This short anthology of stand-alone Tuesday night plays from Thames Television aired in April and May 1976.
The subjects of the plays tended to reveal a general dissatisfaction with life in the UK in the 1970s, with a tottering minority Labour government held up with IMF loans, huge industrial unrest and IRA bombs going off in Northern Ireland and on the British mainland.
In ‘The Paradise Run’ (written by Howard Brenton and directed by Michael Apted), Johnny Glass (Kevin McNally) joins the army because he likes canoeing but ends up in war-torn Northern Ireland where he is compromised into helping the enemy.
He discovers desertion is not the solution and finds himself more distressed than ever.
Co-stars included Ian Charleson, Sarah Porter, Maurice O’Connell, Denis Lawson and Pete Postlethwaite.
Written by Roger McGough (a poet and member of the satirical Liverpool pop group The Scaffold), ‘The Lifeswappers’ was a wild, surrealist comedy about a group of people who exchange identities.
Trevor (Anthony Douse) has a rotten job and a bitchy wife (Sheila Gish), so he answers an advert in the local paper to become a “life-swapper”.
Once he starts life swapping, he can’t foresee where it will end nor which life to pick. Donald Burton, Peter Egan, and Miriam Margolyes co-starred.
Wrestler, actor and writer Brian Glover wrote ‘Sunshine in Brixton’, about a young West Indian boy frustrated in life. 16-year-old Otis (Elvis Payne) wants to be a professional footballer against the wishes of his mother (Jill Gascoine).
Otis hates going to school as he is often sent to the headmaster to be disciplined.
Things look up when new sports teacher Mr Fewkes (Richard Ireson) arrives, but Otis learns sportsmen must be disciplined, too. He ends up dying his hair blonde and becoming a professional tag-team wrestler. Pauline Quirke, Sonny Caldinez, a young Ray Winstone and Peter-Hugo Daly co-starred.
‘Hitting Town’, by Stephen Poliakoff, was about a young university dropout named Ralph (Mick Ford) who decides his older sister Clare (Deborah Norton) needs cheering up following a recent breakup.
The pair hit the ugly, neon-lit, almost post-apocalyptic concrete landscape of the city, and Clare struggles to control Ralph’s outrageous behaviour – he is a flagrant practical joker who constantly tests the breaking point of people around him.
Returning to her flat at the end of the evening, the pair end up in bed together, retreating into an incestuous one-night stand.
‘Fast Hands’ revolved around Jimmy Hanbury (Bill Buffery), a talented young boxer. Every punch he throws is eagerly watched by his trainer, Eggie (Ernie Claydon) and resented by his fiancée, Maureen (Gillian Taylforth).
His parents, however, aren’t particularly interested – until a large car and what appears to be a handsome contract arrive at the door.
One brutal – and deliberately mismatched by predatory boxing promoter Ray Prince (Peter Spraggon) – boxing match later, and Jimmy is left with brain damage.
The stunning fight sequence that takes up a significant section of the play was staged in a public hall in South London in front of a 300-strong audience.
Bill Buffery went eight-and-a-half rounds with professional boxer Paul Davis, playing Jimmy’s opponent, Mike Warboys.
At one point during filming, Buffery was knocked to the floor and stayed there for more than ten minutes.
‘Shuttlecock’ by Henry Livings dealt explosively with the sad subject of child-battering and the weakness of welfare authorities.
Emotionally vulnerable nine-year-old Harry (David Max Vaughan) is taken from his happy foster home and returned to his birth mother, Bobby (Ann Pennington) and step-father, Sam (Dinsdale Landen).
Sam – a successful but drunken and bullying businessman – expects Harry to be a man and reckons that a good thrashing is the answer to everything.
As the boy withdraws into himself, his father ramps up the pressure – and the beatings.
Social workers, police, the NSPCC and an Asian GP (who provokes a series of racist insults from Sam) all arrive to assess the damage inflicted upon Harry, but Sam simply views their work as “more forms to fill in”.
Episodes
The Paradise Run | The Lifeswappers | Sunshine in Brixton | Hitting Town | Fast Hands | Shuttlecock
Videos
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In ‘The Paradise Run’ (written by Howard Brenton and directed by Michael Apted), Johnny Glass (Kevin McNally) joins the army because he likes canoeing but ends up in war-torn Northern Ireland where he is compromised into helping the enemy.
Written by Roger McGough (a poet and member of the satirical Liverpool pop group The Scaffold), ‘The Lifeswappers’ was a wild, surrealist comedy about a group of people who exchange identities.
Wrestler, actor and writer Brian Glover wrote ‘Sunshine in Brixton’, about a young West Indian boy frustrated in life. 16-year-old Otis (Elvis Payne) wants to be a professional footballer against the wishes of his mother (Jill Gascoine).
‘Hitting Town’, by Stephen Poliakoff, was about a young university dropout named Ralph (Mick Ford) who decides his older sister Clare (Deborah Norton) needs cheering up following a recent breakup.
‘Fast Hands’ revolved around Jimmy Hanbury (Bill Buffery), a talented young boxer. Every punch he throws is eagerly watched by his trainer, Eggie (Ernie Claydon) and resented by his fiancée, Maureen (Gillian Taylforth).
‘Shuttlecock’ by Henry Livings dealt explosively with the sad subject of child-battering and the weakness of welfare authorities.
