Sartre's Roads to Freedom - The Mystery of the BBC's Lost Tapes.

Just over 43 years ago the BBC first aired a dramatisation of Jean Paul Sartre's Roads to Freedom Trilogy.

The first episode was shown on the 10th of April 1970, and the last episode was shown on 27th December 1970 (my 20th Birthday.

The series starred Michael Bryant as Mathieu Delarue, Daniel Massey as Daniel Sereno, Rosemary Leach as Marcelle, Clifford Rose as Jacques and Simon Ward as Philippe.

It seemed likely that the BBC wiped the tapes, despite the series being nominated for several awards.  

For years the BBC cloaked the existence of recordings in secrecy, leading to the belief that no recordings existed. This year a few hundred people were privileged to see the whole series screened at the British Film Institute in London. It sold out.

Just after, its director James Cellan Jones wrote:
"I directed Roads to Freedom for the BBC in 1970. It had some faults but was one of the best things I've ever done; it was repeated on BBC2 in 1976/7. It was shown at the NFT on May 12th & 13th, 2012 to full houses at both sessions. This was entirely due to Marcus Prince of the BFI who persuaded the BBC to lend them new copies.

I would love to see this show broadcast again and was encouraged by the enthusiasm of the NFT audience who I advised to write to the BBC requesting a retransmission or the publication of of it on DVD."

The series was last shown in 1976/77 and the last episode was shown the week before I bought my first VHS Video Recorder. 

At the moment the fragment  below is all that exists of the series on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CjPeap6Xyo

A Petition to bring back the series can be found at  http://www.gopetition.co.uk/petitions/bbc-s-roads-to-freedom-1970.html