Twenty-five years ago Play for Today responded to the Silver Jubilee in the spirit of the Sex Pistols rather than the establishment.
The play that launched the 1977 season was Stephen Poliakoff's Stronger than the Sun, and it remains one of the most unsettling dramas in TV history. Part conspiracy thriller and part air raid warning, the gripping tale follows a young Yorkshire woman who discovers a radioactive leak at the nuclear power plant where she works. Francesca Annis plays the woman who is encouraged by her lover, Tom Bell, to make the find public, only to be left holding the baby when the pressures mount to silence them.
Brilliantly directed by Michael Apted (who recently made the Bond film The World is Not Enough), it displays one of Poliakoff's favourite devices: a character suddenly forced to reassess their view of the world under pressure.
Poliakoff has outlived so many of his Play for Today peers because of his versatility. While his dialogue in lavish serials like Shooting the Past displays his intellect, he is also capable of rough reality, as in the 1980s tale of urban anarchy, Bloody Kids. He possesses great sympathy for the deprived and the despised, which is typically harnessed through understanding rather than pathos.
The best instance of this is She's Been Away, in which Peggy Ashcroft, in a monumental final performance, plays Lillian Huckle, a wild woman who was institutionalised after refusing to conform to the standards of her age. The play uses the old woman's niece as the main protagonist, whose own mental collapse precipitates Lillian's awakening.
Peggy Ashcroft also played the lead in Poliakoff's 1980 Bafta-winning drama Caught on a Train, one of a handful of TV plays that have become national treasures. Michael Kitchen's Peter is travelling on a train across Europe when he finds he is pestered by two women, a beautiful American and an enigmatic old lady. It is a remarkable work, as Ashcroft rules Kitchen in a gripping battle of wits.
Unlike his Play for Today contemporaries, Poliakoff is now more popular than ever, and is one of the few writers working in television encouraged to produce work of such quality. If the punk revival hasn't managed to spread as far as television, at least we have this chance to remember one of its heroes.
Simon Farquhar
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