Screenplay Firsts

1 9 8 7 – 1 9 9 3 (UK)

First aired in August 1987, the BBC’s Screenplay Firsts was an annual run each Summer of short films by new directors.

The contributors included recent graduates from film schools as far apart as the Royal College of Art, the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, the London International Film School and New York University.

The debut film, Careless Talk (broadcast on Monday, 17 August 1987), was a drama dealing with the little-known mass internment of all people of “enemy” nationality by the British on the Isle of Man in 1940.

Actors who appeared in the many short films included Jane Horrocks, Ray Winstone and Alun Armstrong.

Episodes

1987: Careless Talk (17/8/87) | The Act (18/8/87) | See You At Wembley Frankie Walsh (19/8/87) | Roach Motel (20/8/87) | A View From A Window (21/8/87)
1988: The Riveter (6/9/88) | Queen Sacrifice (13/9/88) | Edvard (20/9/88) | Borderland (27/9/88) | Substance of Dreams (4/10/88) | Facts of Life (11/10/88)
1989: Sincerely, Harold Washington (19/7/89) |
1990: Arrivederci Millwall (3/1/90) | The Unkindest Cut (4/1/90) | The Audition (11/1/90) | June (18/1/90) | False Profit (25/1/90) | Foto Finish (1/2/90) | Looking After Number One (6/2/90)
1991: King of Jazz (17/7/91) | That Burning Question (24/7/91) | Jack’s Bicycle (31/7/91) | Came Out, It Rained, Went Back in Again (7/8/91) | Oranges and Lemons (7/8/91) | The Missing Finger (7/8/91) | One Day (7/8/91) | Paint (7/8/91) | When I Was a Girl (14/8/91) | Wendy (21/8/91) | A Life In Death (28/8/91) | Big Swinger (4/9/91) | Carmela Campo (11/9/91) | Sunday On Mars (18/9/91)
1992: Saints and Scholars (15/7/92) | Siberian Summer (22/7/92) | Bossanova Blues (29/7/92) | BitterSweet (12/8/92) | Through an Open Window (26/8/92) | Supper at Emmaus (16/9/92)
1993: Schwarzfahrer (FareDodger) (6/9/93) | The Chanter (7/9/93) | The Miller’s Tale (8/9/93) | The Shoes (9/9/93) | Money Talks (10/9/93) | The Waiter (10/9/93)

Video