Carmen

Synopsis: Radio comedy series written by and starring Fred Allen. Maurice Evans and Allen joke about the misfit between lowbrow radio and highbrow culture (Shakespeare). Evans performs an extract from the ghost scene in Hamlet (I v). Allen says Evans acts in the classics so he can avoid paying the writer; this observation leads to a sketch whereby Shakespeare writes for radio only to have the script returned for a re-write from the advertising executives. Suggestions that the play be turned into a soap opera occasions Shakespeare’s suicide. His dying words are ‘to be or not to be’ and the advertising executive decides to do a quiz show. [With acknowledgement to Lanier op cit for the description of content].
Series: Fred Allen Show, The
Language: English
Country: United States
Medium: Radio
Transmission details: 31 Jan 1946 (Channel: NBC)
Duration: 29 mins

Director

Howard Riley

Writer

Fred Allen

Contributor

Fred Allen

Cast

Maurice Evans

Production type: Sitcoms/Variety
Plays: Hamlet
Subjects: Drama
Keywords: advertising; radio broadcasting; satire; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Reviews: Lanier, Douglas ‘WSHX: Shakespeare and American Radio’ in Burt, Richard (ed) Shakespeare After Mass Media. (New York: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 204-5. Lanier writes ‘although the sketch spoofs the conventions of sponsored radio programming, it also reinforces the sense that ‘commercial’ is a fundamental obligation from which no performer may be exempt’.

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