Lucky Strike [extract]

Summary

This 45-minute BBC Television production of an extract from Michael Brett’s Lucky Strike was presented as ‘A special performance before an invited audience from the Duke of York’s Theatre, London’ (Radio Times, 2 December 1955, p. 21).

Theatre play

Lucky Strike by Michael Brett [more information]

Play synopsis

A south of England comedy about industrial relations in which a woman (Mrs Salesby) sacks a male worker, a Union shop steward (Tom Spragge), from the factory she has inherited from her late husband because he refuses to marry his pregnant girlfriend.

Production history

First performed in 1955.

Date of transmission

Monday 5 December 1955

Time

8.45pm (45 mins)

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Director

Jack Minster

Television Presentation by

Alan Chivers

Playwright

Michael Brett

Decor

Fanny Taylor

Introduced by

Brian Johnston

Cast

Michael Barber	Bill Giles
John Boxer	Sir William Garrick
David Drummond	Keith Salesby
Marjorie Forsyth	Susie
William Franklyn	Tom Spragge
Douglas Ives	Joe Hurst
Arthur Lovegrove	Charlie Maggs
Ambrosine Phillpotts	Mrs Salesby
Peter Rosser	Hugh Wallis
Geoffrey Tyrrell	George Ponting

Additional details

Extant status

No archival copy is known to exist.

Play tags

class issues / differences; comedy; sexuality (and morality, politics etc); trades unions

Print sources

Title

Apollo Theatre: Lucky Strike (Newspaper review)

Author/creator

Derek Granger (Reviewer)

Reference

The Financial Times, 16 September 1955, p. 2

Title

Passion’s Slave (Newspaper review)

Author/creator

Kenneth Tynan (Reviewer)

Reference

The Observer, 18 September 1955, p. 9

Title

Radio Times, 2 December 1955 (Magazine)

Linking notes

article and listing on pp. 7 and 21