Twelfth Night

Synopsis: A CBS radio version of Twelfth Night with Tallulah Bankhead as Viola and Orson Welles as Orsino. Narrated by Conway Tearle.
Series: Columbia Shakespeare Cycle
Language: English
Country: United States
Medium: Radio
Transmission details: 30 Aug 1937 (Channel: CBS)
Duration: 60 mins

Producer

Brewster Morgan

Writer

William Shakespeare

Contributor

Conway Tearle

Adaptor for Radio

Brewster Morgan

Cast

Tallulah Bankhead	Viola (later disguised as Cesario)
Helen Menken	Olivia
Orson Welles	Orsino, Duke of Illyria
Cedric Hardwicke	Malvolio
Burford Hamden	Feste
Estelle Winwood	Maria
John Griggs	Valentine
Mark Smith	Sir Toby Belch
Niles Welch	Officer (First Officer)
Ray Collins	Antonio
Robert Strauss	Sir Andrew Aguecheek
Sidney Smith	Sebastian

Notes: This recording should not be confused as being part of the CBC series of the same name broadcast in 1938. The copy held by the Library of Congress is incomplete at 45mins duration.

A 53-page photocopied typescript is in the Folger Shakespeare Library and at the Birmingham Shakespeare Library.

The programme can be downloaded from www.wellesnet.com (accessed 4/2008).
History: The last episode in the Shakespeare Cycle. Thirty minutes after the programme, CBS presented a half-hour special entitled The Curtain Calls of the 1937 Shakespeare Cycle, broadcast live from both New York and Los Angeles. It featured "informal" interviews with actors who had participated in the cycle.
Reviews: Jensen, Michael P. ‘Radio’ in Burt, Richard (ed). Shakespeares After Shakespeares: an Encyclopedia of the Bard in Mass Media and Popular Culture. 2 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006. (p, 572, entry 2592).