Moonlight on the Highway is a television play by Dennis Potter, first broadcast on 12 April 1969 as part of ITV’s Saturday Night Theatre strand. The tale of a young Al Bowlly obsessive attempting to blot out memories of sexual abuse via his fixation with the singer, the play was the first of Potter’s works to use popular music as a dramatic device and strongly anticipated Potter’s later ‘serials with songs’ Pennies from Heaven (1978), The Singing Detective (1986) and Lipstick on Your Collar (1993).

Synopsis
Al Bowlly obsessive David Peters (Ian Holm) is visited in his run-down bedsit by Marie (Deborah Grant), a researcher for Severn Television, who is collecting material for a documentary about the singer. David is the editor of the Al Bowlly Appreciation Society fanzine and Marie hopes to secure him as the programme advisor. David is enthusiastic about the offer but has other things on his mind; he has an appointment with an NHS psychiatrist the following day and his anxiety about the meeting, coupled with the novelty of entertaining his beautiful visitor, leads him to make an unwelcome pass at her. Marie fights off his advances and runs out the flat, leaving a defeated David to reflect on his problems.
In the waiting room the next day, David gets into an altercation with an elderly patient who has never heard of Al Bowlly. By the time he is finally called to see Dr Chilton (Anthony Bate), David is agitated by the older man’s ignorance – especially as today is the anniversary of Bowlly’s death. The doctor’s calm demeanour, however, soon puts David at ease and, with some difficulty, David explains that his mother died six weeks earlier after having nursed her throughout his adult life and harrowingly recounts how, at the age of ten, he was abducted by a stranger and sexually assaulted. Alongside these traumatic events, David hints as some “wicked” acts he has committed but Chilton stops him before he can elaborate on these and prescribes him some anti-depressants. He is warned not to drink alcohol or eat cheese while taking the tablets as they will “make [his] tongue wag.”
After David leaves, Chilton informs the two student doctors who have been in attendance throughout the session that he believes David’s claustrophobic relationship with his disabled mother and the earlier torment of sexual abuse have resulted in a sense of sexual disgust that he overcomes in his obsession with the innocent music of Al Bowlly. Chilton dismisses his junior colleagues’ concerns that David may attempt suicide and suggests it is more likely that the desperate desire to discharge his secrets will perhaps lead him to confide in a friend.
Later that evening, David attends the annual meeting of the Al Bowlly Appreciation Society. Relieved that his ordeal with the psychiatrist is over, David forgets the warning not to mix his medication with alcohol and drinks heavily. After much merriment, the Society President calls David up on stage to talk about the success of the fanzine. As David holds forth in his speech about the beauty and innocence of Bowlly’s music his mind wanders back to the sexual assault and, realising he is surrounded by friends whose attitudes to love and sex match his own, reveals that he has slept with 136 prostitutes. As he leaves the stage and the scandalised Society members return to their festivities, a jubilant David approaches a large blow-out of Bowlly mounted on the wall. He smiles: “Good old Al!”

Moonlight on the Highway [ITV Saturday Night Theatre] (Dennis Potter 1969) (1).mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	52 min 24 s
Size: 	792 MiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	698x576 ~> 768x576
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	1 919 kb/s
BPP: 	0.199
Audio
#1:  	2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s (Stereo)

https://nitro.download/view/17E138E754A7246/Moonlight_on_the_Highway__ITV_Saturday_Night_Theatre__(Dennis_Potter_1969)_(1).mkv

https://rapidgator.net/file/097c0376bff0763a98348be7deb679dc/Moonlight_on_the_Highway_[ITV_Saturday_Night_Theatre]_(Dennis_Potter_1969)_(1).mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:None

The post James MacTaggart & Dennis Potter – ITV Saturday Night Theatre: Moonlight on the Highway (1969)  first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Short stories by George MacKay Brown, adapted for television by John McGrath

Three short-stories by Orcadian author Brown, adapted to create three short plays, running back-to-back, in an episode lasting just over 90-minutes. It explores the lives of islanders, past and present.

Brown won the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, and although ultimately unsuccessful he was shortlisted for a Booker Prize for fiction.

Take into consideration that there’s three stories with approx. 10 actors and actresses in each, then add in Scottish drama’s reputation for using the same tried-and-tested faces over and over again. That means, if you’re a Scot over 40, you’re bound to end up spending the evening guessing the other things they were in!

First we have Hannah Gordon, the Social Worker from the previous week’s episode, When the Bough Breaks. Then we have the magnificent Fulton MacKay, with this role being just a couple of years before the Prisoner & Escort Porridge pilot. And there’s Lex McLean’s moronic sidekick Walter Carr, along with a few other Vital Spark crew-members.

This is a good one, but it’s especially good if you’re as Scotch.

A TIME TO KEEP

“A Time to Keep” reflects Brown’s recent conversion five years earlier to Roman Catholicism, which is both reflected in the title and in the spiritual content of the tales.

THE WHALER’S RETURN

“The Whaler’s Return” is a self explanatory one, focusing on a whaler returning to his native Orkney after a lengthy and dangerous expedition.

CELIA

“Celia” portrays a woman who is shutting out the contemporary world, losing herself in an alcohol-fuelled haze which helps her rejects the horrors of Apartheid and the Vietnam War.

Play for Today S01E20 Orkney [576p] (13 May 1971) [WebRip x264].mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 31 min
Size: 	1.23 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	768x576 
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	1 814 kb/s
BPP: 	0.164
Audio
#1:  	1.0ch AAC LC @ 113 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/AC869B199FF574A/Play_for_Today_S01E20_Orkney__576p__(13_May_1971)__WebRip_x264_.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/9F3994179007FE2/Play_for_Today_S01E20_Orkney_576p_(13_May_1971)_WebRip_x264.srt

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post James MacTaggart – Play for Today: Orkney (1971) first appeared on Cinema of the World.