The Farmer’s Wife

Summary

1959 BBC Television production of The Farmer’s Wife, a comedy by Eden Phillpotts, from the BBC’s West of England studio.

Theatre play

The Farmer’s Wife by Eden Phillpotts (1862-1960) [more information]

Play synopsis

The Farmer’s Wife is a comedy which follows a widower who lives on a farm with his housekeeper and is combing the countryside in search of a wife, blind to the attachment his housekeeper has developed for him.

Production history

One of his novels, Widecombe Fair, inspired by an annual fair at the village of Widecombe-in-the-Moor, provided the scenario for his comic play The Farmer’s Wife. Dated to 1926, it went on to become a silent movie of the same name, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and filmed in 1927. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_Phillpotts#Plays.

Date of transmission

Saturday 5 December 1959

Time

8.35-10.05pm

Series

Saturday Playhouse

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Producer

Patrick Dromgoole

Playwright

Eden Phillpotts (1862-1960)

Composer

Lawrence Hanray ('The music of Blue Eyes’)

Composer

Sidney Sager (incidental music)

Designer

Desmond Chinn

Cast

Doreen Aris	Sibley Sweetland
June Barrie	Susan Maine
Joyce Carey	Thirza Tapper
Constance Chapman	Mary Hearn
Noreen Craven	Mrs Rundle
Catherine Feller	Petronell Sweetland
Lewis Gedge	Henry Coaker
Hedley Goodall	Samuel Sweetland
Edgar Harrison	Valiant Dunnybrig
Ian Hendry	Richard Coaker
Vanessa Hill	Sophie Smerdon
Gerald C. Lawson	Churdles Ash
Paul Lorraine	Mr Gregson
Geoffrey Matthews	George Smerdon
Richard Matthews	The Rev. Septimus Tudor
Aileen Mills	Sarah Smerdon
Peter Perre[e?]	Teddy Smerdon
Phyllis Smale	Louisa Windeatt
Peggy Thorpe-Bates	Araminta Dench
Norman Tyrrell	Doctor Rundle

Additional details

Extant status

No archival copy is known to exist.

Play tags

comedy; Devon, as theme or setting; marriage

Print sources

Title

Radio Times, 27 November 1959 (Magazine)

Linking notes

listing and article on p. 27