The Best Episodes of Play for Today Season 2

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Edna, the Inebriate Woman is a British television drama written by Jeremy Sandford which was transmitted by the BBC as part of the Play for Today series on 21 October 1971. Directed by Ted Kotcheff, Irene Shubik produced it. The play deals with an elderly woman, Edna, who wanders through life in an alcoholic haze without a home, a job or any money. A rambling, pathetic yet defiant woman, Edna sleeps rough and begs for food and shelter and the drama follows her progress as she moves from hostel to hostel, going to a psychiatric ward and then prison along the way. Jeremy Sandford, who had previously written Cathy Come Home, researched the play by living rough himself for two weeks. A great deal of the dialogue and the incidents in the play come from the book, 'Down and Out in Britain' published by Jeremy Sandford in 1971; although the majority of the speakers in the book are male, Jeremy Sandford puts much of their speech into the mouth of the female character. The film features the only notable acting role of British actor Vivian MacKerrell, the real-life inspiration for the character Withnail in Withnail and I. At the 1972 British Academy Television Awards, the play won the Best Drama Production category, with Patricia Hayes receiving the award for Best Actress.

Director: Ted Kotcheff

Writer: Jeremy Sandford

A story about four elderly "loonies" living in a rest home

Director: Lindsay Anderson

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A British aristocrat turned Russian spy is visited in Moscow by Western journalists

Director: Alan Bridges

Writer: Dennis Potter

A marriage can be lonely when the children have left home, as Nelson and Maud find out. Maud leaves in the middle of an unloving picnic, and Nelson follows - both sharing their stories with a series of strangers.

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In Cornwall, just before World War I, a striking miner befriends a cop

Director: Jack Gold

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The wife of a headmaster discovers that he has been physically abusing his students

Director: Philip Saville

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Frank is worried that he's over the hill when he reaches his 38th birthday. Conversations with his wife, lover and best friend do nothing to allay his concerns.

Director: Piers Haggard

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A couple and their daughter take a trip to Africa

Director: Herbert Wise

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A social satire in which advertisers realise that having a blind beggar as the public face of charities would help make them seem more appealing to donors.

Director: Claude Whatham

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A man gets revenge on a pub owner

Director: John Gorrie

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An awkward relationship develops between the families of a trade unionist and the regional manager when the son of the former wins a university scholarship from their employer.

Director: Michael Lindsay-Hogg

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Two sworn enemies, one black and the other white, are forced to confront their prejudices when they are forced together by circumstance.

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Writer: Alun Owen

A retired miner devotes his waking hours to his racing pigeons.

Director: James Ferman

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A married couple move into the house on Highbury Hill and find some eccentric neighbours.

Director: John Glenister

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A story about unemployment and the Black Movement in Jamaica

Director: Philip Saville

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A salesman learns a few lessons from the locals when he goes to Yorkshire for a business course

Director: Ted Kotcheff

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A social worker tries to help a painfully shy young man and takes him for a visit to a country farm.

Director: John Gorrie

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The adventures of three Derbyshire miners going fishing

Director: Michael Simpson

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