Tag Archives: Rudolph Cartier

The July Plot (1964)

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by OLIVER WAKE

The Wednesday Play Writer: Roger Manvell; Adapted from (novel) Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel; Producer: Peter Luke; Director: Rudolph Cartier

Broadcast in late 1964, The July Plot is an interesting example of a television play made during a formative moment in the history of British television drama.1 It was in production as the BBC’s drama strategy was being reformulated, resulting in the shake-up of the Corporation’s drama anthology output and the creation of the genre-defining The Wednesday Play (1964-70), as part of which it was ultimately transmitted. The July Plot is also an early example of drama documentary based around major events from within living memory, and a rare instance of its particular subject being tackled for a British audience. With this article, we aim to give an insight into the play’s production and an overview of its effect upon its audience.

  1. The Wednesday Play: ‘The July Plot’, BBC1, tx. 9 December 1964. ↩

Doctor Korczak and the Children (1962)

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by OLIVER WAKE

Studio 4 Adapted and translated by: Rudolph Cartier; From: Erwin Sylvanus (play); Director: Rudolph Cartier

Doctor Korczak and the Children is one of the most unusual and compelling television plays of the 1960s.1 Its subject is tragic and fascinating, while the production itself is interesting in its own right for a myriad of reasons. The extremity of its rejection of naturalistic television drama conventions is startling and it remains an almost unique surviving example of a period of such experimentation at the BBC at the beginning of 1960s. It also illustrates how the reach of a stage text can be expanded to whole new audiences with sympathetic translation into the new medium. This article aims to give an overview of this extraordinary production and its reception by its audience.

  1. Studio 4: ‘Doctor Korczak and the Children’, BBC, tx. 13 August 1962. ↩

Stalingrad (1963)

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by OLIVER WAKE

This piece was substantially revised in December 2014.

Festival Writer: Rudolph Cartier; Adapted and translated from: Theodore Plievier (novel), Claus Hubalek (play from novel); Director: Rudolph Cartier

The early 1960s was a transitional period for BBC television drama. New techniques, notably a move away from live transmissions in favour of pre-recording, enabled more ambitious and polished productions. Subject matter was changing too, with specially written television plays and series overcoming the BBC’s previous reliance on material drawn from the theatre or popular novels. Of course, these changes didn’t happen overnight, and a number of programmes of the period provide a snapshot of television drama in transition, containing elements of both the old and the new, sometimes uneasily colliding in the one production. One such drama is Stalingrad, from late 1963, which has roots in both a novel and its stage adaptation, but also attempts to make the material ‘televisual’, achieving mixed results.1 Here, we’ll examine the play, to see how it came to be made in a mix of styles and how critics and audiences reacted to it.

  1. Festival: ‘Stalingrad’, BBC2, tx. 4 December 1964. ↩

The Creature (1955)

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by OLIVER WAKE

Writer: Nigel Kneale; Director: Rudolph Cartier

This piece was substantially revised and updated in 2014.

The creative partnership of television dramatist Nigel Kneale and producer/director Rudolph Cartier is best known for originating the three Quatermass serials of the 1950s and 1954’s adaptation of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, but it achieved much more besides.1 One of their lesser-known productions was The Creature from early 1955.2 The primary reason for the play’s neglect is that no recording exists so, unlike Nineteen Eighty-Four and most of the episodes of the Quatermass serials, it is no longer available to view. This article aims to challenge The Creature’s obscurity, using surviving scripts, production anecdotes and contemporaneous audience research data to present an account of the play, its innovations and the reactions it elicited from viewers and critics.

  1. Nineteen Eighty-Four, tx. 12 and 16 December 1954. The three Quatermass serials of the 1950s were: The Quatermass Experiment, six episodes, tx. 18 July to 22 August 1953; Quatermass II, six episodes, tx. 22 October to 26 November 1955; and Quatermass and the Pit, six episodes, tx. 22 December 1958 to 26 January 1959. All programmes referenced in this article were broadcast on the BBC’s sole television channel, unless indicated otherwise. ↩

  2. The Creature, tx. 30 January and 3 February 1955. ↩

Michael Barry

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by OLIVER WAKE

Michael Barry

Although rarely discussed now, Michael Barry (1910-1988) had an important role in the development of British television drama. As a producer before and immediately after the Second World War and subsequently as the BBC’s first Head of Television Drama, he helped shape the new medium in its formative years.