''ScreenPlay'' is a
television drama anthology series
An anthology series is a radio, television, video game or film series that spans different genres and presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, season, segment, or short. These usually have a dif ...
broadcast on
BBC2 between 9 July 1986 and 27 October 1993.
Background
After single-play anthology series went off the air, the BBC introduced several showcases for made-for-television, feature length filmed dramas, including ''ScreenPlay''. Various writers and directors were utilized on the series. Writer
Jimmy McGovern was hired by producer
George Faber to pen a series five episode based upon the
Merseyside
Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Mersey Estuary and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wir ...
needle exchange programme of the 1980s.
The episode, directed by
Gillies MacKinnon, was entitled ''Needle'' and featured Sean McKee, Emma Bird, and
Pete Postlethwaite''.''
The last episode of the series was titled "Boswell and Johnson's Tour of the Western Islands" and featured
Robbie Coltrane as English writer
Samuel Johnson, who in the autumn of 1773, visits the
Hebrides
The Hebrides (; gd, Innse Gall, ; non, Suðreyjar, "southern isles") are an archipelago off the west coast of the Scottish mainland. The islands fall into two main groups, based on their proximity to the mainland: the Inner and Outer Hebri ...
off the north-west coast of Scotland. That episode was directed by
John Byrne and co-starred
John Sessions
John Marshall (11 January 1953 – 2 November 2020), better known by the stage name John Sessions, was a British actor and comedian. He was known for comedy improvisation in television shows such as ''Whose Line Is It Anyway?'', as a panellist o ...
and
Celia Imrie. Some scenes were shot at
Lennoxlove House
Lennoxlove House is a historic house set in woodlands half a mile south of Haddington in East Lothian, Scotland. The house comprises a 15th-century tower, originally known as Lethington Castle, and has been extended several times, principally in ...
in
East Lothian and others in the
Scottish Borders.
[(2015]
Filmed here – 1993, Boswell & Johnson's Tour of the Western Isles, John Byrne
Film Edinburgh, Retrieved 20 February 2015
Plays
Series 1 (1986)
Series 2 (1987)
Series 3 (1988)
Series 4 (1989)
Series 5 (1990)
Series 6 (1991)
Series 7 (1992)
Series 8 (1993)
Notable productions
* ''
Cariani and the Courtesans
Giovanni Cariani (c. 1490–1547), also known as Giovanni Busi or Il Cariani, was an Italian painter of the high- Renaissance, active in Venice and the Venetian mainland, including Bergamo, thought to be his native city.
Overview
His father, ...
'' (1987)
* ''
You, Me & Marley'' (1992)
References
External links
*
''Screenplay''on
IMDb
IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...
*
ScreenPlay' at
BBC Two Genome Project
Genome projects are scientific endeavours that ultimately aim to determine the complete genome sequence of an organism (be it an animal, a plant, a fungus, a bacterium, an archaean, a protist or a virus) and to annotate protein-coding genes ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:ScreenPlay
1986 British television series debuts
1993 British television series endings
1980s British drama television series
1990s British drama television series
1980s British anthology television series
1990s British anthology television series
Samuel Johnson
British drama television series
BBC television dramas
Films shot in the Scottish Borders
Films shot in East Lothian
English-language television shows