A short, two-handed play from the earliest era of live television drama.
The simple drama is set in an isolated cottage thirty miles from London on a single evening in September. The only characters are Laina Penrose (Anne Crawford) and Tony Penrose (Lewis Stringer). As the production was broadcast live and never recorded, any further details of the plot have been lost to history.
This thirty-minute play is an example of the small-scale, theatrical pieces that defined BBC drama in the immediate post-war period. With television still in its infancy, such productions were ephemeral by nature; they were performed live in the studio for a tiny audience and then vanished forever.
The participation of Anne Crawford, a notable film actress under contract to Gainsborough Pictures, lent the brief production a degree of cinematic glamour unusual for the time. Written by Alwyne Whatsley, the play was adapted and produced by Ian Atkins, one of the service’s early producer-directors. It was performed live on Saturday 28 September, with a second live performance broadcast the following Wednesday afternoon.
Broadcast: BBC, 2 Performances, 28 September 1946 & 2 October 1946
Written by: Alwyne Whatsley
Adapter & Producer: Ian Atkins
Main Cast: Anne Crawford (Laina Penrose), Lewis Stringer (Tony Penrose)
