Play for Today was the BBC's groundbreaking television anthology drama series, epitomising entertainment, social commitment and artistic and intellectual ambition. More than three hundred original television plays and adaptations of stage plays and novels were transmitted to the British public between 1970 and 1984, including legendary dramas such like Robin Redbreast (1970), Edna, The Inebriate Woman (1971), Penda's Fen (1974), and the 'lost' In the Beautiful Caribbean (1972) – the only Play for Today with an all-Black cast, for which no video copy exists. Over 200 writers were involved, among them Stephen Frears, Dennis Potter, Mike Leigh and Ken Loach.

This book is the first ever sustained and over-arching history of the iconic television strand, which provided a public-service of human-centric drama to large and varied audiences. Inside, Tom May rediscovers a prestigious phenomenon, analysing its aesthetics and style, its reception by viewers and critics and its trailblazing representations of change in British society, national and regional identity, ethnicity, sexuality, gender and class. He argues that its variety – with programmes spanning social realism and experimentalism – makes it a direct forerunner of Trainspotting (1996), This Is England (2006) and Small Axe (2020). Including detailed case-studies and many oral and written interviews with significant Play for Today actors, writers, composers, producers and directors, including Alison Steadman, Stephen Poliakoff and Alan Bennett, alongside crucial input from overlooked behind-the-camera figures like Jenny Brewer and Jacmel Dent, this book introduces Play for Today to a new generation.