Boyd’s Shop

Summary: 1954 BBC live studio production of St John Ervine’s Irish drama Boyd’s Shop.
Theatre play: Boyd’s Shop by St John [Greer] Ervine (1883-1971) [more information]
Play synopsis: 'Set in Ulster, at a village called Donaghreagh. Here Andrew Boyd runs the grocer’s shop that has been his family’s business for a hundred years; he is a widower, helped in the shop by his daughter, Agnes. Opposite, across the road, is a less fortunate shop-a draper’s-which has been the ruin of several tenants. But now a young man named John Haslett, fresh from a commercial college, proposes to reopen it as a grocer’s, in direct competition with Andrew Boyd. In what follows we meet most of the Donaghreagh notables, from the gossiping old women who pass the time of day in Boyd’s shop, to the Rev. Ernest Dunwoody, young and muscular, who sees a great future for himself in the Church and hopes that Agnes Boyd will share it with him.' (Peter Forster, ‘The Week’s Television Drama’, Radio Times, 19 February 1954, p. 15.)
Production history: First performed at the Liverpool Playhouse in February 1936; published by George Allen and Unwin, 1936.
Date of transmission: Sunday 21 February 1954
Time: 8.40-10.30pm
Channel: BBC Television
Production company: BBC

Producer

Douglas Allen

Playwright

St John [Greer] Ervine (1883-1971)

Sets / Settings

James Bould

Cast

Origination: Live from studio
Vision original: Monochrome
Later transmissions: Presented again at 7.15pm on Thursday 25 February 1954.
Extant status: No archival copy is known to exist.
Play tags: Irish drama; Northern Ireland, as theme or setting

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