‘Constipated, studio-bound, wall-confined, rigid’: The Influence of British Actors’ Equity on BBC Television Drama, 1948–72

Abstract

Critical orthodoxies around the multi-camera television studio characterise it as a ‘theatrical’ space, driven by dialogue and performance. Troy Kennedy Martin (1964) decried television drama's essential naturalism, demanding a more filmic form of drama in a polemic which has strongly influenced critical thinking on multi-camera studio television. Caughie (2000) suggests that Armchair Theatre created a ‘space for acting’, but in the main, the studio is seen as a constraining and interiorising dramatic site, in thrall to liveness and reliant on theatrical unities. This article draws on research at the BBC Written Archives to extend current understanding of the determinants working upon multi-camera, studio television up to and into the 1970s. It shows how the actors’ union Equity insisted on preserving continuous performance as a specific feature of television drama. While other determinants (technical, institutional and economic) of course come into play, Equity's insistence on ‘theatrical’ continuous performance inhibited the narrative and aesthetic possibilities of studio drama, resisted the move to rehearse-record studio taping, and delayed the turn to all-film drama production at the BBC. Drawing on key productions which acted as contentious ‘test cases’ for negotiations, this article explores tensions between institutional and artistic determinants, complicating technologically determinist accounts to argue for a greater understanding of the role of Equity in dictating material conditions of production in the multi-camera studio paradigm.

Vanity Fair and the contradictions of colour

“…Tucker and producer David Conroy held script conferences to map out the structure of the serial, identifying problems that colour might pose, in the studio and on location and in the matching of the two. An agreement between the BBC and the actors' union Equity limited the use of filmed inserts in programmes because Equity wanted to protect actors' professional and economic interests in continuous performance (McNaughton, 2014), so most of the drama had to be shot in the studio. There were just three days of filming (11-13 October 1967) in which all exteriors were shot, and such scenes were very difficult to match with the colours in scenes shot, weeks later, in a studio with electronic cameras (BBC, 1966).…”

The Spaces ofThe Wednesday Play(BBC TV 1964–1970): Production, Technology and Style

“…As Douglas McNaughton has pointed out, in 1955 the actors' union Equity agreed with the Television Film Producers Association that independent production companies could make television films for British and overseas customers, thus opening the way to an international television trade not dependent on video standards conversion. 36 The BBC attempted to conclude similar agreements but was prevented from doing so because Equity made it a requirement that such television films would only employ Equity members as performers. While BBC plays were occasionally telerecorded, the technique was not intended to allow multiple repeat broadcasts in Britain; contracts employing performers and production staff normally permitted only two showings of any particular play.…”