Charles and Mary [excerpts]

Summary
1938 BBC studio presentation of excerpts from the Players’ Theatre production of Joan Temple’s play about Charles and Mary Lamb. The playwright took the role of Mary.
Theatre play
Charles and Mary by Joan Temple [more information]
Date of transmission
Friday 20 May 1938
Time
9.20pm (70 mins)
Channel
BBC Television
Production company
BBC
Theatre company
Players’ Theatre, London

Credits

Producer
Lanham Titchener
Playwright
Joan Temple
Cast
Frith BanburyCharles Dudley
Hugh BurdenSamuel Coleridge
Erik Chitty (1907-1977)
Christine Hartley
Patricia HayesHester Savory
Philip MorantJohn Lamb
Marjorie RhodesBecky
Peter RidgwayCharles Lamb
Valentine Rooke
Joan TempleMary Lamb

Additional details

Origination
Live from studio
Vision original
Monochrome
Later transmissions
Presented again at 9.20pm on Sunday August 28 1938, with Marie Ney as Mary Lamb, and John Ruddock, Daphne Scorer, Stringer Davies and Eileen Rhodes in the cast. In the Radio Times listing on this date it is not billed as the Players’ Theatre production, nor as ‘excerpts’.
Notes
The anonymous theatre critic for The Times wrote of the stage production: ‘This gentle, moving sketch of Charles Lamb’s domestic affliction is suited to a small stage, and Mr Peter Ridgway’s company give it a gentle, moving production’ ('Players’ Theatre: Charles and Mary’, The Times, 29 April 1938, p. 14).
Extant status
No archival copy is known to exist.
Play tags
19th-century setting; historical drama; poetry and literature, as theme

Print sources

Title
Broadcasting: Mendelssohn in England (Newspaper listing)
Reference
The Times, 27 August 1938, p. 3
Title
Radio Times, 13 May 1938 (Magazine)
Linking notes
listing, p. 13
Title
Radio Times, 26 August 1938 (Magazine)
Linking notes
listing, p. 19

Record Stats

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