#gently gloomy drama about dissatisfied lives in 80s Scotland. writer Mulrine does a fairly clever bait and switch early on‚ beginning | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mariocki · 4 months ago

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Play for Today: The Silly Season (BBC, 1982)

"You must feel very alone."

"I don't have many people to speak to - well, you know what they're like now. Just Alastair and yourself. And when you go in August, and the silly season's passed... do you think you'll miss us?"

#play for today #the silly season #single play #1982 #bbc #classic tv #alex marshall #stephen mulrine #derek anders #frances low #iain lauchlan #mary riggans #elaine collins #pierce brosnan #john butterly #janette foggo #gerry slevin #tony roper #jake d'arcy #jonathan watson #john michie #gently gloomy drama about dissatisfied lives in 80s Scotland. writer Mulrine does a fairly clever bait and switch early on‚ beginning #the play so that it appears it will be about student workers taking summer work at a factory only to slowly refocus onto one of the #permanent workers (a very good Anders)‚ a disillusioned former shop steward‚ and the impact that meeting these energetic young free #thinkers has on him. there's more to it and it isn't that cut and dry: art student Alastair‚ Anders' first contact‚ is slowly revealed to #be less the intellectual revolutionary he appears to be and more of a heavy drinking slob‚ casually mistreating his wife (with whom #Anders discovers something of a kinship). it's all just a little spread thin: a side plot about Anders' pregnant daughter (Mrs P Capaldi #Elaine Collins) is i suppose necessary as a plot device later on‚ but adds little to Anders' own story and serves mainly as a mildly #depressing distraction. for better or worse (im undecided) Mulrine leaves key moments of the conclusion unshown (exactly what happens #between Anders and Low and why each returns to their unhappy former existence). has its moments but not the strongest outing from pft

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