Jan 13
"Millions of people have died with those words on their lips, 'they don't shoot people like us, do they?'"
Alan Plater
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"Millions of people have died with those words on their lips, 'they don't shoot people like us, do they?'"
Alan Plater
Remembering British screenwriter, novelist and playwright, Alan Plater, who passed away June 25th, 2010, aged 75.
According to BFI online;
“...Born in Jarrow on 15 April 1935, Alan Frederick Plater was one of Britain's most prolific, original and entertaining writers, whose work for television, radio, theatre and the cinema, not to mention his six novels, constitutes an unparalleled body of work. Plater's family moved to Hull when he was three, but he frequently returned to Jarrow to visit his grandparents and spent four years in Newcastle in the 1950s studying architecture at the university. His affinity with Hull and Newcastle had a lasting influence on him as a writer, most obviously in plays such as Close the Coalhouse Door and Land of Green Ginger. A regional affinity with the North, even in series produced in London such as Z Cars, was the hallmark of much of his work, together with a predilection for comedy and a gift for writing dialogue…”
Alan Plater consciously held close his northern working-class roots but the diversity of his work extended well beyond. As well as his original work for television, which included the acclaimed Beiderbeke Trilogy, he adapted a number of literary works, including A Very British Coup (Chris Mullin), Fortunes of War (Olivia Manning), a musical comedy/drama, The Good Companions (JB Priestley), and Flambards (KM Peyton).
In 1975, Alan Plater was brought in by Bill Maynard personally to write Oh No It's Selwyn Froggitt after Roy Clarke withdrew, which went on to be one of Yorkshire Television's most successful sitcoms, reaching 29 million viewers across the ITV network at its peak.
He wrote for Miss Marple, The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, Lewis, Dalziel and Pascoe and Midsomer Murders, wrote the BBC/HBO television movie The Last of the Blonde Bombshells (Joan Sims’ last performance), and his final credit, broadcast posthumously, was Joe Maddison’s War, a home front WWII drama set on Tyneside and starring Kevin Whately and Robson Green.
The BFI:
“...It was perhaps fitting that Plater's final television drama should be set in the North East, his birthplace and an area which had a lasting influence on the career of one of Britain's most distinctive and prolific television dramatists…”
Sources include IMDb and BFI Online (Lez Cooke)
Sue Lawley's castaway is playwright Alan Plater
"Oliver's Travels" (1995)
Films and series I've watched in 2023 (9/?)
Full series (5 episodes. The picture quality isn't the best but if you can get past that it's very well worth a watch):
‘Ignore it. The man is clinically insane even by the standards of the teaching profession.’ -Mr. Carter, The Beiderbecke Connection (written by Alan Plater)
Alan Plater 1935-2010
No one:
Alan Plater: “Your mother thought you were a Centurion looking for your phalanx.”
The suitcases are the message.
Alan Plater
"I shall have....six weeks...before the money runs out [and then] who knows!...I always live my life sideways, Mrs. Swinburne; it's the best way of avoiding what lies ahead." - Mr Pitt, The Beiderbecke Connection (by Alan Plater)