Alan Clarke and Screen Two

A contextual introduction to one of Britain's finest directors.

The Firm (1989)

By 1985, what has been regarded as the ‘Golden Age’ of the television play had ended. Beginning with Armchair Theatre (ITV 1956-74) and continuing through The Wednesday Play (BBC1 1964-70) and Play for Today (BBC1 1970-84), television maintained a steady stream of primarily studio-based single dramas showcasing some of the finest dramatic writing of the era. Following the launch of Channel Four in 1982, BBC Head of Drama Peter Goodchild set out to rival Film on Four with a strand of single filmed dramas on the BBC. On 6 January 1985, Contact directed by Alan Clarke was broadcast on BBC2, the first of over 160 films screened under the Screen Two rubric until the strand ended in 1998.

“[Contact] was a pretty controversial book at the time”, its author A.F.N. Clarke recalled. “Which, of course, was something that drew Alan to it immediately! Nothing like controversy.” Alan Clarke was at a meeting with Goodchild when the subject of Screen Two was raised, a strand which would need one of the boldest voices in television to introduce. He was well-established as a director of television plays, including for The Wednesday Play and Play for Today, but as A.F.N. Clarke observed, he was not afraid of rustling a few feathers. His drama Scum, written by Roy Minton, about a British borstal was banned by the BBC upon its completion in 1977 despite being commissioned for Play for Today. Clarke remade the film for cinemas in 1979, and the original television version was not broadcast until 1991.