Sunday 4 December 2016

550 Playhouse : The Reunion



( Credit  to  Rexfeatures.com  for  the  picture )

First  viewed : 10  July  1982

This  was  a  one-off  drama in  ITV's  Playhouse strand  broadcast  at  10 pm  on  a  Saturday  night.

Secret  Army's  Michael  Culver  plays  Murray  Tellman  a  white  South  African  liberal  now  living  comfortably  with  his  wife ( Kate  Coleridge ) in  London.  A  trio  of  former  activist  colleagues  ( Diane  Keen, Andrew  Ray  and  Tony  Osoba ) pay  him  a  visit  but  it's  not  exactly  a  social  call. I  can't  remember  if  he'd  actually  betrayed  them  to  the  security  forces  or  simply  deserted  the  cause  but  they're not  very  happy  and  put  him  on  trial  in  his  own  living  room.

There's  some  graphic  accounts  of  their  maltreatment. One  of  them  had  his  testicles  mashed  with  a  baseball  bat  while  another  got  the  "bongos  treatment"  i.e.  a  bucket  put  on  his  head  and  then "played".

Of  course  he's  "condemned"  but  IIRC  they're  content  just  to  discredit  and  humiliate  him  in  front  of  his  wife  and  don't  actually  harm  either  of  them.    




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