Armchair Theatre
Encyclopedia
Armchair Theatre is a British television
drama anthology series, which ran on the ITV
network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation
, and later by Thames Television
after 1968.
The Canadian-born producer Sydney Newman
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.
, Britain's only commercial network at the time, in which contemporary dramas would be the most common form, though this was not be immediately apparent. It was launched by Howard Thomas
, head of ABC at the time, who argued that "[t]elevision 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
, who was in charge for the series' first two years, and the early years drew heavily on North American sources including the first play, The Outsider, a medical drama adapted from a stage play by Dorothy Brandon, which was transmitted live on 8 July 1956 from ABC's northern studios in Didsbury
, Manchester. Reportedly Vance had a preference for classical adaptations, though some of these such as a version of The Emperor Jones
(30 March 1958) by the American dramatist Eugene O'Neill
were not conservative choices. Vance was succeeded by Sydney Newman
, 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. While Underground
was being broadcast a key actor suddenly collapsed and died. Such nightmare situations could be handled more easily when Armchair Theatre was able to benefit from prerecording on videotape
after production of the series moved from Manchester to the Teddington Studios
near London in the summer of 1959.
Migrating from his native Canada to take up his responsibilities with ABC, Stydney Newman objected to the basis of British television drama at the time he arrived:
' who were emerging after John Osborne
's play Look Back in Anger
(1956) had become a great success, though older writers like Ted Willis, were not excluded. His 1958 stage play Hot Summer Night (1 February 1959) was adapted to shift its focus from an unhappy marriage of parents in the play onto their daughter's mixed relationship with a Jamaican man and the potential problems their possible marriage might face. It was one of the earliest British television plays to have 'race' as a theme.
who first became aware of writers Clive Exton
, who contributed eight plays for the series, Alun Owen
(No Trams to Lime Street
, 18 October 1959) and Harold Pinter
(A Night Out
, 24 April 1960). Owen's play was the first of his 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 often high by the standards of the time, the programme benefitted from following the variety based Sunday Night at the London Palladium
, but not always. Even so, Pinter once estimated that his stage play The Caretaker
, enjoying its first run at the time, would have 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 as a refuge to Britain in 1938, contributed seven plays to the series, three being transmitted in 1962 and directed by Philip Saville
who worked on more than forty episodes. Muller's wife in his later years, the actress Billie Whitelaw
, made a number of appearances in the series.
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
, and in Armchair Theatre' s last years Lloyd Shirley was the series producer. A holdover from the Newman era, Clive Exton
's legal satire The 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 the Independent Television Authority
(ITA), the regulator of the commercial channel at the time, had not objected to the production, it was ABC's Howard Thomas who had originally feared 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 (recorded 18 May 1963), a two-hander by the South African writer Athol Fugard
with Apartheid as its theme, was never scheduled.
, which specialised in crime and mystery thrillers. A 1962 adaptation of the John Wyndham short story Dumb Martian, scripted by Clive Exton, was a deliberate showcase for the spin-off science fiction
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
while the other A Magnum For Schneider, became the pilot for the hugely popular spy series Callan
.
After the 1968 ITV
franchise changes and ABC's metamorphosis into Thames, the programme continued until 1974. Hugely popular at its peak, with audiences occasionally touching an astounding twenty million, Armchair Theatre was an important influence over later programmes such as the BBC
's The Wednesday Play
(1964–1970), a programme initiated by Sydney Newman
after he had moved to the BBC. Later Thames productions such as Armchair Cinema, effectively a series of TV movies, and Armchair Thriller
(1978-80) name checked the earlier series.
Overall, 457 plays were made and broadcast under the Armchair... banner from 1956 to 1980. As with much early British television, not all of the plays from the original ABC series survive in the archives, due either to live
plays not being recorded or recordings being destroyed.
It was satirised on the BBC Radio
comedy series Round the Horne
as Armpit Theatre.
("Regan") in its run, appeared on DVD (Network) in Autumn 2009.
British television
Public television broadcasting started in the United Kingdom in 1936, and now has a collection of free and subscription services over a variety of distribution media, through which there are over 480 channelsTaking the base Sky EPG TV Channels. A breakdown is impossible due to a) the number of...
drama anthology series, which ran on the ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation
Associated British Corporation
Associated British Corporation was one of a number of commercial television companies established in the United Kingdom during the 1950s by cinema chain companies in an attempt to safeguard their business by becoming involved with television which was taking away their cinema audiences.In this...
, and later by Thames Television
Thames Television
Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....
after 1968.
The Canadian-born producer Sydney Newman
Sydney Newman
Sydney Cecil Newman, OC was a Canadian film and television producer, who played a pioneering role in British television drama from the late 1950s to the late 1960s...
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.
Intent
Armchair Theatre filled a Sunday evening slot on ITVITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
, Britain's only commercial network at the time, in which contemporary dramas would be the most common form, though this was not be immediately apparent. It was launched by Howard Thomas
Howard Thomas
Howard Thomas CBE was a Welsh-born British 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 write newspaper articles and short plays...
, head of ABC at the time, who argued that "[t]elevision 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
Dennis Vance was a British television producer and director.Born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, he began his career as an actor in the late 1940s, appearing in small parts in various films before switching to become a producer with BBC Television in the early 1950s...
, who was in charge for the series' first two years, and the early years drew heavily on North American sources including the first play, The Outsider, a medical drama adapted from a stage play by Dorothy Brandon, which was transmitted live on 8 July 1956 from ABC's northern studios in Didsbury
Didsbury
Didsbury is a suburban area of the City of Manchester, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Mersey, south of Manchester city centre, in the southern half of the Greater Manchester Urban Area...
, Manchester. Reportedly Vance had a preference for classical adaptations, though some of these such as a version of The Emperor Jones
The Emperor Jones
The Emperor Jones is a 1920 play by American dramatist Eugene O'Neill which tells the tale of Brutus Jones, an African-American man who kills a man, goes to prison, escapes to a Caribbean island, and sets himself up as emperor...
(30 March 1958) by the American dramatist Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
were not conservative choices. Vance was succeeded by Sydney Newman
Sydney Newman
Sydney Cecil Newman, OC was a Canadian film and television producer, who played a pioneering role in British television drama from the late 1950s to the late 1960s...
, 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. While Underground
Underground (1958 TV play)
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...
was being broadcast a key actor suddenly collapsed and died. Such nightmare situations could be handled more easily when Armchair Theatre was able to benefit from prerecording on videotape
Videotape
A videotape is a recording of images and sounds on to magnetic tape as opposed to film stock or random access digital media. Videotapes are also used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram...
after production of the series moved from Manchester to the Teddington Studios
Teddington Studios
Teddington Studios is a large British television studio complex located in Teddington, South-West London, providing studio facilities for programmes airing on BBC television, ITV, and Channel 4 along with others...
near London in the summer of 1959.
Migrating from his native Canada to take up his responsibilities with ABC, Stydney 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
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 members included John Osborne and Kingsley Amis.The phrase was originally coined by the Royal Court Theatre's press officer to promote John...
' who were emerging after John Osborne
John Osborne
John James Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and critic of the Establishment. The success of his 1956 play Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre....
's play Look Back in Anger
Look Back in Anger
Look Back in Anger is a John Osborne play—made into films in 1959, 1980, and 1989 -- about a love triangle involving an intelligent but disaffected young man , his upper-middle-class, impassive wife , and her haughty best friend . Cliff, an amiable Welsh lodger, attempts to keep the peace...
(1956) had become a great success, though older writers like Ted Willis, were not excluded. His 1958 stage play Hot Summer Night (1 February 1959) was adapted to shift its focus from an unhappy marriage of parents in the play onto their daughter's mixed relationship with a Jamaican man and the potential problems their possible marriage might face. It was one of the earliest British television plays to have 'race' as a theme.
Writers
It was a script editor Peter LukePeter Luke
-Early years:Peter Ambrose Cyprian Luke was born in St Albans. He had wanted to be a painter, and went to art school for 2 years before World War II occurred. He was awarded the Military Cross for his efforts. Some time after, he worked under producer Sydney Newman on the British television drama...
who first became aware of writers Clive Exton
Clive Exton
Clive Exton was a British television and film screenwriter, sometime playwright, and former actor. He is best known for his scripts of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster, and Rosemary & Thyme.-Early career:He was born Clive Jack Montague Brooks in Islington, London,...
, who contributed eight plays for the series, Alun Owen
Alun Owen
Alun Owen was a British screenwriter, predominantly active in television, but best remembered by a wider audience for writing the screenplay of The Beatles' debut feature film A Hard Day's Night ....
(No Trams to Lime Street
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 the Associated British Corporation for transmission on the ITV network, the play was broadcast on 18 October 1959...
, 18 October 1959) and Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
(A Night Out
A Night Out (play)
A Night Out is a play written by Harold Pinter in 1959.- Plot and overview :Albert Stokes, a loner in his late twenties lives with his emotionally-suffocating mother and works in an office...
, 24 April 1960). Owen's play was the first of his 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 often high by the standards of the time, the programme benefitted from following the variety based Sunday Night at the London Palladium
Sunday Night at the London Palladium
Sunday Night at the London Palladium is a British television variety show produced by ATV for the ITV network, originally running from 1955 to 1967, with a brief revival in 1973 and 1974...
, but not always. Even so, Pinter once estimated that his stage play The Caretaker
The Caretaker
The Caretaker is a play by Harold Pinter. It was first published by both Encore Publishing and Eyre Methuen in 1960. The sixth play that Pinter wrote for stage or television production, it was his first significant commercial success...
, enjoying its first run at the time, would have be performed for thirty years before matching A Night Out
The German Jewish dramatist Robert Muller, who had arrived as a refuge to Britain in 1938, contributed seven plays to the series, three being transmitted in 1962 and directed by Philip Saville
Philip Saville
Philip Saville is a British television direction and screenwriting from the late 1950s...
who worked on more than forty episodes. Muller's wife in his later years, the actress Billie Whitelaw
Billie Whitelaw
Billie Honor Whitelaw, CBE is an English actress. She worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and is regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works...
, made a number of appearances in the series.
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
The Avengers (TV series)
The Avengers is a spy-fi British television series set in the 1960s Britain. The Avengers initially focused on Dr. David Keel and his assistant John Steed . Hendry left after the first series and Steed became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants...
, and in Armchair Theatre
Clive Exton
Clive Exton was a British television and film screenwriter, sometime playwright, and former actor. He is best known for his scripts of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster, and Rosemary & Thyme.-Early career:He was born Clive Jack Montague Brooks in Islington, London,...
's legal satire The 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 the Independent Television Authority
Independent Television Authority
The Independent Television Authority was an agency created by the Television Act 1954 to supervise the creation of "Independent Television" , the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom...
(ITA), the regulator of the commercial channel at the time, had not objected to the production, it was ABC's Howard Thomas who had originally feared 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 (recorded 18 May 1963), a two-hander by the South African writer Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director who writes in English, best known for his political plays opposing the South African system of apartheid and for the 2005 Academy-Award winning film of his novel Tsotsi, directed by Gavin Hood...
with Apartheid 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 PleasenceDonald Pleasence
Sir Donald Henry Pleasence, OBE, was a British actor who gained more than 200 screen credits during a career which spanned over four decades...
, which specialised in crime and mystery thrillers. A 1962 adaptation of the John Wyndham short story Dumb Martian, scripted by Clive Exton, was a deliberate showcase for the spin-off science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
anthology Out of This World
Out of This World (UK TV series)
Out of This World is a British science fiction anthology television series made by ABC Television and broadcast in 1962. A spin-off from the popular anthology series Armchair Theatre, each episode was introduced by the actor Boris Karloff. Many of the episodes were adaptations of stories by...
. 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
Never Mind The Quality, Feel The Width was 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...
while the other A Magnum For Schneider, became the pilot for the hugely popular spy series Callan
Callan (TV series)
Callan is the title of a British television series set in the murky world of espionage. Originally produced by ABC Weekend Television and later Thames Television, it was aired on the ITV network over four seasons spread out between 1967 and 1972...
.
After the 1968 ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
franchise changes and ABC's metamorphosis into Thames, the programme continued until 1974. Hugely popular at its peak, with audiences occasionally touching an astounding twenty million, Armchair Theatre was an important influence over later programmes such as the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's The Wednesday Play
The Wednesday Play
The Wednesday Play was an anthology series of British television plays which ran on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. Every week's play was usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured...
(1964–1970), a programme initiated by Sydney Newman
Sydney Newman
Sydney Cecil Newman, OC 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 he had moved to the BBC. Later Thames productions such as Armchair Cinema, effectively a series of TV movies, and Armchair Thriller
Armchair Thriller
Armchair Thriller is a British television programme, broadcast on ITV in two series in 1978 and 1980. Owing something to some of the off-shoots of the earlier Armchair Theatre, the new series used scripts adapted from published novels and stories. Although not properly a horror series it included...
(1978-80) name checked the earlier series.
Overall, 457 plays were made and broadcast under the Armchair... banner from 1956 to 1980. As with much early British television, not all of the plays from the original ABC series survive in the archives, due either to live
Live television
Live television refers to a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. From the early days of television until about 1958, live television was used heavily, except for filmed shows such as I Love Lucy and Gunsmoke. Video tape did not exist until 1957...
plays not being recorded or recordings being destroyed.
It was satirised on the BBC Radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...
comedy series Round the Horne
Round the Horne
Round the Horne was a BBC Radio comedy programme, transmitted in four series of weekly episodes from 1965 until 1968. The series was created by Barry Took and Marty Feldman - with others contributing to later series after Feldman returned to performing — and starred Kenneth Horne, with Kenneth...
as Armpit Theatre.
DVD releases
A DVD boxset featuring 8 colour episodes from 1970-73, "Detective Waiting", "Say goodnight to your Grandma", "Office Party", "Brown Skin Girl, Stay at Home and Mind Bay-Bee", "Will Amelia Quint Continue Writing A Gnome Called Shorthouse ?", "The Folk Singer", "A Bit of a Lift" and "Little Red Riding Hood", was released by NetworkDVD in January 2010. Armchair Cinema, which included the pilot of the police series The SweeneyThe Sweeney
The Sweeney is a 1970s British television police drama focusing on two members of the Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police specialising in tackling armed robbery and violent crime in London...
("Regan") in its run, appeared on DVD (Network) in Autumn 2009.
See also
- Comedy PlayhouseComedy PlayhouseComedy Playhouse was a long-running British anthology series of one-off unrelated sitcoms that aired for 120 episodes from 1961 to 1975. Many episodes later graduated to their own series, including Steptoe and Son, Till Death Us Do Part, All Gas and Gaiters, The Liver Birds, Are You Being Served?...
- Theatre 625Theatre 625Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line...
- The Wednesday PlayThe Wednesday PlayThe Wednesday Play was an anthology series of British television plays which ran on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. Every week's play was usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured...
- ITV PlayhouseITV PlayhouseITV Playhouse was a UK comedy-drama TV series that ran from 1967 to 1983, which featured contributions from playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Rhys Adrian and Alan Sharp. The series began in black and white, but was later shot in colour and was produced by various companies for the ITV network, a...
- Play for TodayPlay for TodayPlay for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted...
- The Afternoon PlayThe Afternoon PlayThe Afternoon Play is a series of individual plays which sometimes appear on BBC One during weekday afternoons. The first series began on 27 January 2003, and as of 2008 there have been five series...
(BBC1) - Screen OneScreen OneScreen One is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 between 1989 to 1993.Following the demise of the BBC's Play For Today which ran from 1970 to 1984, producer Kenneth Trodd was asked to formulate a new series of one-off television dramas...