6.4/1061 votes#1 - Nina
Season 9 Episode 1 - Aired 10/17/1978
The story of two Soviet dissidents living in London and slowly coming apart under the strain of his drinking and her enforced separation from her child
Director: Alan Clarke
Writer: N/A
- 6.9/1019 votes
#2 - Victims of Apartheid
Season 9 Episode 2 - Aired 10/24/1978
George, a black South African, finds it hard to settle down in London after his experiences in South Africa.
Director: Stuart Burge
Writer: N/A
- 6.3/109 votes
#3 - A Touch of the Tiny Hacketts
Season 9 Episode 3 - Aired 10/31/1978
A young man is declared a hero when he catches a burglar until it's discovered that the burglar is a dwarf.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.1/1043 votes
#4 - Dinner at the Sporting Club
Season 9 Episode 4 - Aired 11/7/1978
A story about young boxers whose fighting provides entertainment for diners at a sporting club
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.5/1011 votes
#5 - Donal and Sally
Season 9 Episode 5 - Aired 11/14/1978
Adolescent love can be difficult at the best of times, but Donal and Sally have special problems - problems which alarm their families and the instructors at Strathvale Centre.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.9/1016 votes
#6 - Sorry
Season 9 Episode 6 - Aired 11/21/1978
Consists of two plays ""Audience"" and ""Private View"" about a brewery worker and writer who incurs the wrath of the autocratic government
Director: Claude Whatham
Writer: N/A
- NaN/100 votes
#7 - Butterflies Don't Count
Season 9 Episode 7 - Aired 11/28/1978
"Whether priest or thespian, never once let yourself doubt that the role you're playing is real. Lead your little flock from childhood to the grave via God's sweet sacraments and let no doubts intrude - ever."
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- NaN/100 votes
#8 - Soldiers Talking Cleanly
Season 9 Episode 8 - Aired 12/5/1978
A freelance TV presenter has been hired by the BBC to film a documentary about the British army stationed in Germany. Unfortunately the budget is so low he is only allowed to film soldiers talking, and all bad language must be censored.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- NaN/100 votes
#9 - One Bummer Newsday
Season 9 Episode 9 - Aired 12/12/1978
What happens to provincial journalists when there's nothing in the news and they have a paper to fill?
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- NaN/100 votes
#10 - The Out of Town Boys
Season 9 Episode 10 - Aired 1/2/1979
"This could be a bit special, Maggie. This could be the first case of an office block falling down during the topping-out party."
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.2/1037 votes
#11 - Vampires
Season 9 Episode 11 - Aired 1/9/1979
Three boys watch horror films on late night TV and see a man in a local cemetery whom they believe to be a vampire.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.7/1013 votes
#12 - The Chief Mourner
Season 9 Episode 12 - Aired 1/16/1979
For a successful man with public responsibilities Alan Berry is strangely reluctant to help the police when his wife is murdered.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.4/1017 votes
#13 - Waterloo Sunset
Season 9 Episode 13 - Aired 1/23/1979
A young man and an old woman try to fit in when their neighborhood goes West Indian
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.6/10342 votes#14 - Blue Remembered Hills
Season 9 Episode 14 - Aired 1/30/1979
The play activities of seven children living in the countryside during the summer of 1943 end in tragedy; the children were played by adults in childrens clothing. The title is taken from A.E. Housman's 1896 poem: "Into my heart an air that kills; From yon far country blows; What are those blue remembered hills..." It's 1943 on a summer's afternoon and 7 children play in the fields & woods of old England. The children's roles are all played by adults to act as "A magnifying glass to show what it's like to be a child." "When we dream of childhood," said Dennis Potter, "we take our present selves with us. It is not the adult world writ small; childhood is the adult world writ large." Since Potter viewed childhood as "adult society without all the conventions and the polite forms which overlay it," he repeated the device he had introduced 14 years earlier (in "Stand Up, Nigel Barton"); children's roles were cast with adult actors in this naturalistic memory drama of a "golden day" that turns to tragedy. On a sunny, summer afternoon in bucolic England of 1943, seven West Country children (two girls, five boys) play in the Forest of Dean. Their games and spontaneous actions (continuous and in real time) reflect their awareness of WWII, but no adults are present to intrude. As the group moves through the woods and back to the grassy hills, their words and actions illustrate how "childhood is not transparent with innocence." When the two girls push a pram into a barn to play house, the casting concept is heightened, doubling back on itself in a remarkable moment: adults are suddenly seen to be acting as children who are pretending to be adults, and lines from Housman echo across the years: "That is the land of lost content/I see it shining plain/The happy highways where I went/And cannot come again."
Director: N/A
Writer: Dennis Potter
- 6.7/10265 votes
#15 - Who's Who
Season 9 Episode 15 - Aired 2/6/1979
A story about a dinner party given by the managers and employees of a brokerage house
Director: Mike Leigh
Writer: Mike Leigh
- 3.6/108 votes
#16 - The Last Window Cleaner
Season 9 Episode 16 - Aired 2/13/1979
The Irish troubles as seen by residents of a boarding house called ""The Crumlin View""
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- NaN/100 votes
#17 - Ploughman's Share
Season 9 Episode 17 - Aired 2/27/1979
"Ploughman. Nobody calls you that. You're a has-been. Your head and heart went into a museum wi' that lot you keep in there. Face it: you're redundant."
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- NaN/100 votes
#18 - Degree of Uncertainty
Season 9 Episode 18 - Aired 3/6/1979
"I'm 37 years old, remember? I'm not a dead-pan, genned-up, discreetly nymphomaniac ex-head-girl like the majority of your female students. I'm an innocent. I'm vulnerable."
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- NaN/100 votes
#19 - Light
Season 9 Episode 19 - Aired 3/13/1979
A village in Cheshire. A deserted cinema. A poet murdered by Stalin. A blown fuse. Victor Silvester. Pickets on trial. Trimmers and fishwires.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.8/1038 votes
#20 - Coming Out
Season 9 Episode 20 - Aired 4/10/1979
A closeted homosexual writer is content to lead a double life
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.9/1051 votes
#21 - Don't Be Silly
Season 9 Episode 21 - Aired 7/24/1979
A young wife tries to cope with her abusive husband.
Director: Kenneth Ives
Writer: N/A
The Best Episodes of Play for Today Season 9
Every episode of Play for Today Season 9 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of Play for Today Season 9!
Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run,...
Genre:Drama
Network:BBC One
Season 9 Ratings Summary
"Nina" is the best rated episode of "Play for Today" season 9. It scored 6.4/10 based on 61 votes. Directed by Alan Clarke and written by N/A, it aired on 10/17/1978. This episode is rated 0.5 points higher than the second-best, "Victims of Apartheid".