Producing classics on outside broadcast in the 1970s: The Little Minister (1975), As You Like It (1978) and Henry VIII (1979)

Smart, B. (2015) Producing classics on outside broadcast in the 1970s: The Little Minister (1975), As You Like It (1978) and Henry VIII (1979). Critical Studies in Television, 10 (3). pp. 67-82. ISSN 1749-6020 doi: 10.7227/CST.10.3.6

Abstract/Summary

Cedric Messina, producer of Play of the Month (1967-77), the BBC Television Shakespeare (1978-80), and others, was responsible for the majority of BBC television adaptations of theatrical plays for over twenty years. This article examines three Messina Outside Broadcast (OB) productions, The Little Minister (1975), As You Like It (1978) and Henry VIII (1979), to explain the practice and significance of OB drama. Messina believed that recording in romantic real-life locations (castles, forests, stately homes) could inspire visual pleasure for viewers, an approach based upon the simultaneous, but perhaps contradictory, representation of the decorative/spectacular, and the (‘newsreel’/’documentary’) real.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/71898
Identification Number/DOI	10.7227/CST.10.3.6
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Arts and Communication Design > Film, Theatre & Television
Publisher	Manchester University Press
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