Kenith Trodd

Marking Play for Today’s 50th anniversary, Drama Out of a Crisis is a compelling exploration of the series, its origins, achievements, controversies and legacies. Featuring a rich and surprising range of archive extracts and original interviews with many who created the series, including producers Kenith Trodd, Margaret Matheson and Richard Eyre, and directors Mike Leigh, David Hare and Ken Loach.

During Wakes Week in the Potteries, the factory is deserted except for three electricians on an emergency maintenance job.

80-year-old Alice Hargreaves is about to visit Columbia University to attend a reception in honour of author Lewis Carroll. As a child, Alice's close friendship with the writer was the creative catalyst for Carroll's most beloved work. However, as Alice reflects on her experiences with the author, she slowly realises the complexity of their bond has had lasting, deeply felt ramifications.

Stephen Poliakoff's parody of the spy-thriller genre. A Russian diplomat becomes convinced that he is at the centre of a Foreign Office plot.

Jean-Luc Godard brings his firebrand political cinema to the UK, exploring the revolutionary signals in late '60s British society. Constructed as a montage of various disconnected political acts (in line with Godard's then appropriation of Soviet director Dziga Vertov's agitprop techniques), it combines a diverse range of footage, from students discussing The Beatles to the production line at the MG factory in Oxfordshire, burnished with onscreen political sloganeering.

Sicilian-born Maddalena has moved to a Devonshire village in England to escape volatile sexual tempers. She marries, but the lust she inspires in the villagers makes them drop dead.

Glen, a complete stranger, appears at the door of Elizabeth Carter, a middle-aged woman, and claims to be the illegitimate son she gave away at birth.

67 year-old Victor is forced to move into an old people's home but he prefers to grow old disgracefully.

Mike comes home on leave from Ulster. After six years in the Army he has to decide whether to sign up again or not. His parents want him to leave the army and come home, but the family flare-ups and bickerings are not conducive to helping him choose.

A destitute WWI veteran is hired to help carry out restoration work on a medieval mural in a rural Yorkshire church. While living in the quiet village, he forms a close friendship with an archaeologist and begins to come to terms with his trauma.

Incendiary 1981 Play for Today, written by Jim Allen and directed by Roland Joffé that tells the story of a group of housing estate residents who attempt to organise against persistent rent rises.

"All I said was the gramophone's too loud." Tony and Zoe Lyle 's silly row starts like any other, but Tony finds that Zoe means it this time. She's walking out and he's got a week to save a marriage that he hasn't looked at in 18 years, and with it all the trappings of a good life in Maida Vale.

A woman who has been institutionalized for 60 years for the "crime" of not conforming to the 1920s image of what a proper young woman should be (in other words, she did what she wanted and didn't care what anyone else thought about it) is finally released to the custody of her family, consisting of her grand-nephew and his family. At first she keeps a self-imposed distance from the relatives, but she soon finds herself coming around to her nephew's wife, a free spirit who is under the thumb of her cold and controlling husband.

A British businessman whose family company has been taken over by a multinational corporation clashes with his new American manager while they both vacation with their families at an Italian villa at their employer's expense. The manager's son fantasizes a murderous outcome.

Past and present intertwine: An elderly couple returns to the hotel where they became close when they were young and flashbacks to the earlier visit reveal the origins of both their pleasures and problems. Somewhere between the past and the present, Dennis Potter attempted to find "the shape of a life, of two lives..."

Marcia is looking for someone to look after her baby and Joyce seems ideal, looking like a perfect, kindly, respectable lady.

The story of a comedian with a talent close to genius but with an insecurity problem.

A mysterious stranger inserts himself into a troubled family's life, blurring the lines between good and evil as he cares for their disabled daughter.

On an idyllic summer afternoon in the summer of 1943, a group of children play in the West Country hills, fields and forests. With no adults around, they indulge in spontaneous games and horseplay - sometimes echoing the distant war, at other times revealing their own insecurities and petty vindictiveness.

Vinny Mathews is a small time boxing promoter who struggles with his conscience over what to do with a fighter he knows is unfit to face his opponent. However, Mathews needs sponsorship and this would be the ideal opportunity to mix with the "frilly shirted" sportsmen who enjoy their lavish lifestyle as fighters slug it out as the steak is served!

MIRIAM: "Here we are; celebrating a marriage, eating a cake, drinking, standing in a uniform, standing in a canteen ... with a Teasmade and a red red garter ... and I want an explanation." VALERIE: "I want to know why you all resent me." BRENDA: "Because you're not one of us."

British playwright Stephen Poliakoff's comical teleplay investigates Europe's changing social landscape via three strangers who meet on a train. Peter, an English businessman on an overnight trip through Europe, shares a compartment with a beautiful American woman, Lorraine. But Peter's hope for romance is soon dampened by Lorraine's xenophobia and the arrival of a haughty Viennese aristocrat.

Freelance journalist David Dunhill stumbles onto the biggest story of his career - but his personal eccentricities seem likely to thwart him.

They are all 'in' for life so the pleasures are sparse, and strictly of their own making.Their really big event is the Christmas pantomime, only this year they have lost their star. Mother Bear has escaped. Still, there is some consolation. The new arrival looks a likely Goldilocks. "There's one or two who'll be after him", says Woodbine - and he knows all their weaknesses.

When Martin's adopted daughter is kidnapped from their English home by a mysterious figure from Ireland, Martin decides to go in pursuit and finds himself across the water exploring his own background as a Protestant in Ulster.