Twelfth Night
- Summary
- BBC transmission of a performance of Michel Saint-Denis’ current production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night directly from the Phoenix Theatre, London. This second attempt to broadcast a play from a theatre was considered by The Times to have been less successful than the first (J. B. Priestley’s When We Are Married): the play’s ‘lyric beauty deifes the vigilance of mechanical eyes which alter their range minute by minute’ (The Times, 3 January 1939, p. 8).
- Theatre play
- Twelfth Night; or, What You Will by William Shakespeare [more information]
- Date of transmission
- Monday 2 January 1939
- Time
- 8.30-11.00pm
- Channel
- BBC Television
- Production company
- BBC
Credits
- Theatre Director
- Michel Saint-Denis (1897-1971)
- Playwright
- William Shakespeare
- Cast
Bronson Albery (precise credit not known) Peggy Ashcroft Viola George Devine William Devlin (1911-1987) George Hayes Warren Jenkins Esmond Knight Orsino Basil Langton Vera Lindsay Lucille Lisle Michael Redgrave (1908-1985)
Additional details
- Origination
- Live from theatre
- Vision original
- Monochrome
- Extant status
- No archival copy is known to exist.
Print sources
- Title
- Broadcasting: Two Short Plays; Concert of Italian Music (Newspaper listing)
- Reference
- The Times, 2 January 1939, p. 23
- Title
- Entertainments: Television from a Theatre (Newspaper review)
- Reference
- The Times, 3 January 1939, p. 8
- Notes
- With a b&w image of part of the stalls and stage during the performance
- Title
- From the theatre, 1938-1939 (Blog article)
- Author/creator
- John Wyver (Author)
- Reference
- http://screenplaystv.wordpress.com/2011/09/27/from-the-theatre-1936-1939, published 27 September 2011
- Title
- In the beginning: Twelfth Night (BBC, 1939) (Blog article)
- Author/creator
- John Wyver (Author)
- Reference
- http://screenplaystv.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/in-the-beginning-twelfth-night-bbc-1939, published 11 December 2011
- Title
- Radio Times, 30 December 1938 (Magazine)
- Title
- Television (Newspaper review)
- Author/creator
- E. H. R. (Reviewer)
- Reference
- The Observer, 8 January 1939, p. 21
- Title
- Television: From the Stalls (Magazine review)
- Author/creator
- Grace Wyndham Goldie (reviewer)
- Reference
- The Listener, 9 January 1939, p. 171
- Title
- Will before the war (Blog article)
- Author/creator
- John Wyver (Author)
- Reference
- http://screenplaystv.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/will-before-the-war, published 23 June 2011
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