Tales of the Unexpected
1979·Drama
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TV SERIES · Drama
Play for Today.
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.
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Series 1.
01The Long Distance Piano Player
A man tries to break the world's record for nonstop piano playing
02The Right Prospectus
A couple look for the proper school, not for their children but for themselves.
03The Lie
""The Lie"" refers to the 8-year marriage of a couple who are constantly hurting each other.
04Angels Are So Few
A man claiming to be an angel enters the household of a bored housewife and teaches the family a few lessons.
05The Write-Off
A man is made redundant but can't bring himself to let anyone know, plunging into a web of deceit as he keeps up the charade he is still in work.
06I Can't See My Little Willie
A man has a mid-life crisis in his brother's pub where sees life as a game show
07A Distant Thunder
A newly-appointed knight finds his celebrations cut short by someone who was witness to his treachery during the war.
08Hearts and Flowers
A TV host and his architect brother attend their father's funeral
09Robin Redbreast
A woman living in a country cottage thinks that someone is trying to get her.
10The Hallelujah Handshake
A petty thief and social misfit finagles his way into a church congregation
11Alma Mater
A civil servant working abroad revisits his old school
12Circle Line
A cynical student has a radically different view of life from his landlady, leading to conflict. Matters come to a head when he sleeps with her fourteen-year-old brother.
13Hell's Angel
A couple are distressed by the changes in their adopted teenage son when he joins a biker gang.
14The Piano
An old couple refuse to move when they find out that they can't take their piano with them
15Billy's Last Stand
Billy, a self-employed coal-shoveller, gains a seedy business partner and competition in the form of a rival coal-shoveller.
16The Rainbirds
A man who attempted suicide by jumping out a window is saved only to live in a coma, in which he has fantasies about his relatives and nightmare creatures.
17Reddick
Charges that the Rev 'Red' Reddick is exploiting his youth club members leads to an explosive confrontation.
18The Foxtrot
An odd menage a trois results when a woman and her lover are visited by her long-lost husband
19When the Bough Breaks
When an injured baby arrives at the hospital, a social worker looks for the parents
20Orkney
A trilogy of plays--A Time to Keep, The Whaler's Return, and Celia--exploring the life of the islanders in the past and present
21The Rank and File
The story of the Pilkington glass workers strike of 1970
22The Man in the Sidecar
A succesful novelist Edith lives with her husband and his friend, but she decides to ask the friend to leave.
23Everybody Say Cheese
The story of a disintegrating marriage told through family photos
24The Cellar and the Almond Tree
Episode synopsis is not yet available.
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