The Boy with a Cart

Summary

1951 BBC live studio production of Christopher Fry’s ''pastoral’ The Boy with a Cart.

Theatre play

The Boy with a Cart by Christopher Fry (1907-2005) [more information]

Play synopsis

A ‘pastoral’, written in verse, which tells the story of St Cuthman, the Sussex saint who pushed his old and destitute mother in a wheelbarrow from Cornwall to Stening before building a church with the help of the villagers.

Production history

Written for amateurs in the village of Coleman’s Hatch, Sussex, in 1938; published by Oxford University Press in 1939; revived by John Gielgud at the Lyric Theatre in London in 1950.

Date of transmission

Tuesday 7 August 1951

Time

8.45-9.55pm

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Producer

Stanley Haynes

Playwright

Christopher Fry (1907-2005)

Sets / Settings

Richard R. Greenough

Cast

Stuart Allen	Son-in-law
John Boxer	Matt
Kenneth Connor	Demiwulf
Nuna Davey	Mrs Fipps
John Fabian	Onlooker
Walter Fitzgerald	Tawm
Rachel Gurney	Bess
Mary Jerrold	Cuthman’s Mother
Bryan Johnson	First Mower
James Lomas	Farmer
Robert Maraden	Alfred
Ellen Martin	Daughter
Clement McCallin	Narrator
Peter Mullins	Onlooker
David Oxley	Second Mower
Michael Raghan	Tib
Stella Richman	Mildred
Jack Rodney	Second Neighbour
John van Eyssen	First Neighbour
Gabriel Woolf	Cuthman

Additional details

Origination

Live from studio

Vision original

Monochrome

Extant status

No archival copy is known to exist.

Play tags

Christianity; Cornwall, as theme or setting; verse drama

Print sources

Title

Radio Times, 3 August 1951 (Magazine)

Linking notes

listing, p. 38; article by Lionel Hale, ‘Swiss Mystery, Sussex Pastoral’, p. 36