Season 2 (1971)
← Back to season list
Episodes 19
Edna, the Inebriate Woman
Edna, the Inebriate Woman is a British television drama written by Jeremy Sandford which was transmitted by the BBC as part of the Play for Today series on 21 October 1971. Directed by Ted Kotcheff, Irene Shubik produced it.
The play deals with an elderly woman, Edna, who wanders through life in an alcoholic haze without a home, a job or any money. A rambling, pathetic yet defiant woman, Edna sleeps rough and begs for food and shelter and the drama follows her progress as she moves from hostel to hostel, going to a psychiatric ward and then prison along the way. Jeremy Sandford, who had previously written Cathy Come Home, researched the play by living rough himself for two weeks.
A great deal of the dialogue and the incidents in the play come from the book, 'Down and Out in Britain' published by Jeremy Sandford in 1971; although the majority of the speakers in the book are male, Jeremy Sandford puts much of their speech into the mouth of the female character.
The film features the only notable acting role of British actor Vivian MacKerrell, the real-life inspiration for the character Withnail in Withnail and I.
At the 1972 British Academy Television Awards, the play won the Best Drama Production category, with Patricia Hayes receiving the award for Best Actress.
Read MoreEvelyn
We don't have an overview translated in English. Help us expand our database by adding one.
O Fat White Woman
The wife of a headmaster discovers that he has been physically abusing his students
Read MoreThank You Very Much
We don't have an overview translated in English. Help us expand our database by adding one.
Michael Regan
A man gets revenge on a pub owner
Read MoreSkin Deep
We don't have an overview translated in English. Help us expand our database by adding one.
Pal
We don't have an overview translated in English. Help us expand our database by adding one.
The Pigeon Fancier
We don't have an overview translated in English. Help us expand our database by adding one.
Still Waters
We don't have an overview translated in English. Help us expand our database by adding one.
Stocker's Copper
In Cornwall, just before World War I, a striking miner befriends a cop
Read MoreThe House on Highbury Hill
We don't have an overview translated in English. Help us expand our database by adding one.
In the Beautiful Caribbean
A story about unemployment and the Black Movement in Jamaica
Read MoreAckerman, Dougall and Harker
A salesman learns a few lessons from the locals when he goes to Yorkshire for a business course
Read MoreThe Villa Maroc
A couple and their daughter take a trip to Africa
Read MoreCows
We don't have an overview translated in English. Help us expand our database by adding one.
A Time to Keep
We don't have an overview translated in English. Help us expand our database by adding one.
The Fishing Party
The adventures of three Derbyshire miners going fishing
Read More