Murder in the Cathedral [scenes]

Summary: BBC presentation of scenes from E. Martin Browne’s current stage production of T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral at the Duchess Theatre, London, transmitted live from the studio at Alexandra Palace. The stage production was first performed in the Chapter House at Canterbury Cathedral during the previous year’s Canterbury Festival. The repeat broadcast on 21 December 1936 is billed as being from the Old Vic.
Theatre play: Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) [more information]
Play synopsis: Radio Times listing, 7 December 1936: ‘The play deals with the last month of [Thomas] Becket’s life. The dialogue is written almost entirely in rhyming verse and the chorusmore than anything else, the play is Greek in formis in free verse’.
Production history: First performed as part of the Canterbury Festival in 1935, in a production by E. Martin Browne in the Chapter House, Canterbury Cathedral. Robert Speaight, G. R. Schjelderup and E. Martin Browne played in a radio production broadcast in January 1936 (source: Radio Times, 7 December 1936).
Date of transmission: Monday 7 December 1936
Time: 3.29-4.07pm
Series: Theatre Parade
Channel: BBC Television
Production company: BBC
Theatre company: J. P. Mitchelhill

Television Presentation by

George More O’Ferrall (1907-1982)

Theatre Producer

E. Martin Browne (1900-1980)

Playwright

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

Cast

Origination: Live from studio
Vision original: Monochrome
Later transmissions: Repeated on Monday 21 December 1936 from 9.21-10.11pm (no credits given in BBC Programme Records). Also repeated on Monday 21 June 1937 at 3.30pm and 9.30pm as part of the Theatre Parade season. Cast and credits as listed in the Radio Times Television Supplement for the first performance.
Notes: In Adventure in Vision (1950), John Swift writes that this production of ‘Murder in the Cathedral marked the beginning of the use of symbolic effects. In the stage version Becket sees the temptations in flesh and blood; in television these were presented as ghosts whispering in his ear, by skilful positioning and "double takes" ' (p. 50).
Extant status: No archival copy is known to exist.
Play tags: 12th-century setting; Christianity; historical drama

Title: Adventure in Vision: The First Twenty-Five Years of Television (Book)
Author/creator: John Swift (Author)
Reference: London: John Lehmann, 1950
Linking notes: p. 50

Title: Radio Times, 19 March 1937 (Magazine)
Linking notes: image of Speaight being filmed on p. 5 in ‘The Televising of Drama’, an article by George More O’Ferrall

This record has been viewed 588 times.