The Weekenders

1961 - United Kingdom

How many marriages are dying of boredom? How many couples are dragging out a dreary, meaningless existence because they have long ceased to care for each other - and haven't the initiative to do anything positive about saving their marriages? And in any case, what can be done about it?
These are the questions posed colourfully, succinctly, and often amusingly by Rhys Adrian's play The Weekenders, which stars Jennifer Wilson, Bryan Pringle and James Bolam (who was making his first ITV appearance since leaving drama school two years previous). The play is set in a seaside caravan camp, which is visited with monotonous regularity by the same married couples every weekend of the summer. Barbara Lott and Victor Platt as Anne and Jack Harrison, and Jennifer Wilson and Bryan Pringle as April and Frank, are two couples who have been meeting there regularly for years.

Their routine never varies.

Kitchen chores for the women, while the men fetch the water and take a nap. A game of cards for the men and Bingo at the clubhouse for their wives. "For entertainment they cling to the old familiar things," said author Adrian. The emotional lives of both couples have also fallen into the same dull routine. They contrast sadly with the young lovers played by Keith Maidwell and Primula Pyne, who are obviously absorbed with each other. As Barbara Lott put it: "All four are horribly true to life. Everyone will recognise couples they know. Probably they didn't expect to fall into the habit of never smiling, or never saying a kind word to each other, and always being slightly aggrieved-but somehow it has happened."

Said Jennifer Wilson: "After seven years of marriage, sheer boredom pushes April into having a drink with Johnny (James Bolam), one of the camp employees who has deliberately set out to pick her up. And one knows so well that April and Frank are typical of thousands who have forgotten why they ever married."

Published on April 4th, 2020. Adapted from original TV Times article..

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Play and Single Dramas

There's Always Juliet (1951)

November 6th, 2020

Single play that has been reimagined on several occasions by the BBC and was the inspiration for a movie.

A Night Out (1960)

April 4th, 2020

Albert Stokes finds himself perpetually fighting the dominance of women, not least of all his possessive widowed mother.

Noah Gives Thanks (1952)

April 5th, 2020

After broadcast in 1952 the BBC was bombarded with letters of enthusiastic appreciation and gratitude for this simple yet moving piece of drama...

Shout Aloud Salvation (1951)

April 2nd, 2021

This BBC Sunday Night Theatre presentation, broadcast on 15 April 1951, tells the story of two young women dispatched towards the latter part of the 19th century to introduce the Salvation Army into a bleak northern town.

The Man Out There (1966)

April 3rd, 2020

In the loneliness of space the world's first astronaut, cut off from base, is linked up by freak radio reception with a Canadian trapper's wife isolated with a life or death problem.

Hay Fever (1960)

April 14th, 2020

Guests invited for the weekend by the irresponsible Bliss family find themselves involved in a series of embarrassing and comic situations in what has been described as Noël Coward’s best play.

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