The Play

Looking back at the mixed fortunes of playoffs of the past.

Watson Gould’s The Other Woman is unquestionably one of the most audacious plays broadcast during the twenty year run of The Wednesday Play/ Play for Today. Misleadingly promoted at the time as an “issues” play about lesbianism, the drama was actually a unique vehicle for Gould’s highly personal understanding of gender and sexuality, a world in which there are are three sexes, with the pinnacle of human insight awarded to the third sex of the male woman, embodied in the figure of Kim. In a terrific performance from Jane Lapotaire, Kim is a character whose every action in the play is in some way disruptive and transgressive. Kim is a nightmare to know, dirty, imposing herself on others but unwilling to empathise with their problems and yet not a bad person in herself (although that is dependent on how the viewer interprets her sexual conduct), charismatic and her own invention.

During the opening night of a theatrical play that deals with conflicts between love and work, Skene - a controlling stage director has an epiphany about how this play came together. As he reflects back on his collaboration with Jacqueline, the vulnerable but elusive writer, he realizes that in fact he was not in control of the story, but that she has been manipulating him all along not only to get him to direct the play the way she wants, but also to stimulate her creativity. The lines of real life and fantasy of the play begin to blur, as the director starts to suspect that he too may only be a character in the story while also grappling with bigger existential issues.

Cardinal Richelieu and his power-hungry entourage seek to take control of seventeenth-century France, but need to destroy Father Grandier - the priest who runs the fortified town that prevents them from exerting total control. So they seek to destroy him by setting him up as a warlock in control of a devil-possessed nunnery, the mother superior of which is sexually obsessed by him. A mad witch-hunter is brought in to gather evidence against the priest, ready for the big trial.

While walking to buy cigarettes, the professional dancer Daniel is abducted and raped over many days by three hooded women. When he is released, the director of his company Isabel has already replaced him in the play and his girlfriend gives him a cold reception. The disturbed and humiliated Daniel leaves the dance company and travels obsessed to seek out the abductors. Daniel has sex with many women that he suspects that might be the kidnappers.

A company of actors arrive at a castle deep in the Irish countryside and set into motion the story of Shakespeare's Hamlet. The lives of the actors and their characters intertwine as Prince Hamlet confronts the ghost of his father and seeks revenge on the treacherous Claudius, his uncle and newly appointed king. Hamlet's pursuit of vengeance scorches the lives of everyone inside the castle walls and lays bare the many contradictions and ambiguities of human existence. At the play's end, seven days have passed and the actors emerge, leaving the castle and characters behind.

In 1917 a 21 year old Buster Keaton walked on to a film set for the very first time and without a single retake made his screen debut in a comedy sketch in Arbuckle's 'The Butcher Boy'. This collection includes 13 of the 14 films that Arbuckle and Keaton made together (one remains lost) and all of the 19 independent shorts Buster made after getting his own studio in 1920. It charts Buster's early development as one of the greatest performers and directors in the history of film comedy.

Adapted from the play written by Austinite vodka maker Tito Beveridge, from Tito's Vodka, 'This Side of the Dirt' is a Texas family drama steeped in satire and humor.

This ninety-minute film takes audiences on an epic journey across nine countries and over 1,400 years of history. It explores the richness of Islamic art in objects big and small, from great ornamented palaces and the play of light in monumental mosques to the exquisite beauty of ceramics, carved boxes, paintings and metal work. It revels in the use of color and finds commonalities in a shared artistic heritage with the West and East.