A look ahead to BBC2's new Saturday-night dramas, featuring actors as diverse as John Malkovich, Judi Dench and Les Dawson.
A drama which created its own drama, this is the first television production of Rodney Ackland's once scandalous black comedy and it starts a new season of studio dramas starring major artists. Ackland, now in his 80s, was a prolific playwright in the 30s. Absolute Hell, set in a Soho drinking club in bomb-blasted London in the weeks leading up to the 1945 election, was condemned as 'a libel on the British people' when it was first seen in 1951 under its original title The Pink Room. Recent productions have led critics to assess Ackland's portrait of seedy, Bohemian life as a significant picture of its age.
This new studio production of Chekhov's wistful masterpiece stars Warner as the retired professor whose return, with his beautiful young wife, to the country estate left by his deceased first wife sets in motion a typically Chekhovian comic tragedy of lost hopes, stifled passions and blighted ideals. It is a new adaptation by American playwright David Mamet (American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross) is directed by Gregory Mosher, who was responsible for the Broadway and National Theatre productions of Mamet's Speed-the-Plow.
Les Dawson follows in the pantomime dame tradition by playing an outrageous old woman in the British premiere of a play by the leading Argentinian dramatist Roberto Cossa. Set in post-Falklands Buenos Aires - though the cast adopt Lancashire accents - it is a black farce about a family's desperate struggle to survive the effects of galloping inflation while trying to satisfy the voracious appetite of their selfish grandmother. The part has been traditionally associated with a leading male comic in productions around the world. This new adaptation is by Michael Hastings.
This is the first performance of Harold Pinter 's screenplay version of his typically spare, elliptical and mysterious 1970 classic; the play that came between his gnomic one-acters Landscapeand Silenceand his National Theatre success No Man's Land. Twenty years after they lived together in London, Anna meets up with Kate, who is now married to Deeley. The visit stirs vivid memories in all three, sometimes conflicting, sometimes complementary. But with the memories comes a growing awareness of the gulfs between them.
Widely regarded as one of the best new plays of the 80s, Caryl Churchill's award-winning Top Girls was first seen at London's Royal Court Theatre in 1982 directed by Max Stafford-Clark. This first TV production (in association with the Royal Court) is also directed by Stafford-Clark and features two of the original all-female cast. Seven actresses take 16 roles in this uncompromising assessment of high-profile and low-profile women, part fantasy, part hard-nosed reality. Marlene celebrates her new position as managing director of the Top Girls Appointment Agency by giving a dinner party for five oddly assorted women from centuries past. But Marlene's own past will throw a question mark over her Top Girls success. The author describes her play as "a celebration of the extraordinary achievements of women".
A drama based on the trial transcripts by Geoffrey Robertson , QC, then a solicitor working for the defence counsel, John Mortimer.
New season of NEW prestigious studio dramas starts with Christopher Hampton 's evocation of 1940s Hollywood, featuring a distinguished cast and starring Jeremy Irons. Among the residents of Los Angeles during the 40s were Thomas and Heinrich Mann , Bertolt Brecht and, according to this play, the Austro- Hungarian dramatist Odon Von Horvath, our guide to the sun-soaked boulevards and the bizarre cultural collisions of wartime Hollywood.
This season of studio dramas continues with Henrik Ibsen 's classic play directed by David Thacker, artistic director of London's Young Vic. Among a distinguished cast it features Truly Madly Deeply star Juliet Stevenson and Trevor Eve. Nora, tired of being patronised and casually discounted by her husband, rebels against him and by doing so discovers a whole new personality within herself. English translation Joan Tindale Producer Simon Curtis
The season of studio dramas continues with Arnold Wesker's classic play of the 1950s that passionately extols the value of education. The distinguished cast includes Jane Horrocks, Pam Ferris, Imelda Staunton. Beatie returns to her family home in Norfolk, having been "educated" in cultural and political matters by Ronnie, the boyfriend she lived with in London. Through trying to pass on the things she's learnt to her uninterested family, she discovers her own voice and views - which are no longer just an echo of Ronnie's.
Although critics called it Terence Rattigan's most serious and truthful play, After the Dance has not been seen for 50 years. Tonight's production in the season of studio dramas stars Anton Rodgers, Gemma Jones, Imogen Stubbs David and Joan's life has been one continuous party, but their marriage is loveless. Suddenly a young girl appears in their world and announces that she's in love with David and wants to change his life for ever.
Luigi Pirandello 's classic play continues the season of studio dramas. Originally set in a theatre, this new version by Michael Hastings takes place in a film studio in 1950 and is recorded in black and white. Among a distinguished cast, it stars Brian Cox John Hurt The great iron door of the studio swings open. In the light stands a family. The father walks up to the director and says, "Excuse me, we are looking for an author." The family carry with them a great personal tragedy of shame and despair, and have come to the studio to find somebody who can describe their experiences and explain what they've done to each other.
(Re-broadcast) Rodney Ackland's black comedy features a cast of major artists and is being shown again as a tribute to the author who died in 1991, shortly after its first transmission. It is the last in this season of studio dramas. Set in a club in Soho, the play is a funny and desolating account of life in bomb-blasted London in the weeks before the 1945 election.
When Tennessee Williams wrote Suddenly Last Summer in 1957 he described it as" a kind of catharsis, a final fling at violence"; and the story of a mother who will stop at nothing to protect the memory of her dead son is indeed one of Williams's bleakest visions. In the first of this major new season of studio drama, Maggie Smith plays Mrs Venable , whose grief at the loss of her beloved poet son Sebastian turns to rage against her niece Catharine (Natasha Richardson ), his last companion and witness of his gruesome death. Determined to erase the memory of Sebastian's loss, she tries to persuade her pet doctor (Rob Lowe) to perform a lobotomy on Catharine.
(re-broadcast) Les Dawson donned a stringy wig and voluminous black dress to play the title role in Roberto Cossa 's grim satire of post-Falklands Argentina. First shown in 1991, it is repeated here as a tribute to the comedian, who died earlier this year. Nona, "the old one", is the 100-year-old matriarch of a city family, whose gluttony reduces her kinfolk to beggary, prostitution and death. The role is traditionally played by a leading male comic. Dawson chomped his way to an 181b weight-gain during the filming, but was glad of the opportunity to extend himself theatrically. "It's good that people can see me doing something other than a game show. There comes a point when you're not stretching yourself any more - hence my little excursion into the heavier theatre."
Currently starring in Machinal at the Royal National Theatre, Fiona Shaw was known more for her comedy roles until theatre director Deborah Warner cast her as Elektra and The Good Citizen of Szechuan and then as Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. This was In an acclaimed production in Dublin, which moved to London's West End. Shaw re-creates the role for Performance with a new supporting cast, Including Stephen Rea as Ejlert Lovborg , but still directed by Warner. Nervous and agitated rather than haughty and frigid, Fiona Shaw 's Hedda breaks with tradition. "Hedda is often called strong-willed," she comments, "but where is the evidence in the play for this? To me, Hedda is terribly ordinary."
Michael Gambon (Maigret, The Singing Detective) plays Archie Rice , the role made famous on stage (1957) and on film (1960) by his illustrious first mentor, Laurence Olivier. Gambon was 23 and still working as a toolmaker when he was auditioned by the great man for a role in the National Theatre's opening production of Hamlet, and cast as spear-carrier. A year later, on Gambon's opening night as Othello in Birmingham, Olivier sent him a good luck telegram: "The other actors thought I'd sent it myself," Gambon recalls. As the central character in John Osborne 's drama, he plays a drunken, lecherous, egotistical vaudevillian whose act is on the downward slope.
Thomas Middleton and William Rowley's tragedy has been called "the most convincing picture of uninhibited sexual desire in Elizabethan drama". In this version, edited by Michael Hastings, much of the original sub-plot has been cut to concentrate on a dark story of lust and revenge between two ambiguous, guilt-ridden individuals. Bob Hoskins stars as De Flores, the "ominous ill-fac'd fellow" led by his desire for the imperious virgin Beatrice Joanna (Elizabeth McGovern) into murder and adultery. "It's a play I've always been fascinated by," says Performance producer Simon Curtis. "I saw Helen Mirren in a BBC production of it in the 70s, and that was a seminal experience for me. The Changeling is far more psychologically accurate than most plays of its period, and it has this taut, claustrophobic atmosphere that lends itself well to the screen."
A new production of one of Dennis Potter 's earliest plays, written in 1967. Introduced by political interviewer Brian Walden. Sir David Browning has twice been Prime Minister. On his retirement Parliament decides to honour him with a portrait painted by the famous artist James Player.
The season of classic dramas continues with a new BBC production of Paddy Chayefsky 's 1954 television play, introduced by Diana Rigg. New York 1954: she last worked 38 years ago, but the mother, recently widowed and determined to support herself, finds a job in a garment factory. However, her lack of skill is not the only obstacle to independence - her daughter wants her to stay at home.
The season of classic dramas comes to an end with a repeat screening of Ibsen's play, from a translation by Joan Tindale, originally shown in 1992. Nora Helmer has years earlier committed a forgery in order to save the life of her authoritarian husband Torvald. Now she is being blackmailed lives in fear of her husband's finding out and of the shame such a revelation would bring to his career. But when the truth comes out, Nora is shocked to learn where she really stands in her husband's esteem.
The series of classic dramas returns with Sean O'Casey's famous play, in a production starring Kenneth Branagh, Stephen Rea. A dreaming poet is mistaken by a romantic young girl for an IRA gunman on the run.
The series of classic dramas continues with D.H. Lawrence's early play exploring life in a mining community in 1914, starring Zoe Wanamaker, Stephen Dillane, Colin Firth. Lizzie Holroyd feels she must escape from her marriage, but terrible events overtake her.
Director John Caird 's adaptation of Shakespeare's two-part work - telling the story of a young man's elevation from immature prince to responsible king - explores timeless themes against the brutal backdrop of medieval England.
Concluding the Performance season of classic dramas, this updated version of Strindberg's Miss Julie is vivid and contemporary. It's 1945 and the Labour Party has won the General Election. Miss Julie, the upper-class daughter of a Labour MP, sets out to seduce her father's chauffeur, John, even though he is unofficially engaged to Christine, who works in the kitchen.
A series of five broadcasts of stage musicals and plays starts with Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's acclaimed show Company, which was filmed at London's Donmar Warehouse theatre in February 1996. Directed by Sam Mendes, the musical is an exploration of love, sex and relationships in Manhattan. Songs featured include The Ladies Who Lunch, Barcelona and Being Alive. During the interval, Mendes interviews Sondheim.
A series of broadcasts of stage musicals and plays continues with writer Kevin Elvot 's 1995 Olivier Award-winning comedy. Entirely set among London's gay community in the mid-1980s against the background of the mounting AIDS crisis, My Night with Reg follows the ups and downs of a circle of gay friends over a period of several years. One of the group, the Reg mentioned in the title, is not a character in the play but the whole plot revolves around his apparent promiscuity and the chain reaction of deception and betrayal set off by it.
Shakespeare's tragedy in a Royal National Theatre production notable for having an actress playing the king. Starring Fiona Shaw, Graham Crowden, Richard Bremmer King Richard struggles to hold on to his crown in the face of plot and treachery.
Shakespeare's tragedy updated to the present day by documentary-maker Penny Woolcock and set on an inner-city council estate. The play, filmed on Birmingham's Ladywood Estate, features local people alongside some of Britain's most promising young actors. Last in the series.