New BFI season celebrating 70 years since the birth of modern commercial television in the UK.
From the BFI National Archive:
ASSOCIATED REDIFFUSION: THE UK’S FIRST GROUNDBREAKING TV FRANCHISE celebrates seventy years since the birth of modern commercial television in the UK. Launched on 22 September 1955, Associated-Rediffusion, ITV’s original weekday London television franchise, quickly distinguished itself from the BBC with a heady mixture of highbrow programming and populist fodder, with progressive drama, current affairs, discussion programmes and issue-led documentaries rubbing shoulders with flashy game shows, children’s entertainment and ground-breaking comedies. The company introduced TV advertising to Britain, pioneered broadcasting for schools (the first broadcaster to do so) and in its relatively short life (1955-68) helped create the blueprint for a distinctive British take on commercial television. The Associated-Rediffusion collection is preserved in the BFI National Archive and this month-long celebration at BFI Southbank features a number of titles remastered by the BFI for the season, including the vintage six-part Rediffusion sci-fi serial OBJECT Z (Daphne Shadwell, 1965). Unseen since its first transmission on ITV in 1965, OBJECT Z will be released on BFI Blu-ray on 22 September.
The season also includes two programmes dedicated to comedy featuring comedic legends David Frost, Ronnie Barker, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, The Pythons and David Jason – Ronnie Barker And The Pythons, featuring THE RONNIE BARKER PLAYHOUSE: AH, THERE YOU ARE (Michael Lindsay-Hogg, 1968), remastered by the BFI, AT LAST THE 1948 SHOW (Ian Fordyce, 1967) and DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET (Humphrey Barclay, 1967) (both previously released on BFI DVD), and The Fred Shows featuring A SHOW CALLED FRED (Dick Lester, 1956), SON OF FRED (Dick Lester, 1957) and YES, IT’S THE CATHODE-RAY TUBE SHOW (1967).
Three programmes dedicated to drama will include The Entertaining Mr Orton featuring ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE (Peter Moffatt, 1968), THE ERPINGHAM CAMP (James Ormerod, 1966) and THE GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT (James Ormerod, 1967), in celebration of the 90th anniversary of playwright Joe Orton’s birth, Harold Pinter featuring THE LOVER (Joan Kemp-Welch, 1963) and THE CARETAKER (Marc Miller, 1966), with the latter remastered by the BFI, and The Classics at Associated-Rediffusion featuring key canonical works by Oscar Wilde, A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE (Joan Kemp-Welch, 1960) and Chekhov’s THE THREE SISTERS (Joan Kemp-Welch, 1963).
Elsewhere, a Missing Believed Wiped special will feature the long-lost drama EACH WIND THAT BLOWS (Wilfred Eades, 1960), recovered from the Film is Fabulous initiative and other recently recovered Rediffusion material, with other events exploring THE LOST WORLD OF CHILDREN’S PROGRAMMING and Associated-Rediffusion’s cutting-edge approach to TACKLING RACISM, including THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC (Peter Moffatt, 1967), remastered by the BFI.
CAPTIVE CINEMA will recreate the original programme of TV documentaries presented as the subject of the National Film Theatre’s first TV season in 1957; READY STEADY GO! will feature performances from some of the biggest music starts of the 1960s from surviving episodes of this legendary British music programme; and THE PRECIOUS THINGS – ODDITIES AND RARITIES FROM THE BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE, a special event exploring some of Associated-Rediffusion’s more esoteric programming preserved in the BFI National Archive, will include adverts and magazine programmes such as David Frost’s current affairs led THE FROST PROGRAMME.
NEW ADDITION: Missing Believed Wiped: Associated Rediffusion Special
Sat 27 Sep
Alongside Each Wind That Blows (ITV Playhouse 1960) BFI will also be screening Boyd QC: The Balance of Her Mind (1958) an episode from the famous early ITV legal series starring Michel Denison as Queen’s Counsel Richard Boyd; and Tell Your Own Tale (1956) a children’s series featuring Elizabeth Beresford creating a story on the spot which is illustrated live by Tony Hart.
Plus: On Thursday June 9th 1960, the most ambitious UK television studio production up to that time, the 85-minute fantasy extravaganza An Arabian Night, was being performed live from A-R’s newly built (and colossal) Studio 5. A massive undertaking, the production boasted a cast of 300 and featured ten horses, eight camels, numerous goats, donkeys, snakes and even a bear and an elephant! Narrated by Orson Welles this historic production has sadly not survived, but earlier that evening Studio 5 a programme celebrating the opening of the new studio, took an in depth look at the preparations and rehearsals for the mammoth live-event, and this does survive, providing a fascinating and valuable insight into an otherwise vanished landmark. BFI will screen the full Studio 5 programme.
❉ Click HERE for full listings for ‘ASSOCIATED REDIFFUSION: THE UK’S FIRST GROUNDBREAKING TV FRANCHISE’. OBJECT Z will be released on BFI Blu-ray on 22 September. Pre-order Object Z
❉ News source: Sarah Bemand – PR Manager, BFI Cultural Programme .
❉ We Are Cult is not responsible for the content of this news release.
Brilliant. I was born and lived in Hull and i remember Rediffusion was almost a cable service there (i think it actually was). My Grandma used to have a Rediffusion dial. She could get radio (mostly Jimmy Young) on her television throughout the seventies. We thought this was wonderful.