The Noble Spaniard

Summary

1958 BBC Television production of The Noble Spaniard by W. Somerset Maugham.

Theatre play

The Noble Spaniard by W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) [more information]

Play synopsis

A comedy. ‘Marion Nairn, a young widow, is spending the summer together with her young sister Lucy at Boulogne with Justice Proudfoot and his wife. The Duke of Hermanos, who is also passing his Summer at Boulogne, one day catches sight of Marion, and from that time on, he is her devoted admirer. He stands outside the window and admires for a few days, but finally he enters the house and declares his passion. Marion, ostensibly to get rid of him, tells him that she is married, whereupon he declares that her husband must die, and goes forth in search of him. When the maid tells him that Justice Proudfoot is the master of the house, he naturally mistakes that elderly gentleman for Marion’s husband and challenges him to a duel, which of course brings Lady Proudfoot under her husband’s suspicion. One after another, the men in the piece are mistaken by the impetuous foreigner for the husband of his adored one, and one after another, he tries to fight them all. In the end Marion succumbs to this passion - it seems the only way to kill it.' Source: http://www.samuelfrench-london.co.uk/p/12743/noble-spaniard-the.

Production history

Published in 1953 but certainly in production by 1931 (at the Little Theatre, Leeds, for example: see The Times, 15 September 1931, p. 10).

Date of transmission

Sunday 21 September 1958

Time

8.00pm-9.15pm

Series

Sunday-Night Theatre

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Producer

Adrian Brown

Playwright

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)

Adapted for Television by

Denis Constanduros

Designer

Malcolm Goulding

Cast

Maxine Audley	Marion Nairne
[J. B.] Stringer Davis	Mr Justice Proudfoot
Robert Eddison	Duke of Hermanos
Lucy Griffiths	Mary Jane
Owen Holder	Count de Moret
Jane Parsons	Lucy
Margaret Rutherford	Lady Proudfoot
Kenneth Williams	Captain Chalford

Additional details

Extant status

No archival copy is known to exist.

Play tags

19th-century setting; comedy; France, as theme or setting; Spain, as theme or setting

Print sources

Title

More Suited To Opera: The Noble Spaniard on Television (Newspaper review)

Reference

The Times, 22 September 1958, p. 3

Title

Radio Times, 19 September 1958 (Magazine)

Linking notes

listing, p. 11