Memorable TV Plays

Loved "Nuts in May". Also, about 30 yrs ago, there was a Mike Leigh play on TV called "Grown ups", which I thought was hilarious. Never seen it since or heard it mentioned.

Also, The Race for the Double Helix, about Watson, Crick, Rosalind Franklin and the discovery of the structure of DNA.

Another Mike Leigh play with Alison Steadman, the amazing Nuts in May. I had great difficulty taking groups from the Dorset school I taught at on trips to Purbeck for ages afterwards, because all I could hear was Candice Marie.
I am not going to start singing "We're going to the zoo she said", I am not....

Do you remember Willie Russell's "Our Day Out" - I think it was Willie Russell?

I also remember many years ago seeing "Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont" on the TV and though I can't really remember it, I do remember enjoying it.

How original to have an older "Rita" - I can see that it would still work since the issues raised are not essentially age-related (though I expect some sort of "tweeking" had to be done?)

Just watched the 1995 version of Sense and Sensibility. Great actors, including Alan Rickman - I love anything with him in it, whether as Professor Snape in Harry Potter, or Hans in Die Hard....

Does anyone remember 'Fear eats the Soul'? It is a German production about an older woman, a cleaner, who becomes the lover of a handsome young Turkish guest worker. She is not the typical older woman of such productions - she was no Helen Mirren. She was a dumpy plain German Hausfrau type. It worked really well though. I saw a subtitled version years ago, then I found it was part of the film curriculum on my German uni course.

I like Willie Russell plays, such as Shirley Valentine and Educating Rita. I love 'Rita' so much, that we did an extract from it in our U3A performance group. I was Rita What a laugh - a 67 year old Rita. Fun though.

I loved Blue Remembered Hills. The title alone is fabulous - someone told me it came from a famous poem, can't remember what.

I loved Dennis Potter's early plays. I remember Where the Buffalo Roam starring Hywell Bennett and Son of Man which I thought was brilliant. Also of course there was Blue Remembered Hills with Robin Ellis and Helen Mirren leading a cast of adults playing children. I can't imagine anyone doing it now although they're always telling us how cutting edge they are!

I think the absolute stand outs were Cathy Come Home, Talking to A Stranger and Edna the Inebriate Woman. They really don't make them like that today!

phoenix that is sad news

But you could give him a run for his moneyxxxx

Smol I have just Googled again, and he does have terminal cancer and is pretty poorly at present.

If I could write as well as him, I would be extremely happy.

phoenix I know he had been quite frail in one of his last books and assumed that he had died so really happy news that he hasn't....he sounds a lovely man to be married too,I love the whimsical humour with the cats.......now I know he obviously copies your style

You had me worried there Smol but luckily he lives!

www.dericlongden.com/

phoenix have read all Deric Longdens books love the ones about the cats I don't think he is with us any longer,he is/Was married to the author Aileen Armitage who is blind

There are still some good dramatic adaptations of novels, but not much in the way of new plays. I think that is rather sad and a serious loss.

Oh I love Truly, madly, deeply Notso Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevenson. Lovely but very sad.

"Lost for Words" was from a book written by Deric Longden about his mothers dementia.

He also wrote the book that became the play "Wide Eyed and Legless" which starred Julie Walters. It was about an undiagnosed illness that his first wife had. I won't spoil it in case anyone want's to either read the book or see the play, but it is excellent. (The book was published as "Diana's Story")

Deric Longden also writes books about his cats, various characterful friends and neighbours and lifes little events. I would highly recommend them, well written, very funny in places but not afraid to tackle the sadnesses as well.

susie I spent ages trying to work out what the acronym 'GSD' stood for. Then I realised [dimemoticon]

I loved an Armchair Thriller called "Quiet as a Nun" about mysterious goings on in a convent school. Patricia Hodge starred in it and it was really creepy.

being a dog person I loved one about a family that had a badly behaved GSD that the dad loved. but wrecked everything, but the daughter grew up to have one herself, I think the GSD was called prince...

There was also one with Alfred Molina called liar liar which was brilliant

Oh yes! I'd forgotten about that (how could I have?). Very, very moving.

Do made for TV films count? Truly, Madly, Deeply was amazing.

I`ll never forget Lost for Words, starring the wonderful Thora Hird and Pete Postlethwaite, sadly both gone now. I watched that play several times, never got tired of it.

Once again, Cathy Come Home, I was politically active in Camden at the time and this more than anything else brought home to be the sheer desperation of so many low income families in London.

The Secret Garden enchanted DD and myself equally when it was shown on television in the 1970s. Recently I bought the DVD and DD and I introduced DGD to it. She too fell in love with it. We commented that nowadays a book like this would be filmed in two or three episodes, rather than seven and they would never give one whole episode to setting the scene. 5 year old DGD enjoyed it, showing that the attention span of children is not as short now as we are told, they are just not offered more demanding fare.

In the same vein as Goodnight Mr. Tom, I love the TV version of the Railway Children where Jenny Agutter plays the mother. It is closer to the Childrens Hour version which was serialised on the radio circa 1955 and was called 'The House With Three Chimneys.'

All the Alan Bennet plays were wonderful. I remember the one where Thora Hird remembers the young soldier who didn't get to make love to her, and went off to war as a virgin and was killed.

Cathy Comes Home was memorable for me too, I watched it again recently having got the DVD, but it didnt have the same effect on me.