#episode follows on immediately from 1.7 The Aggro Boy‚ an Allan Prior script that's interesting as a document on attitudes and approaches

[mariocki]

Katy Manning - in her first ever screen role, and credited as Katie - makes awful coffee and has a good nose at some industrial action, in Softly Softly: Task Force: Standing Orders (1.8, BBC, 1970)

#fave spotting #katy manning #jo grant #softly softly: task force #doctor who #classic doctor who #standing orders #alan plater #bbc #the awful coffee thing is referenced several times in dialogue for some reason‚ it isn't just me being a dick #katy's part here is fairly negligible at a glance‚ but this is a fascinating episode of SSTF. I've found this first series deeply uneven so #far‚ beginning with a couple of brilliant‚ razor sharp scripts from series creator Elwyn Jones‚ but followed by a few really duff #eps by Robert Barr‚ who seems to have seized the procedural aspect of the series and clung to it so his episodes depict fairly dull #routine work for the characters. my heart jumped‚ then‚ when the opening credits for this episode announced Alan Plater as the writer #Plater was truly one of our greatest screenwriters and deserves to be mentioned alongside Rosenthal and Potter (but rarely is‚ perhaps #because he contributed so much to genre work or bc he did so much freelance for other series like this‚ rather than concentrating on his #own original creations all the time). this is well before Beiderbecke made his name‚ but he was already an established writer and so #presumably well known for the socialist views that inform much of his work (even freelancing). doubly surprising then‚ considering this #episode follows on immediately from 1.7 The Aggro Boy‚ an Allan Prior script that's interesting as a document on attitudes and approaches #to football hooliganism in 1970‚ but which has a highly Conservative bent and contains dialogue which seems to support increased powers of #policing‚ the return of national service‚ and a general despair with 'modern society'. Prior's script couldn't be further from Plater's #beliefs‚ but to his credit this episode (concerning labour disputes and unofficial strikes) does its damndest to remain neutral (mostly #through the figure of Norman Bowler's Insp Hawkins who will not be drawn into taking sides). i suppose it's testament to Plater's #professionalism; he was after all a guest writer on a mildly conservative cop show‚ not to mention writing for the BBC (always at pains to #appear politically neutral). his characters are varied‚ with good and bad on both sides of the debate; there are bad managers and trouble #makers on the picket‚ as well as sympathetic bosses and earnest union men. if Plater does allow his leftwing bias to show (and it's only #briefly) it's in scenes where Hawkins is goaded by his superiors into betraying his own sympathies: something he explicitly refuses to do #so where does Katy come in? what does her character represent? if anything i think she represents the disinterested masses #the idle onlookers; her secretary character is not directly involved in the shop disputes and spends most of the episode watching the men #from the window with half curiosity and half boredom. and she does it superbly!