If there’s any chance you haven’t heard the of the name Jack Rosenthal, then you really should have. As a TV writer, he should be mentioned in the same breath as Harold Pinter and Dennis Potter, who also made their names on the halcyon days of one-off plays for television.
Tapping into the ideal of a ‘golden age’ of television drama, this is an attractive boxset of some of Jack Rosenthal’s best known dramas at the BBC, including Bar Mitzvah Boy and The Evacuees, both from the ’70s, as well as a couple of dramas produced in the ‘90s. Running through them all like words in a stick of rock is Rosenthal’s experience of his own Jewishness – although, in some cases, such as in The Evacuees, the Jewishness never actually runs the risk of unbalancing the drama, yet at the same time the characters’ faith and culture underpins everything they do, and textures every action.
This is emphasised in the extras: introducing the plays is the actress and writer (and relevantly, Rosenthal’s wife) Maureen Lipman, who is a fascinating and funny guide through the works of her late husband. At one point, she speaks about the difficulty of casting non-Jewish actors as Jewish characters, throwing her hands up in despair to make her point before realising with a wry smile just how Jewish she’s appearing. Her own roles within the plays included here are all depicted with that same sense of wry, amused naturalism.
The Evacuees is possibly the high point of this collection, and is, on initial viewing, something of a slight drama, but that’s missing the point: it is the subtle nuances that emphasise the quality of Rosenthal’s script. The directorial debut of Alan Parker, it takes a very small journey – essentially, the journey of two young boys down to Blackpool and back again – and infuses it with genuine cinematic flair. Amusingly, after seeing Lipman’s gripe about seeing non-Jewish actors play Jewish characters, it’s instructive to see a Yiddish grandmother played (by Margery Withers) alongside Lipman’s own second-generation, anglicised version of Jewishness – perhaps unsurprisingly, it is Maureen Lipman’s performance that comes across as most accurate.
Bar Mitzvah Boy and Spend Spend Spend make up the rest of the ‘70s collection, while Eskimo Day and Too Cold For Snow provide two pieces from the playwright in the ‘90s; weaker than the earlier works, but still compelling. This is a high quality collection of television plays from an accomplished master of the form.
Released on DVD on Monday 4th April 2011 by Acorn Media.