Daphne Laureola

Summary: 1978 Granada Television production of James Bridie’s Daphne Laureola for ITV presented as the third Best Play of the Year in Laurence Olivier’s series.
Theatre play: Daphne Laureola by James Bridie (1888-1951) [more information]
Play synopsis: 'Here a young man’s obsession with an older woman in the very contemporary setting of postwar London resonates with the mythical Apollo’s obsession with the nymph Daphne, presciently transformed by Gaea into a laurel tree before she could be seduced’. Lady Pitts is in a dull marriage to an elderly and ailing baronet. She dines alone in a Soho restaurant and as she becomes loud and inebriated she invites her fellow diners to her home. Ernest Piaste, a young Polish man, becomes besotted with her. Her husband passes away and some months later Piaste discovers that she has married the chauffeur Vincent, a discovery which shocks him and leads her to reject him and his idealization of women in general (The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, vol. 1, p. 327).
Production history: First staged at Wyndham’s Theatre, London, 1949, a production directed by Laurence Olivier.
Date of transmission: Sunday 15 January 1978
Time: 9.25-11.10pm
Series: Laurence Olivier Presents
Channel: ITV
Production company: Granada Television (1956-)

Director

Waris Hussein

Producer

Derek Granger

Playwright

James Bridie (1888-1951)

Designer

Peter Phillips

Cast

Title: Laurence Olivier Presents. The Collection. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Hindke Wakes. Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Come Back Little Sheba. Daphne Laureola
Notes: Published by Network in 2007

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