Our Day Out - BBC Play Of The Week [1977]

Our Day Out is a hilarious, chaotic tale of a group of teenagers let off the leash for a day s outing to Conwy Castle in Wales. Stopping off at a cafe, a zoo, the beach and a funfair, they take every opportunity to bicker, dawdle, cajole, steal and go missing. Filmed on location with a cast of untrained child actors, it s an exuberant celebration of the joys and agonies of growing up and being footloose, 14 and free from school. But it also portrays bleak lives of under-educated kids from the backstreets of Liverpool. This tender comedy, directed by 1996 BAFTA winner Pedr James (Our Friends in the North), draws on Willy Russell s own experiences of school trips as both pupil and teacher. Originally broadcast on BBC One in 1977, it was later adapted as a stage musical and still features today as a school text.