'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 In addition to close textual analysis, this study draws from unpublished sources including the pre-production script, BBC records and a new interview with its scriptwriter, Alan Plater