Count Your Blessings

Summary

1953 BBC live studio production of Ronald Jeans’ comedy Count Your Blessings.

Theatre play

Count Your Blessings by Ronald Jeans [more information]

Play synopsis

The action of the comedy takes place in the London house of Pelham and Gay Butterworth. The time is the present. ‘With a large London house to keep up, and income tax at a crippling rate, the money Pelham earns in the City does not begin to cover the cost of their extravagant ways ... Only one real hope remains: the possible inheritance from Gay’s late Aunt Christobel. Even that seems hopeless, until in the wild and wonderful way of farce the Butterworhs stumble on a method of getting round both Aunt Christobel’s will and the Inland Revenue.' (Source: Peter Forster, Radio Times, 2 January 1953, p. 39.)

Production history

Performed at Wyndham’s Theatre in [?]1951.

Date of transmission

Tuesday 6 January 1953

Time

9.00-10.25pm

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Producer

Tatiana Lieven

Playwright

Ronald Jeans

Sets / Settings

Richard Wilmot

Cast

Patrick Barr	Pelham Butterworth
Harold Lang	Theodore Malek
Christine Lindsay	Marion Butterworth
Viola Lyel	Thelma Cressingdon
Mary Merrall	Mrs Compton Chamberlain
Susan Shaw	Juliet Frost
Peggy Simpson	Gay Butterworth
Vi Stevens	Mrs Withers
Peter Williams	Hubert Batt

Additional details

Origination

Live from studio

Vision original

Monochrome

Extant status

No archival copy is known to exist.

Play tags

comedy

Print sources

Title

Radio Times, 2 January 1953 (Magazine)

Linking notes

listing and extended picture caption by Peter Forster, p. 39