This play was recently aired again on BBC4 as part of a season celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the BBC's famous "Play for Today" series. In fact, the series actually began life in 1964 as "The Wednesday Play"; all that happened in 1970 is that the series acquired a new title after a change in the BBC schedules which led to Wednesday evenings being given over to sport and drama moved to Thursdays. But we'll let that pass.
The play was written by the Scottish author Peter McDougall and was filmed in and around the town of Greenock near Glasgow. Most of the dialogue is in Scots dialect, but English viewers should not let that put them off. I am a Man of Kent, about as far from the Scottish border as you can get in the UK, and I had no difficulty in understanding it.
The central character, Jake McQuillan, works as a crane operator in Greenock docks, but the play is less about his work life than what he does in his spare time, which largely revolves around drinking and fighting. Jake lives with his maternal grandparents; his father is dead and he is largely alienated from his mother. He looks up to his grandfather, now elderly, sick and dying, but who in his younger days had the reputation of being Greenock's hardest man, a title to which Jake now aspires. His grandfather, however, rather looks down on Jake, believing that he will never be as hard as he himself was.
The title "Just a Boys' Game" refers to Jake's hard-man lifestyle; fighting is seen as a "game" with its own rules. We learn that Jake's grandfather has spent time in prison as a result of an incident in which Jake's father, who was a member of a rival gang, was killed. Jake, however, bears his grandfather no ill-will over this incident, believing that it was "all part of the game".
Many "Plays for Today" were on political themes which can make them seem very dated today. For example, another in the BBC4 season, Colin Welland's "Leeds United!", has its roots in the industrial unrest of the early seventies and today looks like a fossil from another age. Indeed, its black-and-white photography, deliberately harking back to the look of the "kitchen sink" social realist cinema of the late fifties and early sixties, probably made it seem like something of a period piece even when first shown in 1974.
Although it was originally shown in November 1979, "Just a Boys' Game", by contrast, seems much fresher, as relevant to the 2010s and 2020s as it was to the seventies. Unlike some plays in the series, it did not feature any actors who were famous at the time, although Gregor Fisher was later to become a well-known face on British television, especially after he starred in "Rab C Nesbitt". There is, however, an excellent performance from Frankie Miller as Jake, and he receives good support from Ken Hutchison and Fisher as Jake's mates. This is a film with a raw power, not only in its depictions of violence and brawling, which can be graphic, but also in its emotional content, especially the surprisingly poignant scenes between Jake and the old man. It confirms my view that the BBC, and British television in general, should do more to celebrate its heritage of fine drama instead of keeping it locked away in the vaults. 8/10
The play was written by the Scottish author Peter McDougall and was filmed in and around the town of Greenock near Glasgow. Most of the dialogue is in Scots dialect, but English viewers should not let that put them off. I am a Man of Kent, about as far from the Scottish border as you can get in the UK, and I had no difficulty in understanding it.
The central character, Jake McQuillan, works as a crane operator in Greenock docks, but the play is less about his work life than what he does in his spare time, which largely revolves around drinking and fighting. Jake lives with his maternal grandparents; his father is dead and he is largely alienated from his mother. He looks up to his grandfather, now elderly, sick and dying, but who in his younger days had the reputation of being Greenock's hardest man, a title to which Jake now aspires. His grandfather, however, rather looks down on Jake, believing that he will never be as hard as he himself was.
The title "Just a Boys' Game" refers to Jake's hard-man lifestyle; fighting is seen as a "game" with its own rules. We learn that Jake's grandfather has spent time in prison as a result of an incident in which Jake's father, who was a member of a rival gang, was killed. Jake, however, bears his grandfather no ill-will over this incident, believing that it was "all part of the game".
Many "Plays for Today" were on political themes which can make them seem very dated today. For example, another in the BBC4 season, Colin Welland's "Leeds United!", has its roots in the industrial unrest of the early seventies and today looks like a fossil from another age. Indeed, its black-and-white photography, deliberately harking back to the look of the "kitchen sink" social realist cinema of the late fifties and early sixties, probably made it seem like something of a period piece even when first shown in 1974.
Although it was originally shown in November 1979, "Just a Boys' Game", by contrast, seems much fresher, as relevant to the 2010s and 2020s as it was to the seventies. Unlike some plays in the series, it did not feature any actors who were famous at the time, although Gregor Fisher was later to become a well-known face on British television, especially after he starred in "Rab C Nesbitt". There is, however, an excellent performance from Frankie Miller as Jake, and he receives good support from Ken Hutchison and Fisher as Jake's mates. This is a film with a raw power, not only in its depictions of violence and brawling, which can be graphic, but also in its emotional content, especially the surprisingly poignant scenes between Jake and the old man. It confirms my view that the BBC, and British television in general, should do more to celebrate its heritage of fine drama instead of keeping it locked away in the vaults. 8/10
