Play for Today Blue Remembered Hills (Season 9, Episode 14)
TV Episode | 72 min | Comedy, Drama

Play for Today

Blue Remembered Hills (Season 9, Episode 14)

TV Episode | 72 min | Comedy, Drama

"When we dream of childhood," said Dennis Potter, "we take our present selves with us. It is not the adult world writ small; childhood is the adult world writ large." Since Potter viewed childhood as "adult society without all the ...See more"When we dream of childhood," said Dennis Potter, "we take our present selves with us. It is not the adult world writ small; childhood is the adult world writ large." Since Potter viewed childhood as "adult society without all the conventions and the polite forms which overlay it," he repeated the device he had introduced 14 years earlier (in "Stand Up, Nigel Barton"); children's roles were cast with adult actors in this naturalistic memory drama of a "golden day" that turns to tragedy. On a sunny, summer afternoon in bucolic England of 1943, seven West Country children (two girls, five boys) play in the Forest of Dean. Their games and spontaneous actions (continuous and in real time) reflect their awareness of WWII, but no adults are present to intrude. As the group moves through the woods and back to the grassy hills, their words and actions illustrate how "childhood is not transparent with innocence." When the two girls push a pram into a barn to play house, the casting concept is heightened, doubling back on itself in a remarkable moment: adults are suddenly seen to be acting as children who are pretending to be adults, and lines from Housman echo across the years: "That is the land of lost content/I see it shining plain/The happy highways where I went/And cannot come again." Written by Bhob Stewart See less

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Cast	+ Add Cast
8 cast members

Name	Known for
Colin Welland Willie Willie See fewer	Straw Dogs (1971)
Michael Elphick Peter Peter See fewer	The Elephant Man (1980)
Robin Ellis John John See fewer	Poldark (1975)
John Bird Raymond Raymond See fewer	Rory Bremner, Who Else? (1993)
Helen Mirren Angela Angela See fewer	The Queen (2006)
Janine Duvitski Audrey Audrey See fewer	The New World (2005)
Colin Jeavons Donald Duck Donald Duck See fewer	St. Ives (1967)
Dennis Potter Narrator (voice) (uncredited) Narrator (voice) (uncredited) See fewer	Gorky Park (1983)