Anastasia

Summary: 1953 BBC Television production of Marcelle Maurette’s Anastasia, which won the Daily Mail’s Best TV Play of the Year award for 1953-54 (source: Jason Jacobs, The Intimate Screen, p. 13).
Theatre play: Anastasia by Marcelle Maurette (1909-1972) [more information]
Play synopsis: Anya, the last surviving daughter of Czar Nicholas II of Russia, is ‘discovered as an amnesiac in a Berlin asylum by former Cossack ‘prince’ turned-taxi-driver Bounine, Anya is swept into a scheme to exploit the "heritage" of 10 million pounds being held in trust for any surviving heirs of the Romanoff dynasty. As the conspiracy prospers, Anya is coached to success but for one last test: the Imperial Grand Empress is alive and her acceptance is essential. In a famous "recognition scene" of breathless suspense, Anya meets her grandmother and must convince the dowager that she is the long-lost Royal Princess Anastasia.' Source: http://www.samuelfrench.com/p/4485/anastasia.
Production history: 'This crowd-pleasing classic was made into a film which featured an Oscar-winning performance by Ingrid Bergman who starred as Anya’. Source: http://www.samuelfrench.com/p/4485/anastasia. The stage premiere seems to have been produced in the first half of the 1950s.
Date of transmission: Sunday 12 July 1953
Series: Sunday-Night Theatre
Channel: BBC Television
Production company: BBC

Producers

John Counsell, Rosemary Hill

Playwright

Marcelle Maurette (1909-1972)

Sets / Settings

Barry Learoyd

Cast

Charles Cameron	Sergei
Bryan Coleman	Prince Paul
Peter Cushing	Piotr Petrovsky
Ruth Goddard	Lady in Waiting
Michael Godfrey	Felix Oblensky
Everley Gregg	The Charwoman
Helen Haye	The Dowager Empress of Russia
Anthony Ireland (1902-1957)	Prince Bounine
Mary Kerridge	Anna Broun
Malcolm Russell	Boris Chernov
Jacqueline Squire	Antonia
Geoffrey Tyrrell	The Sleigh Driver

Notes: Cast and credits taken from the BBC archive recording.
Play tags: Germany, as theme or setting; inheritance; royalty; Russia (Soviet Union etc), as theme or setting

Title: Anastasia (BBC, 1953)
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