PLAY FOR TODAY. Why don't they do this anymore?

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The one off stories the BBC put on in their Play for Today strand in the 1970s were high quality dramas but I didn't get to see many of them because I was the wrong age at the time to be watching many of them.
But I still remember a few of them that I did see, including Just another Saturday with Billy Connolly, and 'Billy' trilogy with Kenneth Branagh, about a Belfast boy growing up in the troubled era we had then. I suupose the series was really only a continuation of the 'Wednesday Play in the 60s which brought us 'Cathy Come Home, and 'No trams to Lime Street' among others. I wish we still have them because they demanded an inventiveness that series don't.
 
As a strand it provided for me a first introduction to the works of Dennis Potter & among those early works were the unforgettable Son of Man, starring Colin Blakely as Jesus, & A Beast with Two Backs.

This was i suppose the golden age of tv drama when chances were taken & boundaries broken. Directors, writers & actors threw caution to the wind. Really can't see tv ever being quite so daring in the future with the present obsessions with ratings & with attracting sponsors.

I've often thought though that the bbc ought to dig out & restore as many of those old dramas as they can, the ones at least that have not been wiped, & show them on bbc4
 
Because, sadly, put PfT up against the X-Factor, Millionaire or any Home renovation/ghost hunting/other mass media program and you wouldn't get the viewing figures to justify the budget.

Unf it's all about numbers now. Money first, quality a distant second.
 
PFT produced some classic TV. Agree with the above post re the issue of money. Cf modern remakes of TV series not bearing much resemblance to the originals.

PFT also reminds me of the BBC's excellent regular one-off films which started in the late 80s in their Screen Two (and then Screen One) strands, which produced classics such as After Pilkington.
 
That's because many people's minds have been dumbed down over the past 15 years or so to such a degree that watching anything that demands a certain amount of attention or effort is likely to be rejected by them in favour of I'm A Celebrity Chef On Ice, Get Me Out Of Here.
 
There's a lot of nostalgia around Play for Today. And while it did produce some gems, the majority of the plays where nowhere near a similar quality to the classics people remember. For every 15/20 plays you could expect to see one that stood out.

Thats not to say it shouldn't be done againb, and in the digital age it is possible. I just don't think there is an appetite for the slower pace of theatre style writing in audiences used to the fast '24' style pace.

You only have to compare how slow Eastendes was 20 years ago to today to see how our attention spans have shortened.
 
Play For Today was great tv.
I remember Just a Boys Game and an Elephants Graveyard.
Also I remember Armchair Theatre in the 70's which created
Callan and the Sweeney to name but two. Happy days.:D
 
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