Series 8 poster
18 episodes

Play for Today - Series 8

First aired Oct 17, 1977Season 8

Browse all 18 episodes in this season, including available images, air dates, runtimes, ratings and episode summaries from TMDB.

Episodes

No episode image

Episode 1

Stronger than the Sun

NR
Oct 18, 197775 min

A worker discovers a radioactive leak at the nuclear power plant where she works and tries to make it public knowledge.

No episode image

Episode 2

Come the Revolution

NR
Oct 25, 197775 min

Mike and his commune have a performance of their musical theatre "Diver" at the local pub, and ITV's Beth Bailey is coming along to see it. But will Beth's visions for the play as an incitement to revolution please everyone?

Abigail's Party still

Episode 3

Abigail's Party

NR
Nov 1, 197775 min

Comedy of manners focusing on the bourgeois affectation and sexual frustration of a young married couple. Abigail's mother Sue is invited to take refuge from her teenage daughter's party with a neighbouring couple, Beverly and Laurence. They have also invited Angela and Tony, new arrivals in the street. Beverly plies her guests with alcohol as Sue becomes increasingly withdrawn and embarrassed by the pretentious goings-on. Slowly, marital tensions emerge and the evening is breaking up in disarray.

No episode image

Episode 4

Oy Vay Maria

NR
Nov 8, 197775 min

The story of the romance between a Jewish boy and an Irish Catholic girl

No episode image

Episode 5

Nipper

NR
Nov 15, 197775 min

Teenager Jimmy's life begins to unravel after the death of his father. With his mother promiscuous and his new stepfather and stepbrother difficult to get along with, he begins to fall into a cycle of petty crime and self harm.

No episode image

Episode 6

One Day at a Time

NR
Nov 22, 197775 min

"People coming to their first AA meeting, prosperous people, sometimes, accustomed to the best. They look round the places where we meet, and you can see them thinking: what am I doing here? I owe my life to these rooms!"

No episode image

Episode 7

The Mayor's Charity

NR
Nov 29, 197775 min

Olive Major is determined that her year of office as Mayor will be a happy and successful one. But her appointment of Ex-Warrant Officer Higham as Attendant and Mace-bearer causes the storm-clouds to gather over Medburgh Town Hall.

No episode image

Episode 8

Catchpenny Twist

NR
Dec 6, 197775 min

Three schoolteachers in Belfast give up teaching to become singers/songwriters.

No episode image

Episode 9

Charades

NR
Dec 13, 197775 min

"We've just got to get it right. It'll be our little secret. When all the other servants have gone out, we'll play this little game to amuse ourselves. A sort of private charade."

No episode image

Episode 10

The Thin End of the Wedge

NR
Dec 20, 197775 min

"Five days of darkness then. Unless you get it together we will have five days of darkness. And on the sixth day you will say, let there be light, and no doubt it'll be such an effort that on the seventh day you'll have to rest!"

No episode image

Episode 11

Scully's New Year's Eve

NR
Jan 3, 197875 min

A Liverpool teenager has a hectic night out on New Year's Eve.

No episode image

Episode 12

Licking Hitler

NR
Jan 10, 197875 min

During World War II, a young woman joins the propaganda department and makes radio broadcasts to Germany from a British country house.

Red Shift still

Episode 13

Red Shift

NR
Jan 17, 197875 min

A stone axehead links three couples living at different times in the same place in Wales.

No episode image

Episode 14

The Spongers

NR
Jan 24, 197875 min

The story of a single mother of four living on welfare

No episode image

Episode 15

Destiny

NR
Jan 31, 197875 min

A story dealing with racial tensions and fascism during a by-election in a West Midlands town

No episode image

Episode 16

Our Day Out

NR
Feb 7, 197875 min

When a teacher takes a group of troubled school children on a school trip to Conwy in Wales, the children understand life outside of Liverpool.

No episode image

Episode 17

The After-Dinner Joke

NR
Feb 14, 197875 min

The story of a well-meaning charity worker

No episode image

Episode 18

The Legion Hall Bombing

NR
Aug 22, 197875 min

The story of the trial of Willie Gallagher, convicted of bombing the Strabane British Legion Hall in 1976.