The Importance of Being Earnest

Summary

1946 live broadcast of a studio production of Oscar Wilde’s comedy The Importance of Being Earnest. This was the first full-length production of a theatre play after the post-war resumption of the BBC television service.

Theatre play

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde [more information]

Play synopsis

'A farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae in order to escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play’s major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways’ (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Importance_of_Being_Earnest).

Production history

First performed on 14 February 1895 at St James’s Theatre in London.

Date of transmission

Sunday 9 June 1946

Time

8.40-10.10pm

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Producer

George More O’Ferrall (1907-1982)

Playwright

Oscar Wilde

Sets / Settings

Barry Learoyd

Cast

Alban Blakelock	Lane
[J. B.] Stringer Davis	Merriman
Robert Eddison	John Worthing, J.P.
David Horne	Rev, Canon Chasuble
Dorothy Hyson	Cecily Cardew
Betty Potter	Miss Prism
Margaret Rutherford	Lady Bracknell
Margaret Vines	Gwendolen Fairfax
Mackenzie Ward	Algernon Moncrieff

Additional details

Origination

Live from studio

Vision original

Monochrome

Later transmissions

Presented again at 3.00pm on Wednesday 12 June 1946.

Notes

In the ‘Tele-flashes’ column, ‘The Scanner’ writes that the production will benefit from ‘the kindly gift of a set of women’s Victorian costumes sent in by a viewer who found them in the loft of an old house bequeathed to her by her grandmother’ (Radio Times, 7 June 1946, p. 25).

Extant status

No archival copy is known to exist.

Play tags

19th-century setting; comedy; Edwardian drama

Print sources

Title

Radio Times, 7 June 1946 (Magazine)

Linking notes

listing, p. 25 and ‘Tele-flashes’ paragraph, p. 24