Screen Plays: Theatre on British Television

Screen Plays is a research study of theatre plays on British television from 1930 to today. Theatre plays were a central element in the schedules of the BBC and ITV until the 1960s, and although in recent years there have been very few such programmes, there are now signs of a renewed interest in the form. The BBC has made new versions of Hamlet and Macbeth and the National Theatre is experimenting with live broadcasts of its productions to cinema screens. Yet there has been comparatively little study and documentation of theatre on television.\n\nScreen Plays aims to index and explore this central component of programming through a freely accessible database of productions (for completion in 2012), screenings and two conferences, and a book (to be published in 2013). The book will introduce formal and historical analysis to the discussion of theatre plays on television, together with a focus on the screen language of television plays. The results of the project will be shared and discussed throughout the research period on a lively public blog.\n\nThe database will include as full cast and production crew details as can be discovered, production documentation and photographs, and - where available -- notes about text adaptation, directorial approach and the like. It was also include details of archival copies where they exist, other archival resources such as extant camera scripts and internal memos, and of the possibility of public access. The project will draw together for the first time detailed documentation of the estimated 1,800 theatre plays of television by authors other than Shakespeare (the details of Shakespeare productions are already available). \n\nThe project seeks to understand the institutional, production and technological contexts for these adaptations within both broadcasting and British theatre. The project will develop a historical poetics studying the principles of television production as they inform the forms and screen languages of television theatre plays in particular historical circumstances. This involves drawing together critical analysis with cultural and institutional histories in broadcasting, theatre and in the funding structures of the arts; media, film and theatre studies; intellectual history and performance studies; and the histories of production technologies and craft practices. \n