Second City Firsts is a British drama anthology series of single plays, broadcast by the BBC, all lasting thirty minutes. Recorded at BBC Pebble Mill in Birmingham, or sometimes filmed on location, the series was broadcast between 15 October 1973 and 13 May 1978.
The series title referred both to Pebble Mill's location in England's Second City, and the fact that the series commissioned an unprecedented amount of first-time writers.
The 1974 episode "Girl", about a homosexual relationship between two members in the Women's Royal Army Corps, featured the first lesbian (and same-sex) kiss on British television, between Alison Steadman (as Jackie) and Myra Frances (as Harvey). The recording of the episode was discovered in the Thames Television archives decades later, and digitised by the BBC. In 2016, it was added to the BBC Store's "Prejudice and Pride Collection" and made available for streaming.
The 1975 episode "Club Havana" featured actress Julie Walters in her first television role. The transmission tape for the episode is missing, however unedited studio footage survives containing the entire play, but without the opening titles.
The 1976 episode "Jack Flea's Birthday Celebration" was written by Ian McEwan, his screen debut.
Legend: No.overall = Episode overall; No. in Series = Episode in series; AS/A = Archive status/Availability<br /> Abbreviations: DV = domestic videotape recording; CF = colour film; SEQ = sequence(s); VT = 2" videotape
Of the 53 plays in the series, only 19 episodes survive in broadcast quality, a further 11 episodes exist in various domestic videotape formats and sequences exist from 3 partially lost episodes. While a total of 19 episodes are currently entirely missing from the archvies.
Other BBC2 drama anthology series include: