I had intended to take a break from this blogging lark for a few days, but yesterday, purely by chance, I watched 'Caught on a Train' a BBC television play from 1980, part of the BBC2 Playhouse strand of one-off dramas that ran for 8 seasons between 1974 and 1983. It was deeply impressive, so much that I've felt the need to commit my thoughts to 'paper'.
'Caught on a Train' was written by Stephen Poliakoff, produced by Kenith Trodd, and directed by Peter Duffnell. It was first aired 31st October 1980, and has been repeated a few times on the BBC, and is now available on BBC iplayer (if you live outside the UK you may have difficulties in accessing this remarkable play). Score, I should add, by Mike Westbrook.
The play, filmed entirely on location (much of it on the Nene Valley Railway nr Peterborough), is set in a Europe in the mist of The Cold War, haunted also by the fear of terrorism. The 'Red Army Faction', aka 'The Baader-Meinhof Gang', were then active in the German Federal Republic. In Italy, these were the 'Anni di Piombo' - 'The Years of Lead' - a perfect storm of extreme left and right violence. Poliakov depicts the continent in decline; the train is filthy; there are football hooligans; the station in Frankfurt, and then the train, are crowded with young people silent, sullen and resentful; the authorities are jittery. Into this continent of distrust and fear arrives the young Englishman, Peter (Michael Kitchen). He is travelling by train from Ostend (in Belgium) to Linz (Austria) - he works in the publicity department of a London publishers and is on the way to a trade fair. Peter is ambitious and 'full of himself'. Not an entirely sympathetic character.
The play, filmed entirely on location (much of it on the Nene Valley Railway nr Peterborough), is set in a Europe in the mist of The Cold War, haunted also by the fear of terrorism. The 'Red Army Faction', aka 'The Baader-Meinhof Gang', were then active in the German Federal Republic. In Italy, these were the 'Anni di Piombo' - 'The Years of Lead' - a perfect storm of extreme left and right violence. Poliakov depicts the continent in decline; the train is filthy; there are football hooligans; the station in Frankfurt, and then the train, are crowded with young people silent, sullen and resentful; the authorities are jittery. Into this continent of distrust and fear arrives the young Englishman, Peter (Michael Kitchen). He is travelling by train from Ostend (in Belgium) to Linz (Austria) - he works in the publicity department of a London publishers and is on the way to a trade fair. Peter is ambitious and 'full of himself'. Not an entirely sympathetic character.
At Ostend, when Peter and the other passengers, especially Lorrine (Wendy Raebeck) with whom Peter fancies his chances, have settled into their seats, an elderly Viennese lady, Frau Messner (Peggy Ashcroft) - stylish, neat, self-contained, quite dreadful - steps into the compartment, and proceeds to demand that Peter give up his seat even though it is not the seat she has booked, claiming; 'I don't think you understand. I have to sit by the window." An uneasy relationship then develops between them that is the emotional centre of this film. Both actors sparkle, but I think the palm goes to Ashcroft. One feels that her character always has the upper hand, that she has greater reserves of intellect and guile to draw upon. The narrative, keeping pace with the train, lurches towards disaster when Peter is escorted from the train by the Austrian police.
At the end of the film Frau Messner sits alone in the restaurant car surrounded by detritus of the journey. The wreck, one is tempted to say, of European culture at the end of 20th century.
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