OTDs to date in early British television: drama
John Wyver writes: For whatever reason, it seems to be the case that 18 March was a somewhat unremarkable date for early television in each of the years between 1928 and 1939. Nothing jumped out at me as the subject for today’s post, and so I thought I might begin a new way of indexing some of the 105 posts to date – in part in the hope of encouraging you to access ones you might have missed.
Following is a list of the blog posts so far about studio drama on early television, listed in chronological order. from the first production of a play in December 1928, Box and Cox (above), to a 1939 one-night-only studio restaging of a production then running in the West End.
1928
• OTD in early British television: 15 December 1928: a milestone date in the history of early television in Britain, since this is the day saw the transmission of the first television drama in Britain, a version of John Maddison Morton’s Box and Cox (header image).
1932
• OTD in early British television: 25 February 1932: the first documented Shakespeare performance on British television: the wooing scene from act 5 of Henry V.
1936
• OTD in early British television: 21 December 1936: AP’s early presentation of T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, beamed back to the West End theatre where the production was running.
1937
• OTD in early British television: 19 January 1937: transmission of the first original script for ‘high definition’ television, The Underground Murder Mystery, and – thanks to assiduous research by readers – new light on its somewhat mysterious author.
• OTD in early British television: 29 November 1937: Scenes from [Shakespeare’s] Cymbeline was a presentation of minimally restaged elements of André van Gyseghem‘s production at London’s Embassy Theatre.
• OTD in early British television: 3 December 1937: four members of The Irish Players came to Alexandra Palace at short notice to play Lady Gregory‘s one-act drama The Rising of the Moon.
• OTD in early British television: 6 December 1937: The afternoon of 6 December 1937 saw the first presentation from Alexandra Palace of what became the most popular production among pre-war dramas. Once in a Lifetime by Moss Hart and George Kaufman.
• OTD in early British television: 10 December 1937: the broadcast of Scenes from Macbeth, a brief transfer from the Old Vic of part of Michel Saint-Denis’ production with Laurence Olivier and Judith Anderson.
1938
• OTD in early British television: 17 January 1938: a production of Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, and Grace Wyndham Goldie’s concerns about it.
• OTD in early British television: 11 February 1938: science fiction starts on television with a staging of Karel Čapek’s dystopian fantasy R.U.R.
• OTD in early British television: 17 February 1938: a production of Noel Coward’s one-act comedy Hands Across the Sea.
• OTD in early British television: 16 March 1938: a reprise of Eric Crozier’s production of W.B. Yeats’s supernatural drama The Words Upon the Window Pane.
• OTD in early British television: 2 December 1938: Love From a Stranger, Frank Vosper’s play adapted from an Agatha Christie short story, starred Edna Best and Henry Oscar.
• OTD in early British television: 18 December 1938: a clutch of major drama productions over the Christmas period included Gordon Daviot’s Richard of Bordeaux.
1939
• OTD in early British television: 3 January 1939: a studio repeat presentation of Denis Johnston‘s contemporary comedy The Moon in the Yellow River, produced for the cameras by the author himself.
• OTD in early British television: 23 January 1939: transmission of the bold ‘meta’ thriller Rehearsal for a Drama, co-scripted by Rudolph Cartier and set in a television studio.
• OTD in early British television: 3 February 1939: the innovations of Denis Johnston’s trial drama Death at Newtownstewart.
• OTD in early British television: 5 February 1939: producer Dallas Bower’s ambitious but problem-plagued production of The Tempest, with Peggy Ashcroft as Miranda.
• OTD in early British television: 13 February 1939: critic Grace Wyndham Goldie responds to the ambitious studio production of the comic drama The Royal Family of Broadway.
• OTD in early British television: 24 February 1939: the innovative Telecrime series that asked the viewer to solve (fictional) murders.
• OTD in early British television: 3 March 1939: the eclecticism and breadth of the drama produced pre-war at Alexandra Palace is indicated by the production of The King of Spain’s Daughter by Teresa Deevy.
• OTD in early British television: 4 March 1939: the innovative original drama Condemned to be Shot, transmitted from a single point-of-view camera.
• OTD in early British television: 5 March 1939: a studio restaging of Little Ladyship, currently playing at the Strand Theatre, prompts a complaint about Sunday television from Emile Littler.
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