Auf Wiedersehen Pet: Past and Present
H-Film Auf Wiedersehen Pet: Past and Present Discussion published by Elif Sendur on Wednesday, November 13, 2019 We are inviting abstracts for a publication on the British television series Auf Wiedersehen Pet to mark the 35th anniversary of its first screening. We are interested in a range of contributions including; academic articles, fan responses, reminiscences, revisiting locations, interviews, etc. Auf Wiedersehen Pet first appeared on the television screens in 1983. Initially conceived as a single six part series it went on to run for 40 episodes over 5 series. The first series followed the plight of British workers forced to look for work overseas as recession hit Britain. The series, in 1986 showed a brighter, affluent Britain, but one which was ultimately corrupt. Voted in a recent Radio Times poll the number one favourite ITV drama over its 50 year history,Auf Wiedersehen, Pet continues to capture the imagination of the viewing public since its first airing in 1983. Over four series and a special, it portrayed the highs and lows of a disparate band of labourers. AufPet, as it became known to the writers, had a prestigious lineage. The series was the brainchild of a northern film-maker, Franc Roddam. It arrived after a long line of impressive cinema films and TV dramas which represented gritty working class life in all its glory and horrors. Such hard-hitting ‘social problem’ dramas as Cathy Come Home, Peter Terson’s The Fishing Party (BBC Play for Today, 1972), Boys From the Black Stuff and Roddam’s own The Family, had already begun to pinpoint the central dramatic component parts of working class representation; jobs (getting them, losing them, suffering over them), damaged relationships, drink, sex and music.
[Show full text]