Out now on your favourite podcast platform, the latest episode of Very British Futures, covering Bright Eyes, the second Play for Tomorrow from the makers of Play for Today. Broadcast in 1982. Written by Peter Prince and directed by Peter Duffell.
New Year’s Eve 1999. Great Britain is part of the European State. The Euro army is in the midst of a controversial war in the Middle East. Wealthy businessman Sam Howard has come to a French prison to see his daughter Cathy, who has been arrested for being part of a conspiracy to assassinate a pro-war politician, and is now facing execution. The authorities hope he can persuade her to issue an apology regretting her actions, allowing them to commute her sentence to prison time. Waiting outside her cell, Sam’s memory flashes back to earlier New Year’s Eves. 1979 when she was six years old and left with him overnight by his ex-wife. 1989, when she was sixteen and he criticised her 60’s themed party as disrespectful to the genuine struggles of that decade. When she said didn’t care about politics, he told her to start taking an interest and challenge to official line about the coming war. Now a crowd of journalists wait outside the prison, his ex and her legal team are helpless and he must decide whether to ask her to betray her principles to save her life.
One of the good things about making this series is when a guest helps me see a programme in a new, usually better light. This was the case with Bright Eyes and my friend Jon Arnold. An experienced writer and commentator, Jon’s enthusiasm for this play about the generation gap, activism and pragmatic politics was infectious. Hope you find this an interesting episode.
You can find the episode on all major podcast platforms, including Spotify.
The Phantom Frame 