Day for Happiness

Summary: 1954 BBC live studio production of Day for Happiness, a translation of Cesare Meano’s family drama.
Theatre play: Day for Happiness by Cesare Meano [more information]
Play synopsis: 'It is Clothilde’s birthday: she is eighty. And on this day each year the whole family turns up at her large house to congratulate this kindly and gracious old matriarch... For Clothilde at least, this is a day for memories and happiness. Over the rest of the year she must cope with pressing money problems, and the difficulties of living in her big house on resources which are now so diminished that she hardly knows what is left to sell. But her family must know nothing about this; they are wealthy, and to know of Clothilde’s poverty and privations would distress them, and that is something she will not permit. So she prepares to receive them all: her daughter, Palmira, her granddaughter Delia and husband Guido, and her great-granddaughter Lietta. They arrive, clearly determined to make this a happy day for the old lady; but soon it is equally clear that just as Clothilde has certain things she hides from them, so each of them has things that they wish to hide from her’ (Peter Currie in the Radio Times, 5 February 1954, p. 38).
Production history: Date of stage premiere to be added.
Date of transmission: Thursday 11 February 1954
Time: 8.35-9.55pm
Channel: BBC Television
Production company: BBC

Producer

Harold Clayton

Playwright

Cesare Meano

Translator

Jordan Lawrence

Sets / Settings

Richard Wilmot

Cast

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