To Live in Peace

Summary

BBC production of To Live in Peace, an adaptation of Forzano’s Italian play.

Theatre play

To Live in Peace [Don Buonaparte] by Giovacchino Forzano (1884-1970) [more information]

Play synopsis

No-one in the Italian village Certaldo has needed to see the doctor in the last five years. Then the village suffers a moral collapse related to Italy’s involvement in the Napoleonic wars. After the French army arrives, crooks and lawyers arrive and for the first time the vollage experiences sees the other side of human nature. The parish village Don Geronimo sets about erstoring the village’s purer values.

Production history

Written in the 1930s and performed in Italy. Forzano’s Don Buonaparte was published as the English version To Live in Peace by Samuel French in 1952.

Date of transmission

Thursday 18 April 1957

Time

8.45pm

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Producer

Douglas Allen

Playwright

Giovacchino Forzano (1884-1970)

Adaptor of Script

Victor Rietti

Translator

Victor Rietti

Designer

Richard Henry

Cast

Ronald Adam (1896-1979)	Friar Silvestro
Carl Bernard	The Lawyer
Gaylord Cavallaro	Cecco
Leo Ciceri	Corporal Charles Martiez
Petra Davies	Mattea
Frank Duncan	Cavaliere Dossi
Eric Francis	Spinoso
John Kidd	The Doctor
Gwen Lewis	Agnese
Helen Misener	Maria
Victor Rietti	Don Geronimo
Robert Rietty	Maso
Alec Ross	Captain Oddofredi
Tony Sympson	Lorenzo
André Van Gyseghem	General Miollis

Additional details

Extant status

No archival copy is known to exist.

Play tags

19th-century setting; comedy; Italian drama; Italy, as theme or setting; wartime, as theme or setting

Print sources

Title

Radio Times, 12 April 1957 (Magazine)

Linking notes

pp. 7 (article) and 23 (listing)