#a typically muted Bennett piece‚ reuniting him with director Frears who had helmed his first tv play (and would go on to produce some of
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Play for Today: Sunset Across the Bay (BBC, 1975)
"It's one of them buses with a lavatory. Are you going to go?"
"I don't want to go."
"I do."
"Well go then."
"I don't want everybody to know I'm going."
"She's been in twice already. She were in there before we got to Stanningley. Anyway, what does it matter what folk think? We're retired now."
#play for today#sunset across the bay#1975#single play#alan bennett#stephen frears#gabrielle daye#harry markham#bob peck#paul shane#betty alberge#albert modley#bernard wrigley#madge hindle#patricia mason#norah pollitt#elizabeth dawn#peter wallis#clifford kershaw#christine buckley#gwen harris#a typically muted Bennett piece‚ reuniting him with director Frears who had helmed his first tv play (and would go on to produce some of#his best work later in the decade with the Six Plays strand). an elderly couple retire and move from Leeds to the Morecambe seaside; theres#not much more to this play‚ but it still packs an emotional wallop as our couple discover that their twilight years aren't quite as rosy as#they'd imagined them to be. it's a mature‚ thoughtful piece‚ often underplaying the moment rather than over egging it#Bennett certainly wrote funnier pieces‚ and better ones too‚ but for sheer bittersweet reality and quiet sad humanity this is hard to fault#as ever the cast includes multiple familiar faces that had collaborated with the writer before and would again; most had also worked on#Coronation Street at one time or another. perhaps the well of Northern character actors only ran so deep at this point#full of Bennett's skillful observation of the day to day idiosyncrasies of common working (or retired as it were) folk. this was repeated#on bbc4 recently and should still be up on iplayer for anyone with access; it's well worth it‚ tho not the playwright's warmest work
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