BBC2 Play of the Week
Season 2
1978 • 15 Episodes
Episodes
1. Langrishe Go Down
September 20, 1978
In the late 1930s, three reclusive middle-aged spinster sisters live on their run down family estate in Ireland. Otto Beck, a perpetual graduate student from Bavaria with a habit of making pompous declamations, rents the back lodge to work on his esoteric thesis. Imogen Langrishe, the least repressed of the sisters, begins an affair with Otto. Imogen takes the love affair seriously, but Otto just enjoys the cheap lodging and the comfort of Imogen.
2. Fairies
September 27, 1978
How could photographs, taken on a simple camera by two Yorkshire village girls, have momentous implications for man's understanding of the world?
3. Fearless Frank
October 4, 1978
The outrageous – and not entirely reliable – memoirs of Irish writer Frank Harris, sometime cowboy in the Old West, friend to the famous in the literary world, essayist and critic, and seducer of beautiful women.
4. The Lost Boys: Part 1 – We Set Out to Be Wrecked
October 11, 1978
1897: A quiet afternoon in Kensington Gardens. A little boy in a red tam-o'-shanter realises he is being watched by a small man with a huge St. Bernard. The man is J. M. Barrie...
5. The Lost Boys: Part 2 – Dark and Sinister Man
October 18, 1978
1906: Arthur is gravely ill. Sylvia turns more and more to Barrie for help. A wealthy man following the huge success of Peter Pan, Barrie is only too happy to respond.
6. The Lost Boys: Part 3 – An Awfully Big Adventure
October 25, 1978
1913: Three years have passed since Sylvia's death. George is now a man and Michael, 13 years old. For the Llewelyn Davieses, childhood is at an end, and illusions are about to be destroyed.
7. Return Fare
November 1, 1978
A man adjusts to freedom after years incarcerated.
8. Another Day
November 22, 1978
Abandoned by her husband, Eileen tries to make the best of bringing up her children in a rundown bed-sit. A man called George shows her attention, but others are suspicious of his motives.
9. The Vanishing Army
November 29, 1978
The promotion of an ambitious, decorated NCO is put in jeopardy when he marries an unconventional wife and faces the snobbery of his superiors and their families.
10. Night People
December 6, 1978
A classical string quartet stop at a motorway cafe in the early hours. Among the people they meet are a football supporter, a travelling salesman and an elderly couple who are going to Gretna Green to get married.
11. Renoir, My Father
December 13, 1978
A dramatisation of the life and work of the artist Auguste Renoir, based on the book by his filmmaker son, Jean Renoir.
12. On Giant's Shoulders
March 28, 1979
A middle-aged childless couple on a remote farm adopt a Black boy with no limbs due to the effects of Thalidomide. They encounter a great deal of resistance and scepticism from their friends and neighbours.
13. Stepping Out
April 4, 1979
A middle-aged woman who enjoys making lavish ballgowns wishes her daughter would visit more often.
14. A Light That Shines
April 11, 1979
At a teaching Order, Conroy is asked to mentor promising student Stephen, who is feeling pressured.
15. In England's Green and Pleasant Land
May 16, 1979
Authorities must decide if the repentance of a reformed convicted murderer is genuine so he can be prepared for release.