Our usual Wednesday stream is on hiatus, so here’s a very short notice emergency back-up stream…
4.30: Ludwig – “Arrival” and “Hiccups”
4.38: Pipkins – The Glove Puppet
4.54: ITV Schools – Good Health , “Dr Sweet Tooth”
5.10: How Used To Live – 1916, “Called Up”
5.30: Pinny’s House
5.35: BraveStarr – “The Day The Town Was Taken”
5.50: Dodgem – Episode 1
6.15: The Innes Book Of Records – Series 1, Episode 1
6.40: Armchair Theatre – “A Magnum For Schneider”
7.35: Performance – “Nona” (1991)
Les Dawson follows in the pantomime dame tradition by playing an outrageous old woman in the British premiere of a play by the leading Argentinian dramatist Roberto Cossa. Set in post-Falklands Buenos Aires – though the cast adopt Lancashire accents – it is a black farce about a family’s desperate struggle to survive the effects of galloping inflation while trying to satisfy the voracious appetite of their selfish grandmother. The part has been traditionally associated with a leading male comic in productions around the world. This new adaptation is by Michael Hastings.
8.55: Not I (1973)
Not I is a short dramatic monologue written in 1972 (20 March to 1 April) by Samuel Beckett which was premiered at the “Samuel Beckett Festival” by the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center, New York (22 November 1972).
Not I takes place in a pitch-black space illuminated only by a single beam of light. This spotlight fixes on an actress’s mouth about eight feet above the stage,[1] everything else being blacked out and, in early performances, illuminates the shadowy figure of the Auditor who makes four increasingly ineffectual movements “of helpless compassion” during brief breaks in the monologue where Mouth appears to be listening to some inner voice unheard by the audience.
Arguably the definitive performance of the piece albeit in a completely different medium from which it was originally intended. Not I on its own was re-broadcast on 7 February 1990. The British Film Institute database says this is a film of the 1973 Royal Court Theatre performance above but it appears this was actually filmed on 13 February 1975 with Billie Whitelaw reprising the role. In this production the Auditor is absent and the camera stays fixed on her mouth, everything else being blacked out with makeup.
9.10: Film: Waiting For Godot (2001)
Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, engage in a variety of discussions and encounters while awaiting Godot, who never arrives.
