The Offshore Island

Summary: 1959 BBC Television production of The Offshore Island by Marghanita Laski.
Theatre play: The Offshore Island by Marghanita Laski [more information]
Play synopsis: 'The play is intended as a parable on the suicidal inhumanity of nuclear politics. It opens eight years after Europe has been blasted into a radioactive graveyard, and in the first scenes it sets out to establish an idyll of the rebirth of peasant society. But the mother and her two adolescent children, farming industriously in an uncontaminated valley, are not left unmolested for long. An American patrol unit drop out of the sky and inform them that the war is still grinding on, and neutrals are not allowed. From this point the play becomes a duologue between humanity and politics’ (The Times, 15 April 1959, p. 8).
Production history: The Times of 24 April 1958, p. 3 states that ‘the first production in a professional theatre [...] will be given at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge on May 12’ 1958.
Date of transmission: Tuesday 14 April 1959
Time: 8.30pm (90 mins)
Channel: BBC Television
Production company: BBC

Producer

Dennis Vance

Playwright

Marghanita Laski

Designer

Barry Learoyd

Cast

Extant status: No archival copy is known to exist.
Play tags: America, as theme or setting; Russia (Soviet Union etc), as theme or setting; wartime, as theme or setting; weapons / bombs

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British Universities Film & Video Council