#stage and screen into one play. particularly wonderful are Spear and Maria Charles as the parents intent on making their son's bar mitzvah

[thisbluespirit]

#play for today#Bar mitzvah boy#jack rosenthal#Single play#Modern drama#BBC#1976#Michael Tuchner#Jeremy Steyn#Maria Charles#Bernard Spear#Adrienne Posta#Jonathan Lynn#Cyril Shaps#Jack Lynn#Pamela Manson#Harry Landis#Kim Clifford#Mark Herman#Harold Reese#absolutely one of Jack's warmest and wittiest scripts. having been frustrated by the casting of non jewish actors in his previous PfT The#Evacuees‚ Jack put his foot down on this play and it benefits from collecting some of the best jewish character actors then active in uk#stage and screen into one play. particularly wonderful are Spear and Maria Charles as the parents intent on making their son's bar mitzvah#a day to remember: her sporting a truly awe inspiring helmet of hair‚ he willing the day to have come and gone so that everything can#return to normal. there's a sharp satirical study of middle class aspirationism and the inadequacy of bar mitzvah as a standard of manhood#(all the adult male characters display various immaturities throughout the play) but it's all done with a very deep and very real affection#special mention to perennial fave Cyril Shaps (adorable as the doting if slightly air headed grandfather; actually Shaps was younger than#Spear‚ his onscreen son‚ but had always appeared older than his years) and Posta in a finely judged performance as the older sister whose#sharpness and short temper doesn't mask her love and sense of responsibility for a younger sibling who's quietly terrified about the#prospect of growing up. the dialogue is pin sharp and often laugh out loud funny‚ but there's some nice background stuff going on as well

Play for Today: Bar Mitzvah Boy (BBC, 1976)

"At this moment, on their way, are a hundred and seventeen guests. Sitting on the train, in cars, queuing for buses - all on their way. At half past six, Victor, a hundred and seventeen people from Bournemouth, from Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow, from Birmingham, everywhere... are going to turn up at the Reuben Shulman Hall expecting a dinner dance. All dressed up. Your Uncle Zalman, my cousin Freda. Your brother we don't talk about from Cardiff."

"Don't upset yourself."

"A hundred and seventeen people. A hundred and seventeen portions of chopped liver. A hundred and seventeen mushroom vol-au-vents. A hundred and seventeen chicken with croquette potatoes and helzel, French beans and coleslaw. A hundred and seventeen lokshen kugels. A four-piece band. No bar mitzvah boy. No bar mitzvah. No nothing."