Marty Feldman with a gun and a grudge — British TV that'll ruin your commute forever.
In the first part, The Compartment, an insane man boards a quiet railway coach and starts to annoy a patient man trying to read a paper with incessant small talk in an increasingly menacing manner until he finally pulls out a gun and screaming class hatred bile, humiliates the man until his stop is reached. In part two, Playmates, he breaks into a lonely house and proceeds to terrorise a spinster woman who lives there.
Acting
Feldman's physical comedy twisted into genuine menace.
Writing
Speight's dialogue builds dread through relentless mundanity.
Direction
McGrath traps you in spaces with no escape routes.
Director
John McGrath
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Part of BBC's 'Wednesday Play' slot that brought kitchen-sink social realism to primetime, influencing everything from Ken Loach to 'Black Mirror.'
Feldman was primarily known as a comedy writer (co-creating 'Bootsie and Snudge') — this rare dramatic turn weaponized his usual hapless persona into something genuinely threatening. Director McGrath would later found 7:84 Theatre Company, dedicated to working-class audiences.
GB
