The Matchmaker [excerpt]

Summary: 1954 live BBC outside broadcast of an excerpt from Thornton Wilder’s farce The Matchmaker, televised in a special performance before an invited audience from the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, by arrangement with H. M. Tennent Ltd. The Matchmaker was one of the hits of the 1954 Edinburgh International Festival.
Theatre play: The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) [more information]
Play synopsis: Farce. ‘Dolly Gallagher Levi is a widow who brokers marriages and other transactions in Yonkers, New York at the turn of the 20th century. She sets her sights on local merchant Horace Vandergelder, who has hired her to find him a wife. After a series of slapstick situations involving mistaken identities, secret rendezvous behind carefully placed screens, separated lovers, and a trip to night court, everyone finds themselves paired with a perfect match’ (adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matchmaker, accessed 3 May 2015).
Production history: Premiered at the Edinburgh Festival in 1954, then transferred to Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, before opening on Broadway in December 1955.
Date of transmission: Sunday 29 August 1954
Time: 8.25-9.15pm
Channel: BBC Television
Production company: BBC

Presented for Television by

James Buchan

Theatre Producer

Tyrone Guthrie

Playwright

Thornton Wilder (1897-1975)

Introduced by

Thornton Wilder (1897-1975)

Cast

Origination: Live from theatre
Vision original: Monochrome
Extant status: No archival copy is known to exist.
Play tags: America, as theme or setting; American drama; farce; Jewish context or setting; New York, as theme or setting

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