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The Stephens must be one of TV drama's most miserable and dysfunctional
families. Over four plays, the events of one tragic weekend are told from the
point of view of each member of an ordinary suburban family. Nothing like it had
been attempted on television before and the drama was a big critical and popular
success, screening an exceptional three times in eighteen months. George Melly
felt that "on the evidence of this work alone, the medium can be considered to have come of age."
Writer John Hopkins juggled three time-lines - the present, the recent past
and the long past - to produce a gradual accumulation of information about the
characters, building to a shattering climax.
The first play shows Terry (Judi Dench) in her flat (where she remembers
scenes from her past) and the family reunion on Sunday. The second play, which
tells the father's story, shows the family reunion but adds Ted's (Maurice
Denham) memories of his early life. Play three focuses on Alan (Michael Bryant), but omits the family Sunday, instead exploring the aftermath of the mother's
suicide. It does not repeat material, but examines the themes of the first two
plays. The fourth and final play revisits the family Sunday, repeats material
from the first two plays and explores more fully the relationship between Sarah
(Margery Mason) and Alan. Thus, the audience is presented with all the
information it needs to understand Sarah's despair and suicide, as more family
history is revealed play by play.
Audiences might, however, have been forgiven for their surprise that it
should be the mother who takes her life, when all of the other family members
appear to have equal cause. Terry, separated from her black husband and pregnant
with another man's child, hides her deep insecurity and fear behind a veneer of
cynical flippancy. Alan is weak, resentful, jealous and unloved. Father achieved
little in his professional life and is disappointed in his marriage; he has now
largely withdrawn into the past. None of them is able to communicate with each
other; they are indeed strangers talking.
Critic Sylvia Clayton wrote that "the one trait which the Stephens family had
in common was a profound sense of self-pity. Their misery was contagious and
unrelieved; they were alive only when hurting other people." Their descendants
can be found in every current soap opera, from Eastenders (BBC, 1985-) to
Emmerdale (ITV, 1972-).
Janet Moat
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1. A bit of a rest (4:33)
