#the one Ed Woodward was suffering; he's in constant fear of 'cracking up'‚ as is nearly everyone he meets and speaks to. these passing | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mariocki · 2 months ago

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Play for Today: Buffet (BBC, 1976)

"Freddie likes squalid plays."

"I don't think I care for the theatre. If the theatre came to me, then that would be different. One has to go to it."

"I like a play to be about nice people. I like a comedy. I like to be taken out of myself. The plays Freddie likes to see are about squalid people. I like a play to reflect my own problems, I like a play to be about people like ourselves."

#play for today #buffet #single play #classic tv #bbc #1976 #rhys adrian #mike newell #tony britton #phyllida law #amanda barrie #robin bailey #clive swift #maureen pryor #edward de souza #nigel hawthorne #anthony pedley #george innes #william squire #arthur pentelow #esmond webb #i enjoyed my last Adrian PfT (Evelyn) enough that i sort out another; like Evelyn‚ this was adapted from one of the writer's own radio #plays (and like Evelyn‚ seems to have come in for some criticism for its failure to match its visuals with the stylised dialogue). this is #the stronger of the two‚ for me. it seems on the surface to be treading similar ground (a middle class‚ middle aged business type heading #into midlife crisis) but the treatment is more pointed here‚ the style even more unnatural. Britton's crisis is much more existential than #the one Ed Woodward was suffering; he's in constant fear of 'cracking up'‚ as is nearly everyone he meets and speaks to. these passing #conversations‚ mostly in railway buffets‚ are the meat of the play and they gradually become stranger and more detached from reality as the #play goes on (and Britton inches towards his crack up). they reach a Pinteresque height of dark absurdism in a scene in which he is #pressed for money by an airline steward who insists the price of landing has been raised while Britton was midflight. it honestly won't be #to everyone's taste but i found myself truly gripped by this in the second half‚ an inventive and very funny black comedy of ageing despair

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