Dilys Price

Alan Bleasdale's touching yet frank drama for Channel 4 about the struggles of a group of young adults leaving school in a deprived area of Liverpool. Starring Stephen Walters, Suzanne Maddock and Amanda Mealing. Based on the acclaimed play by Jim Morris, voted Most Promising Playwright by the Financial Times and Morning Star in 1981. Blood on the Dole shows the lives of four teenagers, two boys and two girls, struggling to cope after being thrust into the real world for the first time after leaving school. Living in deprived Merseyside, the four youths' bright-eyed optimism for their futures and new-found freedom is soon crushed by the realities of unemployment, poverty, and the brutal reality of living and trying to find work in a city in decline. They all soon find themselves in the hopeless situation of facing complete dependence on state handouts, "the dole". The four teenagers instead find themselves turning to each other to find the strength to survive.

An adaptation of the novel by Kingsley Amis about a group of university friends reunited in retirement. Alun Weaver has found success as a celebrated London-based writer. After returning home to Wales with his alluring wife Rhiannon he reunites with old friends who chose to remain in the valleys. Long dormant romance are rekindled and rivalries resurrected in this turbulent story of ageing, friendship, lust, nostalgia and nationalism.

A debauched young aristocrat entrusts the running of his country house to Tom, the butler, on whom he depends absolutely. Before long the servant begins to dominate his master, to the alarm of the newly hired German nanny who senses sinister, demonic intent in Tom's control of the house.