The Importance of Being Earnest

Summary: BBC Television production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.
Theatre play: The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde [more information]
Play synopsis: 'A farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae in order to escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play’s major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways’ (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Importance_of_Being_Earnest).
Production history: First performed on 14 February 1895 at St James’s Theatre in London.
Date of transmission: Tuesday 2 November 1937
Time: 3.20pm (52 mins)
Channel: BBC Television
Production company: BBC

Producer

Playwright

Cast

Later transmissions: Broadcast again at 9.30pm on Saturday 6 November 1937.
Notes: The list of actors is taken from both the Radio Times and the BBC Programme Records volume for this date; the cast was not identical in each list, so it’s possible that not all these actors listed in this record did actually play in this production.
Extant status: No archival copy is known to exist.
Play tags: 19th-century setting; comedy; Edwardian drama

Title: Adventure in Vision: The First Twenty-Five Years of Television (Book)
Author/creator: John Swift (Author)
Reference: London: John Lehmann, 1950
Linking notes: p. 99

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