Call It a Day

Summary

BBC Television production of Dodie Smith’s Call it a Day in which the mother and daughter characters Dorothy and Ann Hilton were played by real-life mother and daughter team Margaret and Julia Lockwood.

Theatre play

Call It a Day by Dodie [Dorothy Gladys] Smith (1896-1990) [more information]

Play synopsis

The action of this comedy takes place in London in 1935.

Production history

Dodie Smith’s ‘fourth play, Call It A Day, was put on by the Theatre Guild on January 28, 1936, and ran for 194 performances. It ran in London for 509 performances, the longest run of any of Smith’s plays to date’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodie_Smith).

Date of transmission

Thursday 27 December 1956

Time

8.15pm (105 mins)

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Producer

Hal Burton

Playwright

Dodie [Dorothy Gladys] Smith (1896-1990)

Designer

Hal Burton

Cast

Jack Allen	Frank Haines
Iris Baker	Ethel Francis
Pamela Buck	Joan Collett
Margaret Butt	Elsie Lester
Adrienne Corri	Beatrice Gwynne
Zena Howard	Muriel Weston
Julia Lockwood	Ann Hilton
Margaret Lockwood	Dorothy HIlton
Jean Marlow	Vera
Ralph Michael	Paul Francis
Phyllis Morris	Mrs Milsom
Hugh Sinclair	Roger Hilton
Vi Stevens	Cook
Anthony Toller	Martin Hilton
Robert Tunstall	Alistair Brown
Sheila Whittingham	Catherine Hilton

Additional details

Extant status

No archival copy is known to exist.

Play tags

comedy

Print sources

Title

Christmas past at the BBC: the second half of the 1950s. Part 1 (Blog article)

Author/creator

Amanda Wrigley (Author)

Reference

http://screenplaystv.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/christmas-past-bbc-1950s-1, published 28 December 2012

Title

Radio Times, 21 December 1956 (Newspaper review)

Linking notes

listing on p. 40, illustrated with a photograph