An Elephant in Arcady

Summary

1938 BBC studio production of the musical play An Elephant in Arcady that was running at the Kingsway Theatre in London and was twice brought into the studio for televising.

Theatre play

An Elephant in Arcady by Herbert Farjeon and Eleanor Farjeon [more information]

Play synopsis

A pastiche 18th-century opera about Florinda, the daughter of a count who devotes to his menagerie the money that should buy her dresses. She is a star of the Arcadian Academy of Pisa but is deaf to the love-making of an honest gentleman. It is not until he has passed himself off as her father’s mahout and loosed a fictitious elephant among the earnest but timorous Arcadians that she is brought to a knowledge of true love. (Source: adapted from ‘Kingsway Theatre: An Elephant in Arcady’, The Times, 6 October 1938, p. 10.)

Production history

Premiered at the Kingsway Theatre, London on 5 October, 1938.

Date of transmission

Monday 28 November 1938

Time

3.00-4.15pm

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Producer

Stephen Thomas

Playwright

Eleanor Farjeon

Playwright

Herbert Farjeon

Music Adapted by

Ernest Irving

Conductor

Ernest Irving

Orchestra Led by

Boris Pecker (BBC Television Orchestra)

Cast

Harvey Braban
Elizabeth Darbishire
Edmund Donlevy
Geoffrey Dunn
Francis Edwards
Irene Eisinger
Laura Gorton
Linda Gray
George Howe
Hazel Jennings
Dudley Jones
John Lewis
Maria Luth
Gwen Mannering
Michael Marta
Michael O’Beirne
Gordon Parfitt
Percy Parsons
Charles Peters
Frederick Ranalow
Robert Rowell
Scott Russell
Esther Salaman
Eric Starling

Additional details

Origination

Live from studio

Vision original

Monochrome

Later transmissions

Presented again at 9.20pm on Sunday 4 December 1938.

Notes

'Herbert Farjeon’s An Elephant in
Arcady, a brilliant musical pastiche produced at the Kingsway Theatre by television producer Stephen Thomas, is probably not everybody’s meat, but if you like good music, an amusing story, and beautiful costumes, this is just the show for you. The music is taken from composers like Mozart, Paisiello, and Scarlatti, with lyrics tacked on with clever irreverence. The entire West- End company will be in the studio on Monday.' ('Stay Home This Christmas’, ‘The Scanner’, Radio Times, 25 November 1938, p. 15)

Extant status

No archival copy is known to exist.

Play tags

18th-century setting; music drama

Print sources

Title

Radio Times, 25 November 1938 (Magazine)

Title

Televised Plays: Material from the Theatre (Newspaper review)

Author/creator

Anon.

Reference

The Times, 5 December 1938, p. 8

Notes

''Here indeed was a perfect television show - something to look at and something to listen to... The whole little "chamber operetta" was as dainty as a piece of Dresden china, and the effect on the viewer was to make him wish to see and hear it all again as soon as possible.'

Linking notes

brief article by ‘The Scanner’, p. 15; listing, p. 16