Catching up

As you may have noticed, we have not been quite as active on the blog as before. In part this is because my colleague Amanda Wrigley has started her maternity leave – and indeed has given birth to Matilda and Dylan. Many congratulations to Amanda and her husband Dez! (Not that this will mean that we will be denied Amanda’s invaluable writings here in the coming months.)

Meanwhile, we are about to embark on our new season of screenings at BFI Southbank. The six programmes of Classics on TV: Jacobean tragedy on the small screen begin on 25 March with the showing of a 1965 Granada adaptation of Thomas Middleton’s Women Beware Women starring Diana Rigg. Dame Diana Rigg will join RSC Artistic Director Gregory Doran for a discussion after the screening about Jacobean drama, theatre and television. There are still some seats left and general booking is open either via the website or by telephoning the box office on 020 7928 3232.

I will be blogging each of the productions in advance, and I have planned a special series of posts on Hamlet at Elsinore (which is showing at BFI Southbank on Easter Monday, 1 April). I also very much hope that those who go to one or more of the screenings will share their thoughts afterwards through the blog.

While we have not been as posting here as assiduously as before, a number of recent articles and posts elsewhere are directly related to the concerns of Screen Plays, so do take a look.

• Beyond the fourth wall – Experiments in TV drama: Samuel Beckett’s plays on BBC TV: a fascinating post by Professor Jonathan Bignell about the commissioning and screening by the BBC of plays by Samuel Beckett.

• What goes around, comes around… Sky Arts and UK TV drama history: Professor Stephen Lacey (who is a much-valued member of our Advisory Board) writes on the Critical Studies in Television blog about the Sky Arts anthology series of single studio dramas, Playhouse Presents…

• On television, theatre and theatre on television: my blog post for Illuminations about the neglect of theatre plays and performances by the BBC and the other broadcasters.

• Newly unearthed ITV play could be first ever gay television drama: a fascinating Guardian article by Mark Brown about the rediscovery of the 1959 drama South, adapted by Gerald Savory from the stage play Sud (1953), written in French by Julien Green.