Daphne Laureola [extract]

Summary: 1968 ABC Television presentation for ITV of an extract from Daphne Laureola by James Bridie in the Tempo series.
Theatre play: Daphne Laureola by James Bridie (1888-1951) [more information]
Play synopsis: 'Here a young man’s obsession with an older woman in the very contemporary setting of postwar London resonates with the mythical Apollo’s obsession with the nymph Daphne, presciently transformed by Gaea into a laurel tree before she could be seduced’. Lady Pitts is in a dull marriage to an elderly and ailing baronet. She dines alone in a Soho restaurant and as she becomes loud and inebriated she invites her fellow diners to her home. Ernest Piaste, a young Polish man, becomes besotted with her. Her husband passes away and some months later Piaste discovers that she has married the chauffeur Vincent, a discovery which shocks him and leads her to reject him and his idealization of women in general (The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, vol. 1, p. 327).
Production history: First staged at Wyndham’s Theatre, London, 1949, a production directed by Laurence Olivier.
Date of transmission: Sunday 17 March 1968
Time: 2.05-2.30pm
Series: Tempo
Channel: ITV
Production company: ABC Television (1955-1968)