''Armchair Theatre'' is a
British television
Regular television broadcasts in the United Kingdom started in 1936 as a public service which was free of advertising, which followed the first demonstration of a transmitted moving image in 1926. Currently, the United Kingdom has a collection ...
drama anthology series of single plays that ran on the
ITV
ITV or iTV may refer to:
ITV
*Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of:
** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by
ABC Weekend TV
ABC Weekend TV was the popular name of the British broadcaster ABC Television Limited, which provided the weekend service in the Midlands and Northern England regions of the Independent Television (ITV) network from 1956 to 1968. It was one ...
. Its successor
Thames Television
Thames Television, commonly simplified to just Thames, was a Broadcast license, franchise holder for a region of the British ITV (TV network), ITV television network serving Greater London, London and surrounding areas from 30 July 1968 until th ...
took over from mid-1968.
The Canadian-born producer
Sydney Newman
Sydney Cecil Newman (April 1, 1917 – October 30, 1997) was a Canadian film and television producer, who played a pioneering role in British television drama from the late 1950s to the late 1960s. After his return to Canada in 1970, Newman w ...
was in charge of ''Armchair Theatre'' between September 1958 and December 1962, during what is generally considered to have been its best era, and produced 152 episodes.
History
Intent
''Armchair Theatre'' filled a Sunday-evening slot on
ITV
ITV or iTV may refer to:
ITV
*Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of:
** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
, Britain's only commercial network at the time, in which contemporary dramas were the most common form, though this was not immediately apparent.
The series was launched by
Howard Thomas
Howard Thomas CBE (5 March 1909 – 6 November 1986) was a Welsh radio producer and television executive.
Early career
Thomas began his career typing invoices for a firm of wire-drawers in Manchester. While doing that job, he taught himself to ...
, head of ABC at the time, who argued that "Television drama is not so far removed from television journalism, and the plays which will grip the audience are those that face up to the new issues of the day as well as to the problems as old as civilisation."
The original producer of the series was
Dennis Vance
Dennis Vance (18 March 1924 – 6 October 1983) was a British television producer, director, and occasional actor.
Born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, he began his career as an actor in the late 1940s, appearing in small film parts, such as Poet's P ...
, who was in charge for the first two years. In its early years the series drew heavily on North American sources. The first play, ''The Outsider'', was a medical drama adapted from
the stage play by
Dorothy Brandon
Dorothy Brandon was a British playwright active in the interwar years. Her greatest West End success was the 1923 medical drama '' The Outsider'' which was revived several times, and adapted into films on three occasions.
An earlier hit was 191 ...
, which was transmitted live on 8 July 1956 from
ABC's Manchester studios in
Didsbury
Didsbury is a suburban area of Manchester, England, on the north bank of the River Mersey, south of Manchester city centre. The population at the 2011 census was 26,788.
Within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire, there are ...
. Reportedly Vance had a preference for classical adaptations,
[Mark Dugui]
"Armchair Theatre (1956-74)"
BFI screenonline. though some of these—such as a version of ''
The Emperor Jones
''The Emperor Jones'' is a 1920 tragic play by American dramatist Eugene O'Neill that tells the tale of Brutus Jones, a resourceful, self-assured African American and a former Pullman porter, who kills another black man in a dice game, is jailed, ...
'' (30 March 1958) by the American dramatist
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism, earlier ...
—were not conservative choices.
Vance was succeeded by
Sydney Newman
Sydney Cecil Newman (April 1, 1917 – October 30, 1997) was a Canadian film and television producer, who played a pioneering role in British television drama from the late 1950s to the late 1960s. After his return to Canada in 1970, Newman w ...
, who was ABC's Head of Drama from April 1958.
The perils of live transmission caught up with the production team on 28 November 1958, early in Newman's tenure. Whilst ''
Underground
Underground most commonly refers to:
* Subterranea (geography), the regions beneath the surface of the Earth
Underground may also refer to:
Places
* The Underground (Boston), a music club in the Allston neighborhood of Boston
* The Underground ...
'' was being broadcast, 33-year-old actor
Gareth Jones suddenly collapsed and died in between his scenes. Such nightmare situations could be handled more easily when ''Armchair Theatre'' was able to benefit from prerecording on
videotape
Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassett ...
, after production of the series moved from Manchester to
Teddington Studios
Teddington Studios was a large British television studio in Teddington, London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, providing studio facilities for programmes airing on the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky1 and others. The complex also provide ...
near London in the summer of 1959.
Migrating from his native Canada to take up his responsibilities with ABC, Sydney Newman objected to the basis of British television drama at the time he arrived:
"The only legitimate theatre was of the 'anyone for tennis' variety, which, on the whole, presented a condescending view of working-class people. Television dramas were usually adaptations of stage plays, and invariably about upper classes. I said 'Damn the upper classes - they don't even own televisions!'"
He converted ''Armchair Theatre'' into a vehicle for the generation of "
Angry Young Men
The "angry young men" were a group of mostly working- and middle-class British playwrights and novelists who became prominent in the 1950s. The group's leading figures included John Osborne and Kingsley Amis; other popular figures included John ...
" that was emerging after
John Osborne
John James Osborne (12 December 1929 – 24 December 1994) was an English playwright, screenwriter and actor, known for his prose that criticized established social and political norms. The success of his 1956 play ''Look Back in Anger'' tra ...
's play ''
Look Back in Anger
''Look Back in Anger'' (1956) is a realist play written by John Osborne. It focuses on the life and marital struggles of an intelligent and educated but disaffected young man of working-class origin, Jimmy Porter, and his equally competent yet i ...
'' (1956) had become a great success, although older writers such as
Ted Willis
Edward Henry Willis, Baron Willis (13 January 1914 – 22 December 1992) was an English playwright, novelist and screenwriter who was also politically active in support of the Labour Party. In 1941 he became the General Secretary of the Young ...
were not excluded. Willis' 1958 play ''Hot Summer Night'' (1 February 1959) was adapted to shift its focus, from an unhappy marriage of parents in the original stage version, onto their daughter's mixed-race relationship with a Jamaican man and the problems they might face if they got married. It was one of the earliest British television plays to have race as a theme.
Writers and production staff
A script editor,
Peter Luke
Peter Ambrose Cyprian Luke MC (12 August 1919 – 23 January 1995) was a British writer, editor, and producer.
Early years
Luke was born in St Albans, he was the first son of Sir Harry Luke and his wife Joyce Evelyn Fremlin. He had wanted to be a ...
, was the first to become aware of the writers
Clive Exton
Clive Exton (11 April 1930 – 16 August 2007) was a British television and film screenwriter who wrote scripts for the series '' Poirot,'' ''Jeeves and Wooster,'' and '' Rosemary & Thyme.''[Alun Owen
Alun Davies Owen (24 November 1925 – 6 December 1994) was a Welsh playwright, screenwriter and actor, predominantly in television. However, he is best remembered by a wider audience for writing the screenplay of The Beatles' debut feature fi ...]
, who wrote ''
No Trams to Lime Street
''No Trams to Lime Street'' is a 1959 British television play, written by the Welsh playwright Alun Owen for the ''Armchair Theatre'' anthology series. Produced by ABC Weekend TV for transmission on the ITV network, the play was broadcast on 18 ...
'' (18 October 1959),
[Mark Dugui]
"Lena, O My Lena (1960)"
BFI screenonline) and
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter (; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanne ...
, who contributed ''
A Night Out'' (24 April 1960).) Owen's play was the first of a trilogy transmitted during 1959 and 1960, which was completed by ''After the Funeral'' (3 April 1960) and ''Lena, O My Lena'' (26 September 1960).
Ratings for the series were regularly about 15 million with the series frequently in the week's top ten; it was broadcast immediately after the variety show ''
Sunday Night at the London Palladium
''Tonight at the London Palladium'' is a British television variety show that is hosted from the London Palladium theatre in the West End. Originally produced by ATV for the ITV network from 1955 to 1969, it went by its original name ''Sunday ...
''. Even so, Pinter once estimated that his stage play ''
The Caretaker
''The Caretaker'' is a play in three acts by Harold Pinter. Although it was the sixth of his major works for stage and television, this psychological study of the confluence of power, allegiance, innocence, and corruption among two brothers an ...
'', enjoying its first run at the time, would have to be performed for thirty years before matching ''A Night Out''s audience of 6,380,000.
The German Jewish dramatist
Robert Muller, who had arrived in Britain as a refugee in 1938, contributed seven plays to the series, three being transmitted in 1962 and directed by
Philip Saville
Philip Saville (28 October 1927 – 22 December 2016) was a British director, screenwriter and former actor whose career lasted half a century. The British Film Institute's Screenonline website described Saville as "one of Britain's most prolifi ...
, including ''
Afternoon of a Nymph
''Afternoon of a Nymph'' is an episode of the British ''Armchair Theatre'' series made by the ITV franchise holder ABC Weekend TV and first broadcast by the ITV network on 30 September 1962. It was written by Robert Muller and features Janet Mu ...
''. Saville worked on more than forty episodes in the series, while Muller's wife in his later years, the actress
Billie Whitelaw, had a part in eleven episodes.
Newman's three-and-a-half-season involvement in ''Armchair Theatre'' concluded at the end of December 1962. He was succeeded by
Leonard White, an early producer of ''
The Avengers''. In ''Armchair Theatre''s last years Lloyd Shirley was the series producer. A holdover from the Newman era,
Clive Exton
Clive Exton (11 April 1930 – 16 August 2007) was a British television and film screenwriter who wrote scripts for the series '' Poirot,'' ''Jeeves and Wooster,'' and '' Rosemary & Thyme.''[Independent Television Authority
The Independent Television Authority (ITA) was an agency created by the Television Act 1954 to supervise the creation of "Independent Television" (ITV (TV network), ITV), the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom. The ITA exi ...]
(ITA), the regulator of the commercial channel at the time, had not objected to the production, Howard Thomas of ABC feared that it would give offence to viewers. The programme controller at ABC,
Brian Tesler, explained the later change of heart: "We believe that the climate of opinion concerning black comedy has changed in the past two years. When the play was recorded we felt that many people might fail to appreciate the compassion which underlies the irony in Mr Exton's play."
Another play from this period was not so lucky. ''
The Blood Knot
''Blood Knot'' is an early play by South African playwright, actor, and director Athol Fugard. Its single-performance premier was in 1961 in Johannesburg, South Africa, with the playwright and Zakes Mokae playing the brothers Morris and Zachariah ...
'' (recorded 18 May 1963), a two-hander by the South African writer
Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard, Hon. , (born 11 June 1932), is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director widely regarded as South Africa's greatest playwright. He is best known for his political and penetrating plays opposing the system of apart ...
with
apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
as its theme, was never scheduled.
Spin-offs and influence
The programme occasionally spun off ideas into full-blown series such as ''Armchair Mystery Theatre'', hosted by
Donald Pleasence
Donald Henry Pleasence (; 5 October 1919 – 2 February 1995) was an English actor. He began his career on stage in the West End before transitioning into a screen career, where he played numerous supporting and character roles including RAF ...
, which specialised in crime and mystery thrillers. A 1962 adaptation of
John Wyndham
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris (; 10 July 1903 – 11 March 1969) was an English science fiction writer best known for his works published under the pen name John Wyndham, although he also used other combinations of his names ...
's short story ''Dumb Martian'', scripted by Clive Exton, was a deliberate showcase for the spin-off
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
anthology ''
Out of This World''. Two 1967 episodes became series. One of these was developed into the sitcom ''
Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width
''Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width'' is a British television sitcom first broadcast in 1967 as a single play in the ''Armchair Theatre'' anthology series, later becoming a series of half-hour episodes, which ran until 1971. A total of 40 ...
'', while the other, ''A Magnum for Schneider'', became the pilot for the spy series ''
Callan
Callan is a given name and surname of Irish and Scottish origin. It can derive from Ó Cathaláin, meaning ''descendant of Cathalán''. Callan can also be an Anglicized form of the Gaelic Mac Allin or Mac Callin. Notable people with the name includ ...
''.
After the 1968
ITV
ITV or iTV may refer to:
ITV
*Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of:
** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
franchise changes and ABC's merger into Thames, the programme continued until 1974. Hugely popular at its peak, with audiences occasionally touching twenty million, ''Armchair Theatre'' had an important influence on later programmes such as the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
after he had moved to the BBC.
Overall, 452 plays were made and broadcast under the ''Armchair Theatre'' banner between 1956 and 1974. As with much early British television, not all of the plays from the original ABC series survive in the archives, owing either to
. Two later Thames series used the ''Armchair...'' prefix: ''Armchair Cinema'', effectively a series of TV movies, and ''
'' (1978–80), which used a serial format.
''Armchair Theatre'' was satirised on the
'' as ''Armpit Theatre''.