A Life Found in a Skip [1] by Joel Finler Virtually forgotten today, Lionel Harris was one of the leading producer/directors of live television drama in the 1950s when adaptations of the most successful West End plays became a staple fare of both the BBC and ITV. He joined the newly formed ITV in 1955 and … Continue reading
Following the release of Volume 1 and Volume 2 of Armchair Theatre Archive in 2017 two more volumes have been released this year. Volume 3 presents four plays produced from 1959 to 1966. John Glennon’s The Bird, The Bear and the Actress (1959), directed by Ted Kotcheff, is about a chance meeting on the French … Continue reading
Following the release of The Frighteners on DVD in May 2017 there have been four more releases this year in the Forgotten TV Drama DVD range (in association with Network). The second release comprised three Nigel Kneale plays: The Crunch (ATV 1964) is about an attempt to avert a nuclear catastrophe in London, written for … Continue reading
Second City Firsts (BBC2, 1973-78) Panel Discussion with Philip Jackson (PJ), Tara Prem (TP), Philip Saville (PS) and Jack Shepherd (JS) chaired by Lez Cooke (LC) Television Drama: The Forgotten, the Lost and the Neglected Conference Royal Holloway, University of London 23 April 2015 LC: Welcome to this session on Second City Firsts (BBC2, 1973-78). … Continue reading
What follows is a transcript of a Q&A session with director Roy Battersby, following a screening of two episodes of Home and Away (Granada, 1972) at HOME, Manchester on Monday 27 March 2017, shown as part of a short season of Forgotten TV Drama. Home and Away is a 7-part serial written by Julia … Continue reading
Michael Wearing, who died on 5 May 2017, was one of the talented people David Rose brought into television in the 1970s. Following the recent deaths of Barry Hanson, also recruited by Rose, Philip Saville, with whom Wearing worked on Boys from the Blackstuff, Rose himself in January and Christopher Morahan in April, the last few months … Continue reading
The Day of Ragnarok (BBC2, 2 January 1965) and Exit 19 (BBC2, 8 August 1966) are showing in a double bill as part of the Forgotten Dramas season at BFI Southbank on Wednesday 22 February at 6.20 pm. This is a rare opportunity to see two remarkable short films which have not been seen … Continue reading
Stephen Bourne looks at some of the early black writers of British television drama. The recent losses of Michael Abbensetts (1938-2016) and Buchi Emecheta (1944-2017) are a reminder that they were among the early black writers of British television drama. When they began writing for television in the 1970s there had already been several … Continue reading
Our Forgotten Dramas season continues on Friday 10 February at 8.40 pm in NFT2 with a double bill of two Granada dramas from 1968. It’s Dearer After Midnight and The House That Jigger Built were both written by John Finch, a writer probably best-known for A Family at War (Granada, 1970-72) and Sam (Granada, 1973-75), … Continue reading
Our second ‘Forgotten Television Dramas’ season continues at 8.40 pm on Wednesday 8 February with a screening of one of the earliest surviving British television dramas, The Passionate Pilgrim from 1953. Only two earlier plays survive before The Passionate Pilgrim which was broadcast live in the same week as the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and has … Continue reading
