The Cedar Tree

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The Cedar Tree
The Cedar Tree.png
Genre Soap opera
Created by Alfred Shaughnessy
Country of originUnited Kingdom
No. of seasons3
No. of episodes119
Production
ProducerIan Fordyce
Running time30 minutes
60mins in 1978.
Production company ATV
Original release
Network ITV
Release20 September 1976 (1976-09-20) 
1979 (1979)

The Cedar Tree was a television serial that ran from 1976 to 1979 on ITV in the United Kingdom.

It involved the story of the upper class Bourne family before the turn of the Second World War. [1] The main setting is Larkfield Manor, the family home set in Herefordshire, in the grounds of which is the cedar tree.

The Cedar Tree was made by Associated Television Productions (ATV) and recorded at their studios at Elstree. Two established cast members were the veteran actress Joyce Carey and Susan Skipper, who played one of the Bourne family's daughters. Two other noted actors involved were Philip Latham as Commander Bourne, and Cyril Luckham, as Charles Ashley, the benevolent grandfather.

The first two series were shown on ITV in the afternoon in a thirty-minute twice weekly format. The first series had 82 episodes; the second had 24 episodes. The final series was given an evening prime time slot and the episodes were extended to sixty minutes; the series consisted of only 13 episodes. [2]

In a bizarre bit of casting, Jack Watling, who had been playing Captain Julian Palmer, an old friend of the Bourne family, in series 2, took over the role of Arthur Bourne in series 3.

In February 2013 it was announced [3] that the first 1976 series was to be released on DVD. A complete box set of all three series has since been released.

Cast

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References

  1. BFI.org The Cedar Tree
  2. "The Cedar Tree", TVMaze.
  3. "The Cedar Tree for DVD Release | ATV Today". www.atvtoday.co.uk. Archived from the original on 22 November 2015.