Yes, inkie, it's out of a long British TV tradition; in the 60s and early 70s (when there were but two and then three channels) BBC1 ran a famous series of socially aware drama called Play for Today, related to the film tradition which had sprung up soon after 'Kitchen Sink' drama (ordinary people in realistic situations) had replaced the frothy 'Anyone for Tennis?' comedies which were the mainstay of the British stage in the post war-era. PfT aired social problems in a way that nobody had ever seen before: one play, called Cathy Come Home, led directly the foundation of the charity Shelter, whose unified and focussed attention on the problems of the homeless and those in substandard housing has been a major influence on the publicising of these problems and their solutions ever since. Others of my generation and that ahead of me will remember other titles such as Edna the Inebriate Woman, an examination of alcoholism, and Leeds United, dealing with a clothing workers' strike. That Golden Age is long gone, but the genre has survived, though generally as a pale shadow. There was a series called The Street last year (due a second series soon) which had strong parallels with Prosperity, especially in the way that although each story was self-contained, characters from one would turn up in another.

In the UK, as in the States, and no doubt in Eire too, the power of these pieces nowadays is hobbled by the endless line of editors and overseers changing this and that: in the golden age a writer and director, or even a writer/director, would more or less have carte blanche, even if they also had the burden of responsiblity if it all went wrong. We see it on radio, as well; far too many of the decisions are made by people in management who have no interest (let alone expertise) in the artistic merits of the programme material per se.

Thanks for the link - it seems that all three episodes so far broadcast are still available; good production values, some excellent acting, and high guilt factor (but then I guess that's still almost endemic in a country with such a long Catholic history).

Cathy Come Home led to the formation of the charity Shelter. A small step in terms of the wider problem of homelessness, certainly, but it did indeed have an effect. What were the changes in the law it brought about, Ron?

I'd argue that Boys from the Blackstuff at the very least had an effect upon public perceptions of unemployment, also.

A friend of mine is doing academic research into the relationship between music and the wider political/cultural environment in Britain in the 1980s, but is too young to remember those times clearly. I lent him the DVDs of the whole thing (which come with the original The Black Stuff) as I thought it gives as good a feel for the 'flavour' of the early 1980s as anything. Fantastic stuff - they don't make/commission such things any longer, alas.

Thank you, GG, I though you might come up with something concrete (as indeed did many housing authorities).

Liverpool ( as well as being famous for music) had a very vibrant theatre tradition, and many of its actors and writers came up through the Everyman Theatre; Stoke also had a tradition which was very politically aware: they were more like European theatre companies than British. Nowadays it's considered the place of the  Soaps to deal with social issues on TV: but it's worth remembering that it was Brookside, yet another Liverpool-based institution, which was the torch-bearer for this practice.

I find this thread both dispiriting and, for the memories it provokes, uplifting - in almost equal measure. What TV! My mother (an English teacher in a comprehensive) made me watch Play for Today, on the grounds that, as she correctly believed as it turned out, we would probably never see its like again. Boys from the Blackstuff I remember being utterly gripping and so 'real' it was uncomfortable. There aren't many who can handle the medium of TV with the skill, passion and immediacy (let alone the personal stamp, as Ron says) of Bleasdale, Loach, Mike Leigh or Potter these days.

I think there are...  but it's so much cheaper to make programmes in which someone's front room is redecorated   There are quite a few socially-aware directors working out there...  but their work isn't wanted in Bling Britain.

Well, I find myself asking the question 'why' such things don't get made or commissioned any longer? Do the wider public not want to see such things, or is that a misapprehension on the part of commissioning editors? Or is it simply about the need to make programmes that will guarantee instant ratings when faced with the competition from satellite television, which didn't exist in the heyday of Play for Today? Or, in a time of a 'camp' aesthetic that disdains realism above all else, combined with a post-modernist current (whether or not either of these things would actually be defined as such) that distrusts individuated subjectivity, are the likes of Loach, Bleasdale, Potter or their modern-day equivalents necessarily ruled out of court?