A Pair of Spectacles

Summary

1949 BBC live studio production of Sydney Grundy’s Victorian comedy A Pair of Spectacles.

Theatre play

A Pair of Spectacles by Sydney Grundy [more information]

Play synopsis

A Victorian comedy adapted from the French play Les Petits Oiseaux by Eugène Labiche and Alfred Delacour. ‘A kindly philanthropist turns nasty when he breaks his spectacles and borrows his miserly brother’s, but regains his good nature when he puts on his now mended pair.' (Michael R. Booth, Theatre in the Victorian Age, Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 188)

Production history

First performed in 1890.

Date of transmission

Sunday 15 May 1949

Time

8.30-10.00pm

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Producer

Stephen Harrison

Playwright

Sydney Grundy

Sets / Settings

Barry Learoyd

Cast

Alban Blakelock	Joyce
Denys Blakelock	Benjamin Goldfinch
Lynn [or Lyn] Evans	Uncle Gregory
Willoughby Gray	Mr Lorimer
Avice Landone	Mrs Goldfinch
Peter Murray	Dick
David Peel	Percy
Honor Shepheard	Lucy Lorimer
Morris Sweden	Bartholomew

Additional details

Origination

Live from studio

Vision original

Monochrome

Later transmissions

Presented again at 8.30pm on Thursday 19 May 1949.

Extant status

No archival copy is known to exist.

Play tags

19th-century setting; comedy

Print sources

Title

Radio Times, 13 May 1949 (Magazine)

Linking notes

listing, p. 30; article by Lionel Hale, ‘Victorian frolics - and a parable’, p. 29; brief article, p. 28