| Armchair Theatre | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Starring | Harry H. Corbett Paul Whitsun-Jones Billie Whitelaw Neil McCallum Madge Ryan Ronald Lewis Ann Lynn Paul Curran Donald Morley Donald Houston Peter Sallis George Baker Eddie Byrne[1] |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of episodes | 426 (258 missing)(list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Production companies | |
| Original release | |
| Network | ITV |
| Release | 8 July 1956 (1956-07-08) – 9 July 1974 (1974-07-09) |
| Related | |
Armchair Theatre is aBritish television drama anthology series of single plays that ran on theITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced byABC Weekend TV. Its successorThames Television took over from mid-1968.
The Canadian-born producerSydney Newman was in charge ofArmchair Theatre between September 1958 and December 1962, during what is generally considered to have been its best era[according to whom?], and produced 152 episodes.[2]
Armchair Theatre filled a Sunday-evening slot onITV, 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 byHoward Thomas, head of ABC at the time,[3] 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."[4]
The original producer of the series wasDennis Vance, 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 fromthe stage play[5] byDorothy Brandon, which was transmitted live on 8 July 1956[6] fromABC's Manchester studios inDidsbury. Reportedly Vance had a preference for classical adaptations,[7] though some of these—such as a version ofThe Emperor Jones (30 March 1958[8]) by the American dramatistEugene O'Neill—were not conservative choices.[7] Vance was succeeded bySydney Newman, who was ABC's Head of Drama from April 1958.[9]
The perils of live transmission caught up with the production team on 28 November 1958, early in Newman's tenure. WhilstUnderground was being broadcast, 33-year-old actorGareth Jones suddenly collapsed and died in between his scenes. Such nightmare situations could be handled more easily whenArmchair Theatre was able to benefit from prerecording onvideotape, after production of the series moved from Manchester toTeddington Studios near London in the summer of 1959.[10]
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!'"[11]
He convertedArmchair Theatre into a vehicle for the generation of "Angry Young Men" that was emerging afterJohn Osborne's playLook Back in Anger (1956) had become a great success,[12] although older writers such asTed Willis were not excluded. Willis' 1958 playHot 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.[13]
A script editor,Peter Luke,[14] was the first to become aware of the writersClive Exton, who contributed eight plays to the series,Alun Owen, who wroteNo Trams to Lime Street (18 October 1959),[15]) andHarold Pinter, who contributedA Night Out (24 April 1960).[16]) Owen's play was the first of a trilogy transmitted during 1959 and 1960, which was completed byAfter the Funeral (3 April 1960) andLena, O My Lena (26 September 1960).[15]
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 showSunday Night at the London Palladium.[17] Even so, Pinter once estimated that his stage playThe Caretaker, enjoying its first run at the time, would have to be performed for thirty years before matchingA Night Out's audience of 6,380,000.[18]
The German Jewish dramatistRobert Muller, who had arrived in Britain as a refugee in 1938,[19] contributed seven plays to the series, three being transmitted in 1962 and directed byPhilip Saville, includingAfternoon of a Nymph.[20] Saville worked on more than forty episodes in the series,[21] while Muller's wife in his later years, the actressBillie Whitelaw, had a part in eleven episodes.
Newman's three-and-a-half-season involvement inArmchair Theatre concluded at the end of December 1962. He was succeeded byLeonard White, an early producer ofThe Avengers.[22] InArmchair Theatre's last years Lloyd Shirley was the series producer. A holdover from the Newman era,Clive Exton's legal satireThe Trial of Dr Fancy (13 September 1964), was among the first television plays on ITV to be suppressed. The deliberately absurd and savage play was a conscious break on Exton's part from the social realism of which he had grown tired. Although theIndependent Television Authority (ITA), the regulator of the commercial channel at the time, had not objected to the production, Howard Thomas of ABC[23] feared that it would give offence to viewers.[24] 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."[25]
Another play from this period was not so lucky.The Blood Knot (recorded 18 May 1963), a two-hander by the South African writerAthol Fugard withapartheid as its theme, was never scheduled.[26]
The programme occasionally spun off ideas into full-blown series such asArmchair Mystery Theatre, hosted byDonald Pleasence, which specialised in crime and mystery thrillers. A 1962 adaptation ofJohn Wyndham's short storyDumb Martian, scripted by Clive Exton, was a deliberate showcase for the spin-offscience fiction anthologyOut of This World. Two 1967 episodes became series. One of these was developed into the sitcomNever Mind the Quality, Feel the Width, while the other,A Magnum for Schneider, became the pilot for the spy seriesCallan.[27]
After the 1968ITV 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 theBBC'sThe Wednesday Play (1964–70), a series initiated bySydney Newman after he had moved to the BBC.
Overall, 426 plays were made and broadcast under theArmchair 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 tolive plays not being recorded or torecordings being destroyed. Two later Thames series used theArmchair... prefix:Armchair Cinema, effectively a series of TV movies, andArmchair Thriller (1978–80), which used a serial format.
Armchair Theatre was satirised on theBBC Radio comedy seriesRound the Horne asArmpit Theatre.[28]
A DVD boxset featuring eight colour episodes from 1970 to 1973 was released by Network DVD in January 2010. It contains the following episodes:
Volume 2, with another eight colour episodes, appeared in 2012:
Volume 3 contains episodes ranging from 1957 to 1967:
Volume 4 contains:
Network subsequently released further episodes under theArmchair Theatre Archive label.
Volume 1:
Volume 2:
Volume 3:
Volume 4:
Armchair Cinema, which included the pilot of the police seriesThe Sweeney (Regan) in its run, was released by Network DVD in autumn 2009.
Studiocanal Vintage Classics' blu-ray release ofThe Family Way includedHoneymoon Postponed (1961) as a bonus feature too.