Best BAFTA-winning single drama 1970-2007

Good thread! Life Story gets my vote, just, over Blue Remembered Hills and Bar-Mitzvah Boy.

Not sure I can see beyond Threads in this list, just for the visceral impact it had at 17. My dad loved Edna and Blue Remembered Hills.

Kieran Prendiville!

I forget about him being a screenwriter.

Threads!

Glad that Garfield won his BAFTA btw. The dancing scene in Boy A is amazing!

It was!

'Threads' is the only one on this list to cause me severe ongoing trauma.

only one I've seen: 2003 The Deal (d. Stephen Frears, w. Peter Morgan)

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Lifestory, just before Goldblum's eccentric scientist act got played out. Spend, Spend, Spend and Bar-Mitzvah Boy are both great too. Can't recall any of the ones between 88 and 95.

Docu-drama really takes over in the second half of this dunnit.

Licking Hitler at a walk.

xpost Yeah was gonna moan about that.

really want to see the greengrass stephen lawrence thing though.

lol @ total absence of alan clarke

Absolutely flabbergasted to find out Ted Kotcheff directed Edna the Inebriate Woman.

Boy A was one of my top 3 films of last year. the dance scene was poss an explicit ref to Claire Denis' Beau Travail? Garfield was astounding.

Great thread(s) and a pretty awesome list actually. I am surprised that somehow I have seen over 70% of these, and that of those a really large number stick in my head. I think oddly I lean towards News Hounds, cos I remember it vividly from when I was 17, as this vivid footstamper both for and against the tabloid press which chimed massivevly with my own political sensibilities. Perhaps not the best best (The Deal is terrific, as is Blue Remember Hills) but for me, made me think about how a single TV drama is very different to film.

Was a wee bit tempted by Skallagrigg, but remember being over impressed cos I had read the book just before it came out. This feels like an interesting combo of a writers and directors prize though.

Re: Alan Clarke, I don't know whether BAFTA didn't like him or whether he was unlucky enough to do most of his major work at a time when there were at least 10 times as many brilliant single dramas on TV in a year as there are today.

his stuff was often not that 'written' in the way a lot of PFTs were. 'contact', 'christine', 'elephant' most obviously, but even 'made in britain' lacks conventional (theatrical) drama stuff, somehow.

No Mike Leigh either.

A lot of people produced (semi)-improvised scripts during the 70s so I think to specifically avoid those guys is maybe a statement of some kind?

Meanwhile Jack Rosenthal who I suppose is arguably more "writerly" wins three on the bounce.

Overlooked A Question of Attribution which I might also have voted for.

I remember "Care" being immensely moving, but would never want to watch it again. "Hillsborough" wasn't as good as I thought it would be, and seemed more worthy in itself than actually worthy of awards. Have "Boy A" on my Sky+ for months without ever feeling in the mood to watch it.

A ton of these are really good. Would watch them all now, probably, based on the ones I know. Is BAFTA just really good at choosing these sort of thing generally?

I have watched several Jack Rosenthal dramas without remembering much about any of them.

(other than a "writing them for his wife" air about them)

I dunno, I feel like a lot of the 70s choices are at least arguable - not really a Jack Rosenthal fan, for example - which makes me question the later picks, but like I said there are probably a lot fewer decent single dramas to choose from now.

Most docu-dramas feel too easy: "here is some stuff that is a matter of recent historical record, with a bit of background characterisation thrown in if you're lucky and some dude doing a Tony Blair impersonation".

worst luck.

Rosenthal should have won it in '82 for P'tang, Yang, Kipperbang as well. Although The Ballroom of Romance was excellent.

some dude doing a Tony Blair impersonation

now, come on, you're just dissing Michael Sheen's entire career here.

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