Absolute Hell

A drama which created its own drama, this is the first television production of Rodney Ackland's once scandalous black comedy and it starts a new season of studio dramas starring major artists. Ackland, now in his 80s, was a prolific playwright in the 30s. Absolute Hell, set in a Soho drinking club in bomb-blasted London in the weeks leading up to the 1945 election, was condemned as 'a libel on the British people' when it was first seen in 1951 under its original title The Pink Room. Recent productions have led critics to assess Ackland's portrait of seedy, Bohemian life as a significant picture of its age.