The Weekenders

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..

Read Next...

The Likely Lads

A Sharply scripted comedy of character and wryly observed social change both series held a perceptively laughter gilded mirror to the changing face of the work-deprived industrial North East and of British society during the middle nineteen-sixties and early seventies.

Also starring James Bolam

Inheritance

Drama starring John Thaw which revolved around the fortunes of the Oldroyds of Annotsfield, a Yorkshire mill-owning family, through five generations.

Also starring James Bolam

New Tricks

A senior police officer puts together a team of retired officers; eccentric misfits who have been re-employed to solve a series of previously unsolved cases

Also starring James Bolam

Faces of Jim

Jimmy Edwards series of one-off sitcoms that introduced a minor supporting character actor who would go on to become 'the guv'nor' of British comedy...Ronnie Barker.

Also released in 1961

Call Oxbridge 2000

Medical drama spin-off from Emergency-Ward 10, Britain's most popular medical soap opera of the 1950s and 60s, which never lived up to its predecessor

Also released in 1961

After the Funeral

When Alun Owen's play 'After the Funeral' was read by Sydney Newman, head of drama for ABC Television, and William Kotcheff, the television director, they were so taken by his conception of Wales and the Welsh, they decided to see for themselves.

Also tagged Single Play

Cold Equations

A teenager stows away aboard a rocket in order to visit her brother on another planet. But her actions put everyone else's safety in jeopardy.

Also tagged Single Play

When the Boat Comes In

The lives and loves of the depressed north-east following the end of the First World War is expertly realised in James Mitchell's compelling series

Also starring Bryan Pringle

Out There - ITV Play 1963

It is 1915. Young Annie Hudd, in spite of her family's jeers, is determined to go to France to help the wounded soldiers. She is to suffer many setbacks before her ambition to become a nurse is realised.

Also starring James Bolam