Why are there no plays on telly

Subject: Why are there no plays on telly
From: autolycus
Date: 07 Dec 05 - 05:19 AM

Mudcatters have been singing the praises of Fawlty Towers (quite right too), and Jeanie mentioned how stagey they were. Further, two of the most popular tv formats are sitcoms and soaps, which are, interestingly, the two most stage-like ones.

So why don't we have plays on telly?

We have films and we have dramas, and the dramas are all actually films - they have best boys, location managers and the other paraphenalia of films, as tho' all tv directors want to be Hollywood people. But where are Mercer, Pinter, Ayckbourne, Sophocles, Adamov, Miller, Mamet, Feydeau, Ibsen, Hare, Shaw, Griffiths, Kane andall the other playwrights living and not-so-living.

I used to love watching them yonks ago. One of the greatest pluses was their unpredictability as compared especially with films, another was the greater freedom, a third the sheer imagination.

Plays used to be expensive to put on, and I can't believe films are cheap. So why no plays?

Subject: RE: Why are there no plays on telly
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 07 Dec 05 - 05:22 AM

I take it you haven't been watching the Shakespeare productions that have been on recently

Subject: RE: Why are there no plays on telly
From: autolycus
Date: 07 Dec 05 - 05:22 AM

Sorry I got this in the wrong half. How do I transfer it?

Subject: RE: Why are there no plays on telly
From: autolycus
Date: 07 Dec 05 - 05:40 AM

Thanks for quick responseGuest Raggytash.

I rather avoided those, partly because they didn't look like Shakespeare but updated Shakespeare (Beethoven doesn't get the same treatment, partly 'cos I got the impression that they were still films not done as plays.

Do I transfer this by preceding title with BS?

Subject: RE: Why are there no plays on telly
From: Jeanie
Date: 07 Dec 05 - 06:14 AM

I have been thinking the same thing, Autolycus. There used to be a huge variety of plays on TV (I remember a fabulous series many years ago, for instance, called "Talking to a Stranger"). Certainly there are items on TV which are classified as "TV dramas", but to my mind they are not the same as plays. To me, a play has no filmed outdoor shots. There is a directness and immediacy about a TV play that is missing in "TV dramas" (I'm thinking here of programmes like "Doc Martin", "Spooks" etc.) I did not classify the recent BBC Shakespeare series as "plays" for that very reason. They were films.

BBC Radio (and its excellent Radio Drama Company) still has a flourishing output of plays every week. You mentioned Pinter: a couple of months ago they broadcast a superb production of "Betrayal". I agree, it's a pity we don't see more of this material on TV. Maybe we will, as all those digital channels expand ?

The other thing I wish TV showed more often are recordings of stage musicals. There was a wonderful recording of the stage performance of "Kiss Me Kate" on last Christmas. I've just been scouring the Christmas Radio Times to see if there would be another offering this year. (They showed the National Theatre's production of Oklahoma a few Christmases ago, too). Sadly, nothing like that this year...and, as far as could see, no stage pantomime either.

It's a great pity.

- jeanie

Subject: RE: Why are there no plays on telly
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 07 Dec 05 - 06:30 AM

Hi Autolycus

I thought the adaptions were brilliant, at school I always struggled (as many did) with Shakespeare, the one's I have watched were a great insight and the cameo roles of quite well known figures was a joy.
Anything that brings classics to a wider audience has to be viewed as a positive. So many people, myself included, know little of our wonderful literary heritage and it is grand to see them performed in such a way as to be accessible.

Cheers

Raggy

Subject: RE: Why are there no plays on telly
From: Paul Burke
Date: 07 Dec 05 - 06:59 AM

They used to do one every week; the Wednesday Play. But that was when BBC2 was for "serious" programs.

Subject: RE: Why are there no plays on telly
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 07 Dec 05 - 07:06 AM

Agreed. BBC4 is now the only channel left if you want to watch something more than half-witted.

Subject: RE: Why are there no plays on telly
From: Rapparee
Date: 07 Dec 05 - 09:50 AM

Because you can do more "staging" with a taped or filmed program than you can with a live performance. You can work in more spectacle, and folks today want spectacle just as they did at the time that Aristotle wrote the "Poetics" or Shakespeare wrote to the groundlings. Because you can get tighter shots and more dramatic effect in filming or taping and subsequent editing than you can when the whole stage is always in view.

This is not a defense, just an explanation.

Subject: RE: Why are there no plays on telly
From: autolycus
Date: 07 Dec 05 - 06:41 PM

Glad, Jeanie, that someone else feels like that, and , paul, lack of seriousness is part of it.

And, Raggy, all for thew Bard reaching a larger audience, and it'd be good to have the real thing i.e.Shakespear, as well as adaptions, i.e. not- so Shakespeare.

I wonder if Catters are under about 45 and don't remember Plays on tv.

Thewre are loads of other names - Wilde, Albee, Anouilh, Ionesco, Shaw, Aristophanes, and has anyone else seen the "productions" of the Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townwomen's Guild Dramatic Society? Their Macbeth is the funniest play I've ever seen. Those names are just a sprinkling of famous names. Plays are a wonderful treasury.

Subject: RE: Why are there no plays on telly
From: M.Ted
Date: 07 Dec 05 - 09:09 PM

I loved the National Theatre's "Oklahoma" so much that I bought the DVD--til I saw their production, I believed it was a show that was dated beyond hope of revival--even still, it was really a film, shot on a soundstage, not a stage play--

Rapaire is right on the technical aspects--the eyes of the contemporary television audience are accustomed to production values, and you can't get those by shooting a staged play, "Live"--another technical factor is time: a live play can speed up or slow down, depending on how energetic the actors are--so it's easier to edit it to the length you want, than to flash hand signs to actors--

The main problem with plays is that, by their nature, they demand more from the audience--for most people, TV is a neutral medium, meaning that you don't have to "engage" to watch it--so plays aren't going to be something that a much of the audience is going to want to deal with--

Subject: RE: Why are there no plays on telly
From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River
Date: 07 Dec 05 - 09:29 PM

Okay, like,...I think you got the cart behind the horse here, eh?

the real question is: why ain't there televisions on at plays, eh? Ya know? Plays are soooo boring. They ougyhta have so9me of them TV's up liike they do in bars and restaruants so you don't, like, get so flippin' bored while you watch the play. Know what I mean?

I would go to plays if they had Television...and beer. And maybe naked girls. Yeah, for sure. Then I would. Somebody oughta tell the people who put on plays, man. They could, like, have a goin' business and be in the money inst3eada half starvin'!

You'd have ta be an idiot to go for a career doin' plays. Nobody I know goes to see 'em. Never. That speaks fer itself, eh?

- BDiBR

Subject: RE: Why are there no plays on telly
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Dec 05 - 06:55 AM

Shakespeare on the tv is crap -always has been, always will be.

what's the point of summoning up a battle scene in words if you can show a film.

Shakespeare has to be done on the stage. Occasionally you get decent films, but none of them have the power of a stage production.

Granted there are rubbish productions, but in skilled hands Shakespeare on stage is unbeatable.

mercer, pinter, the early clive exton, colin welland, dennis potter - they wrote primarilly for the tv play as an artform...they were bloody fantastic. probably the best thing England did culturally since the war.

why would you need a play when you've got neighbours, and eastenders....alright?...sorted?....

Subject: RE: Why are there no plays on telly
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 08 Dec 05 - 12:27 PM

Democracy. People vote with their remote controls. chacun à son goût

Hands up ... who has never seen a live play in a real theatre?

Subject: RE: Why are there no plays on telly
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 08 Dec 05 - 12:32 PM

Me....   Many many many times....

Usually from the stage!

Subject: RE: Why are there no plays on telly
From: Kaleea
Date: 08 Dec 05 - 07:47 PM

Support your local Theatre!

Subject: RE: Why are there no plays on telly
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Dec 05 - 11:19 PM

Hey, I've been in 3 or 4 plays. They're a very real experience...a whole lot realer than a TV drama. Trust me. When you act in a play, the story unfolds chronologically, and you live it. When you act for a film, you do it in chopped up little bits in no particular order whatsoever. No comparison. Plays are a living art form. Films are the dead, synthetic imitation of a living art form...although...there are some things films are perfect for, and rightly so.

The problem with 'telly' is that it's full of commercial interruptions. Very annoying. When you go to see a play, you do not have to watch commercials every five minutes. That's why I gave up on TV. It's just an excuse to sell product (and the product is almost never one I want to hear about anyway). Same goes for commercial radio...a wasteland in search of a quick sale. The real opiate of today's Ist World masses is not religion, it's mass consumerism.

Subject: RE: Why are there no plays on telly
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Dec 05 - 12:52 AM

I've seen some excellent plays on television--but they were all many years ago. PBS used to play some good ones. When you couldn't afford to go to the theater, it was better than nothing. But I don't think there have been any live plays on PBS or anyplace else for a long time now. Too bad.

SRS

Subject: RE: Why are there no plays on telly
From: autolycus
Date: 09 Dec 05 - 04:55 PM

I didn't mean filmed stage plays. The plays that have been on tv were played out usually live, tho' they could be taped. They were just constrained by being in one or two sets.

And the big point is that they looked a lot like, for example, Friends, Cheers, East Enders, with the camera moving round the actors - not the same at all as showing a stage play.
Here in the UK, we could see plays without commercial breaks, just as we can do films. It's called the BBC.

Being in a play is great. So is watching one. Those who want soaps, films etc. have them aplenty.

It's just that it would bwe nice to have the choice in this area too. Surely increasing the variety of what's availble is all to the good.

Subject: RE: Why are there no plays on telly
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Dec 05 - 06:52 PM

They were all subversive. the mary whitehouse brigade was complainining every single week about the wednesday play and armchair theatre. they seem to have won and vanquished good tv drama.