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Telly addicts

Does anyone recognise this TV play from the 70s?

9 replies

FourThingsAndALizard · 10/01/2017 21:05

This is a request from DH, who knows how knowledgeable you lot are...

"I'm trying to put a name to a production I saw many years ago on TV. It was probably a production in a series like Play for Today, The Wednesday Play or possibly Armchair Theatre; it was probably aired around the mid- or late 1970s, and I think it was shown on BBC1 - but I could be mistaken about any of the above.

The plot revolved around a sequence of events involving just three people: a man, his wife and a young burglar. The burglar breaks into the house of the man and his wife in the middle of the night, but he is caught in their bedroom when the husband wakes up. For a reason that I can't remember now, the burglar is subsequently invited by the man and his wife to come and live with them in the house. The burglar has an affair with the wife, and leaves the house when they are caught by the husband.

These are the basic facts that all three of them would agree on; however the interplay between them as the above scenario is played out is ambiguous, and several scenes are shown from the point of view of each of them in turn, with all three actors playing very different interpretations of their respective characters. For example, the burglar's impression of himself is that of a loser; whereas the husband sees him as cool and sophisticated, and the wife sees him as a potential lover. The wife considers herself to be dowdy and downtrodden, whereas the burglar sees her as wildly exotic. The husband considers himself to be a miserable coward, whereas the burglar sees him as a suave and rather debonair guy who can take anything in his stride.

This is as much as I can remember about the play, if indeed that's what it was. Can anybody identify the production I'm describing please?"

OP posts:
OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow · 10/01/2017 21:15

Is it The Ruffian on the Stair by Joe Orton? . Thought it was Entertaining MR Sloane, but that's a brother and sister.

FourThingsAndALizard · 10/01/2017 21:25

Thanks for the quick reply - he's looked at both, but isn't sure - he doesn't remember so much violence, and the thing he really remembers is the different interpretations by the characters.

OP posts:
southeastdweller · 11/01/2017 18:02

Is it Brimstone and Treacle?

scottishdiem · 11/01/2017 18:11

The best I can think of is some kind of adaptation of The Virtuous Burglar?

FourThingsAndALizard · 11/01/2017 20:18

Thanks for the suggestions, but DH thinks it can't be Brimstone and Treacle, as that wasn't actually shown on TV till the 80s.

He says The Virtuous burglar sounds more likely, but from the description it would have to have been an adaptation showing it from different viewpoints.

He's now doing some intensive googling- and of course, the first thing that comes up is this thread!

OP posts:
Housewife2010 · 11/01/2017 21:11

Whatever it is, I want to see it.

Housewife2010 · 11/01/2017 21:12

Have a look on the the BBC store. Last time I looked they had lots of 70s plays to buy.

FourThingsAndALizard · 11/01/2017 22:21

He's found it!

Triple Exposure by David Halliwell, shown in Play for Today in 1972

Summary of the plot about halfway down this blog page

blogs.reading.ac.uk/spaces-of-television/2012/10/14/bfi-southbank-season-beyond-the-fourth-wall-experiments-in-tv-drama/

Thanks very much everyone for the suggestions!

OP posts:
zukiecat · 11/01/2017 23:40

A thing called Gloria?

Can't remember much about it but the wife thinking herself frumpy and downtrodden rings a bell

It may not have been called Gloria but the wife's name was, and her husband called her "Glor" all the time

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