Performance

An anthology series of various plays and dramatic performances.

Episodes

Season 1

6 episodes

S1 E1 · Uncle Vanya

1991-02-22

When Vanya's brother-in-law declares his intention to sell the family's house, polite facades begin to crumble and long repressed feelings start to emerge with devastating consequences.

S1 E2 · Absolute Hell

1991-10-05

Black comedy set in Soho, London, right after WW2. Half of the fun is seeing a slew of very familiar faces kick up their heels as gay men, lesbians, party-girls, drunks, and drag queens.

S1 E3 · Nona

1991-10-19

An adaptation of Roberto Cossa's Argentinian drama, the play focuses on a family desperately struggling against inflation and unemployment while trying to assuage the insatiable appetite of their 100-year old grandmother.

S1 E4 · Old Times

1991-10-26

A married couple are visited by a friend from their past, who causes them unease and even embarrassment.

S1 E5 · Top Girls

1991-11-02

Marlene celebrates her new position as MD of Top Girls Appointment Agency by giving a dinner party for five oddly assorted women from centuries past.

S1 E6 · The Trials of Oz

1991-11-09

Dramatization of the famous 1971 trial in which the editors of the British underground magazine "Oz" were charged with obscenity.

Season 2

5 episodes

S2 E1 · Tales From Hollywood

1992-11-14

A slightly ironical description of the colony of German artists in Los Angeles, who had to leave their country during the Nazi-regime. A young playwriter (von Horvath) joins them and finds out, that there are gaps between the artistical attitudes and the real live behavior of authors like Thomas or Heinrich Mann, Lion Feuchtwanger or Bertold Brecht.

S2 E2 · A Doll's House

Years ago, Nora Helmer committed a forgery in order to save the life of her authoritarian husband Torvald. Now she is being blackmailed, and lives in fear of her husband finding out.

S2 E3 · Roots

1992-11-28

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.

S2 E4 · After the Dance

No summary.

S2 E5 · Six Characters in Search of an Author

Six fictional characters in an unwritten play appear to a theatrical company and demand that the company act out the characters' tragic story.

Season 3

5 episodes

S3 E1 · Suddenly Last Summer

1993-11-06

No summary.

S3 E2 · The Maitlands

1993-11-13

In the secluded coastal resort of Betworthy, the Maitland family has fallen on hard times and the eldest son Roger, a schoolmaster, is forced to give a young boy after-school tuition in order to pay for his jet-setting wife Dorothy's trip to the French Riviera. His mother, Mrs. Maitland, puts her hope in a legacy from her brother while their live-in cousin Phyllis plans to escape poverty and the tedium of Betworthy by accepting a marriage proposal from Major Luddington. Everything changes, however, as the younger Maitland brother, Jack, returns home for a visit and Phyllis falls in love with him. Jack, who left the family years ago to seek his fortune in London, is now a rich and successful actor, a career choice of which his family never approved, which, in his opinion, gives him the perfect excuse to treat them just as badly as he wishes. Further trouble comes along as Joan, an old friend of Phyllis's, suddenly pays a visit to the house and falls in love with Roger.

S3 E3 · Hedda Gabler

Hedda Gabler is a beautiful woman married to the solid and respectable academic George Tesman. Then an old flame, the dreamer Eilert Lovborg, turns up on the scene with tragic results.

S3 E4 · The Entertainer

1993-12-04

The play uses the metaphor of the dying music hall tradition, specifically fictional music hall star Archie Rice, to comment on the moribund state of the British Empire in the 1950s.

S3 E5 · The Changeling

Just days before her wedding, Beatrice-Joanna has a chance encounter with Alsemero, and realizes that she has met her one true love. To marry the man she loves, she persuades the love-struck henchman De Flores to murder her fiancé, but does not anticipate the tragic consequences of her actions.

Season 4

5 episodes

S4 E1 · Message For Posterity

1994-10-29

A Parliamentary committee decides to commission a portrait as a memorial to an ageing Conservative, wartime ex-Prime Minister, Sir David Browning. Bizarrely, they choose anarchic, anti-establishment and equally ageing artist James Player, who appears to stand for the very opposite values and positions to his prospective sitter. During sittings the two men find many opportunities to score political and social points off each. Screened with an with an introduction by Brian Walden, a contemporary of writer Dennis Potter at Oxford and an old Oxford political sparring partner.

S4 E2 · Measure for Measure

1994-11-05

Modern dress version of Shakespeare's "problem comedy" emphasizing the darker elements of the play and eliminating most of the humor, as Claudio is dragged to the police station on charges of fornication, and given a rectal exam in front of a window.

S4 E3 · The Deep Blue Sea

1994-11-12

A woman unhappy in her passionless marriage leaves her husband for a younger and more ardent lover.

S4 E4 · Summer Day's Dream

1994-11-19

In 1975, after a nuclear war, the nations have combined to set up a World Government. An old man who lives quietly in the country finds his peace threatened by a visit from three World Government figures.

S4 E5 · The Mother

1994-11-26

Paddy Chayefsky's 1954 play set in the Bronx tells the story of a recently widowed 66-year-old seeks a job after 40 years if being a homemaker.

Season 5

6 episodes

S5 E1 · Shadow of a Gunman

1995-10-07

The first part of Sean O'Casey's Dublin Trilogy. Set in 1920, as the Irish War of Independence rages, "Shadow of a Gunman" is the story of two young men, Donald Davoren and Seamus Shields, who share a flat in Dublin.

S5 E2 · The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd

1995-10-14

Mrs. Holroyd is married to a loutish miner. When a gentlemanly neighbour makes romantic advances to her, she wishes her husband dead. Sooner than she hoped, her wish comes true.

S5 E3 · Landscape

1995-10-21

Beth sits in an armchair to the left of the table, and Duff in a chair at the opposite end. Duff refers normally to Beth but does not appear to hear her voice and Beth never looks at Duff and does not appear to hear his voice.

S5 E4 · Bed

Surreal drama about seven old people living in the same bed.

S5 E5 · Henry IV

Henry Bolingbroke has now been crowned King of England, but faces a rebellion headed by the embittered Earl of Northumberland and his son (nicknamed 'Hotspur'). Henry's son Hal, the Prince of Wales, has thrown over life at court in favour of heavy drinking and petty theft in the company of a debauched elderly knight, Sir John Falstaff. Hal must extricate himself from some legal problems, regain his father's good opinions and help suppress the uprising.

S5 E6 · After Miss Julie

After Miss Julie is an adaptation of the 1888 play Miss Julie by August Strindberg. The narrative takes place on the night of July 26 1945, after the British Labour Party's landslide defeat of the Conservatives (led by Winston Churchill). The atmosphere is lively, and the action takes place on a property owned by Miss Julie's rich father.

Season 6

5 episodes

S6 E1 · Company

1997-03-01

At his 35th birthday party Bobby's friends are all wondering: Why isn't he married? Why can't he find the right woman and settle down?

S6 E2 · My Night with Reg

1997-03-14

A group of English gay men get together to reminisce. They are all coming from a wake for one of their circle who's died of AIDS. It's that terrifying time between the outbreak of AIDS and the development of an AIDS test and as the conversation unfolds it becomes apparent that each man there has had unprotected sex with the deceased.

S6 E3 · Richard II

1997-03-22

The incompetent Richard II is deposed by Henry Bolingbroke and undergoes a crisis of identity once he is no longer king.

S6 E4 · Broken Glass

1997-03-29

A Jewish housewife in 1938 Brooklyn loses the use of her legs after reading about Kristallnacht.

S6 E5 · Macbeth on the Estate

1997-04-05

Shakespeare's play is updated to the present day starring James Frain and Susan Vidler. On a council estate where people survive by dealing drugs and shoplifting, Duncan is the Godfather. Urged by Mrs Macbeth, Macbeth kills Duncan.

Season 7

1 episode

S7 E1 · King Lear

1998-03-21

King Lear, old and tired, divides his kingdom among his daughters, giving great importance to their protestations of love for him. When Cordelia, youngest and most honest, refuses to idly flatter the old man in return for favor, he banishes her and turns for support to his remaining daughters. But Goneril and Regan have no love for him and instead plot to take all his power from him. In a parallel, Lear's loyal courtier Gloucester favors his illegitimate son Edmund after being told lies about his faithful son Edgar. Madness and tragedy befall both ill-starred fathers.