The Sponger

Summary

This is a BBC presentation of a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) telerecording of John Coulter’s The Sponger, an ‘Irish play’ first produced (as Family Portrait) at Toronto’s Hart House Theatre in 1938 and (as The Sponger) on CBC TV in 1956.

Theatre play

The Sponger by John Coulter (1888-1980) [more information]

Production history

'This play, originally entitled The Folks in Brickfield Street, was probably written in the early 1930s. The radio version of it, with the title changed, at the insistence of the BBC, to The Family Portrait, was broadcast twice in 1935. The stage version was published in 1937 by Macmillan in Canada both separately and in a single volume containing The House in the Quiet Glen and the same year saw a stage production at Hart House, Toronto as well as a CBC broadcast. The emergence of a successful American play also called The Family Portrait made Coulter change the name of his play once again, first to Round at Bella Neill’s then to Stars in Brickfield Street although other later scripts still use the earlier The Folks in Brickfield Street. In 1948 as Stars in Brickfield Street, it had a successful run at the Group Theatre in Belfast and in a much-revised version not written by Coulter the play appeared on CBC television in 1956 entitled The Sponger’ (source: http://library.mcmaster.ca/archives/findaids/findaids/c/coulter.01-03b.htm).

Date of transmission

Sunday 28 October 1956

Time

10.00pm (48 mins)

Series

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Presents

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Producer

Leo Orenstein

Playwright

John Coulter (1888-1980)

Adaptor of Script

Rita Greer Allen (1918-2010)

Designer

Rudi Dorn

Supervising Producer

Sydney Newman (1917-1997)

Cast

Katharine Blake	Bella Neal
Jan Campbell	Jenny Lockland
Elizabeth Cole	Aunt Ellen
Michael Conway	Uncle Dick
Brendan Dillon	Samuel Neal
James Doohan	Public Relations Man
Gerard Sarracini	Alex Neal
John Sullivan	Charley Neal

Additional details

Play tags

Irish drama

Print sources

Title

Another Play from Canada: BBC Shows The Sponger (Newspaper review)

Reference

The Manchester Guardian, 29 October 1956, p. 4

Title

Radio Times, 26 October 1956 (Magazine)

Linking notes

pp. 7 and 15