Over four ninety-minute plays, the events of one tragic weekend are told from the point of view of each member of an ordinary suburban family.
Nothing like it had been attempted on television before and the drama was a big critical and popular success, screening an exceptional three times in eighteen months.
Writer John Hopkins juggled three time-lines – the present, the recent past and the long past – to produce a gradual accumulation of information about the characters, building to a shattering climax.
The first play shows Terry (Judi Dench) in her flat (where she remembers scenes from her past) and the family reunion on Sunday.
The second play, which tells the father’s story, shows the family reunion but adds Ted’s (Maurice Denham) memories of his early life.
Play three focuses on Alan (Michael Bryant), but omits the family Sunday, instead exploring the aftermath of the mother’s suicide. It does not repeat material but examines the themes of the first two plays.
The fourth and final play revisits the family Sunday, repeats material from the first two plays and explores more fully the relationship between Sarah (Margery Mason) and Alan.
Thus, the audience is presented with all the information it needs to understand Sarah’s despair and suicide, as more family history is revealed play by play.
Audiences might, however, have been forgiven for their surprise that it should be the mother who takes her life when all of the other family members appear to have equal cause.
Terry, separated from her black husband and pregnant with another man’s child, hides her deep insecurity and fear behind a veneer of cynical flippancy.
Alan is weak, resentful, jealous and unloved. Father achieved little in his professional life and is disappointed in his marriage; he has now largely withdrawn into the past.
None of them is able to communicate with each other. They are indeed strangers talking.
Critic Sylvia Clayton wrote that “the one trait which the Stephens family had in common was a profound sense of self-pity. Their misery was contagious and unrelieved; they were alive only when hurting other people.”
Their descendants can be found in every British soap opera, from EastEnders to Emmerdale.
Sarah Stevens
Margery Mason
Edward ‘Ted’ Stevens
Maurice Denham
Terry Stevens
Judi Dench
Alan Stevens
Michael Bryant
Jess
Pinkie Johnstone
Gordon Lester
Emrys James
Geoffrey Lawrence
Timothy Carlton
Leonard Ngana
Calvin Lockhart
Young Sarah
Ann Mitchell
Young Ted
Frederick Pyne
Young Terry
Gaynor Jones
Young Alan
Keith Kent
Detective Sergeant Wilson
Windsor Davies
Mrs Hayter
Mariann Turner
Policeman
Terry Leigh
