Bar Mitzvah Boy

"Bar Mitzvah Boy" is the first episode of the seventh season of the BBC anthology series Play for Today. The television play was originally broadcast on 14 September 1976. It was written by Jack Rosenthal, directed by Michael Tuchner and produced by Graeme MacDonald.

This article is about the television play. For the musical, see Bar Mitzvah Boy (musical).

"Bar Mitzvah Boy"
Play for Today episode
Episode no.Series 7
Episode 1
Directed byMichael Tuchner
Written byJack Rosenthal
Produced byGraeme MacDonald
Original air dateSeptember 14, 1976 (1976-09-14)

Starring Jeremy Steyn, Kim Clifford, Mark Herman, Adrienne Posta, Maria Charles, Pamela Manson, Bernard Spear and Cyril Shaps, the play tells the story of a young Jewish boy, Eliott Green (Steyn), in a lower-middle class family living in suburban North East London of the 1970s, and the apprehensions the boy feels over his forthcoming Bar Mitzvah. Meanwhile, the family prepares for the celebration, preoccupied with their own preparations for the bar mitzvah.

Reception

Programme notes for a Boston Jewish Film Festival screening in 2004 hailed the play as "a BBC classic... this bittersweet comedy about a British boy’s upcoming Bar Mitzvah features a strong sense of time and place [and] stellar acting", while the British Film Institute's website describes it as "a simple tale made memorable by genius writing and sympathetic performances."[1][2]

In 1977, "Bar Mitzvah Boy" won the British Academy Television Award for Best Single Play, and in 2000 it was placed 56th in a BFI poll of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century, voted on by industry professionals.[3][2] The play is available on DVD with Rosenthal's other BBC work.[4]

See also

References
  1. "Boston Jewish Film Festival program notes". Archived from the original on 3 September 2005. Retrieved 31 August 2005.
  2. "British Film Institute 100 Greatest Television Programmes". Archived from the original on 14 May 2011.
  3. "1977 Television Single Play | BAFTA Awards". awards.bafta.org.
  4. "DVD: Jack Rosenthal at the BBC (15)". The Independent. 7 April 2011.


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