Edna the Inebriate Woman

August 12, 2013 12:04 PM

The BBC broadcast a great deal of socially-aware drama during the 60s and 70s. Two of it's major successes were by Jeremy Sandford. In 1971 Edna the Inebriate Woman featured a harrowing performance by Patricia Hayes and probably opened middle-England's eyes to the problems of homeless people in general and female alcoholism/homelessness in particular.

Five years earlier, Cathy Come Home, watched by a quarter of the British population, showed how easy it was to slip from working-class comfort into homelessness through no fault of your own, and how dehumanising and brutal life then became. It shocked a complacent nation and caused genuine social change. It is probably a more accurate reflection of mid-60s England than all those cliched clips of Swinging London, mini skirts and kaftans. Some people think not enough has changed.

Both won many awards and are regarded as among the finest pieces the BBC broadcast during these decades, and possibly since. In my view although Cathy is the more important work, Edna has the most powerful performance. On his site, Jeremy Sandford, discusses his own experience of the impact they made.

posted by epo (2 comments total)

I should have said that Jeremy Sandford died in 2003. My hope is that his style of television hasn't died as well.
posted by epo at 12:30 PM on August 12, 2013

The British do this sort of thing well, and that's a Good Thing.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 1:04 PM on August 12, 2013