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By the time Frederic Raphael wrote his 'novel for television' for the BBC, he
was an established novelist as well as a successful, Oscar-winning
screenwriter.
The Glittering Prizes (1976) - the title is ironic - was a landmark in
television drama, chronicling the lives of a group of friends who first meet as
students at Cambridge in the early 1950s. It was a characteristically sharp,
witty and satirical portrait of a generation which went on to run the media 20
years later. Raphael has always denied that the character of Jewish writer Adam
Morris is autobiographical, although Adam does share Raphael's mocking wit, his
success as a writer, and his obsession with being a Jew in a gentile society.
Adam leads three of the six plays, which see him facing a series of events
and relationships which are intended to impact upon his development as a person.
Some critics felt that Raphael had let him off lightly by involving him in no
real conflict, thus depriving his personality of drama. Others expressed
disappointment that later episodes did not fulfil the promise of the first.
Samson Raphaelson, himself a Jewish dramatist of an earlier generation, admired
Raphael's cleverness but regretted his ambiguous attitude towards his
Jewishness.
In the first, and possibly best play, 'An Early Life', many of Adam's views
on class and religion are challenged by the short life of his college roommate,
Donald Davidson, and he learns a useful lesson in self-denial. In the third and
possibly weakest play, 'Past Life', Adam has already published one novel to
acclaim and begun to write screenplays. At the start of the 1960s, he is asked
by an old Cambridge chum, now a TV producer, to interview Stephen Taylor, one of
Britain's leading fascists in the 1930s, only to find he has become a ranting
madman. In the final play, 'Double Life', Adam is discontent despite his
success, his marriage breaks down and he discovers that one of the brightest
stars in his Cambridge firmament is now a helpless alcoholic. The remaining
plays chart the love lives of Adam's circle, the rise of the media, and
disillusion with university education in the 1960s.
The six 75 minute play format enabled Raphael to explore a range of contemporary issues, such as sexual politics, abortion, class, religion, racism, homosexuality, the ascendancy of the media, yob culture, the erosion of prewar values and the legacy of fascism.
Janet Moat
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1. Introductions (3:48)
