Diary Of A Nobody

Playwright John McGrath was quoted in the Radio Times as a prelude to the premiere of the anthology series Six as hoping that the programme would "open a door to some of the creative energy which has been neglected because it did not fit into a conventional category".


Bryan Pringle as Mr Pooter

Admirable in intent, the series never quite lived up to its high-flown expectations and has, with the passing of time, been disregarded in favour of more "conventional" anthology vehicles produced throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Whilst the programme provided a forum for budding young film-makers and those who prided themselves in "thinking outside the square" (as opposed to their contemporaries) to produce television which they considered to be ground-breaking, mould-breaking and convention-breaking, audiences failed to share their creative enthusiasm and Six proved to be one of the less successful ventures launched by the fledgling new arm of BBC Television otherwise known as BBC 2.

Part of the problem lies in the inherent desire of the film-makers and writers associated with the programme striving to produce television which was different, non-narrative and "interesting", and its failure is certainly not due to the fact that it was introduced to audiences in 1964 (usually accustomed to a fairly standard form of storytelling and dramatic depiction). Fundamentally, Messrs Kennedy Martin, McGrath, Kenneth Loach and Ken Russell (major proponents of the "new movement" in British Television) were far too aggressive in their implementation of "change", as exemplified with the failure of this production, but the relative success of the venture Diary Of A Young Man (less ground-breaking, more conventional, but approaching content from a different direction and succeeding in cultivating an established audience).

Six was relatively entertaining, consisting of a half dozen very different plays (ranging from a comedy to a drama to a "documentary" on modern society and so on) and boasting notable performances from the likes of Bryan Pringle, Brian Murphy, Vivian Pickles, Wendy Richard, Rodney Bewes and Margery Withers. The challenge to present fresh views, concepts and content in episodes ranging in duration from thirty-minutes to the hour-length fifth episode, certainly enabled the film-makers to enjoy a new-found freedom in which to express themselves without the network vetting their creative talents, but the problem with this type of format is that, without the appropriate editing and vetting by higher powers, very often these types of enterprise fall short of the mark.

The series was globally exported but never released in any format, owing to the fact that the programme became an unfortunate victim of BBC Television's junking policy in the 1960s and 1970s, the result of which is that only Diary Of A Nobody, the first episode, managed to escape harm and still exists in the BBC archives.