Drama

The Worst Episodes of Performance

Every episode of Performance ranked from worst to best. Explore the Worst Episodes of Performance!

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An anthology series of various plays and dramatic performances.

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Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Worst Episode
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    Performance Season 2 Episode 3 - Roots
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #1 - Roots

    S2:E3

    Beatie returns to her family home in Norfolk, having been "educated" in cultural and political matters by Ronnie, the boyfriend she lived with in London. Through trying to pass on the things she's learnt to her uninterested family, she discovers her own voice and views—which are no longer just an echo of Ronnie's.

    Director:Simon Curtis
    Writer:Unknown

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  2. Performance Season 3 Episode 1 - Suddenly Last Summer
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #2 - Suddenly Last Summer

    S3:E1

    Mrs Venable's grief at the loss of her beloved poet son Sebastian turns to rage against her niece Catharine, his last companion and witness of his gruesome death. Determined to erase the memory of Sebastian's loss, she tries to persuade her pet doctor to perform a lobotomy on Catharine.

    Director:Richard Eyre
    Writer:Unknown

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  3. Performance Season 5 Episode 4 - Bed
    5.2/10(9 votes)

    #3 - Bed

    S5:E4

    Surreal drama about seven old people living in the same bed.

    Director:Steve Shill
    Writer:Jim Cartwright

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  4. Performance Season 5 Episode 3 - Landscape
    5.8/10(8 votes)

    #4 - Landscape

    S5:E3

    Beth sits in an armchair to the left of the table, and Duff in a chair at the opposite end. Duff refers normally to Beth but does not appear to hear her voice. Beth never looks at Duff and does not appear to hear his voice.

    Director:Harold Pinter
    Writer:Harold Pinter

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  5. Performance Season 3 Episode 5 - The Changeling
    6.3/10(70 votes)

    #5 - The Changeling

    S3:E5

    Just days before her wedding, Beatrice-Joanna has a chance encounter with Alsemero, and realizes that she has met her one true love. To marry the man she loves, she persuades the love-struck henchman De Flores to murder her fiancé, but does not anticipate the tragic consequences of her actions.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  6. Performance Season 6 Episode 2 - My Night with Reg
    6.7/10(188 votes)

    #6 - My Night with Reg

    S6:E2

    A group of English gay men get together to reminisce. They are all coming from a wake for one of their circle who's died of AIDS. It's that terrifying time between the outbreak of AIDS and the development of an AIDS test and as the conversation unfolds it becomes apparent that each man there has had unprotected sex with the deceased.

    Director:Roger Michell
    Writer:Kevin Elyot

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  7. Performance Season 5 Episode 2 - The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd
    6.8/10(106 votes)

    #7 - The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd

    S5:E2

    Mrs Holroyd is married to a loutish miner. When a gentlemanly neighbour makes romantic advances to her, she wishes her husband dead. Sooner than she hoped, her wish comes true.

    Director:Katie Mitchell
    Writer:Unknown

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  8. Performance Season 4 Episode 3 - The Deep Blue Sea
    6.9/10(143 votes)

    #8 - The Deep Blue Sea

    S4:E3

    A woman unhappy in her passionless marriage leaves her husband for a younger and more ardent lover.

    Director:Karel Reisz
    Writer:Unknown

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  9. Performance Season 5 Episode 6 - After Miss Julie
    6.9/10(66 votes)

    #9 - After Miss Julie

    S5:E6

    An updated version of Strindberg's play examining class and social differences. Julie, the daughter of an MP, seduces her father's chauffeur, despite his being engaged to the maid.

    Director:Patrick Marber
    Writer:August Strindberg

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  10. Performance Season 1 Episode 5 - Top Girls
    7.0/10(22 votes)

    #10 - Top Girls

    S1:E5

    Marlene celebrates her new position as MD of Top Girls Appointment Agency by giving a dinner party for five oddly assorted women from centuries past.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  11. Performance Season 3 Episode 4 - The Entertainer
    7.1/10(17 votes)

    #11 - The Entertainer

    S3:E4

    The play uses the metaphor of the dying music hall tradition, specifically fictional music hall star Archie Rice, to comment on the moribund state of the British Empire in the 1950s.

    Director:Nicholas Renton
    Writer:Unknown

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  12. Performance Season 1 Episode 1 - Absolute Hell
    7.2/10(190 votes)

    #12 - Absolute Hell

    S1:E1

    Black comedy set in Soho, London, right after WW2. Half of the fun is seeing a slew of very familiar faces kick up their heels as gay men, lesbians, party-girls, drunks, and drag queens.

    Director:Anthony Page
    Writer:Unknown

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  13. Performance Season 2 Episode 5 - Six Characters in Search of an Author
    7.2/10(71 votes)

    #13 - Six Characters in Search of an Author

    S2:E5

    Originally set in a theatre, this new version of Luigi Pirandello's classic play takes place in a film studio in 1950 and is recorded in black and white. A family carrying a great personal tragedy of shame and despair have come to the studio to find somebody who can describe their experiences and explain what they've done to each other.

    Director:Bill Bryden
    Writer:Unknown

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  14. Performance Season 2 Episode 4 - After the Dance
    7.3/10(33 votes)

    #14 - After the Dance

    S2:E4

    David and Joan's life has been one continuous party, but their marriage is loveless. Suddenly a young girl appears in their world and announces that she's in love with David and wants to change his life for ever. Critics called it Terence Rattigan's most serious and truthful play, but it has not been seen for 50 years.

    Director:Stuart Burge
    Writer:Unknown

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  15. Performance Season 3 Episode 2 - The Maitlands
    7.3/10(48 votes)

    #15 - The Maitlands

    S3:E2

    It is early summer in the secluded seaside village of Betworthy. But there is a strained atmosphere in the once-prosperous Maitland household, because the family has fallen on hard times. Performance presents the first production for 60 years of the witty and tragic family drama by Ronald Mackenzie.

    Director:Lindsay Posner
    Writer:Ronald Mackenzie

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  16. Performance Season 5 Episode 5 - Henry IV
    7.3/10(31 votes)

    #16 - Henry IV

    S5:E5

    Henry Bolingbroke has now been crowned King of England, but faces a rebellion headed by the embittered Earl of Northumberland and his son (nicknamed 'Hotspur'). Henry's son Hal, the Prince of Wales, has thrown over life at court in favour of heavy drinking and petty theft in the company of a debauched elderly knight, Sir John Falstaff. Hal must extricate himself from some legal problems, regain his father's good opinions and help suppress the uprising.

    Director:John Caird
    Writer:Unknown

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  17. Performance Season 6 Episode 4 - Broken Glass
    7.3/10(73 votes)

    #17 - Broken Glass

    S6:E4

    A Jewish housewife in 1938 Brooklyn loses the use of her legs after reading about Kristallnacht.

    Director:David Thacker
    Writer:Unknown

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  18. Performance Season 4 Episode 2 - Measure for Measure
    7.4/10(36 votes)

    #18 - Measure for Measure

    S4:E2

    Modern dress version of Shakespeare's "problem comedy" emphasizing the darker elements of the play and eliminating most of the humor, as Claudio is dragged to the police station on charges of fornication, and given a rectal exam in front of a window.

    Director:David Thacker
    Writer:Unknown

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  19. Performance Season 4 Episode 4 - Summer Day's Dream
    7.4/10(33 votes)

    #19 - Summer Day's Dream

    S4:E4

    In 1975, after a nuclear war, the nations have combined to set up a World Government. An old man who lives quietly in the country finds his peace threatened by a visit from three World Government figures.

    Director:Christopher Morahan
    Writer:Unknown

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  20. Performance Season 2 Episode 2 - A Doll's House
    7.5/10(183 votes)

    #20 - A Doll's House

    S2:E2

    Years ago, Nora Helmer committed a forgery in order to save the life of her authoritarian husband Torvald. Now she is being blackmailed, and lives in fear of her husband finding out.

    Director:David Thacker
    Writer:Unknown

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  21. Performance Season 1 Episode 2 - Uncle Vanya
    7.6/10(112 votes)

    #21 - Uncle Vanya

    S1:E2

    When Vanya's brother-in-law declares his intention to sell the family's house, polite facades begin to crumble and long repressed feelings start to emerge with devastating consequences.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  22. Performance Season 7 Episode 1 - King Lear
    7.6/10(292 votes)

    #22 - King Lear

    S7:E1

    King Lear, old and tired, divides his kingdom among his daughters, giving great importance to their protestations of love for him. When Cordelia, youngest and most honest, refuses to idly flatter the old man in return for favor, he banishes her and turns for support to his remaining daughters. But Goneril and Regan have no love for him and instead plot to take all his power from him. In a parallel, Lear's loyal courtier Gloucester favors his illegitimate son Edmund after being told lies about his faithful son Edgar. Madness and tragedy befall both ill-starred fathers.

    Director:Richard Eyre
    Writer:Unknown

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  23. Performance Season 4 Episode 1 - Message For Posterity
    7.7/10(37 votes)

    #23 - Message For Posterity

    S4:E1

    A Parliamentary committee decides to commission a portrait as a memorial to an ageing Conservative, wartime ex-Prime Minister, Sir David Browning. Bizarrely, they choose anarchic, anti-establishment and equally ageing artist James Player, who appears to stand for the very opposite values and positions to his prospective sitter. During sittings the two men find many opportunities to score political and social points off each. Screened with an with an introduction by Brian Walden, a contemporary of writer Dennis Potter at Oxford and an old Oxford political sparring partner.

    Director:David Hugh Jones
    Writer:Dennis Potter

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  24. Performance Season 4 Episode 5 - The Mother
    7.7/10(43 votes)

    #24 - The Mother

    S4:E5

    Paddy Chayefsky's 1954 play set in the Bronx tells the story of a recently widowed 66-year-old seeks a job after 40 years if being a homemaker.

    Director:Simon Curtis
    Writer:Unknown

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  25. Performance Season 1 Episode 6 - The Trials of Oz
    7.8/10(60 votes)

    #25 - The Trials of Oz

    S1:E6

    Dramatization of the famous 1971 trial in which the editors of the British underground magazine "Oz" were charged with obscenity.

    Director:Sheree Folkson
    Writer:Unknown

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Worst Episodes Summary

"Roots" is the worst rated episode of "Performance". It scored /10 based on 0 votes. Directed by Simon Curtis and written by Unknown, it aired on 11/28/1992. This episode scored 0.0 points lower than the second lowest rated, "Suddenly Last Summer".