The Screen Plays: Theatre Plays on British Television website represents the various outcomes of an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project, which was based in the School of Media, Arts and Design at the University of Westminster from June 2011 to May 2015. The project people were John Wyver and Amanda Wrigley (and click through for the Advisory Board):

• John Wyver, the principal investigator on the project, is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Westminster, and a writer and producer with Illuminations. Stage plays that he has produced for television include Hamlet, 2009 and Macbeth, 2010.
• The Research Fellow on the project was Dr Amanda Wrigley of the University of Westminster, a cultural historian who works on British radio and television programmes which adapt and create dramatic and literary forms.

The Screen Plays project is concerned with all plays written for the theatre that have been produced for British television since 1930. It documents, explores and contextualizes the history of more than 3,000 television productions, encompassing both studio-based work and collaborations with theatre companies.

This website offers five major thematic ‘ways in’ to this rich and fascinating aspect of British cultural history: Greek drama; Shakespeare; Jacobean tragedy; Edwardian drama; and American plays. The website also offers a wealth of information on the work of other playwrights and some related miscellaneous topics.

It is now possible to search the data behind this research via Screen Plays: The Theatre Plays on British Television Database, which is hosted by the BUFVC. In its current ’soft launch’ version the database features comprehensive records for theatre plays from television’s first thirty years, from 1936 to 1965, the period when over two-thirds of the more than 3,000 televised theatre plays were transmitted on BBC and ITV. The resource will embrace all productions to date by summer 2016.

Click through the links to read more about the research project’s four Classics on TV seasons of screenings at BFI Southbank (and, in some cases, touring beyond); our two major academics conferences in 2012 and 2015; and the talks we have given over the life of the project.