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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!

Binge this in 1d 2h•Peaking at 8.4/10

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, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and

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Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Fan Favorite
    Play for Today Season 9 Episode 13 - Waterloo Sunset
    8.4/10(21 votes)

    S9:E13

    A young man and an old woman try to fit in when their neighborhood goes West Indian

    Director:Richard Eyre
    Writer:Barrie Keeffe

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  2. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 21 - Don't Be Silly
    8.0/10(54 votes)

    S9:E21

    A young wife tries to cope with her abusive husband.

    Director:Kenneth Ives
    Writer:Rachel Billington

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  3. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 10 - The Out of Town Boys
    7.7/10(10 votes)

    S9:E10

    "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:Robert Knights
    Writer:Ron Hutchinson

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  4. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 6 - Sorry
    7.6/10(19 votes)

    S9:E6

    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
    Writers:Vera Blackwell, Václav Havel

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  5. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 14 - Blue Remembered Hills
    7.6/10(371 votes)

    S9:E14

    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:Brian Gibson
    Writer:Dennis Potter

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  6. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 12 - The Chief Mourner
    7.5/10(18 votes)

    S9:E12

    For a successful man with public responsibilities Alan Berry is strangely reluctant to help the police when his wife is murdered.

    Director:Ben Rea
    Writer:John Elliot

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  7. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 20 - Coming Out
    7.5/10(48 votes)

    S9:E20

    A closeted homosexual writer is content to lead a double life

    Director:Carol Wiseman
    Writer:James Andrew Hall

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  8. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 4 - Dinner at the Sporting Club
    7.2/10(46 votes)

    S9:E4

    A story about young boxers whose fighting provides entertainment for diners at a sporting club

    Director:Brian Gibson
    Writer:Leon Griffiths

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  9. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 5 - Donal and Sally
    7.2/10(13 votes)

    S9:E5

    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:Brian Parker
    Writer:James Duthie

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  10. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 11 - Vampires
    7.1/10(43 votes)

    S9:E11

    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:John Goldschmidt
    Writer:Dixie Williams

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  11. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 2 - Victims of Apartheid
    6.8/10(20 votes)

    S9:E2

    George, a black South African, finds it hard to settle down in London after his experiences in South Africa.

    Director:Stuart Burge
    Writer:Tom Clarke

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  12. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 9 - One Bummer Newsday
    6.8/10(9 votes)

    S9:E9

    What happens to provincial journalists when there's nothing in the news and they have a paper to fill?

    Director:Michael Darlow
    Writer:Andy McSmith

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  13. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 18 - Degree of Uncertainty
    6.8/10(11 votes)

    S9:E18

    "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:Paul Annett
    Writer:Alma Cullen

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  14. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 19 - Light
    6.8/10(8 votes)

    S9:E19

    A village in Cheshire. A deserted cinema. A poet murdered by Stalin. A blown fuse. Victor Silvester. Pickets on trial. Trimmers and fishwires.

    Director:Jane Howell
    Writer:Tony Perrin

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  15. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 7 - Butterflies Don't Count
    6.6/10(8 votes)

    S9:E7

    "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:Kenneth Ives
    Writer:Wally K. Daly

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  16. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 8 - Soldiers Talking Cleanly
    6.6/10(8 votes)

    S9:E8

    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:Alan Dossor
    Writer:Mike Stott

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  17. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 15 - Who's Who
    6.5/10(291 votes)

    S9:E15

    Slice-of-life look at class divisions among employees of a brokerage house. Alan, with his portrait of the Queen and love of the peerage; his wife April, who raises cats; youthful and pretentious friends Nigel, Giles, and Anthony, who gather for a wine-soaked dinner party with the chatty and risque Samantha and the mousy Caroline; the plummy Lord and Lady Crouchurst, in a spot of bother needing the help of Francis, a senior partner, to assist with the family's cash flow. Alan comes home from work to find Mr. Shakespeare doing a photo shoot of one of April's cats and a wealthy stranger, Miss Hunt, waiting to purchase one. His instincts for sycophantic palaver kick in.

    Director:Mike Leigh
    Writer:Mike Leigh

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  18. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 1 - Nina
    6.4/10(64 votes)

    S9:E1

    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:Jehane Markham

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  19. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 3 - A Touch of the Tiny Hacketts
    6.4/10(15 votes)

    S9:E3

    A young man is declared a hero when he catches a burglar until it's discovered that the burglar is a dwarf.

    Director:James Cellan Jones
    Writers:Bob Larbey, John Esmonde

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  20. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 16 - The Last Window Cleaner
    4.9/10(14 votes)

    S9:E16

    The Irish troubles as seen by residents of a boarding house called ""The Crumlin View""

    Director:Bill Craske
    Writer:Ron Hutchinson

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  21. Play for Today Season 9 Episode 17 - Ploughman's Share
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    S9:E17

    "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:Fiona Cumming
    Writer:Douglas Dunn

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Season 9 Ratings Summary

"Waterloo Sunset" is the best rated episode of "Play for Today" season 9. It scored 8.4/10 based on 21 votes. Directed by Richard Eyre and written by Barrie Keeffe, it aired on 1/23/1979. This episode is rated 0.4 points higher than the second-best, "Don't Be Silly".