The Nation's Health (1983)

[Del Boy]

As recommended by Arthur Pringle here is a thread for GF Newman's The Nation's Health.
See the sister thread for GF Newman's Law & Order here Law &Order

After being briefly discussed earlier on the Law & Order thread i decided to check Amazon out for The Nation's Health.
They have four copies left at £3.86 each. Looks a bargain to me

Couple of Sweeney Connections in that Euston Films were involved in the adaptation and the dvd is a Network production.

The Nations Health dvd

[Del Boy]

I've ordered a copy and I have high hopes for it due to the quality of Law & Order.

[Arthur Pringle]

Thanks for creating the thread Del

Some more info about it   www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/481759/index.html

This article mentions that GF Newman was turned down as a writer for 'Z Cars' for suggesting that one of the main characters might take a bribe ( wonder if it was Dixon? ) & that each episode of The Nation's Health was followed the next evening by a studio discussion, something that happened with other programmes that were considered 'controversial' as a way of providing balance.

I think in GF Newman's case this was fair enough as he is a man with some quite extreme views-  
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/carnivores-enjoy-the-same-pleasure-as-child-murderers-g-f-newman-speaks-1403678.html

[Del Boy]

Interesting article.
He's quite an opinionated character it would seem. We know of the controversy caused by L&O and was that the reason this outing of Newman's work appeared on CH4 ?
I know later in the 90s CH4 had a reputation for being a home for edgy content but was this the case from it's 1982 inception?

Looking forward to seeing The Nation's Health.

[Arthur Pringle]

I've had a look at the book on Euston Films I have, it has a short bit on The Nation's Health. It says that the producer of Law And Order, Tony Garnett, had approached Verity Lambert of Euston about doing a film with GF Newman about the Kray twins or a fictionalised version of them. Lambert wasn't keen on the idea as Euston had already done Out & Fox which covered similar ground, so Newman instead came up with the idea of doing 4 plays about the NHS in the same mould as Law And Order, Lambert thought that this was 'exactly the kind of drama Channel 4 should be doing' & other people involved with Channel 4 were enthusiastic about it so they went ahead with it.
Definitely from the beginning Channel 4 was producing interesting films & programmes, very different to the crap channel of mostly reality tv it is today.