"The Lady from the Sea" | |
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Sunday Night Theatre episode | |
Written by | Max Faber |
Based on | The Lady from the Sea by Henrik Ibsen |
Original air date | 10 May 1953 |
Running time | 105 minutes |
"The Lady from the Sea" is a 1953 episode of Sunday Night Theatre that is significant as one of the earliest extant examples of British television drama, along with an earlier episode of the series titled "It is Midnight, Doctor Schweitzer" and the first two episodes of The Quatermass Experiment . [1] An adaptation of the 1888 play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, it was performed twice, first on 10 May 1953 and again on the 14th. [2] One of these live transmissions was recorded using the then-experimental telerecording process. [3]
John Wyver, reviewing the programme in 2011, said "even nearly sixty years on, few allowances have to be made for it to be enjoyed as small-screen drama of the first order" and "Irene Worth demands attention and captures the eye in just the way that I recall Vanessa Redgrave doing at the Roundhouse" [4]
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan was a British dramatist and screenwriter. He was one of England's most popular mid-20th-century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background. He wrote The Winslow Boy (1946), The Browning Version (1948), The Deep Blue Sea (1952) and Separate Tables (1954), among many others.
Dame Jane Elizabeth Ailwên Phillips, known professionally as Siân Phillips, is a Welsh actress. Her early career consisted primarily of stage roles, including the title roles in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler and George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan. In the 1960s, she started taking on more roles in television and film. She is particularly known for her performance as Livia in the 1976 BBC television series I, Claudius, for which she was awarded a BAFTA and a Royal Television Society award. She was nominated for a Tony Award and Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance as Marlene Dietrich in Marlene.
The year 1952 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events during 1952.
Virginia Lilian Emmeline Compton-Mackenzie,, known professionally as Fay Compton, was an English actress. She appeared in several films, and made many broadcasts, but was best known for her stage performances. She was known for her versatility, and appeared in Shakespeare, drawing room comedy, pantomime, modern drama, and classics such as Ibsen and Chekhov. In 1921 she was the eponymous star of the play Mary Rose written especially for her by J. M. Barrie. This work was partly inspired by Compton's own tragic marriage to the West End satirist H. G. Pélissier and her subsequent youthful widowhood. In addition to performing in Britain, Compton appeared several times in the US, and toured Australia and New Zealand in a variety of stage plays.
Michael Jeremy Thomas Clyde is an English actor and musician. During the 1960s, he was one-half of the folk duo Chad & Jeremy. Their first song was the 1963 hit "Yesterday’s Gone". The duo became more successful in America than in their native country. Clyde has enjoyed a long television acting career, often playing upper-middle class or aristocratic characters.
Lindsay Vere Duncan is a Scottish actress. She is the recipient of three BAFTA nominations and one Scottish BAFTA nomination, as well as two Olivier Awards and a Tony Award for her work on stage. She has starred in several plays by Harold Pinter. Duncan's film credits include Prick Up Your Ears (1987), The Reflecting Skin (1990), City Hall (1996), An Ideal Husband, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Mansfield Park, Under the Tuscan Sun, AfterLife, Starter for 10 (2006), Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010), About Time (2013), Birdman (2014), and Blackbird (2019).
Tobias Simpson Menzies is an English actor. He is known for playing Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in the third and fourth seasons of the series The Crown, for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and received Golden Globe and British Academy Television Award nominations. Menzies also played Frank and Jonathan "Black Jack" Randall in Starz's Outlander, for which he received a Golden Globe Award nomination, in addition to his roles as Brutus in Rome and Edmure Tully in Game of Thrones.
Mary Jean Heriot Powell, better known by her stage name Jean Anderson, was an English actress best remembered for her television roles as hard-faced matriarch Mary Hammond in the BBC drama The Brothers (1972–1976) and as rebellious aristocrat Lady Jocelyn "Joss" Holbrook in the Second World War series Tenko (1982–1985). She also had a distinguished career on stage and appeared in 46 films.
Irene Worth, CBE, born Harriett Elizabeth Abrams, was an American stage and screen actress who became one of the leading stars of the British and American theatre. She pronounced her first name with three syllables: "I-REE-nee".
Georgie Glen is a Scottish actress, best known for her roles as Miss Higgins in the BBC One period drama series Call The Midwife from 2018 onwards, and as history teacher Audrey McFall in the BBC One school-based drama series Waterloo Road from 2012 to 2015.
Barbara Mary Jefford, OBE was a British actress, best known for her theatrical performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Old Vic and the National Theatre and her role as Molly Bloom in the 1967 film of James Joyce's Ulysses.
Moultrie Rowe Kelsall was a Scottish film and television character actor, who began his career in the industry as a radio director and television producer. He also contributed towards architectural conservation.
Lara Pulver is an English actress. She has played Erin Watts in the BBC spy drama Spooks and Irene Adler on BBC's TV adaptation Sherlock. She won the 2016 Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical in the West End's revival of the Broadway musical Gypsy.
Sunday Night Theatre was a long-running series of televised live television plays screened by BBC Television from early 1950 until 1959.
The Forsyte Saga is a 1967 BBC television adaptation of John Galsworthy's series of The Forsyte Saga novels, and its sequel trilogy A Modern Comedy. The series follows the fortunes of the upper middle class Forsyte family, and stars Eric Porter as Soames, Kenneth More as Young Jolyon and Nyree Dawn Porter as Irene.
Irene Sutcliffe was an English actress. She was best known for playing Maggie Clegg in ITV's Coronation Street, a role she played from 1968 until 1975. She had a long career; her first credited TV role was in 1953 on BBC's Sunday Night Theatre and her last in 2015. In 1999, Sutcliffe was a finalist for the Audie Award for Best Female Narrator for her narration of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.
Jane Carr was the stage name of English stage and film actress Rita Brunstrom.
Jack Holden is an English actor, writer and producer from Tonbridge in Kent. He is best known for his roles in the television series Marriage with Sean Bean and Nicola Walker and in Ten Percent. Holden began his acting career starring in West End play War Horse.
John Hickson Warner was a British film, television and stage actor whose career spanned more than five decades. His most famous role was that of Timothy Dawes in Salad Days, which premiered in the UK at the Theatre Royal in 1954, and transferred to the Vaudeville Theatre in London in the same year.
Thirty-Minute Theatre was a British anthology drama series of short plays shown on BBC Television between 1965 and 1973, which was used in part at least as a training ground for new writers, on account of its short running length, and which therefore attracted many writers who later became well known. It was produced initially by Harry Moore, later by Graeme MacDonald, George Spenton-Foster, Innes Lloyd and others. Thirty-Minute Theatre began on BBC2 in 1965 with an adaptation of the black comedy Parson's Pleasure. Dennis Potter contributed Emergency – Ward 9 (1966), which he partially recycled in the much later The Singing Detective (1986). In 1967 BBC2 launched the UK's first colour service, with the consequence that Thirty-Minute Theatre became the first drama series in the country to be shown in colour.