Play for Today: United Kingdom (adv 15)
Part of Baltic Cinema | Together! Solidarity and Community on Screen
Sat 23 Jan | 15:00
£6/£4.50* per person
(adv 15) Dir. Roland Joffé / UK / 1981 / 2h 26m
The BBC’s Play for Today (BBC, 1970-84) strand demonstrated single drama's potential to engage mass audiences with social comment and artistic experimentation.
This incendiary feature-length film from 1981, written by Jim Allen and directed by Roland Joffé and filmed in Dunston, just upriver of Baltic – exactly contemporary with, and a stone’s throw from Tish Murtha’s Elswick – tells the story of a group of housing estate residents who attempt to organise against persistent rent rises. Fiercely compelling and enduringly relevant, perhaps more than ever, United Kingdom unravels the issues which haunted Murtha’s work: the sacking of industry, the hollowing out of public services, the turn from people to profit.
Featuring Ricky Tomlinson (The Royle Family) in his first role.
Doors open 14:30; Film starts 15:00.
Drinks are available from Baltic Kitchen and may be taken into the auditorium.
*Concessions: under 18s, unwaged & 65+
Together! Solidarity and Community on Screen
November 2026 – March 2027
In response to our exhibition Close to Home, the films in this season all circle ideas of community and solidarity and ask key questions about the limits of each. They are rooted in stories of working-class lives, from across different countries and times, from Gateshead to Prague via Helsinki. They explore the most basic conditions of life – labour and housing – and the determination, integrity and compassion to fight the erosion of those conditions.
