Alive from Off Center

Road (6x8)

Air date: Aug 23, 1990

An adaptation of Jim Cartwright's stage play directed by Alan Clarke, "Road" is a raw contemporary drama set in working-class northern England which reflects the cross-generational rage of the disengaged and unemployed. Progressing through a series of scenes depicting familial arguments and longing soliloquies -- sometimes spoken directly to the camera -- by embittered hopeless people who are nostalgic for the past, this drama climaxes in the encounter between a quartet of emotionally-wounded adults who meet at a run-down dance hall. Hoping to liberate themselves from their frustrations and listlessness, the foursome become intoxicated, listen to Otis Redding music, and rant about their inconsolable bitterness in a desperate attempt to unearth a modicum of hope for the future.