Friday Night

1 9 6 3 (UK)
7 x 50 minute episodes

This Granada series featured seven new plays by young Northern writers, including Anthony Linter, Jack Rosenthal, Dennis Woolf, David Halliwell and Peter Eckersley.

The series had its own repertory group of Northern players – including Brian Wilde, Keith Barron, and Helen Fraser – with additional guest actors brought in week by week.

The debut play, ‘The Confinement’, broadcast on 1 November 1963, was an off-beat comedy concerning a back-street tobacconist named Tommy (Brian Wilde) who was persuaded by his wife, Doreen (Clare Kelly), to develop more spare-time interests. And he did – with unexpected results.

His new interest was his wife’s best friend, school teacher Elinor (Angela Morant)! The three came to terms with the situation with the help and hindrance of Fanny (Sandra Caron).

‘Pie In The Sky’ (8 November) was a comic fantasy. 18-year-old Betty Sadler (Helen Fraser) was a swingin’ “with it” girl. However, her parents, Nancy (Diana Coupland) and Daniel (Arthur Pentelow) and grandmother (Nita Valerie) were the squarest of squares.

Betty met young Londoner Alan Simpson (Keith Barron) in a motorway service station restaurant, and the pair struck up a discussion – firstly about the menu, but as the conversation became more personal, viewers were transported in Betty’s fantasies back to her home – where she announced that she was having a baby (clearly a girl with a strong imagination).

This was the first full-length television play by Jack Rosenthal, who had previously written for Coronation Street and other Granada series.

‘Harold Was Alright’ (15 November) was a thoughtful tragedy starring Keith Barron in the title role as an angry young man (and modern jazz fiend) who regularly deserted his girlfriends, including June (Julie Stevens). But his objectionable character hid a sensitive spirit in search of ideals.

Harold’s tormented questions about life – and death – became increasingly urgent when he fell ill and ended up in hospital. Brian Wilde narrated.

Young sailor Stanley Duerden (John Ronane) had been away in basic training for five months in ‘Green Rub’ (22 November) and was now on his way home on leave filled with boyish expectations.

His happiness evaporated when he got home and found his father sat transfixed in front of the telly, his mother a bingo addict, his sister “man mad”, and his girlfriend (Christine Hargreaves) too busy to bother with him.

‘The Last Big Deal of Dekker Arkwright’ (29 November) starred Keith Barron as the titular character – a jocular, boozy, fast-talking car salesman (and pride of the local Lodge of the Ancient Bovarian Order of Antelopes) – whose bungalow was an Aladdin’s cave of luxury furniture, all bought on hire-purchase.

Sadly, the payments were all overdue, and the HP people were pressing hard for their money. Only one thing could save him – a last big deal.

Angela Douglas (as his wife Kate) and Helen Fraser (as his secretary Mavis) gave interesting and well-defined performances.

Derek (John Evitts) and Brenda (Helen Fraser) – two lonely youngsters and inveterate dreamers – discovered there was a world of difference between real love and romance in ‘Plastic Mac in Winter’ (6 December). Brenda, conditioned by reading romantic magazine stories, endows Derek with qualities he never possessed.

Derek, no less a romancer, responds by adding his own embellishments to the picture Brenda has built up.