Last modified on Mon 17 May 2021 14.47 EDT
Douglas Livingstone, who has died aged 86 of heart failure, enjoyed parallel careers as an actor and writer for television and radio.
His compelling six-part small-screen adaptation of The Day of the Triffids (1981), a rare excursion into sci-fi, remained faithful to John Wyndham’s novel, apart from re-setting the story from the 1950s to the near-future. One critic described it as “the most effective TV realisation of Wyndham’s writing”.
Livingstone’s own creations often explored the pleasures and foibles of people taking time away from the pressures of city life. The Play for Today series proved to be a perfect showcase for his original ideas, although the BBC continuity announcer managed to omit the title in introducing the first one, I Can’t See My Little Willie (1970).
Last modified on Thu 15 Apr 2021 13.20 EDT
In 1967 the National Youth Theatre in London performed the first new play it had ever commissioned, with 80 performers arranged on a set depicting a football stand. The play would be revived with new casts eight times over the next 20 years, and again at Wilton’s Music Hall in London in 2017. It was televised twice, and entered the school curriculum. The play was Zigger Zagger, and its writer was Peter Terson, who has died aged 89.
The story of teenager Harry Philton and his friend Zigger Zagger, who draws Harry into a band of rioting football fans, has as its timeless theme the poverty of choices faced by a young, working-class male. Terson continued his exploration of this subject the following year with his next National Youth Theatre play, The Apprentices (starring Barrie Rutter), in which exploited young men turn cruelly and violently on each other.