Play For Today Is Back Nine Ways Channel 5 Can Make It As Successful As The Original

(MENAFN- The Conversation) Between 1970 and 1984, BBC1's experimental drama strand Play for Today created what is now regarded as classic British drama. It launched myriad acting careers and showcased high-calibre writing in plays such as Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party and Blue Remembered Hills , Dennis Potter's acclaimed play about lost youth. It was often challenging, often radical and always unpredictable, rotating directors, producers and writers each week to create unique one-off episodes.

The series covered a huge range of subject matter, across different genres and styles, and sought to reveal truths about contemporary life. By the mid-1980s, the BBC was reluctant to continue taking costly chances on new talent each week in an era of increasing competition, and Play for Today was canned.

Now, in 2025, it's coming back. Channel 5 recently announced the return of the series , emphasising that the new Play for Today will provide a space to experiment for emerging creative talent, particularly those from low-income backgrounds. This development is welcome in an industry that fails to embrace working-class entrants .

Janine Duvitsky and Helen Mirren in Dennis Potter's Blue Remembered Hills (1979). Everett Collection / Alamy

In the chasm between 1984 and 2025, the structure of British society has changed beyond recognition. The class system itself has shape-shifted numerous times, with the erosion of many working-class trades and the increasing precarity of middle-class professions, with many affected by steep increases in the cost of living, high student debt and a housing crisis. All the while, the UK's super-rich are richer than ever and inequalities are rising.

All of which increase the urgency for a strand like Play for Today, willing to respond to these issues. And while I remain hopeful that this new Channel 5 incarnation can be a success, my research into the original has informed nine non-negotiables required to fulfil its goals and earn the Play for Today name.

1. Represent resistance

Play for Today didn't only amplify unheard voices, it also portrayed under-represented struggles. From female strikers in Leeds United! (1974) to occupiers on a development site during a rent-hike in United Kingdom (1981), Play for Today didn't present characters as helpless victims, but people with agency engaged in resistance.

Channel 5 claims it wants to cover “thornier issues” . If it is serious about this, it could offer a unique space to explore marginalised voices, such as youth organisers involved in the ongoing fight for trans rights, and those speaking out against the alleged genocide in Palestine experiencing censorship and criminalisation.

2. Encourage critique

Play for Today critiqued the system, not just individuals. Destiny (1978) was an honest portrayal of the top-down, predatory nature of fascism. Its speech about“making the country great again” lay at the centre of an examination of the links between landlords and organisations like the National Front.

The Sin Bin (1981) offered a sobering portrayal of the lives of inmates in prison for the very worst of crimes. Play for Today asked its audience to extend their empathy, asking what we are willing to accept in the name of justice, and whether the criminal legal system is fit for purpose.

3. Be specific

The series represented specific times, towns and trades in detail. The lives of people in Hull in Land of Green Ginger (1973) and Morecambe in Sunset Across the Bay (1975) were examined without compromising their uniqueness by trying to universalise characters' experiences.

The Bevellers (1974) and Not For The Likes of Us (1980) were built around portrayals of manual labour and working in a cinema. Far from making the programme inaccessible or irrelevant, millions tuned in each week: Play for Today was engaging precisely because it depicted lives and livelihoods little seen on screen.

4. Rotate creators

Held together by little more than a commitment to responding to the present moment, it is an essential feature of Play for Today that writers, actors, directors and producers rotate regularly, to ensure a variety of perspectives.

5. Foster innovation

It is important that Channel 5 doesn't see the programme's focus on social truths as something at odds with experimenting with form. From the raucous comedy of Bar Mitzvah Boy (1976) to the folk-horror of Penda's Fen (1974), the agit-prop filmed theatre of The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil (1974) and the surrealism of The After Dinner Joke (1978), Play for Today was never confined to one stylistic box.

These examples deviate from the predictable style British audiences appear to be tiring of – a state of affairs made clear by the unprecedented appetite for the mini-series Adolescence, in which each episode was shot in one long single take.

6. Ensure creative freedom

If the new Play for Today is to be as distinctive and bold as its namesake, creators must be given proper creative control over what they're making. Creativity flourished on the original series because creative control was the norm for these drama productions.

7. Offer a real vision of the working class

Ladies (1980) focused on the lives of female department-store workers spanning different ages and ethnicities. The Spongers (1978) explored the reality of living with disability in poverty, and Even Solomon (1979) featured the first transgender protagonist on British television. At its best, Play for Today portrayed a spectrum of working-class characters as diverse as real life, and it can again.

8. Show emotion

Play for Today presented issues in ways that elicited emotional as well as intellectual responses. Rocky Marciano is Dead (1976) focused on the importance of boxing to different communities, tenderly exploring the strained relationship between an ageing boxer and a squatter next door. At a time where social division is rife, we could benefit from being moved to look at the world and people around us in ways that promote understanding and empathy.

9. Be free to fail

Play for Today proved it's possible to have both quality and quantity, but only through embracing failure. With 316 episodes made by different people, not all of Play for Today was pioneering. The same freedom that granted Play for Today its huge successes also granted its failures. The team behind Channel 5's Play for Today would do well to accept that we cannot have one without the other, but look to the original, and enthusiastically and wholeheartedly take the risk.

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