Skip to main content

ETHNOS_APP

Home • Search • Journals • List 0

Women Writers and Writing Women into Histories of Play for Today

Bibliographic Data

ID21785059
AuthorsVicky Ball (0000-0002-6441-0303, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume19
Issue2
Pages150-172
Publication date2022-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of British Cinema and Television (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1743-4521 • E-ISSN: 1755-1714
PublisherEdinburgh University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3366/jbctv.2022.0615
OpenAlexW4225115453
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited11

This article emerges from a research project which explores the contribution women writers have made to Play for Today. The project seeks to use the flagship series as a case study, to highlight the significance of the single play in the histories of women’s work in television drama, to identify the attendant gender politics of television production which have contributed to the high levels of inequality therein and to critically analyse women’s creative contributions to the television play. There has been very little sustained research of these issues, to a great extent because of the association of the single play with masculinity. This sphere of drama production has, as this flagship series illustrates, been male-dominated: only 13 per cent of the Play for Today series were written by women, only 23 per cent were produced by women and only 4 per cent were directed by women. The critical neglect of women’s contributions to the single play has largely been attributed to the male-dominance of the industry and the attendant invisibility of women in archives ( Moseley and Wheatley 2008 ) and television drama histories ( Caughie 2000 ; Cooke 2003 , 2015 ). The aim of this article is to use Play for Today as a case study to cast new light on the contributions women have made to the single play, and concomitantly, the significance of Play for Today and the single play in historiographies of women writers and British television drama

Art · Drama · Invisibility · Literature · Masculinity · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Television series · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · History · Irish and British Studies · Law

  • Nemone Lethbridge's play Baby Blues on BBC television

    Open Access•Francis Creed•Women s History Review•2025

  • Poorly paid, but proud to work in teams producing 'quality

    Open Access•Tom May•Critical Studies in Television…•2022

  • Women's broadcasting histories and the archive

    Open Access•Sarah Arnold, J Mccabe et al.•Critical Studies in Television…•2025

  • The History of British Women’s Writing, 1945–1975

    Open Access•Clare Hanson, Susan Watkins•The History of British Women’s…•2017

  • Television Drama

    John Caughie•Television drama•2000

  • Television Drama

    Open Access•Sue Thornham, Tony Purvis•Television Drama•2004

  • Boys on top

    Open Access•M K Macmurraugh-Kavanagh, Madeleine Macmurraugh-Kavanagh•Media Culture & Society•1999

  • Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema

    Laura Mulvey•Screen•1975

  • Drama' into 'news

    M K Macmurraugh-Kavanagh, Madeleine Macmurraugh-Kavanagh•Screen•1997

  • Roseanne

    Kate Rowe, K K Rowe•Screen•1990

Unique citing works3
Citations per year0,75
Citation span2022 - 2025 (4)
Citation velocityrecent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 2

Tools

Open DOI
Ethnos_APP • Open Source Project • MIT License • Frontend v2.0.0 • Privacy and Cookies • API Documentation: api.ethnos.app/docs • API Source Code: GitHub • DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17049435 • Frontend Source Code: GitHub • DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17050053 • cruz.rio.br • Expectantes Misericordiae