on a bank cashier.
Episode 23
Sling Your Hook
75 mins
A group of coal miners from Nottingham go on their annual trip to Blackpool.
Episode 24
A Child and a Half
75 mins
Lucy, who is eight, believes absolutely in fairies. She sees them in the garden and she posts letters to them in the hollow tree. Henry Ramsden loves children. He is senior colleague to Lucy's ambitious father Ronald and when he asks if he can answer Lucy's letters-as if from the Fairy King. Ronald and his wife Sylvia reluctantly agree. The letters are a great pleasure to Henry and a source of intense wonder and excitement to Lucy; but the make-believe world they are living in is based on deceit and cannot last.
Episode 25
Son of Man
90 mins
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.
Episode 26
The Exiles
75 mins
Three Trinidadians consider what it means to be exiles in an essentially white society.
Episode 27
Blodwen, Home from Rachel's Marriage
75 mins
The daughter of a religious Welsh family becomes the centrepiece of a bizarre student festival.