{"title":"Women Writers and Writing Women into Histories of Play for Today","authors":"V. Ball","doi":"10.3366/jbctv.2022.0615","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/jbctv.2022.0615","url":null,"abstract":"This article emerges from a research project which explores the contribution women writers have made to Play for Today. The project seeks to use the flagship series as a case study, to highlight the significance of the single play in the histories of women’s work in television drama, to identify the attendant gender politics of television production which have contributed to the high levels of inequality therein and to critically analyse women’s creative contributions to the television play. There has been very little sustained research of these issues, to a great extent because of the association of the single play with masculinity. This sphere of drama production has, as this flagship series illustrates, been male-dominated: only 13 per cent of the Play for Today series were written by women, only 23 per cent were produced by women and only 4 per cent were directed by women. The critical neglect of women’s contributions to the single play has largely been attributed to the male-dominance of the industry and the attendant invisibility of women in archives ( Moseley and Wheatley 2008 ) and television drama histories ( Caughie 2000 ; Cooke 2003 , 2015 ). The aim of this article is to use Play for Today as a case study to cast new light on the contributions women have made to the single play, and concomitantly, the significance of Play for Today and the single play in historiographies of women writers and British television drama.","PeriodicalId":43079,"journal":{"name":"Journal of British Cinema and Television","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49526168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Scotch Missed: Play for Today and Scotland","authors":"J. Murray","doi":"10.3366/jbctv.2022.0617","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/jbctv.2022.0617","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores Scotland's relationship with and contribution to the Play for Today series. In order to quantify these, it proposes a working definition of ‘Scottishness’ based on representational content. This generates a body of 21 Scottish Plays for Today, which the article further breaks down into two sub-sets: seven plays produced outside Scotland and fourteen within. Noting that the externally produced plays are far better remembered and much more easily accessible than their locally produced peers, the article asks: do the external plays alone offer a reliable synecdoche for the terms of Scotland's contribution to Play for Today and the images and understandings of Scotland that Play for Today created and/or confirmed? Through extended comparative textual analysis of two externally produced plays – Just Another Saturday and The Elephants’ Graveyard – and two locally produced ones – Degree of Uncertainty and The Good Time Girls – the article demonstrates that the answer to this question is in the negative. The analyses presented here highlight the extent to which the 1970s work of writer Peter McDougall is far more formally and tonally complex than its contemporary popular and critical reputations might suggest. They also highlight the existence of an extended engagement with feminist gender politics and identities within Scottish screen fiction from an earlier date than conventionally identified within the established scholarly consensus. In these ways, the article addresses multiple aspects of Scottish screen and cultural studies’ long-term neglect of television's position and significance within modern Scottish culture and cultural history.","PeriodicalId":43079,"journal":{"name":"Journal of British Cinema and Television","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46108191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Quentin Falk, Charles Crichton","authors":"A. Spicer","doi":"10.3366/jbctv.2022.0622","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/jbctv.2022.0622","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43079,"journal":{"name":"Journal of British Cinema and Television","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43559095","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Play for Today and Northern Ireland in the 1970s","authors":"John Hill","doi":"10.3366/jbctv.2022.0618","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/jbctv.2022.0618","url":null,"abstract":"This article sets out to explain the factors influencing the making of Plays for Today about Northern Ireland during the 1970s and how these partly account for the characteristics of the work that was produced. The discussion initially identifies the problems posed by filming in Northern Ireland and the managerial scrutiny to which plays dealing with the ‘Troubles’ – such as Carson Country and The Legion Hall Bombing – were subject. It then goes on to examine how these factors encouraged the ‘oblique’ artistic strategies evident in Taking Leave and Your Man from Six Counties and the more self-reflexive and anti-naturalist approach adopted by Come the Revolution, Catchpenny Twist and The Last Window Cleaner. In doing so, the article aims to retrieve a largely ‘forgotten’ period of television drama production and add to our understanding of how television drama first tackled the contemporary Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’.","PeriodicalId":43079,"journal":{"name":"Journal of British Cinema and Television","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44665030","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Vampire Lovers and Hammer's Post-1970 Production Strategy","authors":"V. Barnett","doi":"10.3366/jbctv.2022.0602","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/jbctv.2022.0602","url":null,"abstract":"This article firstly examines the artistic and commercial merits of The Vampire Lovers, which was adapted from the Sheridan Le Fanu novella Carmilla. The production of the film was subcontracted by James Carreras at Hammer to Fantale Films, a company established by Harry Fine, Michael Style and Tudor Gates. The article then proceeds by examining various different and competing artistic judgements that have been made about the film, and also the construction of its unusual dreamy atmosphere. It documents both its UK and US box-office performances and goes on to examine Hammer's post-1970 production strategy in more general terms and in relation to the overall financial performance of the company in the period 1967–72, just before and after The Vampire Lovers. Finally, it examines Hammer's receipt of the Queen's Award for Industry in 1968, the effect of its rolling production-line (or ‘pipeline’) model of film-making on the company's general level of profitability, and some of the consequences of Michael Carreras's assumption of managerial control at Hammer after 1970.","PeriodicalId":43079,"journal":{"name":"Journal of British Cinema and Television","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47988670","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Of course it is idealised’: Lindsay Anderson's Every Day Except Christmas","authors":"Paul Cornelius, Douglas Rhein","doi":"10.3366/jbctv.2022.0604","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/jbctv.2022.0604","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines Lindsay Anderson's 1957 documentary, Every Day Except Christmas, as a distinct product of British post-war culture that also contributed significantly to the development of Anderson's own film aesthetic. It also sets Every Day Except Christmas against the background of Anderson's influential documentary made a year earlier, O Dreamland. The article combines formal and contextual analysis of Christmas with a review of contemporary assessments of the film as well as Anderson's own comments on it.","PeriodicalId":43079,"journal":{"name":"Journal of British Cinema and Television","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45490647","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Frances C. Galt, Women's Activism Behind the Scenes: Trade Unions and Gender Inequality in the British Film and Television Industries","authors":"J. Baker","doi":"10.3366/jbctv.2022.0607","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/jbctv.2022.0607","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43079,"journal":{"name":"Journal of British Cinema and Television","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46821884","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Clive Nwonka and Anamik Saha (eds), Black Film British Cinema II","authors":"Hannah Hamad","doi":"10.3366/jbctv.2022.0609","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/jbctv.2022.0609","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43079,"journal":{"name":"Journal of British Cinema and Television","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44441803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Acting Class and the Myths of Meritocracy","authors":"Deirdre O’Neill, Mike Wayne","doi":"10.3366/jbctv.2022.0601","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/jbctv.2022.0601","url":null,"abstract":"Our feature documentary The Acting Class (2017) is here contextualised in the context of a critique of the cultural industries as part of the ideology of meritocracy and a resurgence of work around class in the sociology of culture. The Acting Class focuses on the question of class stratification in the UK acting industry. We here review our research on this issue and contextualise it within the scholarly literature on diversity and inequality, the creative industries and the broader reconfigurations of the political economy of British capitalism. We also discuss the importance of the interview in creative practice research as a way of democratising knowledge production and socialising experience.","PeriodicalId":43079,"journal":{"name":"Journal of British Cinema and Television","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42964790","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Victoria Lowe, Adapting Performance Between Stage and Screen","authors":"Melanie Williams","doi":"10.3366/jbctv.2022.0608","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/jbctv.2022.0608","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43079,"journal":{"name":"Journal of British Cinema and Television","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49050242","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}