Pyramus and Thisbe

Summary

BBC Television production of the Pyramus and Thisbe scene from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Theatre play

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare [more information]

Play synopsis

'Egeus orders his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius; she refuses because she and Lysander are in love. Her friend Helena is in love with Demetrius, who once loved her but now does not. Under the law of Athens, Duke Theseus gives Hermia four days to obey her father on pain of death or confinement to a nunnery. Hermia and Lysander escape this harsh law by running away to the woods. Demetrius pursues them there, with Helena pursing him. In the woods, Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of fairies, have quarrelled because Titania refuses to hand over an Indian changeling boy to be Oberon’s page. Oberon instructs the mischievous Puck, Robin Goodfellow, to press the juice of a magic flower on Titania’s eyes as she sleeps; it will make her fall in love with the first being she sees on waking. In an attempt to reconcile Demetrius and Helena, Oberon orders that juice should be put on his eyes whilst he is sleeping and she is near, but Robin mistakenly puts it on Lysander, who thus falls in love with Helena. She thinks she is being mocked. Love-juice is then placed on Demetrius’ eyes in order to rectify the mistake, but the result is that he too falls for Helena. The boys fight over her and the girls quarrel. While Titania has been sleeping, a company of Athenian artisans under the leadership of Peter Quince has come to the wood to rehearse a play for the ensuing wedding festivities of Duke Theseus and Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. Robin puts an ass’s head on Bottom the weaver and because of the love-juice Titania falls in love with him. Eventually all is restored to right and the artisans perform their comically tragic play of Pyramus and Thisbe (source: http://www.rscshakespeare.co.uk/midSummerNightsDream.html, accessed 12 November 2012).

Production history

Written around 1600.

Date of transmission

Friday 9 July 1937

Time

9.01pm (26 mins)

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Producer

Jan Bussell

Playwright

William Shakespeare

Cast

Erik Chitty (1907-1977)	One of the Performers
Don Gemmell	Flute
Herbert Lees	One of the Performers
Charles Lefeaux	Quince
J. Hubert Leslie	One of the Performers
John Rudling	Theseus
Jillian Sandilands	Hippolyta
Kenneth Villiers	Lysander and Demetrius
Wilfred Walter	Bottom

Additional details

Later transmissions

Broadcast again on Thursday 15 July 1937 at 3.00pm, on Friday 23 July 1937 at 3.00pm, on Friday 28 January 1938 at 9.20pm and on Tuesday 1 February 1938 at 3.35pm.

Extant status

No archival copy is known to exist.

Play tags

children’s drama; Elizabethan drama; Greece, as theme or setting; marriage; supernatural; theatre or acting, as theme

Print sources

Title

BBC Television Programme Records: vol. 1, 1937-38 (Book)

Reference

London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1938

Linking notes

listing on p. 56

Title

Radio Times, 2 July 1937 (Magazine)

Linking notes

listing on p. 4