''Day To Remember'' is a British

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...

television play A television play is a television programming genre which is a drama performance broadcast from a multi-camera television studio, usually live in the early days of television but later recorded to tape. This is in contrast to a television movi ...

first transmitted 9.45pm Sunday 21 December 1986 on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

from

Television South Television South (TVS) was the ITV (TV network), ITV franchise holder in the South East England, South and South East of England between 1 January 1982 at 9.25 am and 31 December 1992 at 11.59 pm. The company operated under various names, ini ...

Production in association with the ''Theatre of Comedy Entertainment''. Written by

Jack Rosenthal Jack Morris Rosenthal (8 September 1931 – 29 May 2004) was an English playwright. He wrote 129 early episodes of the ITV soap opera ''Coronation Street'' and over 150 screenplays, including original TV plays, feature films, and adaptations. ...

it stars George Cole and

Rosemary Leach Rosemary Anne Leach (18 December 1935 – 21 October 2017) was a British stage, television and film actress. She won the 1982 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a New Play for ''84, Charing Cross Road'' and was nominated for the BAFTA Award fo ...

. Again the strength of Rosenthal's comedy play lies with his closeness to the tragedy as it was based on his own experiences with his father-in-law. The pain and terror of

dementia Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...

portrayed is contained and balanced by the comic presentation that beset the old. When Jack Rosenthal finally wrote his memoirs, ''An Autobiography in Six Acts'', he did so in the form of a screenplay, including a section from ''Day To Remember''; it was published by

Robson Books HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Corp ...

in 2006.

Plot

The play is set around the

festive A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival co ...

period, a season of peace and goodwill, a time for

miracles A miracle is an event that is inexplicable by natural or scientific lawsOne dictionary define"Miracle"as: "A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divin ...

. Wally ( George Cole) had suffered a

stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

some years back. One of the side effects is that he can't remember things, even things he said five minutes ago, or whether he's had a meal or not. Wally and his wife Hilda (

) are spending Christmas with their daughter Judy and son-in-law Graham, but the peace and goodwill of the season doesn't last. An idea from Graham (a miracle) hopes to give them all a Christmas they won't forget. Throughout the play Wally repeats a

rhyme A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic ...

out loud about his love of eating eggs, with words slightly changed each time he says it. Wally's Poem:- ''Fried eggs for my dinner,
Fried eggs for my tea,
Fried eggs in my belly,
Da-da-da-da-dee''

Cast

* Wally - George Cole * Hilda -

* Judy -

Barbara Flynn Barbara Flynn (born Barbara Joy McMurray, 5 August 1948) is an English actress. She first came to prominence playing Freda Ashton in the ITV drama series '' A Family at War'' (1970–1972). She went on to play the milk woman in the BBC comedy ...

* Graham -

Ron Cook Ronald G. Cook (born 1948) is an English actor. He has been active in film, television and theatre since the 1970s. Early and personal life Cook was born in 1948 in South Shields, County Durham, England, the son of a school cook and a car wo ...

References

{{JackRosenthal 1986 television specials Channel 4 comedy Television shows produced by Television South (TVS) English-language television shows