ruth dunning

Accent on age

Although in ABC Television’s activities the accent has always been on youth, the elderly are not forgotten, and three Armchair Theatre playwrights last season reminded viewers that the root of the problem of dealing with the aged usually lies in ourselves

John Timbers

Alun Owen’s second play, After the Funeral, directed by William Kotcheff, centred round a fine old Welshman, Charles Carson and his grandson, Hugh David left, who wanted the old man to provide a genuine Welsh background for his home

Stanley Mann’s Fifth Floor People, directed by John Moxey, showed an old couple, Elizabeth Begley and J. G. Devlin, whose miserable existence in a dingy attic hung like a cloud over the future of their young neighbour downstairs, Billie Whitelaw

Bedford Studios

One of the most important playwrights of 1960 has been Clive Exton, whose first play under an ABC contract was Where I Live.

William Kotcheff directed this moving story of a housewife, Ruth Dunning, whose jealousy of her brother and sister-in-law, Lloyd Lamble and Madge Ryan, led her to destroy her own self-respect when she forced them to take their turn at housing her old father, Paul Curran

Building a reputation

Developing young talent has always been an objective of ABC Television. The current Drama season brought stardom to Ian Hendry, a young actor who gave a fine performance last Spring in Return to Base, an episode of Inside Story, the hour-long drama series about life in a block of flats which Ted Willis edited for Sunday afternoon viewing. During the Summer Ian Hendry added to his reputation with John Gregson in Flight from Treason; ABC then gave him his own series with the title role in Police Surgeon, edited by Julian Bond.

Right Ian Hendry is seen in Inside Story with Margaret Anderson and Ruth Dunning; below he investigates a car smash as Dr Geoffrey Brent, Police Surgeon

Warwick Bedford
from TRANSDIFFUSION
1960 // THIS IS TRANSDIFFUSION