Authorship, form and narrative in the television plays of Alan Clarke, 1967-89

This thesis places the themes and approaches of the British director Alan Clarke within various contexts: the institutional contexts in which he worked, critical and theoretical debates on television form, and the methodological problems which are inherent in attributing authorship to a director working within the highly collaborative medium of television. This thesis constitutes the first full-length critical study of a director working within British television drama.Chapter 1 covers Clarke's background, his early theatre work, and several early television plays from his first, Shelter (1967) through to case studies of the drama-documentary To Encourage the Others (1972) and the fantasy Penda's Fen (1974). I demonstrate that his work in this period is more distinctive than its institutional and technological restrictions might suggest. My methodology features a fluid interplay between Television and Film Studies approaches, combining studies of his filmed work with analysis of his television plays in multi-camera studios and on Outside Broadcast, thereby considering vital issues of aesthetics. Chapter 2 explores various plays from the 1970s, sparse studies of institutionalisation like Sovereign's Company (1970) and Scum (1977, 1979). The banning of Scum was a turning point in his career; Chapter 2 contextualises this within academic writing on ideologically progressive form. Chapter 3 covers his work in his auteur period, the 1980s, by discussing the stylistic and narrative strategies of crucial productions like Made in Britain (1983) and his politically and aesthetically radical pieces on Northern Ireland and terrorism, Psy-Warriors (1981), Contact (1985) and Elephant (1989).Throughout this thesis, my interest in histories and aesthetics is predicated upon an ideological analysis, as I explore Clarke's work in terms of the politics of form, demonstrating his experimentation with narrative, his concern with discourse, and his questioning of the interaction between form and content

Authorship, form and narrative in the television plays of Alan Clarke, 1967-89

[From the introduction]: This thesis represents the first full-length critical study of the career of a director working in television drama. It combines a broadly chronological study of the dominant themes and approaches of the British director Alan Clarke with an awareness of various contexts: the institutional contexts in which he worked, critical debates on television form, and the methodological problems which confront critics when they attempt to attribute authorship to a television director. The central and interlinked issues which recur throughout this thesis are the politics of form, realism, narrative and authorship

'The Surprise of a Large Town': depicting regional space in Alan Plater’s Land of Green Ginger

This article uses Land of Green Ginger (1973) as a case study of the engagement with regional place which occurred within television drama from BBC Birmingham during the 1970s and early 1980s. Filmed on location in Hull, the play was transmitted in the networked BBC1 strand Play for Today (1970-84). This article begins by locating the play within the context of BBC Birmingham as an institutional framework which produced dramas with common themes and approaches, before considering how regional identity is reinforced by the play's aesthetics. In addition to close textual analysis, this study draws from unpublished sources including the pre-production script, BBC records and a new interview with its scriptwriter, Alan Plater

Drama as Science Documentary: The Ethics of Making and 'Banning' The Black Pool

This article explores ‘The Black Pool’, a docudrama which was made for the BBC’s science documentary series Horizon (BBC2, 1964-present) but never transmitted. Aiming to provide a case history of paranoid schizophrenia, Horizon commissioned Alan Plater to dramatise an ‘autobiographical document’ by a doctor who murdered three children in 1972. Its makers debated the most appropriate form and style, raising issues which are relevant to current documentary scholarship in ethics and affect. Similar issues were raised by BBC executives who decided not to broadcast the completed programme. This period produced several programmes which were banned, delayed or not completed, but ‘The Black Pool’ and the circumstances behind it are not well-known. This article draws from a range of sources, including a new interview with director Simon Campbell-Jones, previously-unseen archival documents and a viewing of the untransmitted programme, not merely to uncover a ‘banning’ but to reflect on ethical and affective questions in current scholarship and to address the nature of science documentary and science docudrama. The article contributes to studies of ‘forgotten drama’ both in terms of this unseen and largely undiscussed programme and in terms of a neglected, specialised culture of drama in documentary strands in general and science documentary strands in particular

¨Valoración de medios probatorios que sustentan sentencias condenatorias en el delito de tocamientos indebidos en menores de 14 años¨

Se tuvo como objetivo general Analizar si la valoración de los medios probatorios garantiza adecuadamente la presunción de inocencia en los delitos de tocamiento indebidos, se realizó con un enfoque cualitativo, donde se desarrolló mediante el tipo de investigación aplicada. Para la recolección de información de datos se utilizó técnicas como la entrevista, dirigida a Jueces Penales Colegiados especializados en la materia el derecho Penal, teniendo como instrumento una serie de preguntas. Los Resultados encuentran concordancia al mencionar que son delitos de clandestinidad, la corte suprema ha establecido que la versión imputativa (acuerdo plenario 2-2005) más algún elemento periférico de carácter objetivo, son elementos suficientes para condenar. Se concluyó que se está vulnerando la presunción de inocencia del acusado, si bien es cierto en este delito por su naturaleza existe una mínima actividad probatoria, los magistrados para sustentar sentencias condenatorias con las pruebas que se actúan a juicio oral, valoran la declaración de la menor teniendo en cuenta el interés superior del niño, fijando como principio de que los niños no mienten y que si existe afectación debe haber un responsable obligatoriamente, superando todas las situaciones planteadas por las defensas con el test de verosimilitud

'It's a film' : medium specificity as textual gesture in Red road and The unloved

British cinema has long been intertwined with television. The buzzwords of the transition to digital media, 'convergence' and 'multi-platform delivery', have particular histories in the British context which can be grasped only through an understanding of the cultural, historical and institutional peculiarities of the British film and television industries. Central to this understanding must be two comparisons: first, the relative stability of television in the duopoly period (at its core, the licence-funded BBC) in contrast to the repeated boom and bust of the many different financial/industrial combinations which have comprised the film industry; and second, the cultural and historical connotations of 'film' and 'television'. All readers of this journal will be familiar – possibly over-familiar – with the notion that 'British cinema is alive and well and living on television'. At the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, when 'the end of medium specificity' is much trumpeted, it might be useful to return to the historical imbrication of British film and television, to explore both the possibility that medium specificity may be more nationally specific than much contemporary theorisation suggests, and to consider some of the relationships between film and television manifest at a textual level in two recent films, Red Road (2006) and The Unloved (2009)

Live to cheat another day: bacterial dormancy facilitates the social exploitation of beta-lactamases

The breakdown of antibiotics by β-lactamases may be cooperative, since resistant cells can detoxify their environment and facilitate the growth of susceptible neighbours. However, previous studies of this phenomenon have used artificial bacterial vectors or engineered bacteria to increase the secretion of β-lactamases from cells. Here, we investigated whether a broad-spectrum β-lactamase gene carried by a naturally occurring plasmid (pCT) is cooperative under a range of conditions. In ordinary batch culture on solid media, there was little or no evidence that resistant bacteria could protect susceptible cells from ampicillin, although resistant colonies could locally detoxify this growth medium. However, when susceptible cells were inoculated at high densities, late-appearing phenotypically susceptible bacteria grew in the vicinity of resistant colonies. We infer that persisters, cells that have survived antibiotics by undergoing a period of dormancy, founded these satellite colonies. The number of persister colonies was positively correlated with the density of resistant colonies and increased as antibiotic concentrations decreased. We argue that detoxification can be cooperative under a limited range of conditions: if the toxins are bacteriostatic rather than bacteridical; or if susceptible cells invade communities after resistant bacteria; or if dormancy allows susceptible cells to avoid bactericides. Resistance and tolerance were previously thought to be independent solutions for surviving antibiotics. Here, we show that these are interacting strategies: the presence of bacteria adopting one solution can have substantial effects on the fitness of their neighbours

Two Cases of Corneal Ulcer due to Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus in High Risk Groups

Considering the popular use of antibiotic-containing eyedrops in Korea, it is important to know the emerging antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria before treating infectious eye diseases. This is especially important in high-risk groups because of the high incidence of resistant infections and the subsequent treatment requirements. We report two cases of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) corneal ulcers in high-risk groups. The first case involved a patient who had keratitis after using antibiotic- and steroid-containing eyedrops to treat a corneal opacity that developed after repeated penetrating keratoplasty. The second case involved a patient who used antibiotic-containing eyedrops and a topical lubricant on a regular basis for >1 month to treat exposure keratitis due to lagophthalmos. The second patient's problems, which included a persistent superficial infiltration, developed after brain tumor surgery. Both cases showed MRSA on corneal culture, and the corneal ulcers improved in both patients after the application of vancomycin-containing eyedrops. In conclusion, MRSA infection should be considered in corneal ulcers that have a round shape, mild superficial infiltration, and slow progression, especially in high-risk groups. This report includes descriptions of the characteristic features, antibiotic sensitivities, prevention, and successful treatment with vancomycin-containing eyedrops for MRSA corneal ulcers

Oxygen transfer mechanisms in the gluconic acid fermentation by Pseudomonas ovalis

The oxygen uptake rate to suspended cells of Pseudomonas ovalis was measured in two ways using the same cell suspension. Initially the rate was found by measuring the rate of production of gluconic acid by cells suspended in a nitrogenfree, aerated medium. Then, an oxygen electrode was used to measure the rate of transfer of dissolved oxygen to cells suspended in a liquid that was being agitated but not sparged. These rates were markedly different. It was found that agitation affected the oxygen transfer rates in aerated solutions at dissolved oxygen concentrations well above the critical level, but had no affect on the oxygen uptake rates by cells suspended in an unsparged but agitated medium. The data suggested that an additional path existed for oxygen transfer. This alternate route, parallel to the conventional pathway of oxygen transfer, becomes operative when the liquid films surrounding the cells and bubbles merge. The resulting shorter path presents a mechanism for direct transfer of oxygen which increases in importance as the gas−liquid interfacial area increases.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/37878/1/260060309_ftp.pd