The Tea Party

Summary: In collaboration with the European Broadcasting Union, this BBC production of Pinter’s The Tea Party was accompanied in the same week by productions in ten other countries, translated into other languages.
Theatre play: Tea Party by Harold Pinter [more information]
Play synopsis: An outwardly successful man is plagued by paranoid sexual fantasies. This intimate portrait of mental breakdown, symbolised by his failing sight, is ‘partly a play about the barrenness of the business ethic and the danger of denying your class roots’ (Michael Billington, The Life and Work of Harold Pinter, pp. 158-61).
Production history: Commissioned by BBC Television for broadcast in The Largest Theatre in the World strand, in collaboration with the European Broadcasting Union, for broadcast in translation across eleven countries in the space of one week. It was developed from a short story written in 1963, which was read by Pinter on BBC Radio in 1964 (source: Michael Billington, The Life and Work of Harold Pinter, pp. 158 ff.). It would in subsequent years be performed on stage (e.g. in a double bill with another of Pinter’s television plays The Basement at the Duchess, London, in 1970).
Date of transmission: Thursday 25 March 1965
Time: 9.25-10.40pm
Series: Largest Theatre in the World
Channel: BBC1
Production company: BBC

Director

Charles Jarrott

Producer

Sydney Newman (1917-1997)

Film Cameraman

Lighting

Playwright

Designer

Costume Supervisor

Joan Ellacott

Make-up Supervisor

Lilias Munro

Film Editor

Raoul Sobel

Cast

Title: Audience Research Report VR/65/162: The Tea Party, 1965 (Audience Research Report)
Archive: BBC Written Archives Centre (WAC) [more information]
Address
Peppard Road
Caversham Park
Reading
Berkshire
RG4 8TZ
UK
Telephone
+44 (0)118 948 6281
Email
heritage@bbc.co.uk
Website
http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/research/wac
Access
The WAC is open from 9.30am to 5.00pm on Wednesdays to Fridays throughout the year to academics, postgraduate students and writers by appointment.
Reference: Held in the audience research report boxes.

Title: Pinter Play Looks at Man Searching for Place in Life (Newspaper review)
Author/creator: Clive Barnes (Reviewer)
Reference: Daily Express, 26 March 1965, p. 4

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