Drama1991–1998BBC Four

The Best Episodes of Performance

Every episode of Performance ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Performance!

Best episode
S3E3 Hedda Gabler
8.051 votes
Worst episode
S3E5 The Changeling
6.370 votes
Top season
Season 7
7.6avg
Binge time
2d 9h
33 episodes
BestEpisodes
WorstEpisodes
BestSeasons
AllEpisodes

Seasons7

All1234567

Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Fan Favorite
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    Performance Season 3 Episode 3 - Hedda Gabler
    8.0/10(51 votes)

    S3:E3

    Hedda Gabler is a beautiful woman married to the solid and respectable academic George Tesman. Then an old flame, the dreamer Eilert Lovborg, turns up on the scene with tragic results.

    Director:Deborah Warner
    Writer:Unknown

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  2. Performance Season 1 Episode 3 - Nona
    8.2/10(23 votes)

    S1:E3

    An adaptation of Roberto Cossa's Argentinian drama, the play focuses on a family desperately struggling against inflation and unemployment while trying to assuage the insatiable appetite of their 100-year old grandmother.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  3. Performance Season 6 Episode 1 - Company
    7.8/10(113 votes)

    S6:E1

    At his 35th birthday party Bobby's friends are all wondering: Why isn't he married? Why can't he find the right woman and settle down?

    Director:Sam Mendes
    Writer:Unknown

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  4. Performance Season 6 Episode 3 - Richard II
    7.8/10(107 votes)

    S6:E3

    The incompetent Richard II is deposed by Henry Bolingbroke and undergoes a crisis of identity once he is no longer king.

    Director:Deborah Warner
    Writer:Unknown

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  5. Performance Season 6 Episode 5 - Macbeth on the Estate
    7.8/10(107 votes)

    S6:E5

    Shakespeare's play updated to the present day. On a council estate where people survive by dealing drugs and shoplifting, Duncan is the Godfather. Urged by Mrs Macbeth, Macbeth kills Duncan.

    Director:Penny Woolcock
    Writer:Unknown

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  6. Performance Season 1 Episode 4 - Old Times
    7.9/10(45 votes)

    S1:E4

    A married couple are visited by a friend from their past, who causes them unease and even embarrassment.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  7. Performance Season 5 Episode 1 - Shadow of a Gunman
    7.9/10(36 votes)

    S5:E1

    In 1920 as the Irish War of Independence rages, two young men, Donald Davoren and Seamus Shields, share a flat in Dublin. First installment in Sean O'Casey's Dublin Trilogy.

    Director:Nye Heron
    Writer:Unknown

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  8. Performance Season 1 Episode 6 - The Trials of Oz
    7.8/10(60 votes)

    S1:E6

    Dramatization of the famous 1971 trial in which the editors of the British underground magazine "Oz" were charged with obscenity.

    Director:Sheree Folkson
    Writer:Unknown

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  9. Performance Season 2 Episode 1 - Tales From Hollywood
    7.8/10(52 votes)

    S2:E1

    Among the residents of Los Angeles during the 1940s were Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Bertolt Brecht and, according to this play, the Austro-Hungarian dramatist Odon Von Horvath, our guide to the sun-soaked boulevards and the bizarre cultural collisions of wartime Hollywood.

    Director:Howard Davies
    Writer:Christopher Hampton

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  10. Performance Season 7 Episode 1 - King Lear
    7.6/10(293 votes)

    S7:E1

    King Lear, old and tired, divides his kingdom among his daughters, giving great importance to their protestations of love for him. When Cordelia, youngest and most honest, refuses to idly flatter the old man in return for favor, he banishes her and turns for support to his remaining daughters. But Goneril and Regan have no love for him and instead plot to take all his power from him. In a parallel, Lear's loyal courtier Gloucester favors his illegitimate son Edmund after being told lies about his faithful son Edgar. Madness and tragedy befall both ill-starred fathers.

    Director:Richard Eyre
    Writer:Unknown

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  11. Performance Season 4 Episode 5 - The Mother
    7.7/10(43 votes)

    S4:E5

    Paddy Chayefsky's 1954 play set in the Bronx tells the story of a recently widowed 66-year-old seeks a job after 40 years if being a homemaker.

    Director:Simon Curtis
    Writer:Unknown

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  12. Performance Season 4 Episode 1 - Message For Posterity
    7.7/10(37 votes)

    S4:E1

    A Parliamentary committee decides to commission a portrait as a memorial to an ageing Conservative, wartime ex-Prime Minister, Sir David Browning. Bizarrely, they choose anarchic, anti-establishment and equally ageing artist James Player, who appears to stand for the very opposite values and positions to his prospective sitter. During sittings the two men find many opportunities to score political and social points off each. Screened with an with an introduction by Brian Walden, a contemporary of writer Dennis Potter at Oxford and an old Oxford political sparring partner.

    Director:David Hugh Jones
    Writer:Dennis Potter

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  13. Performance Season 1 Episode 2 - Uncle Vanya
    7.6/10(112 votes)

    S1:E2

    When Vanya's brother-in-law declares his intention to sell the family's house, polite facades begin to crumble and long repressed feelings start to emerge with devastating consequences.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  14. Performance Season 2 Episode 2 - A Doll's House
    7.5/10(183 votes)

    S2:E2

    Years ago, Nora Helmer committed a forgery in order to save the life of her authoritarian husband Torvald. Now she is being blackmailed, and lives in fear of her husband finding out.

    Director:David Thacker
    Writer:Unknown

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  15. Performance Season 3 Episode 2 - The Maitlands
    7.4/10(49 votes)

    S3:E2

    It is early summer in the secluded seaside village of Betworthy. But there is a strained atmosphere in the once-prosperous Maitland household, because the family has fallen on hard times. Performance presents the first production for 60 years of the witty and tragic family drama by Ronald Mackenzie.

    Director:Lindsay Posner
    Writer:Ronald Mackenzie

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  16. Performance Season 4 Episode 2 - Measure for Measure
    7.4/10(36 votes)

    S4:E2

    Modern dress version of Shakespeare's "problem comedy" emphasizing the darker elements of the play and eliminating most of the humor, as Claudio is dragged to the police station on charges of fornication, and given a rectal exam in front of a window.

    Director:David Thacker
    Writer:Unknown

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  17. Performance Season 4 Episode 4 - Summer Day's Dream
    7.4/10(33 votes)

    S4:E4

    In 1975, after a nuclear war, the nations have combined to set up a World Government. An old man who lives quietly in the country finds his peace threatened by a visit from three World Government figures.

    Director:Christopher Morahan
    Writer:Unknown

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  18. Performance Season 6 Episode 4 - Broken Glass
    7.3/10(73 votes)

    S6:E4

    A Jewish housewife in 1938 Brooklyn loses the use of her legs after reading about Kristallnacht.

    Director:David Thacker
    Writer:Unknown

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  19. Performance Season 2 Episode 4 - After the Dance
    7.3/10(33 votes)

    S2:E4

    David and Joan's life has been one continuous party, but their marriage is loveless. Suddenly a young girl appears in their world and announces that she's in love with David and wants to change his life for ever. Critics called it Terence Rattigan's most serious and truthful play, but it has not been seen for 50 years.

    Director:Stuart Burge
    Writer:Unknown

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  20. Performance Season 5 Episode 5 - Henry IV
    7.3/10(31 votes)

    S5:E5

    Henry Bolingbroke has now been crowned King of England, but faces a rebellion headed by the embittered Earl of Northumberland and his son (nicknamed 'Hotspur'). Henry's son Hal, the Prince of Wales, has thrown over life at court in favour of heavy drinking and petty theft in the company of a debauched elderly knight, Sir John Falstaff. Hal must extricate himself from some legal problems, regain his father's good opinions and help suppress the uprising.

    Director:John Caird
    Writer:Unknown

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  21. Performance Season 2 Episode 5 - Six Characters in Search of an Author
    7.2/10(71 votes)

    S2:E5

    Originally set in a theatre, this new version of Luigi Pirandello's classic play takes place in a film studio in 1950 and is recorded in black and white. A family carrying a great personal tragedy of shame and despair have come to the studio to find somebody who can describe their experiences and explain what they've done to each other.

    Director:Bill Bryden
    Writer:Unknown

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  22. Performance Season 1 Episode 1 - Absolute Hell
    7.2/10(192 votes)

    S1:E1

    Black comedy set in Soho, London, right after WW2. Half of the fun is seeing a slew of very familiar faces kick up their heels as gay men, lesbians, party-girls, drunks, and drag queens.

    Director:Anthony Page
    Writer:Unknown

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  23. Performance Season 3 Episode 4 - The Entertainer
    7.0/10(20 votes)

    S3:E4

    The play uses the metaphor of the dying music hall tradition, specifically fictional music hall star Archie Rice, to comment on the moribund state of the British Empire in the 1950s.

    Director:Nicholas Renton
    Writer:Unknown

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  24. Performance Season 4 Episode 3 - The Deep Blue Sea
    7.0/10(146 votes)

    S4:E3

    A woman unhappy in her passionless marriage leaves her husband for a younger and more ardent lover.

    Director:Karel Reisz
    Writer:Unknown

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  25. Performance Season 5 Episode 6 - After Miss Julie
    6.9/10(65 votes)

    S5:E6

    An updated version of Strindberg's play examining class and social differences. Julie, the daughter of an MP, seduces her father's chauffeur, despite his being engaged to the maid.

    Director:Patrick Marber
    Writer:August Strindberg

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Best Episodes Summary

"Hedda Gabler" is the best rated episode of Performance. It scored 8.0/10 from 51 votes. Directed by Deborah Warner and written by Unknown, it aired on November 27, 1993.

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