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Tucked away at 12.30pm on a Friday afternoon was the
ninth of ten plays in BBC Education's series Scene. Dear Life
was set in a rundown hospital which, by inference, is discovered to
be set around the year 2018. Eighteen years before, a baby boy was the
sole survivor of a chemical plant disaster, but because his immune system
was damaged in the accident, Tuscan has only ever known life in a sterile
plastic bubble. Each day is a familiar routine of injections and
observations, while in the outside world pollution and authoritarian rule
increase. Into Tuscan's small world comes a pretty young auxiliary nurse
called Rosa, who under the watchful gaze of the security cameras begins to
fall in love with Tuscan, though for him to leave the bubble would mean
certain death.
Tom Georgeson, better known for his role as Detective
Inspector Harry Naylor in the BBC's excellent police drama Between The
Lines, played lab director Doctor Myles. He and his assistant Audrey
are as trapped as Tuscan; Myles by his failure to find a cure, and Audrey
by her devotion to Tuscan. With funding due to be suspended, Myles hopes a
book about Tuscan will feather his retirement, and it seems he only hired
Rosa to manipulate Tuscan's emotions and furnish material for a chapter.
But in a not-unexpected ending Rosa discovers that he really has Tuscan's
welfare at heart.
Dear Life need not have been set in the future
to tell its story. Orwellian touches, such as signs ordering all
information to be transferred daily to central records, and radio reports
that identity cards are mandatory, is hardly imaginative stuff. Generally
however, the science fiction elements were underplayed, with the result
that viewers' imaginations supply a suitable sense of future angst.
Though it had a rather obvious conclusion and was
technically produced for a younger audience, Dear Life could
easily have been shown later in the day. This was not simply due to its
strong language, but because the dialogue and acting were so good, with an
especially praiseworthy performance from Jamie Hinde. It was repeated a
year later in the same programme slot.
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Writer: Sue Glover
Series Producer: Cas Lester
Executive Producer: Richard Langridge
Producer: Cas Lester
Director: Jane Howell
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A BBC Production
30 minutes, colour
19th March 1993
(Repeated 11th February 1994)
(BBC2)
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