Parnell

Summary: 1938 BBC Television studio production of Elsie T. Schauffler’s drama Parnell. Wyndham Goldie had also played the part of Parnell in the Gate Theatre, London production in May 1936.
Theatre play: Parnell by Elsie T. Schauffler (1885-1935) [more information]
Play synopsis: Historical drama set in London in 1880. ‘Charles Parnell has been neither eulogised nor defamed by Miss Elsie Schaufflerhe has been humanised. [...] No one seemed capable of looking at Parnell dispassionatelyhe must either be the Messiah of the Irish people or an utter outcast of the lowest nature. Miss Schauffler shows him as neither of these things. She shows him as a born leader, as a man who knew his own purpose and who was as certain of what he wanted in the Cabinet as he was of what he wanted in love. All means he sacrificed to attain these ends.' (Source: anonymous review of the Gate Theatre production in the Catholic Herald, 29 May 1936, available at http://archive.catholicherald.co.uk/article/29th-may-1936/10/chastity-my-brother-parnell-ballets-de-monte-carlo; accessed 12 February 1936)
Production history: First performed on Broadway in November 1935 in a production directed by Guthrie McClintic, at the Gate Theatre, London in May, 1936 and then at the New Theatre, London from November 1936 to March 1937. Published London: Samuel French, 1936
Date of transmission: Friday 30 September 1938
Time: 9.10pm (95 mins)
Channel: BBC Television
Production company: BBC

Producer

George More O’Ferrall (1907-1982)

Playwright

Elsie T. Schauffler (1885-1935)

Cast

Origination: Live from studio
Vision original: Monochrome
Later transmissions: Presented again at 3.00pm on Tuesday 4 October 1938.
Extant status: No archival copy is known to exist.
Play tags: 19th-century setting; historical drama; politics; Republic of Ireland, as theme or setting; sexuality (and morality, politics etc)

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British Universities Film & Video Council