A Night Out

Summary

This ABC production for ITV was the first television production of Harold Pinter’s A Night Out.

Theatre play

A Night Out by Harold Pinter [more information]

Play synopsis

'Albert Stokes is an emotionally inarticulate loner, socially awkward and fearful of women. As his tormentor Gidney observes, he is "a mother’s boy": at 28, he still lives with his needy and controlling mother, who maintains him in a childlike state of dependency and worries that he might be shaming his long-dead father and grandmother by leading an "unclean life". The night out of the title is a work party, a hard-won escape for Albert from his prison home which turns to humiliation when he is unfairly accused of improperly touching a female colleague. Returning home, the drunken Albert rebels against his mother’s hectoring and comes close to striking her down. When, later that night, he is picked up by a lonely and desperate girl [...] he cruelly uses her to re-enact his relationship with his mother, casting himself in a dominant role’ (source: http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/946293/index.html).

Production history

Although Pinter first conceived of this play as a work for television, its first performance was on BBC Radio (1 March 1960, Third Programme). The next month, on 24 April 1960, it was produced by ABC for ITV. It has also been performed on the stage.

Date of transmission

Sunday 24 April 1960

Time

9.05-10.05pm

Series

Armchair Theatre

Channel

ITV

Production company

ABC Television (1955-1968)

Credits

Director

Philip Saville

Producer

Sydney Newman (1917-1997)

Playwright

Harold Pinter

Designer

Assheton Gorton

Cast

Tom Bell	Albert Stokes
Edmond Bennett	Barman at Coffee Stall
Mary Doddy	Betty
Walter Hall	Barrow
Maria Lennard	Eileen
Philip Locke	Kedge
Arthur Lowe	Mr King
Edward Malin	Mr Ryan
Stanley Meadows	Gidney
Vivien Merchant	The Girl
Gordon Phillott	Old Man
Harold Pinter	Seeley (listed under his stage name David Baron)
Jose Read	Joyce
Madge Ryan	Mrs Stokes
Stanley Segal	Horne

Print sources

Title

BFI Screenonline: A Night Out (1960) (Website)

Author/creator

Mark Duguid (Author)

Reference

BFI Screenonline at http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/946293/index.html (accessed 1 May 12017)

Title

TV Times, 22 April 1960 (Magazine)

Linking notes

illustrated article, p. 20; listing, p. 25