Radio Plays, 1957
THE DISAGREEABLE OYSTER....1957
By Giles Cooper.
15 Aug 1957, BBC Third Programme. Cast:
Bundy and Henry - Hamilton Dyce
Bundy Minor and Abernacle- John Graham
Alice, Olive....Kathleen Helme
Rigg- Arthur Young
also stars Beryl Calder, June Tobin, Haydn Jones,
Malcolm Hayes. Produced by Donald McWhinnie.
Mervyn Bundy, the main character of this play, is divided into two parts - Bundy Major and Bundy Minor. Bundy Major is the real person. Bundy Minor is the bit inside him - his second thoughts, or his conscience, or whatever you want to call him. The only thing we really know about him is that he's inside Bundy Major, and he can't get out.
...Highly stylised handling...as rich as a cartoon film
in outrageous comic invention and as sober as a Chekhov play in
its concern with human beings. ....from an essay by Donald
McWhinnie...
GAMMER GURTON'S NEEDLE....1957
4 Aug 57. This was the eleventh programme in 'The First Stage' series which traced the development of English drama up to the Elizabethan period. It was written and compiled by John Barton who also provided an introductory talk preceding each play.
Cast List:
Norman Wooland .................... Diccon, the Bedlam (a discharged patient from Bethlehem Hospital for the Insane)
Michael Bates ......................... Hodge, Gammer Gurton's Farmhand
Vivienne Chatterton ................ Gammer Gurton
Denise Bryer ............................ Tyb, Gammer Gurton's Maid
Geoffrey Matthews ................. Cocke, Gammer Gurton's Boy
John Ruddock ........................... Dr. Rat, the Curate
Betty Hardy .............................. Dame Chat, an Ale-House Keeper
James Dale .............................. Master Bailey, the Bailiff
Hugh Manning ......................... Scapethrift, Master Bailey's Servant (........Jim)
- Gammer Gurton's Needle is the most famous of the pre Shakespearean comedies.
Authorship remains uncertain but it is thought that it was first produced
c1553. Music by Elizabeth Poston - Goldsborough Orchestra, conductor
Douglas Robinson; play produced by Raymond Raikes......(ML)
ANIMAL FARM....1957
Broadcast June 1957. The following article appeared in "Radio Times" dated 21 June, 1957 written by Producer Rayner Heppenstall (text supplied by Roger Bickerton of VRPCC):-
"George Orwell" (E.A. Blair) wrote 'Animal Farm' in the winter of 1943-44, but it was not published until the spring of 1945. The story is now widely known. Inspired by various sources, including Swift's "Tale of a Tub", it presents, as an animal fable, the "betrayal" of the Russian Revolution by unscrupulous leaders (the pigs) who eventually became indistinguishable from the brutal human farmers they had supplanted. "Napoleon" must unquestionably be regarded as a caricature of Stalin. "Major" combines in his ageing person Lenin and Karl Marx, the originators of the philosophy of "animalism". "Boxer" is a prototype of the simple, idealistic Russian worker who works himself to death for a cause in which his leaders have ceased to believe.
Orwell's original adaptation, done for the then quite new Third Programme on 14 January, 1947 had one great demerit : it made too much use of the voice of an impersonal Narrator. In the revised version which will be heard on Sunday (Home Service), the storyteller is "Clover" - the mare. The hint for this modification comes from Orwell himself, for he had made Clover take up the narration towards the end, telling the younger animals of some of the things that had happened before their time. We now begin with Clover teaching the song "Beasts of England" to a new generation.
This will be the third time I have produced "Animal Farm", the second since Orwell's death at the beginning of 1950. I had then known him for 15 years and, in 1935, in fact shared a flat with him in Kentish Town when his name was unknown to all but a very few. What a pity it seems that the process of de-Stalinisation did not go a bit further. "Animal Farm" might then have become a best-seller in the Soviet Union.
The cast list :-
Clover, a mare.................................Betty Hardy
Boxer, a draught-horse....................Richard George
Major, an aged Middle-White boar....Norman Shelley
Snowball, a boar.............................Malcolm Hayes
Napoleon, a Berkshire boar..............Felix Felton
Squealer, a porker...........................Geoffrey Wincott
Molly, a pretty young mare...............Marjorie Westbury
Benjamin, a donkey.........................Bryan Powley
Pilkington, a farmer..........................John Sharp
Other animal and human parts played by Frank Atkinson, Robert Marsden, Anita Sharp Bolster, Ronald Sidney, Gladys Spencer, Lewis Wilson and Virginia Winter.
