'Up the Junction' was the fourth episode of The Wednesday Play directed by Ken Loach, with a screenplay written by Nell Dunn (reportedly with Loach's help), based on her own short story collection. Peter Collinson's later film version ended up becoming better known than this television Loach prototype, but that doesn't mean that this isn't worth watching.
Dunn, who was born to an upper class family, was inspired to write Up the Junction after moving to Battersea, making friends, and working in a sweet factory. The television version is an exercise in social realism and grittiness, with a botched back-street abortion, death in a motorcycle accident, and imprisonment for car theft, of the sort that one can easily imagining appealing to Loach (indeed, he would later adopt Dunn's novel Poor Cow as his first feature film). But whereas much of Loach's work has an often furious message about social injustice underlying it, there is an observational, matter-of-fact approach to 'Up the Junction' that probably stems from Dunn's status as an outsider relative to the working classes she wrote about. It is never patronising or condescending, it simply follows the lives of the main characters; the drama rises out of the trial and tribulations of their everyday lives.
The play concerns three young women living in North Battersea and Clapham, namely Rube, Sylvie and Eileen, as they meet three young men, Terry, Ron and Dave. They work, they drink, they dance, and in Dave's case, they cheat on their spouses and steal. They also get pregnant, have arguments, and endure tragedy. The play was quite controversial at the time, mainly due to the abortion scenes and some of the language used; television critics of the time often disliked being presented with depictions of real life hardship, or to be more accurate, the hardships of real life. If 'Up the Junction' lacks the usual single angry social message underpinning many of Loach's films, it nevertheless reportedly managed to contribute to the debate leading to the Abortion Act 1967, simply by showing its audience the reality of what back-street abortions involved and how dangerous they can be: it's positively harrowing during the abortion scene when the camera focuses on Rube's screaming, sweat-drenched face.
In contrast to Collinson's later theatrical version, Loach's 'Up the Junction' occasionally includes fake documentary elements such as an interview with a doctor that plays over scenes of the three women heading to see Winnie the abortionist. Most strikingly of all, there's a segment seemingly unconnected to the rest of the story, featuring George Sewell (who also appeared in Loach's '3 Clear Sundays', broadcast earlier the same year) as Barny the Tallyman, who breaks the fourth wall by talking directly to camera about his "profession". The docu-drama approach is not unusual in Loach's BBC work during the 1960s and brought its own minor controversy; for the most part however, the episode isn't shot like a documentary, with Loach again using multiple camera shots and techniques to bring a dynamic feel to the production. He blends studio filming, stock footage and location work to good effect, all accompanied by a contemporary pop soundtrack, and he also proves adept at handling action sequences, as the motorcycle crash scene demonstrates.
There's a very good cast, especially the three leads, with Carol White playing Sylvie and Geraldine Sherman as Rube, whilst Vickery Turner plays Eileen. Michael Standing plays Terry, Ray Barron plays Ron, and Tony Selby, who also appears in '3 Clear Sundays', as Dave. 'Up the Junction' lacks the bite and the bile of Loach's other work from this time, but then that reflects the scriptwriter he was working with as much as anything else. It doesn't need a pointed social message; like Dunn's original anthology, it just needs to document life, for better or for worse, and let it speak for itself. And it does: the final ten minutes is composed of short scenes that seem to give the message that life goes on regardless of what trials and tribulations it throws at us, making this - in the end - one of the most optimistic pieces of television that Loach ever directed.
Dunn, who was born to an upper class family, was inspired to write Up the Junction after moving to Battersea, making friends, and working in a sweet factory. The television version is an exercise in social realism and grittiness, with a botched back-street abortion, death in a motorcycle accident, and imprisonment for car theft, of the sort that one can easily imagining appealing to Loach (indeed, he would later adopt Dunn's novel Poor Cow as his first feature film). But whereas much of Loach's work has an often furious message about social injustice underlying it, there is an observational, matter-of-fact approach to 'Up the Junction' that probably stems from Dunn's status as an outsider relative to the working classes she wrote about. It is never patronising or condescending, it simply follows the lives of the main characters; the drama rises out of the trial and tribulations of their everyday lives.
The play concerns three young women living in North Battersea and Clapham, namely Rube, Sylvie and Eileen, as they meet three young men, Terry, Ron and Dave. They work, they drink, they dance, and in Dave's case, they cheat on their spouses and steal. They also get pregnant, have arguments, and endure tragedy. The play was quite controversial at the time, mainly due to the abortion scenes and some of the language used; television critics of the time often disliked being presented with depictions of real life hardship, or to be more accurate, the hardships of real life. If 'Up the Junction' lacks the usual single angry social message underpinning many of Loach's films, it nevertheless reportedly managed to contribute to the debate leading to the Abortion Act 1967, simply by showing its audience the reality of what back-street abortions involved and how dangerous they can be: it's positively harrowing during the abortion scene when the camera focuses on Rube's screaming, sweat-drenched face.
In contrast to Collinson's later theatrical version, Loach's 'Up the Junction' occasionally includes fake documentary elements such as an interview with a doctor that plays over scenes of the three women heading to see Winnie the abortionist. Most strikingly of all, there's a segment seemingly unconnected to the rest of the story, featuring George Sewell (who also appeared in Loach's '3 Clear Sundays', broadcast earlier the same year) as Barny the Tallyman, who breaks the fourth wall by talking directly to camera about his "profession". The docu-drama approach is not unusual in Loach's BBC work during the 1960s and brought its own minor controversy; for the most part however, the episode isn't shot like a documentary, with Loach again using multiple camera shots and techniques to bring a dynamic feel to the production. He blends studio filming, stock footage and location work to good effect, all accompanied by a contemporary pop soundtrack, and he also proves adept at handling action sequences, as the motorcycle crash scene demonstrates.
There's a very good cast, especially the three leads, with Carol White playing Sylvie and Geraldine Sherman as Rube, whilst Vickery Turner plays Eileen. Michael Standing plays Terry, Ray Barron plays Ron, and Tony Selby, who also appears in '3 Clear Sundays', as Dave. 'Up the Junction' lacks the bite and the bile of Loach's other work from this time, but then that reflects the scriptwriter he was working with as much as anything else. It doesn't need a pointed social message; like Dunn's original anthology, it just needs to document life, for better or for worse, and let it speak for itself. And it does: the final ten minutes is composed of short scenes that seem to give the message that life goes on regardless of what trials and tribulations it throws at us, making this - in the end - one of the most optimistic pieces of television that Loach ever directed.