''Madhouse on Castle Street'' 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 ...
play, broadcast by
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...
on the evening of 13 January 1963, as part of the ''
Sunday Night Play'' strand. It was written by
Evan Jones 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 ...
. The production featured the young American folk music singer
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
, who soon became a major musical star.
The play was made with electronic video cameras, although recorded onto film rather than tape. The only known copy of the play was
junked in 1968, as was the standard practice of the time, despite the fact that Dylan and lead actor
David Warner David or Dave Warner may refer to:
Sports
* Dave Warner (strongman) (born 1969), Northern Ireland strongman competitor
* David Bruce Warner (born 1970), South African alpine skier
* David Warner (cricketer) (born 1986), Australian cricketer
Oth ...
were by then famous. Although extensive searches have been made by the BBC, only partial audio recordings of four songs sung by Dylan survive.
Plot
The play is set in an English
boarding house. One of the lodgers locks himself in his room, leaving a note stating that he has decided to retire from the world until the world has changed. Other lodgers and his sister try to coax him out and establish what the problem is. The action is punctuated by songs performed by
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
.
[
]
Production
''Madhouse on Castle Street'' was commissioned as part of the ''
Sunday Night Play'' strand which had been running on BBC Television since 1960. The play was written by
Evan Jones, who would go on to write the screenplays for films such as ''
Modesty Blaise
''Modesty Blaise'' is a British comic strip featuring a fictional character of the same name, created by author Peter O'Donnell and illustrator Jim Holdaway in 1963. The strip follows Modesty Blaise, an exceptional young woman with many talent ...
'' and ''
Funeral in Berlin
''Funeral in Berlin'' is a 1964 spy novel by Len Deighton set between Saturday 5 October and Sunday 10 November 1963. It was the third of Deighton's novels about an unnamed British agent. It was preceded by ''The IPCRESS File'' (1962) and ''Ho ...
'', 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 ...
. Saville had seen Bob Dylan performing in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in 1962, and in December that year he contracted Dylan to come to
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
for three weeks to star in ''Madhouse on Castle Street'', in spite of Dylan's complete lack of acting training or experience. This was the performer's first trip outside of
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
. Dylan was originally supposed to have played the leading role in the play, but during rehearsals it became apparent that he lacked the ability to learn lines – stating that he would rather "express himself in song" – was lax in his time keeping, and would often wander off to smoke
cannabis
''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: ''Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternatively ...
.
Saville was still keen to include Dylan, so – together with Jones – re-structured the play to create two characters out of the original one that Dylan had been hired to perform. Actor
David Warner David or Dave Warner may refer to:
Sports
* Dave Warner (strongman) (born 1969), Northern Ireland strongman competitor
* David Bruce Warner (born 1970), South African alpine skier
* David Warner (cricketer) (born 1986), Australian cricketer
Oth ...
was hired to play the main acting role of Lennie, while Dylan performed songs commenting on the action in the manner of a
Greek chorus
A Greek chorus, or simply chorus ( grc-gre, χορός, chorós), in the context of ancient Greek tragedy, comedy, satyr plays, and modern works inspired by them, is a homogeneous, non-individualised group of performers, who comment with a collect ...
as the new character Bobby, essentially playing himself. At the conclusion of the play, Dylan performed "
Blowin' in the Wind
"Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962.
It was released as a single and included on his album ''The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan'' in 1963. It has been described as a protest song and poses a series of rhetorical questions about ...
", one of the first major public performances of the song. The play was planned to be recorded in one session on 30 December 1962, but it overran and the Technical Operating Manager told cast and crew to go home, even though they were willing to complete the filming. London was in the grip of a
major blizzard and it was not possible to arrange a further session until 4 January 1963, when the play was completed, and it was transmitted on 13 January 1963.
[
]
Cast information
*
David Warner David or Dave Warner may refer to:
Sports
* Dave Warner (strongman) (born 1969), Northern Ireland strongman competitor
* David Bruce Warner (born 1970), South African alpine skier
* David Warner (cricketer) (born 1986), Australian cricketer
Oth ...
as Lennie
*
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
as Bobby
*
Maureen Pryor
Maureen St John Pook (23 May 1922 – 5 May 1977), known professionally as Maureen Pryor, was an Irish-born English character actress who made stage, film, and television appearances. ''The Encyclopaedia of British Film'' noted, "she never playe ...
as Mrs Griggs
*
Ursula Howells
Ursula Howells (17 September 1922 – 16 October 2005) was an English actress whose elegant presence kept her much in demand for roles in film and television.
Life and career
Howells was born in London, the daughter of composer Herbert Howells, ...
as Martha Tompkins
*
Reg Lye
Reginald Thomas Lye (14 October 1912 – 23 March 1988), was an Australian actor who worked extensively in Australia and England. He was one of the busiest Australian actors of the 1950s, appearing in the majority of locally shot features at th ...
as Walter Tompkins
*
James Mellor as Bernard
*
Georgina Ward as Susan Taylor
*
Ian Dallas
Abdalqadir as-Sufi (born Ian Stewart Dallas; 1930 – 1 August 2021) was a Shaykh of Sufism, Shaykh of Instruction, leader of the Darqawa, Darqawi-Shadhili-Qadiri Tariqa, founder of the Murabitun World Movement and author of numerous books o ...
as Reverend Spooner
Songs
"
Blowin' in the Wind
"Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962.
It was released as a single and included on his album ''The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan'' in 1963. It has been described as a protest song and poses a series of rhetorical questions about ...
" was used in the opening and closing credits, replacing a song written by Evan Jones, "Cut Me Down, My Love". Dylan also performed "Hang Me, O Hang Me", "
Cuckoo Bird
Cuckoos are birds in the Cuculidae family, the sole taxon in the order Cuculiformes . The cuckoo family includes the common or European cuckoo, roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals and anis. The coucals and anis are sometimes separa ...
", and "Ballad of the Gliding Swan". Philip Saville had heard Dylan singing "Blowin' in the Wind" to two Spanish
au pair
An au pair (; plural: au pairs) is a helper from a foreign country working for, and living as part of, a host family. Typically, au pairs take on a share of the family's responsibility for childcare as well as some housework, and receive a monet ...
s, early one morning while the singer was staying in his house. "Hang Me, O Hang Me" and "Cuckoo Bird" were traditional folk songs but Dylan altered the words. Jones provided the original lyrics for "Ballad of the Gliding Swan", which Dylan rewrote in performance.
[
]
Reception
The play was described by ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' as a "strange free-wheeling piece about a man who has said goodbye to the world and simply shut himself up in his room." The reviewer added: "It is a strange unpredictable world Mr. Jones conjures up and Mr. Saville, with the aid of an excellent cast (Miss Maureen Pryor and Miss Ursula Howells were particularly good) and some haunting songs by Mr. Bob Dylan, brought it powerfully to life." ''The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...
'', in 2005, reports that the play "got stinking reviews" according to folk singer Martin Carthy
Martin Carthy MBE (born 21 May 1941) is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, and later artists such as ...
, adding that the '' Western Daily Mail'' reviewer was "baffled" and '' The Listener'' had "noted that Dylan had 'sat around playing and singing attractively, if a little incomprehensibly'".[
]
Junking
As was the usual method of BBC television drama
BBC television dramas have been produced and broadcast since even before the public service company had an officially established television broadcasting network in the United Kingdom. As with any major broadcast network, drama forms an importan ...
production at the time, the play was produced in a multi-camera electronic studio on video cameras
A video camera is an optical instrument that captures videos (as opposed to a movie camera, which records images on film). Video cameras were initially developed for the television industry but have since become widely used for a variety of other ...
, although it was recorded as a 35 mm film telerecording
Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program on motion picture film, directly through a lens focused on the screen of a video monitor. The process was pioneered during the 1940 ...
rather than 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 ...
. This 35mm master was released for junking in 1968, and no copy of the play is known to exist.
Still photographs and scripts for the production survive, as do some amateur off-air reel-to-reel audio tape recording
Reel-to-reel audio tape recording, also called open-reel recording, is magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording tape is spooled between reels. To prepare for use, the ''supply reel'' (or ''feed reel'') containing the tape is plac ...
s of four of Dylan's songs. In 2005 the BBC launched a search for a video recording of the play, uncovering some audio recordings of the songs, but it seems that a full off-air audio copy does not exist.[ In April 2007, ]BBC Four
BBC Four is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002 broadcast a documentary about the making of the play in the ''Arena
An arena is a large enclosed platform, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theatre, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators ...
'' strand, featuring interviews with Saville, Jones, Martin Carthy
Martin Carthy MBE (born 21 May 1941) is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, and later artists such as ...
, Peggy Seeger
Margaret "Peggy" Seeger (born June 17, 1935) is an American Folk music, folk singer. She has lived in Britain for more than 60 years, and was married to the singer and songwriter Ewan MacColl until his death in 1989.
First American period
Seeg ...
, Dylan collector Ian Woodward, and the first re-broadcast of the songs from the play.[ In November 2008, ]BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 15 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the station broadcasts a wide range of content. ...
broadcast a documentary, narrated by Bob Harris, about Dylan's visit to London and the making of the play.[
]
Footnotes
Further reading
*
* Cover date: 24–30 September 2005.
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Madhouse On Castle Street
1963 in British television
1963 television plays
BBC television dramas
Films directed by Philip Saville
Lost BBC episodes