Second City Firsts

Last updated

Second City Firsts
Second City Firsts.jpg
Opening title, 1973
GenreDrama anthology
Country of origin United Kingdom
No. of seasons9
No. of episodes53 (25 missing)
Production
Producers
  • Peter Ansorge
  • Tara Prem
Running time30 minutes
Production companyBBC
Original release
Network BBC 2
Release15 October 1973 (1973-10-15) –
13 May 1978 (1978-05-13)

Second City Firsts is a British drama anthology series of single plays, broadcast by the BBC, all lasting thirty minutes. Recorded at BBC Pebble Mill in Birmingham, or sometimes filmed on location, the series was broadcast between 1973 and 1978.

Contents

The series title referred both to Pebble Mill's location in England's Second City, and the fact that the series commissioned an unprecedented amount of first-time writers. [1]

Episodes

The 1974 episode "Girl", about a homosexual relationship between two members in the Women's Royal Army Corps, featured the first lesbian (and same-sex) kiss on British television, between Alison Steadman (as Jackie) and Myra Frances (as Harvey). [2] [3] The recording of the episode was discovered in the Thames Television archives decades later, and digitized by the BBC. In 2016, it was added to the BBC Store's "Prejudice and Pride Collection" and made available for streaming. [4] [5]

The 1975 episode "Club Havana" featured actress Julie Walters in her first role on British TV. [6] [7]

The 1976 episode "Jack Flea's Birthday Celebration" was written by Ian McEwan, his screen debut. [8] [9]

Series

  1. 15 October 1973 to 19 November 1973
  2. 15 February 1974 to 25 March 1974
  3. 28 October 1974 to 16 December 1974
  4. 20 March 1975 to 24 April 1975
  5. 25 October 1975 to 29 November 1975
  6. 13 January 1976 to 24 April 1976
  7. 14 November 1976 to 12 December 1976
  8. 5 March 1977 to 6 June 1977
  9. 8 April 1978 to 13 May 1978 [10]

Archive holdings

Of the 53 plays in the series, 28 survive. [11] [12]

See also

Other BBC2 drama anthology series include

Related Research Articles

<i>Play for Today</i> British television anthology series

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. A handful of these plays, including Rumpole of the Bailey, subsequently became television series in their own right.

<i>The Wednesday Play</i> British television series

The Wednesday Play is an anthology series of British television plays which ran on BBC1 for six seasons from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually original works written for television, although dramatic adaptations of fiction also featured. The series gained a reputation for presenting contemporary social dramas, and for bringing issues to the attention of a mass audience that would not otherwise have been discussed on screen.

<i>Theatre 625</i> Drama anthology series

Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.

<i>Pebble Mill at One</i> British television series (1972–1996)

Pebble Mill at One was a British television magazine programme that was broadcast live on weekdays at one o'clock on BBC1, from 2 October 1972 to 23 May 1986, and again from 14 October 1991 to 29 March 1996. It was transmitted from the Pebble Mill studios of BBC Birmingham, and uniquely was hosted from the centre's main foyer area, rather than a conventional television studio.

Myra Frances was a British actress known for her role in the drama series Survivors and in Doctor Who.

Mary Elizabeth Miller was an English television and stage actress, who was a founding member of the National Theatre Company in 1963.

This is a list of British television related events from 1986.

This is a list of British television related events from 1981.

This is a list of British television related events from 1978.

This is a list of British television related events from 1977.

This is a list of British television related events from 1975.

This is a list of British television related events from 1974.

This is a list of British television related events from 1971.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dougie Squires</span> English choreographer (1932–2023)

Douglas William Squires was an English choreographer, known best for his work in television from the mid-1950s. He was born in Nottingham.

Alan James Gwynne Cellan Jones was a British television and film director. From 1963, he directed over 50 television series and films, specialising in dramas.

<i>Thirty-Minute Theatre</i> British television drama series, 1965–1973

Thirty-Minute Theatre was a British anthology drama series of short plays shown on BBC Television between 1965 and 1973, which was used in part at least as a training ground for new writers, on account of its short running length, and which therefore attracted many writers who later became well known. It was produced initially by Harry Moore, later by Graeme MacDonald, George Spenton-Foster, Innes Lloyd and others. Thirty-Minute Theatre began on BBC2 in 1965 with an adaptation of the black comedy Parson's Pleasure. Dennis Potter contributed Emergency – Ward 9 (1966), which he partially recycled in the much later The Singing Detective (1986). In 1967 BBC2 launched the UK's first colour service, with the consequence that Thirty-Minute Theatre became the first drama series in the country to be shown in colour.

<i>BBC2 Playhouse</i> British television series

BBC2 Playhouse is a UK anthology television series of one-hour episodes produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Among its many performers were Helen Mirren, Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Liam Neeson, Paul Scofield, Deborah Kerr, Ben Kingsley, Donald Pleasence, Brenda Blethyn, Peggy Ashcroft, Peter Sallis and Margaret Whiting.

"Jack Flea's Birthday Celebration" is the fourth episode of the sixth series of the BBC television series Second City Firsts written by Ian McEwan and directed by Mike Newell. The episode was recorded by the BBC at Pebble Mill and broadcast on 10 April 1976. McEwan wrote the play in 1974, just after completing his first book, First Love, Last Rites, a collection of short stories and he regards it as belonging to that collection.

<i>Late Night Horror</i> BBC TV horror series

Late Night Horror is a BBC horror series shown in 1968 over six 25-minute episodes.

This is a timeline of the history of BBC Two.

References

  1. ↑ Re-viewing Television History: Critical Issues in Television Historiography, ed. Helen Wheatley, pp.91-92
  2. ↑ Howes, Keith (1993). Broadcasting It: An Encyclopaedia of Homosexuality on Film, Radio and TV in the UK 1923-1993 (first ed.). London: Cassell. ISBN   9780304327003.
  3. ↑ Blyth, Michael. "Girl (1974)". BFI Screenonline . British Film Institute . Retrieved 15 April 2017.
  4. ↑ Ellis-Petersen, Hannah (15 June 2016). "BBC to stream 1974 show with first lesbian kiss on UK television". The Guardian . Retrieved 15 April 2017.
  5. ↑ Foster, Patrick (16 June 2016). "First gay kiss on British TV to be seen for first time in 40 years". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 15 April 2017.
  6. ↑ "Second City Firsts". 25 October 1975. p. 23 – via BBC Genome.
  7. ↑ "Julie Walters". BFI. Archived from the original on 24 February 2017.
  8. ↑ "Ian McEwan – What Was Pebble Mill?". www.pebblemill.org.
  9. ↑ "Second City Firsts". 10 April 1976. p. 19 – via BBC Genome.
  10. ↑ "BFI | Film & TV Database | SECOND CITY FIRSTS". 16 May 2009. Archived from the original on 16 May 2009.
  11. ↑ "Lost UK Shows - Second City Firsts".
  12. ↑ "Kaleidoscope BBC Television Drama Research Guide, 1936, 2011", eds Simon Coward, Chris Perry and Richard Down, Kaleidoscope Ltd, 2011, pp.2175-2179
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.