Simon and Laura

Summary

BBC Television production of Alan Melville’s comedy Simon and Laura, presented in the Thursday Theatre strand. It was repeated in the Theatre 625 series in 1966.

Theatre play

Simon and Laura by Alan Melville (1910-1983) [more information]

Play synopsis

'Satirising the early days of BBC Television, Simon and Laura focuses on an argumentative theatrical couple called Simon and Laura Foster; they’ve been together for some 20 years and are given a new lease of life when playing a faux-harmonious version of ‘themselves’ in a daily soap opera filmed in their own home’ (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_and_Laura, accessed 3 October 2013).

Production history

Simon and Laura opened at London’s Strand Theatre on 25 November 1954. It had earlier in the year been shown at the Opera House in Manchester.

Date of transmission

Thursday 19 November 1964

Series

Theatre 625; Thursday Theatre

Channel

BBC2

Production company

BBC

Credits

Director

Christopher Morahan

Producer

Cedric Messina

Playwright

Alan Melville (1910-1983)

Designer

William McCrow

Script Editor

Rosemary Hill

Cast

Lesley Allen	Miss Mills
Susan Ashworth	Henry
Richard Briers	David Prentice
Ian Carmichael	Simon Foster
Philo Hauser	Wolfie
Paul Holdaway	Timothy
David Jackson	Barnie
Reg Lever	Archie
Moira Lister	Laura Foster
Henry McGee	Bert
Penny Morrell	Janet Honeyman
Charles Lloyd Pack	Wilson
Molly Urquhart	Jessie
Bruce Wightman	Joe

Additional details

Later transmissions

BBC2, Theatre 625 series, 6 November 1966 (9.05pm).

Play tags

comedy; television, as theme; theatre or acting, as theme

Audiovisual sources

Title

Simon and Laura (BBC, 1964)

Archive

BBC Information and Archives [more information]

Address

White City
London
UK

Telephone

+44 (0)20 8008 2288

Website

http://www.bbc.co.uk/informationandarchives/

Access

BBC Information and Archives is not open to the public.

Print sources

Title

Leading Responses (Newspaper review)

Author/creator

Maurice Richardson (Reviewer)

Reference

The Observer, 13 March 1966, p. 25

Title

Simon and Laura on TV (Newspaper review)

Author/creator

Mary Crozier (Reviewer)

Reference

The Guardian, 7 March 1966

Title

Theatre 625: Simon and Laura (BBC, 1964) (Blog article)

Author/creator

John Wyver (Author)

Reference

http://screenplaystv.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/theatre-625-simon-and-laura-bbc-1964, published 28 January 2013