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Who Framed Theatre? The ‘Moment of Change’ in British TV Drama

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Madeleine MacMurraugh-Kavanagh  and
Stephen Lacey
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Abstract

It has long been the received wisdom that television drama has become increasingly ‘filmic’ in orientation, moving away from the ‘theatrical’ as its point of aesthetic reference. This development, which is associated with the rejection of the studio in favour of location shooting – made possible by the increased use of new technology in the 1960s – and with the adoption of cinematic as opposed to theatrical genres, is generally regarded as a sign that the medium has come into its own. By examining a key ‘moment of change’ in the history of television drama, the BBC ‘Wednesday Play’ series of 1964 to 1970, this article asks what was lost in the movement out of the studio and into the streets, and questions the notion that the transition from ‘theatre’ to ‘film’, in the wake of Ken Loach and Tony Garnett's experiments in all-film production, was without tension or contradiction. The discussion explores issues of dramatic space as well as of socio-cultural context, expectation, and audience, and incorporates detailed analyses of Nell Dunn's Up the Junction (1965) and David Mercer's Let's Murder Vivaldi (1968). Madeleine MacMurraugh-Kavanagh is the Post-Doctoral Research Fellow on the HEFCE-funded project, ‘The BBC Wednesday Plays and Post-War British Drama’, now in its third year at the University of Reading. Her publications include Peter Shaffer: Theatre and Drama (Macmillan, 1998), and papers in Screen, The British Journal of Canadian Studies, The Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, and Media, Culture, and Society. Stephen Lacey is a lecturer in Film and Drama at the University of Reading, where he is co-director of the ‘BBC Wednesday Plays’ project. His publications include British Realist Theatre: the New Wave and its Contexts (Routledge, 1995) and articles in New Theatre Quarterly and Studies in Theatre Production.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , February 1999 , pp. 58 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

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References

Notes and References

1. Taylor, Don, ‘Pure Imagination, Poetry's Lyricism, Titian's Colours: Whatever Happened to the Studio Play on British TV?’, New Statesman, 6 03 1998, p. 38–9Google Scholar.

2. Martin, Troy Kennedy, ‘Up the junction and After’, Contrast, Winter 1965–Spring 1966, p. 137–41Google Scholar.

3. An exception to this general rule is the all-film production of Nichols's, PeterThe Gorge (produced by Garnett, Tony, directed by Morahan, Christopher, transmitted 4 09 1968)Google Scholar. The filmed drama incorporated a sustained reference to Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (Jacques Tati, 1952) into its innovative structure and thus relied heavily upon cinematic precedent at the points of both production and textuality.

4. Taylor, Don, Days of Vision: Working with David Mercer: Television Drama Then and Now (London: Methuen, 1990), p. 103Google Scholar.

5. Sydney Newman, quoted in Don Taylor, ibid., p. 104; and in correspondence with M. K. MacMurraugh-Kavanagh, 3 January 1997.

6. The first play broadcast in the strand was Ronald Eyre's adaptation of Leskov's, NikoleiA Crack in the Ice, produced by Luke, Peter and directed by Eyre, Ronald (28 10 1964)Google Scholar. The ‘classical’ tone of this piece was not, however, to prove typical of the strand and the play had, in fact, been destined for transmission in Peter Luke's ‘Festival’ series which had been scrapped in July 1964. The first full ‘Wednesday Play’ season should be dated from January 1965, when the plays that James MacTaggart had been preparing in the latter half of 1964 began transmission. Newman's resistance to the generic title ‘Centre Stage’ is recorded in documents stored at the BBC Written Archive Centre, Caversham, reference T5/2,423/I.

7. Don Taylor, Days of Vision, p. 258.

8. Tony Garnett, interview with M. K. MacMurraughKavanagh, 7 November 1996.

9. See MacMurraugh-Kavanagh, M. K., ‘“Drama” into “News”: Strategies of Intervention in The Wednesday Play’, Screen, XXXVIII, No. 3 (Autumn 1997), p. 247–59Google Scholar, where this point is developed at length.

10. Troy Kennedy Martin points out that Up the junction is far from an ‘all-film’ production, as was frequently argued by its contemporary detractors. In fact, as he points out, more studio-recorded sections are involved than it seems (see illustration in text). The confusion arises through a failure to perceive the difference between telerecording and film, a boundary that had been blurred through the use of editing facilitated by both. Since Up the Junction relied upon editing, film and studio became indistinct. It could further be argued that the play ‘feels’ more like ‘a film’ than a largely studio-recorded production, this suggesting that the ‘new’ drama was capable of connecting with the exterior world even when it was not located in it. In addition, the ‘movement’, energy, and pace of Loach's direction, as admired by Kennedy Martin, was continued into the interior sections recorded in, the studio, this sustaining the sense of action and event that characterizes the location-filmed scenes. See Troy Kennedy Martin, ‘Up the Junction and After’, p. 140.

11. Black, Peter, ‘This Must Be Just about THE LIMIT’, Daily Mail, 6 11 1965Google Scholar.

12. Tyler, Rodney, ‘Do We See Too Much of the Seamy Side?’, Reading Evening Post, 11 11 1965Google Scholar.

13. The notion of an ‘assertive quality’ inherent in certain screen images and genres is cited by Arrowsmith, S. M. J., ‘Peter Watkins’, in Brandt, George W.., ed., British Television Drama (Cambridge, 1981), p. 236Google Scholar.

14. Newman's controversial phrase was first quoted in MacDonald, Robert, ‘BBC Viewers to Get “Agitational Drama”,’ The Scotsman, 17 08 1966. Newman referred to the headline-grabbing term, and expanded upon it, in correspondence with M. K. MacMurraughKavanagh, 3 January 1997Google Scholar.

15. Though Garnett is credited with the relatively marginal role of Story Editor on Up the Junction, while James MacTaggart is listed as producer, Garnett's involvement in the project was actually central. In an interview conducted with Garnett on 7 November 1996, Garnett revealed how he and Loach had commissioned Nell Dunn's text while MacTaggart was away on holiday and had forced the production's pace in order to reach a point past which the project could not be cancelled upon MacTaggart's return. Garnett added that MacTaggart offered to credit Garnett as producer in recognition of the work he had done on the play, but Garnett, whilst appreciating the gesture, deferred.

16. Peter Black, op. cit., 6 November 1965.

17. Rodney Tyler, op. cit., 11 November 1965.

18. Worsley, T. C., ‘Life Caught on the Wing’, Financial Times, 8 03 1967Google Scholar.

19. Green, James, Evening News, 3 11 1965Google Scholar.

20. Wiggin, Maurice, ‘Little Nell's Curiosity Shop’, Sunday Times, 7 11 1965Google Scholar.

21. The phrase is used by Martin Banham, ‘Jeremy Sandford’, in George W. Brandt, ed., 1981, p. 203.

22. Williams, Raymond, ‘Persuasion’, The Listener, 30 01 1969Google Scholar.

23. The phrase ‘structure of feeling’ belongs, of course, to Raymond Williams, and recurs in his work. One such reference can be found in Williams, Raymond, ‘A Moral Rejection’, The Listener, 5 12 1968Google Scholar.

24. Stuart Hall, quoted in Scannell, Paddy, ‘The Social Eye of Television’, Media, Culture, and Society, I, No. 1 (1979), p. 97–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25. Kemp, Robert, ‘Definition of a Play – on the Stage and TV’, Glasgow Herald, 5 11 1965Google Scholar.

26. The BBC Audience Research Report for Up the Junction is held at the BBC Written Archive, Caversham, and records a below-average Reaction Index figure of 58. This low figure was only achieved by massively enthusiastic responses cancelling out the weight of equally damning responses. Indeed, a sharp division in audience response characterizes the wider reaction to this play, as is made clear from surveying contemporary reviews and articles. BBC Audience Research Report, issued 7 December 1965, BBC Written Archive, reference T5/681.

27. Shubik, Irene, Play for Today: the Evolution of Television Drama (London: Davis Poynter, 1975), p. 121Google Scholar.

28. Irene Shubik, ibid., p. 99.

29. Raymond Williams, Inaugural Lecture, University of Cambridge, 29 October 1974, reprinted in Alan O'Connor, ed., Raymond Williams on Television: Selected Writings (London: Routledge, 1989), p. 9.

30. Dennis Potter, quoted in Philip Purser, ‘Dennis Potter’, in George W. Brandt, ed., 1981, p. 175.

31. Sydney Newman, correspondence with M. K. MacMurraugh-Kavanagh, 3 January 1977.

32. Williams, Raymond, ‘Based on Reality’, The Listener, 12 06 1969Google Scholar.

33. Taylor, John Russell, ‘Drama '66’, Contrast, IV, No. 5 (Winter 1965–Spring 1966), p. 132–6Google Scholar.

34. T. C. Worsley, op. cit.

35. See Brandt, George W. ed., ‘Introduction’, British Television Drama (Cambridge University Press, 1981)Google Scholar; or Sutton, Shaun, The Largest Theatre in the World: Thirty Years of Television Drama (London: BBC Publications, 1982)Google Scholar.

36. Banks-Smith, Nancy, ‘In My View’, The Sun, 3 02 1966Google Scholar.

37. See, for example, Don Taylor's unapologetic statement: ‘We need the poetry, argument, and analysis that only studio TV drama can provide, and if the audience in their large numbers don't like it, so what?’ (Don Taylor, 1998, p. 39).

38. Mercer, David, quoted in an untitled, anonymous review of Let's Murder Vivaldi, Sunday Times, 14 04 1968Google Scholar.

39. This is an adaptation of Stuart Hall's definition of television as quoted in George W. Brandt, ‘Introduction’, in George W. Brandt, ed., 1981, p. 26. Hall writes: ‘Television is technically and socially a thoroughly manipulated medium. The Utopia of straight transmission, or the “naturalistic fallacy” in television, is not only an illusion – it is a dangerous deception’ (Hall's emphasis).

40. Raynor, Henry, ‘Murdering Vivaldi’, The Times, 11 04 1968Google Scholar.

41. BBC Audience Research Report for Let's Murder Vivaldi, issued by the BBC Audience Research Department on 19 May 1968. BBC Written Archive, reference T5/1,581/1.

42. The play produced a Reaction Index figure of 44, one of the lowest scores of the season, and a full seven points below the average figure for the run. BBC Written Archive, reference T5/1,581/1

43. Henry Raynor, op. cit.

44. Taylor, Don, ‘The Corboduc Stage’, in ‘Style in Drama’, Contrast, III, No. 3 (Spring 1964), p. 151–3Google Scholar, 204–8.