Hilda Tablet is a fictitious "

twelve-tone The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who published his "law o ...

composeress" created by Henry Reed in a series of radio comedy plays for the

British Broadcasting Corporation #REDIRECT 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 ex ...

Third Programme The BBC Third Programme was a national radio station produced and broadcast from 1946 until 1967, when it was replaced by Radio 3. It first went on the air on 29 September 1946 and quickly became one of the leading cultural and intellectual f ...

. Hilda is the inventor of '' musique concrète renforcée'' (literally, "reinforced concrete music"), and the composer of the all-female

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

''Emily Butter'' set in a

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

. She first appeared in the play ''A Very Great Man Indeed'' where the central character and narrator is the scholar, Herbert Reeve, played by

Hugh Burden Hugh Archibald Nairn Burden''The Daily Telegraph'', 25 July 1962 (3 April 1913 – 16 May 1985) was a British actor and playwright. Hugh Archibald Nairn Burden was the eldest son of Harry Archibald Burden, a colonial official, and Caro Cecil ...

. Reeve plans to write a

biography A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or ...

of the

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others asp ...

Richard Shewin, and interviews various friends and relatives of the deceased author. Reed became intrigued by the character of Hilda and subsequently wrote a sequel ''The Private Life of Hilda Tablet'' in which Reeve is bullied into undertaking the biography in "not more than twelve volumes" of Hilda. Five further episodes followed. Hilda Tablet was played by Mary O'Farrell. The principal models for Hilda were Dame

Ethel Smyth Dame Ethel Mary Smyth (; 22 April 18588 May 1944) was an English composer and a member of the women's suffrage movement. Her compositions include songs, works for piano, chamber music, orchestral works, choral works and operas. Smyth tended t ...

(from whom Hilda took her lesbianism and rural heartiness together with the endlessness of her proposed memoirs), and

Elisabeth Lutyens Agnes Elisabeth Lutyens, CBE (9 July 190614 April 1983) was an English composer. Early life and education Elisabeth Lutyens was born in London on 9 July 1906. She was one of the five children of Lady Emily Bulwer-Lytton (1874–1964), a me ...

, with whom Reed was acquainted, from whom Hilda took her interest in the macabre and obsession with architecture.

The plays

* ''A Very Great Man Indeed'' (7 September 1953) * ''The Private Life of Hilda Tablet'' (24 May 1954) * ''Emily Butter'' (14 November 1954) * ''A Hedge, Backwards'' (29 February 1956) * ''The Primal Scene, As It Were'' (11 March 1958) * ''Not a Drum Was Heard'' (6 May 1959) * ''Musique Discrète'' (27 October 1959)

Cast

as Herbert Reeve * Mary O'Farrell as Hilda Tablet * Marjorie Westbury as Elsa Strauss *

Carleton Hobbs Carleton Percy Hobbs, OBE (18 June 1898 – 31 July 1978) was an English actor with many film, radio and television appearances. He portrayed Sherlock Holmes in 80 radio adaptations in a series of Sherlock Holmes radio dramas (1952–1969), ...

as Stephen Shewin *

Deryck Guyler Deryck Bower Guyler (29 April 1914 – 7 October 1999) was an English actor, best remembered for his portrayal of officious, short-tempered middle-aged men in sitcoms such as ''Please Sir!'' and '' Sykes''. Early life Guyler was born in Wallas ...

as General Gland And included (among others):

Denis Quilley Denis Clifford Quilley, OBE (26 December 1927 – 5 October 2003) was an English actor and singer. From a family with no theatrical connections, Quilley was determined from an early age to become an actor. He was taken on by the Birmingham Re ...

Leonard Sachs Leonard Meyer Sachs (26 September 1909 – 15 June 1990) was a South African-born British actor. Life and career Sachs was born in the town of Roodepoort, in the then Transvaal Colony, present day South Africa. He was Jewish. He emigrated t ...

Michael Flanders Michael Henry Flanders (1 March 1922 – 14 April 1975) was an English actor, broadcaster, and writer and performer of comic songs. He is best known for his stage partnership with Donald Swann. As a young man Flanders seemed to be heading f ...

Norman Shelley Norman Shelley (16 February 1903 – 21 August 1980) was a British actor, best known for his work in radio, in particular for the BBC's ''Children's Hour''. He also had a recurring role as Colonel Danby in the long-running radio soap opera ''T ...

and Rose Hill. Hilda's music, and the pop-songs of Owen Shewin, were created for the series by

Donald Swann Donald Ibrahim Swann (30 September 1923 – 23 March 1994) was a British composer, musician, singer and entertainer. He was one half of Flanders and Swann, writing and performing comic songs with Michael Flanders. Life Donald Swann was born ...

. All seven plays were produced by

Douglas Cleverdon Thomas Douglas James Cleverdon (17 January 1903 – 1 October 1987) was an English radio producer and bookseller. In both fields he was associated with numerous leading cultural figures. Personal life He was educated at Bristol Grammar School and ...

Books

''Hilda Tablet and Others'', BBC Books, London, 1971contains the scripts of ''A Very Great Man Indeed'', ''The Private Life of Hilda Tablet'', ''A Hedge Backwards'', and ''The Primal Scene, As It Were...''.

Quotes

* "By all means throw your voice at the note, but whatever you do, for God's sake miss it!"
—Hilda to a singer of one of her compositions. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tablet, Hilda Hilda Tablet Fictional composers Fictional lesbians Fictional nobility