Up the Junction (The Wednesday Play)
| Up the Junction | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Nell Dunn |
| Directed by | Ken Loach |
| Starring |
Carol White, Geraldine Sherman, Vickery Turner, Tony Selby, Michael Standing Ray Barron |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | James MacTaggart |
| Running time | 75 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC1 |
| Original release | 3 November 1965 |
Up the Junction is an episode of the BBC anthology drama series The Wednesday Play directed by Ken Loach, produced by James MacTaggart, and first broadcast on 3 November 1965 on BBC 1. The play was adapted by Nell Dunn and (uncredited) Loach from Dunn's short story collection of the same name. It tells the stories of three young women living in North Battersea and Clapham and, to a lesser degree, their boyfriends.
Three young female factory workers, Rube, Sylvie and Eileen, go out to a pub where they meet three young men, Terry, Ron and Dave. They flirt, go on a date to a swimming pool, and pair off, each couple developing a significant relationship.
Terry and Rube soon have sex at Rube's flat while her mother is out. Rube gets pregnant and must seek an illegal back-street abortion, which is botched, causing Rube to suffer a horrific miscarriage. Although Terry and Rube continue their relationship after the abortion, they begin to grow apart, and finally have a row. Terry speeds off on his motorcycle, crashes it, and dies.
Sylvie marries Ron, but soon marital troubles develop, culminating in the couple having an ugly public row in the street outside a pub that Sylvie visited with Rube and Eileen.
Dave is already married when he meets Eileen, but he is unhappy with his wife, and he and Eileen have a romantic affair. In addition to his job, Dave also has a criminal history of theft. He is finally caught and imprisoned. Eileen remains loyal to him.
The filmed play has an episodic structure. As story editor Tony Garnett's biographer Stephen Lacey has written, the play "is less concerned with its narrative high-points ... and is motivated more by the seemingly haphazard interplay of accident and incident".
Featuring pop songs of the time on the soundtrack, it was edited to match the rhythm of those songs, then a relatively new approach. The play's soundtrack juxtaposes a song about male sexual desire with one of the female characters undergoing an induced miscarriage during an illegal back-street abortion.
The play also included documentary elements, such as an interview with a doctor advocating a change in the law to prevent 35 deaths each year from back-street abortions. The inclusion of documentary material caused confusion among some viewers who were unsure whether they were watching a fictional play or the continuation of a news broadcast that had aired just before The Wednesday Play.
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