The Pleasure Garden

Summary

1947 BBC live studio production of Beatrice Mayor’s drama The Pleasure Garden, written during the First World War.

Theatre play

The Pleasure Garden by Beatrice Mayor [more information]

Play synopsis

The action of the play takes place in a public garden. ' It is suggested to a student immersed in studying sea fishes and crabs and such-like objects that he spend an hour or two studying people instead. This he does, and we see through his eyes the strife and turmoil of human existence’ ('The Scanner’, ‘Those Russian Tongue-Twisters’, Radio Times, 6 June 1947, p. 29).

Production history

First performed by the Stage Society at the Regent Theatre during the 1920s.

Date of transmission

Sunday 15 June 1947

Time

8.30-10.15pm

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Producer

Harold Clayton

Playwright

Beatrice Mayor

Sets / Settings

Stephen Bundy

Cast

John Boxer	A Husband
Cherry Cottrell	A Poet’s Wife
Patric Curwen	A Man Smoking
Wyndham Goldie (1897-1957)	An Actor
Mary Horn	A Maid
Elizabeth Hunt	A Girl with a Smile
Frances [or Francis] James	A Poet
Emrys Jones	A Student
Avice Landone	A Clergyman’s Wife
Marriott Longman	A Woman Sewing
Richard Longman	A Young Man
Barbara Lott	A Girl
Eric Messiter	A Retired Major
Nancy Nevinson	Topsy
Mignon O’Doherty	A Rich Lady
Betty Potter	A Gentlewoman
Molly Raynor	A Wife
Sheila Raynor	A Waitress
Joan Woodfield	Second Factory Girl
Marguerite Young	First Factory Girl

Additional details

Origination

Live from studio

Vision original

Monochrome

Notes

Producer Harold Clayton updated the setting of the play from the First World War to the 1930s.

Extant status

No archival copy is known to exist.

Print sources

Title

Radio Times, 13 June 1947 (Magazine)

Linking notes

listing, p. 31

Title

Radio Times, 6 June 1947 (Magazine)

Linking notes

article, p. 29