Kevin Collins

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 adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.

Police sergeant Neil Howie is called to an island village in search of a missing girl whom the locals claim never existed. The investigation is further complicated as Howie’s religious views clash with those of the island’s residents.

It's the day of the Orange Parade in Glasgow, but for Jon, the thrill of leading the parade and swinging the mace soon turns to horror as he learns the truth behind the costumes and songs.

In their songs, comedy and exuberant music, a travelling theatre company give a fiercely polemic account of Scottish history, from the aftermath of Culloden to the oil boom. Their production before a live audience is intercut with filmed reconstructions of the Highland Clearances and the Victorian obsession with hunting stags.

When Alison unexpectedly falls pregnant after a brief encounter with Alex (David Hayman's first TV role) they decide to marry. The joining of two seemingly different families opens into a witty and audacious tale, which caused uproar after its first broadcast in 1972. An early triumph for Peter McDougall, when it was proclaimed the most exciting writing debut since John Osborne's Look Back in Anger.

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 adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.