Let Them Eat Cake [scenes]

Summary

1959 BBC presentation of scenes from the comedy Let Them Eat Cake by Frederick Lonsdale, televised direct from the Cambridge Theatre, London, by arrangement with Emile Littler.

Theatre play

Let Them Eat Cake by Frederick Lonsdale (1881-1954) [more information]

Play synopsis

Comedy set in a country house, where a veneer of good manners skims over adultery and heartless banter. A wife sees that her husband is infatuated with another woman and resolves to throw them together so that they are, in fact, put off running away together.

Production history

First performed as Once is Enough (New York, 1938), and revived as Half a Loaf (Windsor, 1958) and as Let Them Eat Cake (London, 1959).

Date of transmission

Tuesday 2 June 1959

Time

8.00-8.45pm

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Television Presentation by

John Vernon

Theatre Director

Wallace Douglas

Playwright

Frederick Lonsdale (1881-1954)

Designer

Doris Zinkeisen

Cast

Patricia Burke	Molly
Michael Denison	Johnny
Eunice Gayson	Liz Pleydell
Dulcie Gray	Nancy
Claude Hulbert	Archie
Henry Kendall	Hugo
Humphrey Lestocq	Eric Linden MP
Jean Lodge	Dorothy
Austin Melford	Morton
Guy Middleton	Reggie
Phyllis Neilson-Terry	Emily
Cyril Raymond	Charles Pleydell
James Sharkey	Paul
Geoffrey Wren	Footman

Additional details

Play tags

adultery / infidelity; comedy

Print sources

Title

A Lonsdale Play Refurbished: Dulcie Gray in Country House Comedy (Newspaper review)

Author/creator

Philip Hope-Wallace (Reviewer)

Reference

The Manchester Guardian, 7 May 1959, p. 7

Linking notes

n.b. this is a review of the stage production, not the televised excerpt.

Title

Radio Times, 29 May 1959 (Magazine)

Linking notes

listing, p. 15