Play for Today: Series 8
Season 8 Lore Primer
Key plot threads, lore context, and character stakes you need to remember before diving into this season.
- Directly follows the overarching narrative developments of Play for Today Season 7.
- Faction dynamics and core character alliances shift under escalating external stakes.
- Crucial mysteries introduced previously reach key turning points and narrative reckonings.
- Sets up serialized story arcs that build directly toward the climactic season finale.
Episode Guide
Season 8 Progress Shield
Stronger than the Sun
Oct 18, 1977 · 75 min
A worker discovers a radioactive leak at the nuclear power plant where she works and tries to make it public knowledge.
Come the Revolution
Oct 25, 1977 · 75 min
Mike and his commune have a performance of their musical theatre "Diver" at the local pub, and ITV's Beth Bailey is coming along to see it. But will Beth's visions for the play as
Abigail's Party
Nov 1, 1977 · 75 min
Comedy of manners focusing on the bourgeois affectation and sexual frustration of a young married couple. Abigail's mother Sue is invited to take refuge from her teenage daughter's
Oy Vay Maria
Nov 8, 1977 · 75 min
The story of the romance between a Jewish boy and an Irish Catholic girl
Nipper
Nov 15, 1977 · 75 min
Teenager Jimmy's life begins to unravel after the death of his father. With his mother promiscuous and his new stepfather and stepbrother difficult to get along with, he begins to
One Day at a Time
Nov 22, 1977 · 75 min
"People coming to their first AA meeting, prosperous people, sometimes, accustomed to the best. They look round the places where we meet, and you can see them thinking: what am I d
The Mayor's Charity
Nov 29, 1977 · 75 min
Olive Major is determined that her year of office as Mayor will be a happy and successful one. But her appointment of Ex-Warrant Officer Higham as Attendant and Mace-bearer causes
Catchpenny Twist
Dec 6, 1977 · 75 min
Three schoolteachers in Belfast give up teaching to become singers/songwriters.
Charades
Dec 13, 1977 · 75 min
"We've just got to get it right. It'll be our little secret. When all the other servants have gone out, we'll play this little game to amuse ourselves. A sort of private charade."
The Thin End of the Wedge
Dec 20, 1977 · 75 min
"Five days of darkness then. Unless you get it together we will have five days of darkness. And on the sixth day you will say, let there be light, and no doubt it'll be such an eff
Scully's New Year's Eve
Jan 3, 1978 · 75 min
A Liverpool teenager has a hectic night out on New Year's Eve.
Licking Hitler
Jan 10, 1978 · 75 min
During World War II, a young woman joins the propaganda department and makes radio broadcasts to Germany from a British country house.
Red Shift
Jan 17, 1978 · 75 min
A stone axehead links three couples living at different times in the same place in Wales.
The Spongers
Jan 24, 1978 · 75 min
The story of a single mother of four living on welfare
Destiny
Jan 31, 1978 · 75 min
A story dealing with racial tensions and fascism during a by-election in a West Midlands town
Our Day Out
Feb 7, 1978 · 75 min
When a teacher takes a group of troubled school children on a school trip to Conwy in Wales, the children understand life outside of Liverpool.
The After-Dinner Joke
Feb 14, 1978 · 75 min
The story of a well-meaning charity worker
The Legion Hall Bombing
Aug 22, 1978 · 75 min
The story of the trial of Willie Gallagher, convicted of bombing the Strabane British Legion Hall in 1976.