A television production of William Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy.
Banished from court by her usurping uncle, Duke Frederick (John Vere), the noble Rosalind (Vivienne Bennett) flees to the Forest of Arden. She is accompanied by her devoted cousin Celia (Mary Honer) and the court fool Touchstone (Richard Littledale). To ensure their safety, Rosalind adopts the guise of a young man, Ganymede. The forest is also the refuge for the young nobleman Orlando (John Byron), who has escaped the tyranny of his elder brother Oliver (Peter Bell). When Ganymede encounters the lovesick Orlando, she playfully offers to cure him of his affections for the absent Rosalind, setting in motion a web of mistaken identities and romantic trials.
Televised just one month after the BBC resumed broadcasting following the Second World War, this production was an early and ambitious attempt at post-war television drama. Transmitted live from the studio, the staging was a clear statement of the BBC’s Reithian mission to bring classic theatre into the nation’s homes. The production, mounted by Ian Atkins, would have been a significant technical undertaking for the time, relying on the discipline of its stage-trained cast to deliver Shakespeare’s text within the unforgiving constraints of the live medium. The broadcast stands as a historical document, a powerful expression of the new medium’s cultural aspirations in the immediate aftermath of the war.
Broadcast: BBC, 1 Episode, 14 July 1946
Written by: William Shakespeare
Play Production by: Ian Atkins
Main Cast: Vivienne Bennett (Rosalind), John Byron (Orlando), Mary Honer (Celia), Richard Littledale (Touchstone), Desmond Llewelyn (Duke Senior), John Vere (Duke Frederick), David Read (Jaques), Peter Bell (Oliver), Patricia Hicks (Phoebe)
