Although Jack Rosenthal’s television plays are peppered with Jewish characters and passing references drawn from the writer’s Jewish roots, only three bring the subject centre stage: The Evacuees (BBC, tx. 5/3/1975), Bye, Bye, Baby (Channel 4, tx. 3/11/1992) and Bar Mitzvah Boy.

Unlike The Evacuees, Bar Mitzvah Boy is not autobiographical, and Rosenthal even played down its Jewishness in a Radio Times interview prior to its first broadcast by stressing the universality of its central theme: “When I was young and reading comics there were always men heroes, actually aged about 15, who were playing football for England or winning wars single-handed. I used to think that when I’m a man I’ll be like that, never indecisive or frightened, but there suddenly comes a point of disillusionment when you realise it is a fallacy”.

In this case the disillusionment hits 13-year-old Eliot in the run-up to and during his bar mitzvah, the traditional Jewish ceremony in which a boy formally becomes a man. Looking at (and listening to) his closest male role models – his father, grandfather, his sister’s boyfriend, all constantly kvetching about trivia – Eliot is appalled: is this what adulthood means, and why is he learning all these moral rules, when it’s so patently obvious that few bother to apply them in practice? He’s equally unimpressed to be told that the event is more for his parents than him: he’s merely the prize exhibit. His mother in particular (a classic Jewish matriarch) dominates the preparations so totally that there’s little room for anyone else except for running last-minute errands or ringing caterers with deeply unsolicited reminders.

Ironically, Eliot only finally becomes the centre of attention when he deliberately absents himself from the proceedings by running off mid-ceremony, eventually revealing his motivation via a long heart-to-heart with his sister Lesley. Hotly denying that the root of the problem was his inability to learn the Hebrew Torah, Eliot demonstrates that he can literally recite it standing on his head – and thereby transfer any guilt onto others.

Long regarded as one of Rosenthal’s best television plays, Bar Mitzvah Boy has been garlanded with awards, from a BAFTA for Best Single Play in 1977 to a place on the BFI’s poll of the hundred greatest television programmes. It was also adapted into a stage musical in 1978, and Rosenthal subsequently dramatised his mixed feelings about the experience in his satirical play Smash! (1981).

1.09GB | 1h 15m | 740×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/E83C6EA1A6FA771/Bar_Mitzvah_Boy__Play_For_Today__(Michael_Tuchner_1976).mkv
or
https://nitro.download/view/8AE6583CEDB8F51/Bar_Mitzvah_Boy__Play_For_Today__(Michael_Tuchner_1976).part1.rar
https://nitro.download/view/4EA5AD8571E65C3/Bar_Mitzvah_Boy__Play_For_Today__(Michael_Tuchner_1976).part2.rar

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Michael Tuchner & Jack Rosenthal – Play for Today: Bar Mitzvah Boy (1976) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Based on the true story of Vivian Nicholson, whose husband Keith won £152,319 on the pools (a sum that would be worth in excess of £2 million today), Spend Spend Spend is a modern morality tale in which two naïve working-class northerners are thrust overnight into a world of hitherto unimaginable wealth, which they prove wholly unable to handle. This is demonstrated from the start when Vivian, suffering from severe stage fright, blurts out during the formal presentation of her winnings that she’s going to “spend spend spend!”, thus creating an impression of selfish hedonism that’s largely at odds with the complex characterisation that Jack Rosenthal goes on to give her.

The play’s structure is complex, beginning with the Pools win in 1961 and eventually spanning the early 1950s to the mid-1970s, but rarely in strict chronological sequence (for instance, the actual process of filling out the Pools form comes towards the end, after we already know Keith’s ultimate fate). Much attention is paid to Vivian’s upbringing and the resulting psychological development: the daughter of a short-tempered miner, she learned the hard way that every penny needed counting, and her idea of a luxurious gift was a set of cheap plastic nail files. It was undoubtedly a hard life, but it was also one based on certainty and cold economic logic. Once that’s taken away, is it any wonder that she goes off the rails?

Rosenthal’s other main theme is the ultimate impossibility of bridging the class divide. In a particularly poignant speech, Keith articulates his frustration that he’s not being treated with more respect, constantly repeating that he’s “a very wealthy chap” as though he was a scion of the aristocracy – but his Yorkshire accent and the setting inescapably jar with the desired impression. Vivian splashes out on new clothes, cars and elaborate hairstyles, but by continuing to live in her native Castleford, she sticks out a mile, and the neighbours resent her for it. But she’d be equally out of place in almost any other setting, so what’s the point of moving?

Rosenthal’s subtle, sympathetic script and Susan Littler’s superb performance did much to counter the overwhelming tabloid impression of her as a money-grubbing freeloader who got lucky. One of Rosenthal’s biggest critical successes, the play went on to achieve its own equivalent of a pools win, with four BAFTAs including Best Single Play and Best Actress.

1.23GB | 1h 25m | 768×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/85AEBFF846B7A08/Spend_Spend_Spend__Play_for_Today__(John_Goldschmidt_1977).mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post John Goldschmidt & Jack Rosenthal – Play for Today: Spend Spend Spend (1977) first appeared on Cinema of the World.