If you lie on the ground in somebody's arms, you'll probably swallow some of their history

[sovay]

I feel I must not have known there was a 1950 television broadcast of nearly the composite original cast of The Lady's Not for Burning or I would have complained vociferously about the BBC's failure to preserve it for posterity, specifically me.

I discovered its existence through its ringer of an Alizon, who appears in a 1973 production of Richard Hughes' Danger (1924), which despite loving two of its author's novels I had never heard of before tonight. It seems not actually to have been the first radio play commissioned and produced by the BBC, although canonized as such and influential. I am fascinated by the diegetic justification of the blacked-out mine for the audio-only presentation, like the epistolary frame of a weird tale—like the conceit of hearing only what comes over the telephone wires of Lucille Fletcher's Sorry, Wrong Number (1943). It is clever for the climax to depend on something which the audience has to be told about to understand has happened.

I came back from clearing the snow and frozen crust and slept on my mother's couch as if stunned. I hear from spatch that Hestia has been imitating the action of a kaiju while he watches Godzilla films. It is reassuring to be able to do something extensively physical, but I would like to be doing something that involves thinking. Everything still feels dislocated, me included.

Comments

[pameladean]

Allow me to join you in protesting vociferously. For shame, BBC!

I had to look up kaiju, but I am not surprised that Hestia is imitating one, since she is redoubtable.

P.

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, that seems like an interesting rabbit hole you have fallen down there! (What started you off?) I hadn't heard about Danger (or the neglected female writers), but that does sound good.

(And I hadn't realised that they had actually got some of the full RT magazines up there!)

It is reassuring to be able to do something extensively physical, but I would like to be doing something that involves thinking. Everything still feels dislocated, me included.

I hope that today was better balanced, or, idk, at least included another absorbing rabbit hole. ♥

[alexxkay]

Drat those English! You'd think they'd have learned after Shakespeare et al that there is no such thing as disposable theatre.

At least the 1974 production (my wife's favorite) remains extant.

[asakiyume]

Good going, Hestia! I look forward to learning what edifices you level!

Glad you were able to move your body a bit; hope you're able to re-locate soon.