Edna, the Inebriate Woman is the second episode of the second season of the BBC anthology TV series Play for Today, originally broadcast on 21 October 1971.
Edna, the Inebriate Woman was written by Jeremy Sandford, directed by Ted Kotcheff, produced by Irene Shubik, and starred Patricia Hayes.
The hard-hitting realism of the film was in the British TV tradition of productions such as Cathy Come Home, and led to a degree of public and political debate on the issues it raised.
The story deals with a 60-year-old woman, Edna O'Casey (Patricia Hayes), who wanders through life in an alcoholic haze without a home, a job or any money.
A doctor and psychiatrist interview a series of elderly homeless men, assessing whether they can stay at the hostel.
She wanders town and country seeking a bed for each night; in a queue, she meets another homeless woman and they travel together.
Edna joins a large homeless group living under a bridge, where she has a long conversation with an Irish man who also feeds her.
The hostel manager says "Micks only" (Irish only) but Edna hides under a bed until discovered and thrown out.
She ends in court for disturbance of the peace and from there is placed in a psychiatric ward under the name of Edna Rodgers.
On cue, when the court discusses vagrancy, Edna loudly cries out "I am not the vagrant".
In the final scene on a city street at night she is with Teresa discussing the love of her life.
Jeremy Sandford, who had previously written Cathy Come Home, researched the play by living rough himself for two weeks, on two occasions.
[1] A great deal of the dialogue and the incidents in the play come from the book, Down and Out in Britain published by Sandford in 1971;[2] although the majority of the speakers in the book are male, Sandford puts much of their speech into the mouth of the main female character.