‘Scum’: The violent British classic you can watch for free on YouTube
The BBC is known for its consistent quality, creating some of the greatest TV dramas of modern entertainment, including Peaky Blinders, Bodyguard and Happy Valley to name just a few. In the late 20th century, however, they were arguably a lot more creative, with their Play for Today series attracting iconic filmmakers like Ken Loach, Lindsay Anderson, Mike Leigh and Michael Apted and a host of acting talent, including Ray Winstone and Janine Duvitski.
Produced and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984, Play for Today was a British anthology series that played host to over 300 programmes throughout its 14-year history. Such included original television plays and adaptations of stage predictions, with each running between 50 and 100 minutes in duration, bordering on the limits of being classified as a feature film. The best of such programmes included Leigh’s influential 1977 drama Abigail’s Party starring Alison Steadman.
Often operating within the genre of kitchen sink drama, the majority of these programmes were fairly family-friendly affairs, but there were others that didn’t quite abide by the rules.
Over the course of the show’s history, two plays were pulled from transmission shortly before their scheduled broadcast, with these being Barry Davis’ Brimstone & Treacle in 1976 and Alan Clarke’s Scum the following year. The concern for the former was over the graphic rape of a disabled woman by a man who represents the devil, whilst for Clarke’s Scum, an uncompromising story of life in a British juvenile offender institution in the 1970s, was considered to sensationalise life in a British borstal home.
Two years after it was supposed to air on the BBC, Alan Clarke and scriptwriter Roy Minton remade it as a film and screened it for the first time on Channel 4 in 1983. The story follows Carlin, played by a young Ray Winstone, who attempts to survive life in a violent borstal home where he is forced to face up to himself and his adversaries to seek a future.
Winstone, who would later work with the likes of Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson on Martin Scorsese’s The Departed thrives in the Clarke-helmed British film, taking to one of his very first roles with aplomb. Joining him in the cast is an impressive ensemble of now-famous faces, including Eastenders’ Phil Daniels and Alrick Riley of the new, highly-anticipated series The Peripheral.
Before the release of Scum, Clarke would release Made in Britain, a similarly provocative crime flick that starred Tim Roth as a skinhead who clashes with social workers who are trying to make him abide by the status quo. Roth would later collaborate with Quentin Tarantino on Reservoir Dogs, a part that was not easy for the young actor to get, nonetheless, he eventually starred alongside Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi and Michael Madsen.
Once very difficult to find online or in the real world of DVDs and Blu-Rays, Scum is now available to watch for free on YouTube.
