"Underground" was a science-fiction television play presented as part of the British anthology series ''
Armchair Theatre'' which was broadcast live by the ITV commercial network on 30 November 1958. It is chiefly remembered because an actor had a fatal heart attack during transmission.
Written by dramatist James Forsyth (1913–2005) the play depicted survivors from a
nuclear holocaust living in the
London Underground.
[Quentin Falk and Ben Falk ''Television's Strangest Moments: Extraordinary But True Tales from the History of Television'', London: Robson Books, 2005, p.41] It featured actors
Donald Houston, Ian Curry,
Patricia Jessel,
Warren Mitchell,
Peter Bowles and 33-year-old
Gareth Jones in what would be his last role.
A little over halfway through the production, Gareth Jones complained of feeling unwell while off-set in make-up between two of his scenes, and then suddenly collapsed and died as he was about to continue. His character was due to die from a heart attack during the course of the play. Peter Bowles recalled many years later: "During transmission, a little group of us was talking on camera while awaiting the arrival of Gareth Jones's character, who had some information for us. We could see him coming up towards us, but we saw him fall. We had no idea what had happened, but he certainly wasn't coming our way. The actors started making up lines, 'I'm sure if so-and-so were here he would say'..."
Producer
Sydney Newman instructed director
Ted Kotcheff to continue with the play and "shoot it like a football match", meaning to follow the characters around as they improvised a way of coping with the missing cast member. Kotcheff hurriedly re-structured the story during a commercial break
in order to be able to bring the play to an end without the missing character being noticed by the audience.
While Kotcheff was on the studio floor, the inexperienced production assistant
Verity Lambert, later to become the founding producer of ''
Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...
'', directed camera movements from the studio gallery.
Obituary: Verity Lambert
''Daily Telegraph'', 24 November 2007
The actors were not informed that Jones had died until after the play had finished. Houston was a close friend and it was thought he would have been unable to continue if he had known.
References
Further reading
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External links
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{{Armchair Theatre
1958 television plays
1958 in British television
November 1958 events in the United Kingdom
ITV television dramas
Lost television episodes
Armchair Theatre
Television shows produced by ABC Weekend TV