British Television Drama

Jonathan Bignell is Professor of Television and Film at the University of Reading, UK. He works on the history and analysis of television, especially television drama in the UK and USA, using archival sources and the detailed analysis of programmes. Recent publications include An Introduction to Television Studies (3rd editon, 2012), Beckett on Screen: The Television Plays (2009) and A European Television History (co-edited with A. Fickers, 2008)

• Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors Editors' Introduction Contexts; T.Garnett SECTION I: Editors' Introduction: Production Context Television Drama Series: A Producer's View; I.Shubik TV Drama: Then and Now; J.McGrath Sydney Newman and the 'Golden Age'; S.Sutton The 1970s: Regional Variations; B.Hanson Writing Television Drama: Then and Now; A.Davies 'The Age of Innocence'; A.Plater Playing Shops, Shopping Plays: The Effect of the Internal Market on Television Drama; D.Elgar SECTION 2: Editor's Introduction: Critical Constructions, Approaches to TV Drama Mapping the Terrain: Troy Kennedy Martin's Edge of Darkness; J.Bull Holding On: Signs of the City, The Motif of the Redemptive Journey in Tony Marchant's Holding On; P.Billingham 'What Truth is there in this Story?': The Dramatisation of Northern Ireland; E.Braun The Emancipatory Strategies of Reginald Perrin; C.Fox 'Run Over by One's Own Story': Genre and Ethos in Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective'; A.Hilfer Power Plays: Gender, Genre, and Lynda La Plante; J.Hallam Too Secret for Words: Coded Dissent in Female-authored Wednesday Plays; M.Macmurraugh-Kavanagh What Do Actors Do When They Act?; J.Caughie Multiple Authorship in TV Drama: Trevor Griffith's version of The Cherry Orchard; J.Tulloch Conclusion Select Bibliography Index

'The book not only brings academics and TV professionals together in the debate about televised drama but also provides a probing, but not over-technical introduction to the field of British Television Drama to put alongside Nelson's TV Drama in Transition.' - Christian-Martin Czypull, University of Hannover, European Journal of English Studies