This anthology of eight stand-alone plays – a highlight of the BBC’s 1972 dramatic output – was performed with integrity by a company of six actors (hence the series title): Denholm Elliott, Billie Whitelaw, Richard Vernon, Dennis Waterman, Michele Dotrice, and Ruth Dunning.
Each week, they were seen in a wide variety of characterisations, and the tailor-made plays ranged from strong drama to high comedy.
The series was produced by Roderick Graham – the man behind the award-winning Elizabeth R(1971).
In ‘The Gregorian Chant’, Dennis Waterman plays Greg, a young artist who spends weekends with his wife looking after their launderette business and weekdays painting in a Birmingham house occupied by Baldwin (Richard Vernon), an ageing homosexual, and Ellis, a dilettantish layabout with a passion for Japanese cookery (Denholm Elliott).
Greg’s search for freedom is succoured by Ange, his first love, mistress and model. But on Baldy’s recommendation, professional model Megan Flynn sits for him, and his love life becomes highly complicated.
The play was written by Peter Terson, who also painted the nude portraits seen in the episode.
It was Denholm Elliott’s turn to star in ‘Night Duty’ (written by Peter Ransley), playing Ted Swan, the supervisor of a self-governing therapeutic community in Burnden Mental Hospital who finds his personal problems getting in the way of his work.
Billie Whitelaw stole the limelight as Wendy, a deeply neurotic girl given to romantic fantasies. Ruth Dunning played an over-protective mum.
The play (directed by Donald McWhinnie) was largely a rather macabre guessing game as the committee of patients tried to drag from Wendy the reasons for a violent outburst, which resulted in her smashing windows in an attempt to escape from the institution.
Nobody could sift the lies from the truth – and Ted had to deal with all this on the very day he discovered his pretty young wife had left him.
Michele Dotrice starred in ‘A Question of Degree’ as Maggie Firebrace, a young assistant university lecturer. The daughter of extreme right-wing journalist Max (Elliott), she is both in agreement with and in conflict with a student revolt.
Max is now married to Eileen (Whitelaw), while Maggie’s mother, Vanessa (played by guest actor Pauline Jameson), is now married to Sir Lionel Compton (Richard Vernon), a professor at Maggie’s college. Ruth Dunning played the college Dean, and Dennis Waterman was a student militant.
‘Follow the Yellow Brick Road’ (written by playwright royalty Dennis Potter and superbly directed by Alan Bridges) revolved around disturbed actor Jack Black (Elliott at his most magnificent), who found escape from his overwhelming disgust for the poverty, misery, filth and violence of the real world by absorbing himself in the whiter-than-white world of the television commercials he appeared in. That and a little psychiatric therapy and anti-depressant drugs.
Billie Whitelaw played his wife, Judy, and Bernard Hepton guested as his agent. Ruth Dunning delivered a delightful little character study as a loquacious hospital patient torn between bewilderment at Jack’s eccentric behaviour and excited pleasure as she recognised him as the man in the “telly commercials.” Richard Vernon was the psychiatrist.
‘Stoker Leishman’s Diaries’ – a comedy by Peter Tinniswood – began with Leishman (Vernon) about to be given the freedom of the borough on the 50th anniversary of his expedition to the South Pole. The leader of the expedition achieved instant fame, but Stoker – the only other man to reach the Pole and now the only survivor – won neither fame nor fortune.
His sons (Denholm Elliott and Dennis Waterman) and daughter (Michele Dotrice) are now determined to publish his diaries for financial reward. However, the diaries contain a dreadful secret – the expedition never actually reached its objective!
Ruth Dunning played Stoker’s widowed neighbour (who provides the commentary to the play), with Billie Whitelaw as her daughter.
‘Stanley’s Style’ (written by Douglas Livingstone) had city-dweller Stanley Harris (Elliott) fleeing from an unhappy marriage to his unfaithful wife, Katherine (Whitelaw), and a failed career to take refuge at Mrs Billings’ West Country guest house, where he had spent many happy childhood holidays.
On his arrival, he is confronted by Ken (Waterman), the Billings son, who now runs the business with his wife Marion (Dotrice). Stanley’s hopes of recovering his happiness are dashed when he embarks on destroying existing relationships between residents of the boarding house, including Colin (Richard Vernon) and a harridan named Trudy (Ruth Dunning).
The thriller ‘Disappearing Trick’ (by Hugh Whitemore) has everything: flying saucers, stone circles, a neurotic druid, a missing scientist, and the possible destruction of the world. Will Peter (Elliott) and Valerie (Whitelaw) be able to avert cosmic disaster in time?
‘Blur and Blank via Cleckheaton’ (written by David Halliwell) is the story of a chain of disasters seen from four different viewpoints (with various shades of reality).
The play begins in a pub with a young man named Peter (Waterman) telling his friend about his involvement with the wealthy Ramsdale family.
Wealthy Northern factory owner Francis Ramsdale (Elliott), his wife, Stella (Whitelaw) and daughter Claire (Dotrice) live in a Yorkshire mansion, and it is Stella running off with her lover that sets off the trail of tragedy, which ultimately ends with both father and daughter committing suicide.
Eight-year-old Lysandre de la Haye played Claire as a child in flashbacks. Richard Vernon and Ruth Dunning played Francis’s parents.
Each character had a different view of the situation and considered themselves victims – although each, in some way, was the progenitor of the family tragedy.
The company
Denholm Elliott
Billie Whitelaw
Richard Vernon
Dennis Waterman
Michele Dotrice
Ruth Dunning
Episodes
The Gregorian Chant | Night Duty | A Question of Degree | Follow the Yellow Brick Road | Stoker Leishman’s Diaries | Stanley’s Style | Disappearing Trick | Blur and Blank via Cleckheaton
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The play (directed by Donald McWhinnie) was largely a rather macabre guessing game as the committee of patients tried to drag from Wendy the reasons for a violent outburst, which resulted in her smashing windows in an attempt to escape from the institution.
Ruth Dunning played Stoker’s widowed neighbour (who provides the commentary to the play), with Billie Whitelaw as her daughter.
Wealthy Northern factory owner Francis Ramsdale (Elliott), his wife, Stella (Whitelaw) and daughter Claire (Dotrice) live in a Yorkshire mansion, and it is Stella running off with her lover that sets off the trail of tragedy, which ultimately ends with both father and daughter committing suicide.
