Lost and forgotten dramas

[Floogal]

A few weeks ago I started a thread about hard to find documentaries. A few people brought up Cathy Comes Home and Play for today. They're a bit before my time but I remember things like Screen One and Two in late 80s to mid 90s. Like the documentaries, they are difficult to find on YouTube and has no DVD release (as far as I know).
The ones I remember are:

1. Alive and Kicking (1991) where Lenny Henry plays a reformed yardie who forms a football team for recovering drug addicts with the help of tough social worker played by Robbie Coltrane (similar to his Cracker character). Apparently it's based on a true story. I specifically remember this one as they showed it to us in social studies at school.
2. Somewhere to run (1989) about two teenage runaways. Stars the lady who plays Simon's mum in Inbetweeners.
3. On the 8 ball (1998). Also about Yardies.
4. On the edge of the razor blade (1998- I think that's what it was called). About these two women who hide in a public toilet to get away from rapacious drug dealers. There's a bit when one turns on the other because she was left to be assaulted while the other one was too high. It was on a gay film season on channel 4.
5. Dancing in the dark. Set in Liverpool. A woman bumps into her ex boyfriend on her hen do
6. Letter to Breshnev. Sometime in the 80s. Also set in Liverpool where this girl falls in love with a Russian sailor and tries to join him in the USSR.

Does anyone else remember these. Or where to find them, or do you remember any hard to find dramas?

@Althenameshavegone I remember the last train vey well too.

Thanks for this thread floogal! Perfect.

Henry Pratt

There was a good drama about heroine use , cannot remember the name. It starred the girl who played George in the bbc production of famous five ( I guess mid 90s) and her boyfriend in the program was nicknamed Tar.

they run away together as teen lovers and sadly turn to drugs. It’s very poignant at times.

sorry cannot remember the title!

I guess it was a late 90s show

may have been a tv film instead of show apologies but going of memory here.

Another big DTTD fan here. I waited for fifteen years for it to come out on DVD. I don't have it anymore as I waited for the digital copy to come down in price and notice it's been removed from iTunes. I see that the DVD of the fabulous Take Me Home has also been deleted and why oh why has Mother Love never been available?
Have to agree that The BBC would likely never show again A Sense of Guilt (but at least it's on YouTube)

Not mentioned is an engrossing Channel 4 TV show about the behind the scenes world of premiership football - The Manageress.

Also not mentioned:

Prospects
Shine on Harvey Moon
Behaving Badly
Firm Friends
Goodbye Cruel World
A Sort of Innocence (anyone remember this obscure BBC drama from 1987 that starred Cheryl Campbell married to a much older man?)

I didn't have much of a social life as a child and teen, and watched way too much TV, clearly!

House of Eliot I watched it with my mum every Sunday evening. Them were the days

@Inmyownlittlecorner I used to love No Bananas (especially the granny) and Sex and Chips.

Oh hell, yes! 😍 love Con! I managed to get the dvd a few years ago, still a good watch.
Also “Take me home” with a young Maggie ONeill, and Roger Roger - had forgotten this one.
The Firm with a very young Gary Oldman as the leader of football hooligans, it was really shocking, but very true to life. Think it got banned from tv, but was out on VHS and now dvd. A few famous faces in it.

Was only thinking of this the other day! I totally loved “A Kind Of Loving”

ITV re- showed it in the afternoons around 1981/ 82 and we bunked off college to watch it at my house… I had a crush on Clive Wood😍 and still do ( a little bit ) although he’s not my typical ‘type’ at all.
The books by Stan Barstow are excellent, and in a series of 3, worth tracking down.

i loved the series ‘Fallen Hero’ shown on ITV in 1978 & 79, and fell madly in love with Del Henney (RIP😕) playing a rugby star whose career was all but over. Wanda Ventham played his wife. I still have the book here somewhere.

@ageingdisgracefully

"Does anyone remember a version of Bouquet of Barbed Wire starring Frank Finlay and Susan Penhaligon?"

It was fantastic

Also 1987 Intimate Contact - middle class man gets AIDS and family repercussions - Daniel Massey and Claire Blume. It was excellent

Tenko was brilliant

Lovely thread

Junk https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210133/

Anyone remember Arthur of the Britons?
A favourite after school watch of mine. I was in love with Kai the Saxon.

@CrossPurposes thank you so much x

I remember that - off to hunt it on Google !

Riley, Ace Of Spies with Sam Neill. It was repeated in the afternoons in the mid 80s and I watched it when I was off school ill. The illness started off genuine then got spun out for a couple more days so I could watch more, until my Mum cottoned on

Sex Chips and Rock'n'Roll. Loved it. Have the DVD but no DVD player anymore! I see it's on You Tube though.

Casanova, think it was Frank Finlay

Colditz, David McCallum

A really scary one, think it was called The Green Man

7 Up, they follow kids every 7 years from the age of 7

Old reality show The Villa, they take 4 guys and girls away to Majorca to see if they match up.

All4 has Ultraviolet and The Camomile Lawn.

Talking Pictures TV (Freeview) does some amazing 1960s to 1980s TV drama. The Gold Robbers has Peter Vaughn investigating a bullion robbery and The Human Jungle with Herbert Lom as a psychiatrist. Both very good for spotting household names in early roles.

I miss Network Distributing who sadly went bust last year. They specialised in hard to find DVD/blu ray that most channels don’t show and I prefer to have a physical copy when so many streaming services have shows on time limited releases. They released the wonderful Sandbaggers and I can’t improve on the Guardian article on the box set.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/jun/13/sandbaggers-box-set-review

The Box of Delights… was a nanny to 2 girls when this was first on in Autumn 1984.. they loved it - I was terrified, and wondered why it was on childrens tv!

@curiositykilledthiscat Mother Love was on IPlayer at some point (poss when Diana Rigg died?) so I've got it saved. Not seen it yet. I had a massive crush on James Wilby when it first aired...

Totally agree! I remember watching it with my parents and we were all amazed and Robert Lindsay and Michael Palin as serious actors.

Also very fond memories of the Beiderbecke series. We still reference Helen of Tadcaster every time we leave the A1 to get to family in York!

I can remember a children's series from the 90s set in a dystopic world after the 'great disaster'. There was time travel and something called transponders. I think it was from Australia or New Zealand. I was working and kept getting home towards the end of each episode.
Other children's dramas I liked were The tomorrow people and Changes(both much earlier)

Saw an advert for the new Planet of the the Apes movie earlier. Won’t be watching it, due to the First Born series mentioned above.

Was this it?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_from_Tomorrow