The Wednesday Play

Written by David Mercer. Repeat of Play of the Month 21 January 1968. Repeated also 1 September 1976 on BBC2 and 29 November 1980 on BBC2, on 23 June 1988.

Jack Gold directs Tom Clarke's play about a soldier turned dissident during the First World War. Protest has become easy and respectable now. But for a young subaltern in 1917 to speak out against the horrors of the Western Front was unthinkable. One did. Second-Lieutenant Siegfried Sassoon, a young English country gentleman who made public his revulsion against the war. This film tells of the week in a Liverpool hotel when Sassoon re-examined his protest in spite of its complete rejection by authority and the public. Starring Michael Jayston, Michael Pennington and Clive Swift.

Celia Johnson and Peter Vaughan star in the second of the 'Kelvin Trilogy' of plays by David Mercer. The Countess lives happily in her Eastern European palace, oblivious to the new regime that has moved in. After the war, Volubin, a Marxist writer, is instructed to obtain from her the keys to her wine cellar, which are needed for a celebration dinner. Also starring Sydney Tafler, Patsy Byrne and Bernard Kay as Robert Kelvin. Directed by Alan Bridges.