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
Tonight’s screening in our ‘Drama She Wrote’ season at BFI Southbank (at 6.10) is a value-for-money triple bill of plays about marriage. As well as spanning 20 years of BBC drama production, when watched in sequence the three plays show a developing dialectic about the purpose and value of marriage; Elaine Morgan’s The Tamer Tamed … Continue reading
We are pleased to be able to announce details of the ‘Drama She Wrote’ season, held at BFI Southbank this September and October, curated by Dick Fiddy and Billy Smart. The season presents a range of neglected TV dramas by women writers from the ’50s to the ’70s. The full line-up is: Drama She Wrote: … 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
We are pleased to be able to announce details of the second ‘Forgotten Dramas: Rediscovering British Television’s Neglected Plays’ season, held at BFI Southbank this February, curated by Lez Cooke, John Hill and Billy Smart as a part of the AHRC-funded ‘History of Forgotten Television Drama in the UK’ project at Royal Holloway College, University … Continue reading
Although BBC Television began broadcasting in the London area in 1936, television did not come to the Midlands until December 1949 when the Sutton Coldfield transmitter was opened. Initially television programmes transmitted in the Midlands came from London and it was not until late 1951 that TV programmes started to be produced by BBC Midland.
To help clarify my thinking about what sort of television drama gets remembered and forgotten in Britain, I’ve been looking at how the Radio Times publicised BBC drama over 1946-82, the period covered by the ‘Forgotten Television Drama in the UK’ project.
To help clarify my thinking about what sort of television drama gets remembered and forgotten in Britain, I’ve been looking at how the Radio Times publicised BBC drama over 1946-82, the period covered by the ‘Forgotten Television Drama in the UK’ project.
“I believe that I am right in saying that the first complete recording of a play that may be regarded as a waymark of drama in the fifties, was that of Rudolph Cartier’s production of 1984.” (Michael Barry, From the Palace to the Grove, Royal Television Society, 1992, p.84)
Our TV’s Forgotten Dramas season at BFI Southbank continues on Tuesday 10 February with a screening of Sunday Night Theatre: Anastasia introduced by Lez Cooke, who discusses the programme’s history and archival survival here.
