Baltic Cinema: Play for Today: United Kingdom
Dir. Roland Joffé UK 1981 2hr 26mins
Play For Today (15)
Saturday 23 January | 15:00
£6/£4.50* per person
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.
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Doors open 14:30; Film starts 15:00. Drinks are available from Baltic Kitchen and may be taken into the auditorium.
Please note we cannot offer refunds on this event.
*Concessions: under 18s, unwaged & 65+
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Together! Solidarity and Community on Screen
November 2026 – March 2027
What makes a community? What brings people together and gives them common purpose? And just what is possible when that common purpose yields strength and resolve — to resist, to maintain, to survive?
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.
Baltic Cinema
Baltic Cinema is a year-round cinema programme at Baltic, lighting up our Level 1 Cinema with the best new and archive films. Bringing otherwise rarely-screened work to the North East, Baltic Cinema also expands our exhibitions, offering a chance to explore further some of the themes they raise.
Baltic Cinema has five strands:
Currents presents new work from across the world
Sources expands on our exhibitions
Selected shows films selected by our artists and partners
Quayside Kino is a monthly screening for families and children
News From Home offers films on and from the North East, for the people who live here
All regular screenings take place in our Level 1 Cinema.
Baltic Cinema is supported by Film Hub North with National Lottery funding on behalf of the BFI Film Audience Network.
