1967 - Other Radio Plays
The Potting Shed....1967
by Graham Greene;
with Sybil Thorndike, Robert Harris and Jill Balcon.
BBC Home Service, Mon 20 Mar 67.
Psychological drama: Henry Califer, the patriarch of the family, is dying and James, his estranged son, appears unexpectedly.
James, now a middle-aged newspaperman, can remember nothing about a mysterious moment that occurred in the family's potting shed in the summer of 1925 half a lifetime ago. With the help of a psychoanalyst, he tries to recall the event which left him alienated from his family.
Adapted for radio by Peggy Wells from Graham Greene's stage play.
Cast: Sybil Thorndike [Mrs. Mary Callifer, James's Mother], Robert Harris [James Callifer], Jill Balcon [Sara Callifer, James's Ex-Wife], John Justin [John Callifer, James's Brother], Chrys Salt [Anne Callifer, John's Daughter], Ronald Herdman [Dr. Frederick Baston], Brian Hewlett [Mr. Corner, a Reporter on the Nottingham Journal who shares rooms with James], Harold Kasket [Dr. Kreuzer, James's Psychoanalyst], Marjorie Forsyth [Mrs. Potter, Widow of the Califer's former Gardener], Anna Burden [Miss Connolly, Father William
Califer's Housekeeper], and Henry Stamper [Father William Califer, James's Uncle].
Music of Vaughan Williams Norfolk Rhapsody performed by the Philharmonic Promenade Orchestra.
Produced by John Powell
The Reluctant Peer....1967
By William Douglas Home, Home, 8.4.1967,2030, with
Athene Seyler/Griffith Jones/Faith Brook. Light domestic
comedy. Saturday Night Theatre.
THE INDOMITABLE PIPPIN....1967
By Allan Peacock, Home Service, 6 May 67. (..... I'm told by Katie, Allan's daughter, that this story is autobiographical - ND ). It's a military play lasting about 90 minutes (Saturday Night Theatre), set in and around a prisoner-of-war camp on a remote Far Eastern stretch of the Berlin - Baghdad railway. The year is 1918. Stars William Lucas, Peter Stevens, John Bowen, Roger Delgardo, John Rowe, Kim Ward. Bakshee Prem, Colin Skipp, George Woolley, Charles Butler. Produced by Anthony Cornish; BBC Midlands studio.
ALBERT'S BRIDGE....1967
By Tom Stoppard. This play won the award in the Czechoslovak International Radio Play Festival in Prague in 1968, and the Italia Prize the same year in Rome. 13-Jul-1967.
Nigel Anthony, Alexander John, Geoffrey Wincott, John Hurt, Victor Lucas, Ian Thompson, Anthony Jackson, Ronald Herdman, Betty Hardy, Alan Dudley, Barbara Mitchell, Haydn Jones. Produced by Charles Lefeaux.
THE QUEEN OF SPADES
4 Aug 67. By Alexander Pushkin [1833], dramatised for radio by Maurice Travers. A troubled officer is brought to the office of Doctor Varnin. Under hypnosis, Lieutenant Hermann recalls the events that brought him to this state.
No. 4 in the series Murder International.
Ian Ogilvy ............ Lieutenant Hermann,
Joan Matheson ......... The Countess,
Susan Maudslay......... Lizavyeta,
Nigel Lambert ......... Narumov,
Gareth Armstrong ...... Tomsky,
Sion Probert .......... Surin / Tchekalinsky,
Christopher Bidmead ... Dmitri,
Godfrey Kenton ........ Doctor Varnin.
Technical Presentation by Keith Perrin.
Murder International is devised and produced by Derek Hoddinott.
THE MAN IN THE LOOKING GLASS....1967
5 Aug 67; by Bruce Beeby. Social story; a man takes his wife for granted - eventually the worm turns. Home Service. 45m.
A Hell of a Day on Monday....1967
By Gerry Jones. Geoffrey Wincott/Haydn Jones/Ronald Herdman.
28.10.1967
THE RETURN....1967
4 Nov 67; Saturday Night Theatre. The first production in a special Saturday Night Theatre series titled 'The Flora Robson Festival', in which Flora Robson stars in some of her favourite plays.
The year is 1949 as the play opens in the convent parlour of an order of strictly enclosed nuns in an English Midland town. Back in 1913, Agatha Fosdyke was an awkward, ungainly girl of 22 when she entered the convent. Now, 36 years later, Sister Agatha wants to leave. She has discussed it all with the convent's Spiritual Director, but Father Augustine is a Carmelite, from an enclosed order like their own. It was he who told the Prioress it was time to consult the Chaplain.
The Chaplain is incredulous when the Prioress tells him Sister Agatha is perfectly normal. Here's a woman who shut herself up from the world since 1913 living on cabbage-water soup and vegetables cooked without salt; sleeping on planks and getting up at four every morning; and has not laid eyes on a human being outside the community for 36 years. And suddenly she tells the Prioress she can't stand it another moment? Why not? What's the matter with her? Having skipped the time of the two world wars and the dragging years between, the Chaplain wants to know how can she hope, at age 58, to come to terms with a secular life so strange to her?
"The Return" captures the ironic contrast between the quiet isolation of the convent parlour and the claustrophobic narrowness of the London flat where a nun, who has not known the world since 1913, goes to live in 1949 with her nephew and his young wife, a charming, bickering, decent, contemporary couple with little understanding of her spiritual problem and strength.
Adapted for radio by Bridget Boland from her stage play, "Journey to Earth", which premiered at the Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool, on 26th February 1952. The following year, the play moved to the Duchess Theatre, London, where it premiered as "The Return" on 9th November 1953. The production starred Ernest Jay, Enid Lindsey, Flora Robson, Ann Walford, Peter Martyn and Roy Malcolm.
With Flora Robson [Sister Agatha (Agatha Fosdyke)], Betty Hardy [Margaret, the Prioress], James Thomason [Father Blake, Chaplain of the Convent], Gabriel Woolf [Peter Swithin, Son of Agatha's Deceased Older Sister, Cecilia], Hilda Schroder [Angela Swithin, Peter's Wife], Denys Blakelock [Cyril Plummer, East End Warden at the Youth Centre], and Gwen Berryman [The Lay Sister].
Produced by Graham Gauld. ....review by Jim...many thanks.
SEXTON BLAKE....1967
The case histories of a remarkable detective. Written by Donald Stuart. Signature tune composed by Frank Chacksfield.
Devised for radio by Philip Ridgeway. Produced by Alastair Scott Johnston. No Trees for the Peke ... 14 Dec 67.
Sexton Blake - William Franklyn,
Tinker - David Gregory,
Paula Dane - Heather Chasen,
Mrs. Gypsom-Smythe - Beth Boyd,
Henry Gypsom-Smythe - John Bown,
Eustace Craille - Ronald Baddeley,
Garry Hansen - John Bown,
Det. Chief Insp. Coutts - Wilfred Babbage,
Mr. Jones Nigel Graham.
EXACT DATES NK:
In lieu of cash.... 1967
By Frederick Treves
Night Caller.... 1967
By Leslie Darbon
The Greeting....1967
By Osbert Sitwell
Sixpence for a self-made man.... 1967
By Patrick Simpson
The sewing machine ....1967
By P. V. Donaldson
Money for old rope ....1967
By David Ellis
THE MINISTER'S MALLARD 1967
By Alan Melville. Another excellent light comedy, featuring some daft politicians, a woman with commonsense, and an orphan duck. With Michael Denison as the Minister, Corrall Brown as Janet, David Glover as Roger, Irene Sutcliffe as Mrs. Nicholson, Beth Boyd as Miss Dempster, Donald Perlmuir as Mr. Harrison, Clive Francis as David, Rosalind Shanks as Jennifer, Dennis Aliver-Peters as Mr. Aquieueueu, Preston Lockwood as Coombs, Betty Huntley-Wright as Mrs. Frome; Anthony Vickers and Clive Francis as the announcers; other parts by members of the BBC Drama Repertory Company. Produced by Guy Vaison.
There's no point in arguing the toss....1967
By Don Haworth. A rather novel approach to a funeral....
Nigel Deacon / Diversity website
Above plays known to exist in VRPCC collections
