Nineteen Eighty-Four (TV programme)
Encyclopedia
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a British television
adaptation of the novel of the same name
by George Orwell
, originally broadcast on BBC Television
in December 1954. The production proved to be hugely controversial
, with questions asked in Parliament
and many viewer complaints over its supposed subversive nature and horrific content. In a 2000 poll of industry experts conducted by the British Film Institute
to determine the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes
of the 20th century, Nineteen Eighty-Four was ranked in seventy-third position.
, one of the most prolific television scriptwriters of the time. The previous year he had created the character of Professor Bernard Quatermass
for the popular science-fiction serial The Quatermass Experiment
. The adaptation was produced and directed by the equally respected Rudolph Cartier
, perhaps the BBC
's best producer-director of the 1950s who was always adventurous artistically and technically. Cartier, a veteran of the UFA
film studios in 1930s Germany
who had fled the Nazi
regime for Britain in 1936, had worked with Kneale the previous year on The Quatermass Experiment and was a veteran of many television drama productions.
It was his work on Quatermass that had prompted the BBC's Head of Drama
, Michael Barry, to ask Cartier to work on an adaptation of the novel, having shown his abilities with literary sources in a version of Wuthering Heights
, again with Kneale handling the scripting. The BBC had purchased the rights to a television version of Nineteen Eighty-Four soon after its publication in 1949, with Kenneth Tynan
having apparently originally been keen on adapting the work. The first version of the script, produced in late 1953, was written by Hugh Faulks, in consultation with Orwell's widow Sonia Brownell
, but when Cartier joined in January 1954 he demanded that Kneale be allowed to handle the adaptation. This and other complexities of production meant that the April airdate – which would have been about 30 years before the novel was set – had to be postponed.
was taken by Peter Cushing
, one of his first major roles. Cartier cast him after having been impressed with his performance in a BBC production of Anastasia
the previous year. Cushing went on to become a film star as would his co-star Donald Pleasence
, who played Syme. Pleasence was the only member of the cast present in the 1956 feature film
adaptation of the story, playing an amalgamation of Syme and Parsons with the latter's name.
Other cast members included Yvonne Mitchell
, who had starred in the Kneale/Cartier Wuthering Heights, as Julia, and André Morell
as O'Brien. Wilfrid Brambell
, later famous for his roles in Steptoe and Son
and as Paul McCartney
's grandfather in A Hard Day's Night
, appeared in two roles, as the old man Winston speaks with in the pub and as a prisoner later on when Winston is imprisoned. Nigel Kneale who had briefly acted in the 1940s before turning to scriptwriting, had a small voice-over role as an announcer. The face of Big Brother
was Roy Oxley
, a member of the BBC design department whose inclusion was something of an in-joke on the part of the production team.
The composer of the incidental music for the programme was John Hotchkis, who insisted on a larger than usual orchestra to perform the piece. Kneale hated music off disc so the score was conducted live to the performance by Hotchkis from Lime Grove Studio E, next door to where the play was being staged, with Hotchkis and his orchestra following the action on a closed-circuit screen to synchronise their performance.
(even by then all but abandoned as a venue for shooting drama, although it housed the news and later the Open University
for the next thirty years), with footage of the Two Minutes' Hate and some of the canteen scenes being filmed there.
Further location shooting took place on 18 November, all exterior scenes featuring Smith's travels in the proletarian sector. Following the filming, rehearsals for the cast began at Mary Ward Settlement, Tavistock Place from 22 November (moving to 60 Paddington Street from 29 November). During these rehearsals, the cast memorised their lines and cues as important in a live television production as in a play.
The cast and crew moved to Studio D at the BBC's Lime Grove Studios
on Saturday 11 December 1954 for a full camera rehearsal and run-through. Rehearsals continued the following day until shortly before transmission, which began at 20:37 Sunday 12 December and continued for the best part of two hours.
Kneale's script was a largely faithful adaptation of the novel as far as was practical. The writer made some small additions, the most notable being the creation of a sequence in which O'Brien observes Julia at work in PornoSec and reads a small segment from one of the erotic novels being written by the machines.
scene where Smith is threatened with torture by rats) and the "subversive" nature of the play. Most were worried by the depiction of a totalitarian regime controlling the population's freedom of thought. There was also a report in the Daily Express
newspaper of 42-year-old Beryl Merfin of Herne Bay
collapsing and dying as she watched the production, under the headline "Wife dies as she watches", allegedly from the shock of what she had seen.
Political reaction was divided with several Early day motion
s and amendments tabled in the Parliament. One motion, signed by five MPs, deplored "the tendency, evident in recent British Broadcasting Corporation television programmes, notably on Sunday evenings, to pander to sexual and sadistic tastes". An amendment was tabled which sought to make the motion now deplore "the tendency of honourable members to attack the courage and enterprise of the British Broadcasting Corporation in presenting plays and programmes capable of appreciation by adult minds, on Sunday evenings and other occasions." It was signed by five MPs. Another amendment added "but is thankful that the freedom of the individual still permits viewers to switch off and, due to the foresight of her Majesty's Government, will soon permit a switch-over to be made to more appropriate programmes." A second motion signed by six MPs, applauded "the sincere attempts of the B.B.C. to bring home to the British people the logical and soul-destroying consequences of their freedom" and calling attention to the fact that "many of the inhuman practices depicted in the play Nineteen Eighty-Four are already in common use under totalitarian régimes.", Even the Queen
and Prince Philip
made it known that they had watched and enjoyed the play.
Amidst objections the BBC went ahead with a live repeat on Thursday 16 December, although the decision went to the Board of Governors
, which narrowly voted in favour of the second performance. This was introduced live on camera by Head of Drama Michael Barry, who had already appeared on the Monday's edition of the topical news programme Panorama
to defend the production. The seven million viewers who watched the Thursday performance was the largest television audience in the UK since the Coronation
the previous year.
When the importance of this production of Nineteen Eighty-Four was realised, it was arranged for the second performance to be telerecorded onto 35mm film, as the first was shown live, seen only by those who were watching. Videotape
recording was still in development and television images could only be preserved on film
by using a special recording apparatus (known as "telerecording" in the UK and "kinescoping
" in the USA
) but was used sparingly in Britain
for preservation and not for pre-recording. It is thus the second performance that survives in the archives, one of the earliest surviving British television dramas.
wrote a parody
of Nineteen Eighty-Four for The Goon Show
entitled 1985, broadcast on 4 January 1955. The cast of characters included Worker 846 Winston Seagoon (Harry Secombe
), Miss Sfnut (Peter Sellers
) and Worker 213 Eccles (Milligan); Big Brother was replaced by the Big Brother Corporation (i.e. the BBC) and Goldstein's revolution by Horace Minikstein's Independent Television Army. Jokes included such stabs at the BBC as:
Announcer (Sellers): "Attention BBC workers! Lunch is now being served in the BBC Canteen. Doctors are standing by."
Seagoon is tortured in Room 101 by being forced to listen to clips from Ray's a Laugh, Life with the Lyons
and the singing of Harry Secombe
. Unlike the original script, Seagoon is freed from Room 101 and the ITA overthrows the BBC after a three-day phone call and a £10 bribe. However, when Seagoon hears the ITA's output, he wants the BBC brought back.
The programme was such a success that the script was performed again on 8 February 1955. This was not a repeat – it was a new broadcast of the same script with minor changes. One change was the recorded addition of John Snagge
as the BBC announcer previously portrayed by Sellers.
The first version exists in pristine form in the BBC archives, the second performance only as a lower-quality off-air recording which excludes the first five minutes of the programme and both musical interludes, preserving about 18 minutes of material.
fans. It was twenty-three years before it received a repeat broadcast in 1977. Another proposed repeat as part of the BBC's fiftieth anniversary of television celebrations in 1986 was overruled by the producers of the 1984 John Hurt
/Richard Burton
feature film
, who felt that earlier versions would affect income for their film. The BBC was permitted to show the play again in 1994 on BBC Two
, as a tribute to the recently deceased Cartier and again in June 2003 on digital station BBC Four
as part of the George Orwell
centenary celebrations.
Kneale's adaptation was produced again by the BBC, with some modifications in 1965. Starring David Buck
, Joseph O'Conor
, Jane Merrow
and Cyril Shaps
, it was broadcast in BBC2
's Theatre 625
anthology series as part of a season of Orwell adaptations sub-titled The World of George Orwell, on 28 November 1965. Long believed lost, on 12 September 2010 it was announced in various media outlets that a copy had been located at the American Library of Congress
, although an approximately seven minute segment in the middle was unrecoverable from the NTSC
video tape recording. It was recovered amongst a horde of over 80 lost British television episodes dating from 1957 to 1970. In 1965, a radio
adaptation starring future Doctor Who
star Patrick Troughton
was transmitted on BBC radio
.
Scenes from Nineteen Eighty-Four, along with the 1954 adaptation of Animal Farm
, were featured in "The Two Winstons", the final episode of Simon Schama
's program A History of Britain.
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...
adaptation of the novel of the same name
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
by George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
, originally broadcast on BBC Television
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
in December 1954. The production proved to be hugely controversial
Controversy
Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of opinion. The word was coined from the Latin controversia, as a composite of controversus – "turned in an opposite direction," from contra – "against" – and vertere – to turn, or versus , hence, "to turn...
, with questions asked in Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
and many viewer complaints over its supposed subversive nature and horrific content. In a 2000 poll of industry experts conducted by the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
to determine the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes
100 Greatest British Television Programmes
The BFI TV 100 is a list compiled in 2000 by the British Film Institute , chosen by a poll of industry professionals, to determine what were the greatest British television programmes of any genre ever to have been screened....
of the 20th century, Nineteen Eighty-Four was ranked in seventy-third position.
Background
Orwell's novel was adapted for television by Nigel KnealeNigel Kneale
Nigel Kneale was a British screenwriter from the Isle of Man. Active in television, film, radio drama and prose fiction, he wrote professionally for over fifty years, was a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and was twice nominated for the British Film Award for Best Screenplay...
, one of the most prolific television scriptwriters of the time. The previous year he had created the character of Professor Bernard Quatermass
Bernard Quatermass
Professor Bernard Quatermass is a fictional scientist, originally created by the writer Nigel Kneale for BBC Television. An intelligent and highly moral British scientist, Quatermass is a pioneer of the British space programme, heading up the British Experimental Rocket Group...
for the popular science-fiction serial The Quatermass Experiment
The Quatermass Experiment
The Quatermass Experiment is a British science-fiction serial broadcast by BBC Television in the summer of 1953 and re-staged by BBC Four in 2005. Set in the near future against the background of a British space programme, it tells the story of the first manned flight into space, overseen by...
. The adaptation was produced and directed by the equally respected Rudolph Cartier
Rudolph Cartier
Rudolph Cartier was an Austrian television director, filmmaker, screenwriter and producer who worked predominantly in British television, exclusively for the BBC...
, perhaps 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 best producer-director of the 1950s who was always adventurous artistically and technically. Cartier, a veteran of the UFA
Universum Film AG
Universum Film AG, better known as UFA or Ufa, is a film company that was the principal film studio in Germany, home of the German film industry during the Weimar Republic and through World War II, and a major force in world cinema from 1917 to 1945...
film studios in 1930s Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
who had fled the Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
regime for Britain in 1936, had worked with Kneale the previous year on The Quatermass Experiment and was a veteran of many television drama productions.
It was his work on Quatermass that had prompted the BBC's Head of Drama
BBC television drama
BBC television dramas have been produced and broadcast since even before the public service company had an officially established television broadcasting network in the United Kingdom...
, Michael Barry, to ask Cartier to work on an adaptation of the novel, having shown his abilities with literary sources in a version of Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre...
, again with Kneale handling the scripting. The BBC had purchased the rights to a television version of Nineteen Eighty-Four soon after its publication in 1949, with Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Peacock Tynan was an influential and often controversial English theatre critic and writer.-Early life:...
having apparently originally been keen on adapting the work. The first version of the script, produced in late 1953, was written by Hugh Faulks, in consultation with Orwell's widow Sonia Brownell
Sonia Brownell
Sonia Mary Brownell was the second and last wife of writer George Orwell, whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair. She was also known as Sonia Blair or Sonia Orwell.-Background:...
, but when Cartier joined in January 1954 he demanded that Kneale be allowed to handle the adaptation. This and other complexities of production meant that the April airdate – which would have been about 30 years before the novel was set – had to be postponed.
Cast and crew
The role of Winston SmithWinston Smith
Winston Smith is a fictional character and the protagonist of George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The character was employed by Orwell as an everyman in the setting of the novel, a "central eye ... [the reader] can readily identify with"...
was taken by Peter Cushing
Peter Cushing
Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...
, one of his first major roles. Cartier cast him after having been impressed with his performance in a BBC production of Anastasia
Anastasia
Anastasia is a personal name and the female form of the Greek male name Anastasius/Anastasios meaning "resurrection." The name, and its male counterpart, were often given to Greek children born around December 2 or around Easter during the early days of Christianity. It is the name of several...
the previous year. Cushing went on to become a film star as would his co-star Donald Pleasence
Donald 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...
, who played Syme. Pleasence was the only member of the cast present in the 1956 feature film
1984 (1956 film)
1984 is a 1956 film based on the novel of the same name by George Orwell. This is the first cinema rendition of the story, directed by Michael Anderson, and starring Edmond O'Brien, Donald Pleasence, Jan Sterling, and Michael Redgrave...
adaptation of the story, playing an amalgamation of Syme and Parsons with the latter's name.
Other cast members included Yvonne Mitchell
Yvonne Mitchell
Yvonne Mitchell was an English stage, television and film actor. She was born Yvonne Frances Joseph, but in 1946 changed her name by deed poll to Yvonne Mitchell . Her mother's maiden name was Mitchell. After beginning her acting career in theatre, Mitchell progressed to films in the late 1940s...
, who had starred in the Kneale/Cartier Wuthering Heights, as Julia, and André Morell
André Morell
André Morell was a British actor. He appeared frequently in theatre, film and on television from the 1930s to the 1970s...
as O'Brien. Wilfrid Brambell
Wilfrid Brambell
Henry Wilfrid Brambell was an Irish film and television actor best known for his role in the British television series Steptoe and Son. He also performed alongside The Beatles in their film A Hard Day's Night, playing Paul McCartney's fictional grandfather.- Early life :Brambell was born in Dublin...
, later famous for his roles in Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974. Its theme tune, "Old...
and as Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
's grandfather in A Hard Day's Night
A Hard Day's Night (film)
A Hard Day's Night is a 1964 British black-and-white comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring The Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr—during the height of Beatlemania. It was written by Alun Owen and originally released by United Artists...
, appeared in two roles, as the old man Winston speaks with in the pub and as a prisoner later on when Winston is imprisoned. Nigel Kneale who had briefly acted in the 1940s before turning to scriptwriting, had a small voice-over role as an announcer. The face of Big Brother
Big Brother (1984)
Big Brother is a fictional character in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. He is the enigmatic dictator of Oceania, a totalitarian state taken to its utmost logical consequence – where the ruling Party wields total power for its own sake over the inhabitants.In the society that Orwell...
was Roy Oxley
Roy Oxley
Roy Oxley was a production designer at BBC television who became famous after the BBC chose him to model for a photo to be shown during their adaptation of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty Four....
, a member of the BBC design department whose inclusion was something of an in-joke on the part of the production team.
The composer of the incidental music for the programme was John Hotchkis, who insisted on a larger than usual orchestra to perform the piece. Kneale hated music off disc so the score was conducted live to the performance by Hotchkis from Lime Grove Studio E, next door to where the play was being staged, with Hotchkis and his orchestra following the action on a closed-circuit screen to synchronise their performance.
Production
Until the early 1960s, the vast majority of the BBC's television was performed live. Nonetheless, there was a certain degree of pre-shooting in the form of inserts on film, which could be played into the studio and broadcast as part of the play to cover changes of scene or show location material which would have been impossible to mount live in the studio. Initial filming for Nineteen Eighty-Four took place on 10 November 1954 in Studio B of Alexandra PalaceAlexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace is a building in North London, England. It stands in Alexandra Park, in an area between Hornsey, Muswell Hill and Wood Green...
(even by then all but abandoned as a venue for shooting drama, although it housed the news and later the Open University
Open University
The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...
for the next thirty years), with footage of the Two Minutes' Hate and some of the canteen scenes being filmed there.
Further location shooting took place on 18 November, all exterior scenes featuring Smith's travels in the proletarian sector. Following the filming, rehearsals for the cast began at Mary Ward Settlement, Tavistock Place from 22 November (moving to 60 Paddington Street from 29 November). During these rehearsals, the cast memorised their lines and cues as important in a live television production as in a play.
The cast and crew moved to Studio D at the BBC's Lime Grove Studios
Lime Grove Studios
Lime Grove Studios was a film studio complex built by the Gaumont Film Company in 1915 situated in a street named Lime Grove, inShepherd's Bush, west London, north of Hammersmith and described by Gaumont as "the finest studio in Great Britain and the first building ever put up in this country...
on Saturday 11 December 1954 for a full camera rehearsal and run-through. Rehearsals continued the following day until shortly before transmission, which began at 20:37 Sunday 12 December and continued for the best part of two hours.
Kneale's script was a largely faithful adaptation of the novel as far as was practical. The writer made some small additions, the most notable being the creation of a sequence in which O'Brien observes Julia at work in PornoSec and reads a small segment from one of the erotic novels being written by the machines.
Reaction
The play provoked something of an upset. There were complaints about the "horrific" content (particularly the infamous Room 101Room 101
Room 101 is a place introduced in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. It is a torture chamber in the Ministry of Love in which the Party attempts to subject a prisoner to his or her own worst nightmare, fear or phobia....
scene where Smith is threatened with torture by rats) and the "subversive" nature of the play. Most were worried by the depiction of a totalitarian regime controlling the population's freedom of thought. There was also a report in the Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
newspaper of 42-year-old Beryl Merfin of Herne Bay
Herne Bay, Kent
Herne Bay is a seaside town in Kent, South East England, with a population of 35,188. On the south coast of the Thames Estuary, it is north of Canterbury and east of Whitstable. It neighbours the ancient villages of Herne and Reculver and is part of the City of Canterbury local government district...
collapsing and dying as she watched the production, under the headline "Wife dies as she watches", allegedly from the shock of what she had seen.
Political reaction was divided with several Early day motion
Early day motion
An Early Day Motion , in the Westminster system, is a motion, expressed as a single sentence, tabled by Members of Parliament for debate "on an early day" . Controversial EDMs are not signed by Government Ministers, PPS or the Speaker of the House of Commons and very few are debated on the floor...
s and amendments tabled in the Parliament. One motion, signed by five MPs, deplored "the tendency, evident in recent British Broadcasting Corporation television programmes, notably on Sunday evenings, to pander to sexual and sadistic tastes". An amendment was tabled which sought to make the motion now deplore "the tendency of honourable members to attack the courage and enterprise of the British Broadcasting Corporation in presenting plays and programmes capable of appreciation by adult minds, on Sunday evenings and other occasions." It was signed by five MPs. Another amendment added "but is thankful that the freedom of the individual still permits viewers to switch off and, due to the foresight of her Majesty's Government, will soon permit a switch-over to be made to more appropriate programmes." A second motion signed by six MPs, applauded "the sincere attempts of the B.B.C. to bring home to the British people the logical and soul-destroying consequences of their freedom" and calling attention to the fact that "many of the inhuman practices depicted in the play Nineteen Eighty-Four are already in common use under totalitarian régimes.", Even the Queen
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...
and Prince Philip
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh is the husband of Elizabeth II. He is the United Kingdom's longest-serving consort and the oldest serving spouse of a reigning British monarch....
made it known that they had watched and enjoyed the play.
Amidst objections the BBC went ahead with a live repeat on Thursday 16 December, although the decision went to the Board of Governors
Board of Governors of the BBC
The Board of Governors of the BBC was the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation. It consisted of twelve people who together regulated the BBC and represented the interests of the public. It existed from 1927 until it was replaced by the BBC Trust on 1 January 2007.The governors...
, which narrowly voted in favour of the second performance. This was introduced live on camera by Head of Drama Michael Barry, who had already appeared on the Monday's edition of the topical news programme Panorama
Panorama (TV series)
Panorama is a BBC Television current affairs documentary programme, which was first broadcast in 1953, and is the longest-running public affairs television programme in the world. Panorama has been presented by many well known BBC presenters, including Richard Dimbleby, Robin Day, David Dimbleby...
to defend the production. The seven million viewers who watched the Thursday performance was the largest television audience in the UK since the Coronation
Coronation of the British monarch
The coronation of the British monarch is a ceremony in which the monarch of the United Kingdom is formally crowned and invested with regalia...
the previous year.
When the importance of this production of Nineteen Eighty-Four was realised, it was arranged for the second performance to be telerecorded onto 35mm film, as the first was shown live, seen only by those who were watching. 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...
recording was still in development and television images could only be preserved on film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
by using a special recording apparatus (known as "telerecording" in the UK and "kinescoping
Kinescope
Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...
" in the USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) but was used sparingly in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
for preservation and not for pre-recording. It is thus the second performance that survives in the archives, one of the earliest surviving British television dramas.
Contemporary parodies
Spike MilliganSpike Milligan
Terence Alan Patrick Seán "Spike" Milligan Hon. KBE was a comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor. His early life was spent in India, where he was born, but the majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom. He became an Irish citizen in 1962 after the...
wrote a parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of Nineteen Eighty-Four for The Goon Show
The Goon Show
The Goon Show was a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme...
entitled 1985, broadcast on 4 January 1955. The cast of characters included Worker 846 Winston Seagoon (Harry Secombe
Harry Secombe
Sir Harry Donald Secombe CBE was a Welsh entertainer with a talent for comedy and a noted fine tenor singing voice. He is best known for playing Neddie Seagoon, the central character in the BBC radio comedy series The Goon Show...
), Miss Sfnut (Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
) and Worker 213 Eccles (Milligan); Big Brother was replaced by the Big Brother Corporation (i.e. the BBC) and Goldstein's revolution by Horace Minikstein's Independent Television Army. Jokes included such stabs at the BBC as:
Announcer (Sellers): "Attention BBC workers! Lunch is now being served in the BBC Canteen. Doctors are standing by."
Seagoon is tortured in Room 101 by being forced to listen to clips from Ray's a Laugh, Life with the Lyons
Life With The Lyons
Life with The Lyons was a British radio and television domestic sitcom dating from the 1950s .-Overview:Life with The Lyons was unusual in that it featured a real-life American family...
and the singing of Harry Secombe
Harry Secombe
Sir Harry Donald Secombe CBE was a Welsh entertainer with a talent for comedy and a noted fine tenor singing voice. He is best known for playing Neddie Seagoon, the central character in the BBC radio comedy series The Goon Show...
. Unlike the original script, Seagoon is freed from Room 101 and the ITA overthrows the BBC after a three-day phone call and a £10 bribe. However, when Seagoon hears the ITA's output, he wants the BBC brought back.
The programme was such a success that the script was performed again on 8 February 1955. This was not a repeat – it was a new broadcast of the same script with minor changes. One change was the recorded addition of John Snagge
John Snagge
John Derrick Mordaunt Snagge OBE was a long-time British newsreader and commentator on BBC Radio.Born in Chelsea, London, he was educated at Winchester College and Pembroke College, Oxford, where he obtained a degree in law. He then joined the BBC, taking up the position of assistant director at...
as the BBC announcer previously portrayed by Sellers.
The first version exists in pristine form in the BBC archives, the second performance only as a lower-quality off-air recording which excludes the first five minutes of the programme and both musical interludes, preserving about 18 minutes of material.
Legacy
Although it is fortunate that the second performance survives from an era when little television was preserved, the play is well known only amongst archive television enthusiasts and science fictionScience 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...
fans. It was twenty-three years before it received a repeat broadcast in 1977. Another proposed repeat as part of the BBC's fiftieth anniversary of television celebrations in 1986 was overruled by the producers of the 1984 John Hurt
John Hurt
John Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...
/Richard Burton
Richard Burton
Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...
feature film
Nineteen Eighty-Four (film)
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a 1984 British science fiction film, based upon George Orwell's novel of the same name, following the life of Winston Smith in Oceania, a country run by a totalitarian government...
, who felt that earlier versions would affect income for their film. The BBC was permitted to show the play again in 1994 on BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
, as a tribute to the recently deceased Cartier and again in June 2003 on digital station BBC Four
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
as part of the George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
centenary celebrations.
Kneale's adaptation was produced again by the BBC, with some modifications in 1965. Starring David Buck
David Buck
David Buck was an English actor. His most famous role was in the animated film The Lord of the Rings , for which he provided the voice of Gimli...
, Joseph O'Conor
Joseph O'Conor
Joseph O'Conor was an Anglo-Irish actor and playwright.- Early years :O'Conor was born in Dublin on 14 February 1916, the son of Frances and Daniel O'Conor. His family moved to London, where he attended the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School, the University of London and RADA...
, Jane Merrow
Jane Merrow
Jane Merrow is a British actress, born in London to an English mother and German refugee, who was active in the 1960s and 1970s in England and the US. She is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art...
and Cyril Shaps
Cyril Shaps
-Biography:Shaps was born in Highbury, London; he was of Polish ancestry and his father was a tailor.He was a child broadcaster, providing voices for radio commercials at the age of 12. After grammar school and Army service he trained at RADA and then worked for two years as an announcer, producer...
, it was broadcast in BBC2
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
's Theatre 625
Theatre 625
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...
anthology series as part of a season of Orwell adaptations sub-titled The World of George Orwell, on 28 November 1965. Long believed lost, on 12 September 2010 it was announced in various media outlets that a copy had been located at the American Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
, although an approximately seven minute segment in the middle was unrecoverable from the NTSC
NTSC
NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...
video tape recording. It was recovered amongst a horde of over 80 lost British television episodes dating from 1957 to 1970. In 1965, a radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
adaptation starring future Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
star Patrick Troughton
Patrick Troughton
Patrick George Troughton was an English actor most widely known for his roles in fantasy, science fiction and horror films, particularly in his role as the second incarnation of the Doctor in the long-running British science-fiction television series Doctor Who, which he played from 1966 to 1969,...
was transmitted on BBC radio
BBC Home Service
The BBC Home Service was a British national radio station which broadcast from 1939 until 1967.-Development:Between the 1920s and the outbreak of The Second World War, the BBC had developed two nationwide radio services, the BBC National Programme and the BBC Regional Programme...
.
Scenes from Nineteen Eighty-Four, along with the 1954 adaptation of Animal Farm
Animal Farm (1954 film)
Animal Farm is a 1954 British animated film by Halas and Batchelor, based on the book of the same name by George Orwell. It was the first British animated feature released worldwide, though Handling Ships was the first British animated feature ever made...
, were featured in "The Two Winstons", the final episode of Simon Schama
Simon Schama
Simon Michael Schama, CBE is a British historian and art historian. He is a University Professor of History and Art History at Columbia University. He is best known for writing and hosting the 15-part BBC documentary series A History of Britain...
's program A History of Britain.
Broadcast history
- BBC TelevisionBBC OneBBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
, 12 December 1954, live – not recorded. - BBC Television, 16 December 1954, live – exists as a 35mm film telerecording.
- BBC2BBC TwoBBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
, 28 November 1965, new production of an updated version of the 1954 script. - BBC2, 3 August 1977, repeat of 16 December 1954 telerecording.
- BBC Two, 1 July 1994, repeat of 16 December 1954 telerecording, commemorating the death of Rudolph Cartier.
- BBC FourBBC FourBBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
, 14 June 2003, repeat of 16 December 1954 telerecording.
Books
- Fulton, Roger (1997). The Encyclopedia of TV Science Fiction (2nd ed.). London: Boxtree Books. ISBN 0-7522-1150-1.
- Jacobs, Jason (2000). The Intimate Screen: Early British Television Drama (1st ed.). OxfordOxfordThe city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
: Oxford University PressOxford University PressOxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
. ISBN 0-19-874233-9.
Magazines
- Pixley, Andrew (Jan. 2003). Nineteen Eighty-Four: Big Brother is Watching You. TV ZoneTV ZoneTV Zone was a British magazine published every four weeks by Visual Imagination that covered cult television. Initially, it mostly covered science fiction, but branched out to cover other drama and comedy series.-History:...
, p. 50-54.
See also
- Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1953 American television adaptation
External links
- Nineteen Eighty-Four at the Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
- 1984 (1954 version) at the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
- 1984 (1965 version) at the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
- Analysis and Production History at the 625Online site
- Pictorial Compendium entry from the Mausoleum Club website (PDF file)
- British Film Institute Screen Online