Play for Today - Season 8
1 - Stronger than the Sun
Air Date: October 18, 1977
A worker discovers a radioactive leak at the nuclear power plant where she works and tries to make it public knowledge.
2 - Come the Revolution
Air Date: October 25, 1977
Mike and his commune have a performance of their musical theatre "Diver" at the local pub, and ITV's Beth Bailey is coming along to see it. But will Beth's visions for the play as an incitement to revolution please everyone?
3 - Abigail's Party
Air Date: November 1, 1977
Comedy of manners focusing on the bourgeois affectation and sexual frustration of a young married couple. Abigail's mother Sue is invited to take refuge from her teenage daughter's party with a neighbouring couple, Beverly and Laurence. They have also invited Angela and Tony, new arrivals in the street. Beverly plies her guests with alcohol as Sue becomes increasingly withdrawn and embarrassed by the pretentious goings-on. Slowly, marital tensions emerge and the evening is breaking up in disarray.
4 - Oy Vay Maria
Air Date: November 8, 1977
The story of the romance between a Jewish boy and an Irish Catholic girl
5 - Nipper
Air Date: November 15, 1977
Teenager Jimmy's life begins to unravel after the death of his father. With his mother promiscuous and his new stepfather and stepbrother difficult to get along with, he begins to fall into a cycle of petty crime and self harm.
6 - One Day at a Time
Air Date: November 22, 1977
"People coming to their first AA meeting, prosperous people, sometimes, accustomed to the best. They look round the places where we meet, and you can see them thinking: what am I doing here? I owe my life to these rooms!"
7 - The Mayor's Charity
Air Date: November 29, 1977
Olive Major is determined that her year of office as Mayor will be a happy and successful one. But her appointment of Ex-Warrant Officer Higham as Attendant and Mace-bearer causes the storm-clouds to gather over Medburgh Town Hall.
8 - Catchpenny Twist
Air Date: December 6, 1977
Three schoolteachers in Belfast give up teaching to become singers/songwriters.
9 - Charades
Air Date: December 13, 1977
"We've just got to get it right. It'll be our little secret. When all the other servants have gone out, we'll play this little game to amuse ourselves. A sort of private charade."
10 - The Thin End of the Wedge
Air Date: December 20, 1977
"Five days of darkness then. Unless you get it together we will have five days of darkness. And on the sixth day you will say, let there be light, and no doubt it'll be such an effort that on the seventh day you'll have to rest!"
11 - Scully's New Year's Eve
Air Date: January 3, 1978
A Liverpool teenager has a hectic night out on New Year's Eve.
12 - Licking Hitler
Air Date: January 10, 1978
During World War II, a young woman joins the propaganda department and makes radio broadcasts to Germany from a British country house.
13 - Red Shift
Air Date: January 17, 1978
A stone axehead links three couples living at different times in the same place in Wales.
14 - The Spongers
Air Date: January 24, 1978
The story of a single mother of four living on welfare
15 - Destiny
Air Date: January 31, 1978
A story dealing with racial tensions and fascism during a by-election in a West Midlands town
16 - Our Day Out
Air Date: February 7, 1978
When a teacher takes a group of troubled school children on a school trip to Conwy in Wales, the children understand life outside of Liverpool.
17 - The After-Dinner Joke
Air Date: February 14, 1978
The story of a well-meaning charity worker
18 - The Legion Hall Bombing
Air Date: August 22, 1978
The story of the trial of Willie Gallagher, convicted of bombing the Strabane British Legion Hall in 1976.