Housemaster

Summary

1949 BBC live studio production of Ian Hay’s Housemaster, a comedy of school life.

Theatre play

Housemaster by Ian Hay (1876-1952) [more information]

Play synopsis

'The play depicts the conflict between a wise housemaster and a puritanical younger headmaster at an English public school, with the action complicated by the unexpected incursion of two women and two girls who have to be accommodated in the otherwise all-male establishment.' (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housemaster_(play))

Production history

First produced at the Apollo Theatre, London, on 12 November 1936

Date of transmission

Saturday 5 February 1949

Time

8.30-10/15pm

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Producer

Kenneth Milne Buckley

Playwright

Ian Hay (1876-1952)

Cast

Dora Barton	Ellen
Margaret Barton	'Button’ Faringdon
Frederick Bradshaw	Victor Beamish
William Graham	'Bimbo’ Faringdon
Arthur Howard	Philip de Pourville
Jack [John Norman] Hulbert (1892-1978)	Charles Donkin
Paul Jago	'Pop’
Muriel Martin-Harvey	Matron
Eric Maturin	Rev, Edmund Ovington
Maurice Nicholas	'Crump’
Terry Randall	Rosemary Faringdon
Winifred Shotter	Barbara Fane
Ronald Simpson	Frank Hastings
Barry Steele	'Flossie’ Nightingale
Dorothy Stewart	Chris Faringdon
H. G. Stoker	Sir Beverley Nightingale

Additional details

Origination

Live from studio

Vision original

Monochrome

Later transmissions

Presented again at 8.30pm on Thursday 10 February 1949.

Extant status

No archival copy is known to exist.

Play tags

gender roles; schools, as theme or setting

Print sources

Title

Radio Times, 28 January 1949 (Magazine)

Linking notes

listing p. 27 and brief article, p. 24