Phil McCall

The only thing James wants is to remain away from Scotland. One day, however, he receives a fax, a printout of an unknown person's obituary. The next day, he is charged and arrested for the murder of this person.

In a small, conservative Scottish village, an oilman is paralyzed in an accident. His wife, who prayed for his return, feels guilty; even more, when he urges her to have sex with another.

Time and again a man will stand before a hardware store window eyeing the tools arrayed behind the glass; his mouth will water; he will go in and hand over $2.65 for a perfectly special kind of wrench; and probably he will never, never, use it for anything. -Walker Evans

An unemployed Scottish miner is forced into bare-knuckle boxing to make ends meet.

On Christmas Eve, 1818, in Austria the Oberndorf organ broke down. The assistant priest writes a carol to be accompanied by guitar. The carol was "Silent Night".

When best-selling author James Fuller Hayes comes to Glasgow to publicise his personal account of the Spanish Civil War, a surprise reunion with two of his old comrades from the International Brigade reveals contradictory & devastating information. Technically, this was the last Play For Today ever made by the BBC, but it wasn't broadcast under the strand.

In Torre del Lago, by Lake Massaciuccoli, Puccini is writing "The Girl of the Golden West" when his wife Elvira accuses him of a dalliance with their maid, Doria Manfredi, a young women from town. Although the maestro is frequently unfaithful, he denies the affair; Elvira insists she's right and publicly hounds Doria. Between scenes in this domestic drama that turns tragic, we watch a Scottish company rehearse and stage "Turandot," Puccini's last opera. The film finds parallels between the two stories and suggests that in the opera, Puccini expresses love for his wife and guilt in Doria's fate. Three local gentlemen provide a spoken chorus as Puccini's score plays throughout.

When a farmer's land is wanted for a new town development, a lot of people find their lives put in the melting pot.

A classical string quartet stop at a motorway cafe in early hours. Among the people they meet are a football supporter, a commercial traveller and an elderly couple on their way to Gretna Green to get married.

A shy, awkward Scottish lad secretly carries a torch for a local lass.