Theater_625

<i>Theatre 625</i>

Theatre 625

Drama anthology series

Theatre 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 format, which only BBC2 used at the time.

Quick Facts Theatre 625, Genre ...

Overview

Overall, about 110 plays were produced with a duration of usually between 75 and 90 minutes during the series' four-year run, and for its final year from 1967 the series was produced in colour, BBC2 being the first channel in Europe to convert from black-and-white.[1] Some of the best-known productions made for the series include a new version of Nigel Kneale's 1954 adaptation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1965); the four-part Talking to a Stranger by John Hopkins (1966) which told the same story from four different viewpoints, and features Judi Dench; and 1968's science-fiction allegory The Year of the Sex Olympics, again by Kneale.

In a 2000 poll of industry experts conducted by the British Film Institute to find the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century, Talking to a Stranger was placed seventy-eighth.[2]

As with much British television output of the 1960s, many editions of Theatre 625 no longer exist (see Lost television broadcast). Some episodes, previously thought lost, were discovered in Washington D.C. in 2010.[3] These recoveries included the remake of 1984. Only three plays, A Slight Ache, A Night Out and Mille Miglia, exist as their original 625-line colour videotapes. Alls Well That Ends Well also survives in its original 625-line format, but only the first hour. Some episodes exist as lower-quality colour copies, but most plays survive as black and white 16mm or 35mm telerecordings. In addition, The Fanatics exist in full colour as a 35mm telerecording, and some short sequences on 35mm film survive from other plays.

List of episodes

The main source for compiling this list was the BFI Film & TV database. The website's master list is here. With a certain irregularity in transmission, breaking this list down into specific seasons is likely to be arbitrary, with variants between sources; the BFI website has been followed, except (as noted) where the lostshows website diverged in a few instances. IMDb and the BBC Genome database (of Radio Times listings) have been used as a check, and occasionally as the main source. The information about the episodes survival status in the last column is taken from the TV Archive website and The Kaleidoscope BBC Television Drama Research Guide, 1936–2011,[4] and are correct as of 26 March 2024. A handful of the surviving episodes have been commercially released on DVD; these are footnoted.

In addition to those listed, And Some Have Greatness Thrust Upon Them, by Terence Frisby and directed by Gilchrist Calder, was planned for 1967 but cancelled as a result of Frisby obtaining an injunction against the BBC over a line excised from the script on grounds of indecency, but which Frisby deemed structurally significant to the script he had licensed to the BBC.[5]

Legend: Se = Season; Ep = Episode; AS/A = Archive status/Availability
Abbreviations: tr =Telerecording; seq = sequence(s)); VT = video tape

All known copies are black & white, except where stated otherwise.

More information Se, Ep ...

See also

References

  1. [1]
    There is at least one exception to the 75-90-minute duration rule. David, Chapter 2 (2.12), a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation production first broadcast there on 20 May 1963 is listed at 60 minutes duration here.
  2. [2]
    "BFI | Features | TV 100 List of Lists". 11 September 2011. Archived from the original on 11 September 2011.
  3. [3]
    Lawson, Mark (3 November 2010). "Yesterday's heroes: the lost treasure trove of BBC drama". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
  4. [4]
    Coward, Simon; Down, Richard; Perry, Chris (2011). The Kaleidoscope BBC Television Drama Research Guide 1936–2011. Kaleidoscope Publishing. pp. 2508–2519.
  5. [5]
    Bently, Lionel; Sherman, Brad (2014). Intellectual Property Law (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 290–291. ISBN 978-0199645558.
  6. [6]
    Repeated as a Wednesday Play on 23 June 1965, in place of the postponed Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton.
  7. [7]
    Released on DVD in the US, 2013.
  8. [8]
    Originally transmitted on BBC1 21 December 1963.
  9. [9]
    Details taken from Radio Times, Issue No.2184, 16 September 1965, p. 17
  10. [10]
    According to the BFI website, the billing was to Bill Cornelius.
  11. [11]
    1984 was not Orwell's preferred rendering, but this production used the numerical form.
  12. [12]
    Repeated as a Wednesday Play on 19 October 1966.
  13. [13]
    Originally broadcast 19 November 1964 on BBC2 as a Thursday Theatre.
  14. [14]
    Repeated as a Play of the Month on BBC1, 17 November 1968.
  15. [15]
    Unlike the BFI, IMDb lists him as Michael Forest, but there was a British actor in this era with relatively extensive television credits who spelt his surname with a second 'r'.
  16. [16]
    Television version of a production at the Theatre Royal, Bristol.
  17. [17]
    Released on DVD in The Judi Dench Collection, BBC boxed set.
  18. [18]
    The BFI website and IMDb are remiss in not indicating the author of this work, but the character's names indicate that it must be the play by T.S. Eliot.
  19. [19]
    Originally broadcast 18 March 1965 on BBC2 as a Thursday Theatre.
  20. [20]
    Released on DVD by the BFI in the Pinter at the BBC boxed set, 2019.
  21. [21]
    Remake of Armchair Theatre: A Night Out (1960).
  22. [22]
    This was the first joint production between the BBC and the Australian Broadcasting Commission. See the BFI database page.
  23. [23]
    Credited as 'Moffatt' on this occasion (BFI website).
  24. [24]
    Broadcast in the Theatre 625 timeslot but not billed as such in the Radio Times (according to BBC Genome database); it was a Telefís Éireann production.
  25. [25]
    Credited as 'Zohra Segal' according to the BFI website.
  26. [26]
    Repeated as a Wednesday Play on 25 March 1970.
  27. [27]
    Repeated as a Wednesday Play on 1 April 1970.
  28. [28]
    Repeated as a Wednesday Play on 8 April 1970.
  29. [29]
    More usually credited as 'Harriette Johns', according to both the BFI and IMDb websites.
  30. [30]
    Repeated as a Wednesday Play on 29 April 1970. See the BFI outline page.
  31. [31]
    The play was later adapted by Alastair Gray as a novel, The Fall of Kelvin Walker: A Fable of the Sixties (1985).
  32. [32]
    Broadcast in the Theatre 625 timeslot but not billed as such in the Radio Times (according to BBC Genome database), however the BFI lists it under Theatre 625; it was a BBC/RSC production. Repeated 19 February 1970.
  33. [33]
    "All's Well That Ends Well". British Universities Film and Video Council. Retrieved 9 May 2022. This source also identifies it as a Theatre 625 production and the first BBC television production of a Shakespeare play transmitted in colour.
  34. [34]
    Repeated as a Wednesday Play on 27 May 1970 and as a Play for Today on 1 April 1971.
  35. [35]
    Repeated as a Wednesday Play on 11 March 1970.
  36. [36]
    The Year of the Sex Olympics was released on DVD by the BFI in 2003.
  37. [37]
    Repeated as a Wednesday Play on 14 January 1970.
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