On the Spot

Summary

1938 BBC studio production of Edgar Wallace’s crime thriller On the Spot. In the original theatre production Charles Laughton played Tony Perelli with Arthur Gomez, who took the role in this television production, as his understudy. Arthur Gomez also played the part on tour and in a 1935 radio broadcast. Gillian Lind also took the same role here as she did in the theatre production.

Theatre play

On the Spot by Edgar Wallace (1875-1932) [more information]

Play synopsis

A thriller of gangland life in Prohibition Chicago. Tony Perelli, the gang boss (loosely based on Al Capone), recruits men for his gang and women as his lovers with the same ruthlessness and arranges for their disposal when they become a nuisance. But Minn Lee, the half-Chinese widow, is a little too much for him, and as she gradually learns the extent of his treachery, she plans a revenge.

Production history

First performed at Wyndham’s Theatre, London in April 1930. A radio adaptation was broadcast on 9 December 1935.

Date of transmission

Saturday 2 July 1938

Time

9.00-10.30pm (90 mins)

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Producer

Royston Morley

Playwright

Edgar Wallace (1875-1932)

Cast

Thornton Bassett
J. Adrian Byrne
Arthur Gomez	Tony Perelli
Harry Hutchinson
Alan Keith
Queenie Leonard
Gillian Lind	Minn Lee
Alex McCrindle
Richard Newton
Percy Parsons
Peggy Stacey
Edmund Willard

Additional details

Origination

Live from studio

Vision original

Monochrome

Later transmissions

Presented again at 3.00pm on Friday 8 July 1938, at 9.00pm on Saturday 9 April 1939 and at 3.00pm on 5 May 1939.

Notes

'Royston Morley has made ambitious arrangements. For the first time in television drama two studio cameras will be taken outside the building, their cables trailing down two flights of stairs, to televise exterior scenes’ ('The Scanner’, ‘Enter the Penumbrascope!', Radio Times, 24 June 1938, p. 15).

Extant status

No archival copy is known to exist.

Play tags

America, as theme or setting; crime; thriller

Print sources

Title

Radio Times, 24 June 1938 (Magazine)

Linking notes

listing, p. 16 and article p. 15

Title

The Sunday Broadcast Programmes: Need for Improvement (Newspaper review)

Author/creator

Anonymous (Reviewer)

Reference

The Times, 4 July 1938, p. 4

Notes

'Edgar Wallace’s thriller, On the Spot, was seen in a full-length version, when the terrace at Alexandra Palace was effectively used to show a street killing by Chinese gangsters. The whole play was admirably acted [...] [it] was all so consistent that it gave the unseen audience the sensation of having looked into a gangster hell no less real than that into which Virgil inducted Dante.'