About this season
Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.
Episodes (24)
1. The Long Distance Piano Player
Aired 15 October 1970 • 75 min
A man tries to break the world's record for nonstop piano playing
2. The Right Prospectus
Aired 22 October 1970 • 75 min
A couple look for the proper school, not for their children but for themselves.
3. The Lie
Aired 29 October 1970 • 75 min
""The Lie"" refers to the 8-year marriage of a couple who are constantly hurting each other.
4. Angels Are So Few
Aired 5 November 1970 • 75 min
A man claiming to be an angel enters the household of a bored housewife and teaches the family a few lessons.
5. The Write-Off
Aired 12 November 1970 • 75 min
A man is made redundant but can't bring himself to let anyone know, plunging into a web of deceit as he keeps up the charade he is still in work.
6. I Can't See My Little Willie
Aired 19 November 1970 • 75 min
A man has a mid-life crisis in his brother's pub where sees life as a game show
7. A Distant Thunder
Aired 26 November 1970 • 75 min
A newly-appointed knight finds his celebrations cut short by someone who was witness to his treachery during the war.
8. Hearts and Flowers
Aired 3 December 1970 • 75 min
A TV host and his architect brother attend their father's funeral
9. Robin Redbreast
Aired 10 December 1970 • 75 min
A woman living in a country cottage thinks that someone is trying to get her.
10. The Hallelujah Handshake
Aired 17 December 1970 • 75 min
A petty thief and social misfit finagles his way into a church congregation
11. Alma Mater
Aired 7 January 1971 • 75 min
A civil servant working abroad revisits his old school
12. Circle Line
Aired 14 January 1971 • 75 min
A cynical student has a radically different view of life from his landlady, leading to conflict. Matters come to a head when he sleeps with her fourteen-year-old brother.
13. Hell's Angel
Aired 21 January 1971 • 75 min
A couple are distressed by the changes in their adopted teenage son when he joins a biker gang.
14. The Piano
Aired 28 January 1971 • 75 min
An old couple refuse to move when they find out that they can't take their piano with them
15. Billy's Last Stand
Aired 4 February 1971 • 75 min
Billy, a self-employed coal-shoveller, gains a seedy business partner and competition in the form of a rival coal-shoveller.
16. The Rainbirds
Aired 11 February 1971 • 75 min
A man who attempted suicide by jumping out a window is saved only to live in a coma, in which he has fantasies about his relatives and nightmare creatures.
17. Reddick
Aired 18 February 1971 • 75 min
Charges that the Rev 'Red' Reddick is exploiting his youth club members leads to an explosive confrontation.
18. The Foxtrot
Aired 29 April 1971 • 75 min
An odd menage a trois results when a woman and her lover are visited by her long-lost husband
19. When the Bough Breaks
Aired 6 May 1971 • 75 min
When an injured baby arrives at the hospital, a social worker looks for the parents
20. Orkney
Aired 13 May 1971 • 75 min
A trilogy of plays--A Time to Keep, The Whaler's Return, and Celia--exploring the life of the islanders in the past and present
21. The Rank and File
Aired 20 May 1971 • 75 min
The story of the Pilkington glass workers strike of 1970
22. The Man in the Sidecar
Aired 27 May 1971 • 75 min
A succesful novelist Edith lives with her husband and his friend, but she decides to ask the friend to leave.
23. Everybody Say Cheese
Aired 3 June 1971 • 75 min
The story of a disintegrating marriage told through family photos
24. The Cellar and the Almond Tree
Aired 10 June 1971