A friend asks for some publicity for a campaign to get the BBC to digitise and release their filmed recording of Tom Stoppard's TV Play For Today, Professional Foul, which starred Peter Barkworth and was shown on BBC1 in 1972 (or perhaps 1977 - sources disagree).
If you saw PF, you will not have forgotten it. If you saw Rock & Roll but never saw Professional Foul, you have a clue as to what you missed.
An English professor of ethics (Barkworth) is invited by the Communist authorities to a philosophy conference in Prague. A former student of his is arrested for writing about individualist approaches to morality and asks him for help. To assist would mean reneging on the undertakings he made to his hosts and which were the condition of his invitation to the conference and the country. Suspenseful.
AFAIK it's never been performed since 1972 (or was it 1977?) but lies hidden and mouldering in the BBC vaults 'because there is no demand'. Maybe the denizens of the blogosphere can rectify that misapprehension on the part of the Corporation.
There would be costs but only a jerk would say it won't sell enough (worldwide) to cover them in the long term.
We paid for this stuff in the first place - let's get it out there so that other licence fee payers can enjoy this important example of the great playwright's work.
I've Tweeted this.
Please pass it on! Thank you.
It was 1977. Or possibly 1976. But certainly not 1972.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure BBC4 have shown it in the last two years. I saw it on Channel 4 fifteen or so years ago.
ReplyDeleteI saw it first time up and I remember it still. Excellent.
ReplyDelete