In this live television play, a headstrong young woman rebels against her father’s authority to seek a life of her own in Edwardian London.
Ann Veronica Stanley (Margaret Lockwood), a bright and spirited woman of twenty-one, finds herself stifled by the patriarchal conventions of her suburban home in 1909. After her father, Mr Stanley (Henry Hewitt), forbids her from attending a fancy dress ball, she makes the radical decision to leave home and build an independent life in London. There she borrows money from an older man, enrolls in a biology course where she meets her tutor, Mr. Capes (Robert Harris), and becomes deeply involved in the suffragette movement, an activity which results in her arrest and imprisonment. Ann Veronica must reconcile her desire for social change with her own personal and romantic freedoms.
The casting of Margaret Lockwood, one of Britain’s biggest film stars, was a significant demonstration of the cultural ambition of the BBC’s fledgling television drama department. Lockwood’s presence lent cinematic prestige to this live studio production, an adaptation of H.G. Wells’s controversial 1909 novel about the “New Woman”.
The teleplay, like most from the period, was a single theatrical event broadcast live from the studio, with a repeat performance scheduled a few days later to capture a larger audience in an era before routine recording. The production is a clear example of early television drama’s reliance on established literary properties and its capacity to attract major talent to the small screen.
Broadcast: BBC Television, 2 Performances, Sunday 22 June 1952 and Thursday 26 June 1952
Based on the novel by: H.G. Wells
Adapted by: Ronald Gow
Producer: Campbell Logan
Settings: Stephen Bundy
Main Cast: Margaret Lockwood (Ann Veronica Stanley), Robert Harris (Mr. Capes), Robert Eddison (Hubert Manning), Christine Silver (Miss Stanley), Henry Hewitt (Mr. Stanley), William Mervyn (Mr. Ramage), Cicely Paget-Bowman (Kitty Brett), Alexis France (Miss Klegg)
