The Shoemaker’s Holiday

Summary

1938 BBC studio presentation of Nancy Price’s production of Thomas Dekker’s Elizabethan comedy The Shoemaker’s Holiday which had finished its run at the Playhouse Theatre, London, the previous day.

Theatre play

The Shoemaker’s Holiday by Thomas Dekker [more information]

Play synopsis

Aristocrat Rowland Lacy falls in love with middle-class girl Rose Oatley, but both their fathers refuse to approve the match. Rowland is told to redeem himself by joining the army fighting in France. To avoid going, he disguises himself as a ‘Dutch’ shoemaker, Hans. He becomes an apprentice of Simon Eyre and secretly marries Rose. Meanwhile, another shoemaker, Rafe, is sent off to war to the dismay of his wife, Jane. He later returns with his legs having been amputated and suspects (based on the appearance of her shoe that he once made for her) that she has agreed to marry someone else, although they are eventually reunited. Later in the play, Simon Eyre is made Lord Mayor of London. He decides to create a special holiday to honour apprentices. The King comes to see him and defends Rose and Rowland’s marriage to their fathers, and knighting Rowland so that Rose may be a lady and their social classes may be more appropriately matched.

Production history

First performed in 1599 by the Elizabethan acting company The Admiral’s Men and published in 1600.

Date of transmission

Sunday 11 December 1938

Time

9.05-10.40pm

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Producer

Lanham Titchener

Theatre Director

Nancy Price (1880-1970)

Playwright

Thomas Dekker

Cast

Wendy Attenborough
Hedley Briggs	Firk
Joseph Chelton
Mabel Constanduros	Margery
Marjorie Davidson
Chris Draper
Gordon Edwards
John Ellin
Percy Goodyer	Dodger
Michael Gorle
Kenneth Griffith
Rachel Kempson	Jane
Jordan Lawrence	Hodge
Vera Lennox	Sybil
Elizabeth Maude	Rose
Eric Micklewood
John Mortimer	Ralph
Elsie Shewin
Geoffrey Wardwell	Master Hammon
Harold Warrender	Rowland Lacy
Edmund Wheatleigh
Edmund Willard	Simon Eyre

Additional details

Origination

Live from studio

Vision original

Monochrome

Notes

'The play, as a dramatic unity, just fails to emerge from the museum into life [...] and yet in patches, recurring again and again, the scenes become hertily and gloriously vital.'' (from a review of the stagae production, The Times, 5 November 1938, p. 10.)

Extant status

No archival copy is known to exist.

Play tags

class issues / differences; comedy; Elizabethan drama

Print sources

Title

Broadcasting: Music, Variety and Opera (Newspaper listing)

Reference

The Times, 10 December 1938, p. 18

Title

Radio Times, 9 December 1938 (Magazine)

Linking notes

listing and photograph, p. 19