Performance
An anthology series of various plays and dramatic performances.
Seasons
1. Absolute Hell
Air Date: 1991-10-05
Black comedy set in Soho, London, right after WW2. Half of the fun is seeing a slew of very familiar faces kick up their heels as gay men, lesbians, party-girls, drunks, and drag queens.
2. Uncle Vanya
Air Date: 1991-10-12
When Vanya's brother-in-law declares his intention to sell the family's house, polite facades begin to crumble and long repressed feelings start to emerge with devastating consequences.
3. Nona
Air Date: 1991-10-19
An adaptation of Roberto Cossa's Argentinian drama, the play focuses on a family desperately struggling against inflation and unemployment while trying to assuage the insatiable appetite of their 100-year old grandmother.
4. Old Times
Air Date: 1991-10-26
A married couple are visited by a friend from their past, who causes them unease and even embarrassment.
5. Top Girls
Air Date: 1991-11-02
Marlene celebrates her new position as MD of Top Girls Appointment Agency by giving a dinner party for five oddly assorted women from centuries past.
6. The Trials of Oz
Air Date: 1991-11-09
Dramatization of the famous 1971 trial in which the editors of the British underground magazine "Oz" were charged with obscenity.
1. Tales From Hollywood
Air Date: 1992-11-14
Among the residents of Los Angeles during the 1940s were Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Bertolt Brecht and, according to this play, the Austro-Hungarian dramatist Odon Von Horvath, our guide to the sun-soaked boulevards and the bizarre cultural collisions of wartime Hollywood.
2. A Doll's House
Air Date: 1992-11-21
Years ago, Nora Helmer committed a forgery in order to save the life of her authoritarian husband Torvald. Now she is being blackmailed, and lives in fear of her husband finding out.
3. Roots
Air Date: 1992-11-28
Beatie returns to her family home in Norfolk, having been "educated" in cultural and political matters by Ronnie, the boyfriend she lived with in London. Through trying to pass on the things she's learnt to her uninterested family, she discovers her own voice and views—which are no longer just an echo of Ronnie's.
4. After the Dance
Air Date: 1992-12-05
David and Joan's life has been one continuous party, but their marriage is loveless. Suddenly a young girl appears in their world and announces that she's in love with David and wants to change his life for ever. Critics called it Terence Rattigan's most serious and truthful play, but it has not been seen for 50 years.
5. Six Characters in Search of an Author
Air Date: 1992-12-12
Originally set in a theatre, this new version of Luigi Pirandello's classic play takes place in a film studio in 1950 and is recorded in black and white. A family carrying a great personal tragedy of shame and despair have come to the studio to find somebody who can describe their experiences and explain what they've done to each other.
1. Suddenly Last Summer
Air Date: 1993-11-06
Mrs Venable's grief at the loss of her beloved poet son Sebastian turns to rage against her niece Catharine, his last companion and witness of his gruesome death. Determined to erase the memory of Sebastian's loss, she tries to persuade her pet doctor to perform a lobotomy on Catharine.
2. The Maitlands
Air Date: 1993-11-13
It is early summer in the secluded seaside village of Betworthy. But there is a strained atmosphere in the once-prosperous Maitland household, because the family has fallen on hard times. Performance presents the first production for 60 years of the witty and tragic family drama by Ronald Mackenzie.
3. Hedda Gabler
Air Date: 1993-11-27
Hedda Gabler is a beautiful woman married to the solid and respectable academic George Tesman. Then an old flame, the dreamer Eilert Lovborg, turns up on the scene with tragic results.
4. The Entertainer
Air Date: 1993-12-04
The play uses the metaphor of the dying music hall tradition, specifically fictional music hall star Archie Rice, to comment on the moribund state of the British Empire in the 1950s.
5. The Changeling
Air Date: 1993-12-11
Just days before her wedding, Beatrice-Joanna has a chance encounter with Alsemero, and realizes that she has met her one true love. To marry the man she loves, she persuades the love-struck henchman De Flores to murder her fiancé, but does not anticipate the tragic consequences of her actions.
1. Shadow of a Gunman
Air Date: 1995-10-07
In 1920 as the Irish War of Independence rages, two young men, Donald Davoren and Seamus Shields, share a flat in Dublin. First installment in Sean O'Casey's Dublin Trilogy.
2. The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd
Air Date: 1995-10-14
Mrs Holroyd is married to a loutish miner. When a gentlemanly neighbour makes romantic advances to her, she wishes her husband dead. Sooner than she hoped, her wish comes true.
3. Landscape
Air Date: 1995-10-21
Beth sits in an armchair to the left of the table, and Duff in a chair at the opposite end. Duff refers normally to Beth but does not appear to hear her voice. Beth never looks at Duff and does not appear to hear his voice.
4. Bed
Air Date: 1995-10-21
Surreal drama about seven old people living in the same bed.
5. Henry IV
Air Date: 1995-10-28
Henry Bolingbroke has now been crowned King of England, but faces a rebellion headed by the embittered Earl of Northumberland and his son (nicknamed 'Hotspur'). Henry's son Hal, the Prince of Wales, has thrown over life at court in favour of heavy drinking and petty theft in the company of a debauched elderly knight, Sir John Falstaff. Hal must extricate himself from some legal problems, regain his father's good opinions and help suppress the uprising.
6. After Miss Julie
Air Date: 1995-11-04
An updated version of Strindberg's play examining class and social differences. Julie, the daughter of an MP, seduces her father's chauffeur, despite his being engaged to the maid.
1. Company
Air Date: 1997-03-01
At his 35th birthday party Bobby's friends are all wondering: Why isn't he married? Why can't he find the right woman and settle down?
2. My Night with Reg
Air Date: 1997-03-15
A group of English gay men get together to reminisce. They are all coming from a wake for one of their circle who's died of AIDS. It's that terrifying time between the outbreak of AIDS and the development of an AIDS test and as the conversation unfolds it becomes apparent that each man there has had unprotected sex with the deceased.
3. Richard II
Air Date: 1997-03-22
The incompetent Richard II is deposed by Henry Bolingbroke and undergoes a crisis of identity once he is no longer king.
4. Broken Glass
Air Date: 1997-03-29
A Jewish housewife in 1938 Brooklyn loses the use of her legs after reading about Kristallnacht.
5. Macbeth on the Estate
Air Date: 1997-04-05
Shakespeare's play updated to the present day. On a council estate where people survive by dealing drugs and shoplifting, Duncan is the Godfather. Urged by Mrs Macbeth, Macbeth kills Duncan.
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Rating
6.3/10
Release Date
1991-10-05
Episodes
33 (7 seasons)
Status
Ended
Cast
Production Companies
BBC