Barmitzvah Boy (BBC-1 1976 with Jeremy Steyn and Maria Charles)

Barmitzvah Boy was broadcast on BBC One in 1976 as part of the Play For Today strand of single dramas. It was written by Jack Rosenthal and followed a young Jewish boy, Eliot Green (Jeremy Steyn), who struggles to cope with the pressures leading up to his Barmitzvah.

Jack Rosenthal has always had a fantastic reputation for comedy dramas on middle class often Jewish life and this is widely regarded as one of his best. Michael Tuchner directed and the cast also included Adrienne Posta as Lesley and Maria Charles as matriarch Rita.

production details

UK / BBC One (Play For Today) / 1×75 minute episodes / Broadcast 14 September 1976 @ 9.35pm

Writer: Jack Rosenthal / Script Editor: Colin Tucker / Photography: Elmer Cossey / Design: Geoffrey Patterson / Costume Design: George Ward / Producer: Graeme McDonald / Director: Michael Tuchner

cast
JEREMY STEYN as Eliot Green
MARIA CHARLES as Rita Green
BERNARD SPEAR as Victor Green
ADRIENNE POSTA as Lesley Green
CYRIL SHAPS as Grandad Wax
JONATHAN LYNN as Harold
JACK LYNN as Rabbi Sherman
PAMELA MANSON as Sylvia
HARRY LANDIS as Sylvia
KIM CLIFFORD as Denise

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• Love Story: The Dolly Spike (S8EP4 ITV Wed 16 Apr 1969, Francis Matthews, Adrienne Posta)

• Moody And Pegg: His Or Hers? (S1EP1 ITV 24 Jul 1974, Adrienne Posta)

• Spring and Port Wine (1970, James Mason, Diana Coupland)

• It’s A Living (ITV 1962, Jimmy Jewel, Ben Warriss)

• Olympian Way, The (BBC-1 1981, Lois Dane, Adrienne Posta)

• Hands Across the Sea (BBC, 1938, Nadine March, Nicholas Phipps)

• My Son Reuben (Thames 1975, Bernard Spear, Lila Kaye,)

• The Franchise Affair (BBC 1962, Rosalie Crutchley, Michael Aldridge)

• Hamlet at Elsinore (BBC 1964, Christopher Plummer, Robert Shaw)

• A Handful of Thieves (BBC One 1969, Helen Worth, Martin Ratcliffe)

• The Galactic Garden

• The Sentimental Agent (ATV 1963)