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Dramatic Works of Denis Johnston, Volume 3: Radio and television plays
Publication of the third volume completes the collection of Johnston's work. Volume 3, The Radio and Television Plays, is in many ways the most interesting, not least because Johnston was one of the founding fathers of BBC drama and a major influence on viewers' very perception of what a television play consists of. Also printed in this collection are a number of articles and other prose writings about drama on radio and television. After a very happy pre-war period working for BBC Radio Northern Ireland, he moved to the embryonic television service at Alexandra Palace - he was one of the few to have been temporarily thrown out of television when broadcasting ceased for the duration of hostilities and he became a BBC Radio War Reporter. An interesting feature of the TV scripts is the early development of television script-writing technique, which, as these faithful reproductions from extant typescripts show, grew out of the conventions used in play-scripts.
516 pages, Hardcover
Published April 6, 1982
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May 3, 2025
https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-dramatic-works-of-denis-johnston-vol-3-radio-and-television-plays/
Denis Johnston (1901-1984) has gone out of fashion now; the only play of his that I have seen on stage was “Strange Occurrence on Ireland’s Eye” in the early 1990s. His daughter Jennifer, who died only last month, had much more staying power with the Zeitgeist.
This book is the third of three volumes of his collected plays, devoted to his work for radio and television. It includes a biographical note and some fascinating essays about the early days of TV drama, when the producer could see only one other camera besides the one that was actively recording (or indeed broadcasting) and the art of cutting between shots was unknown. On a related point, it was not at all obvious that reporters doing outside broadcast should simply hold a microphone and speak into it – much fruitless effort went into managing booms in windy conditions, and in other inhospitable situations.
As well as the essays on TV drama, there are seven radio plays here, five TV plays and two theatre scripts that escaped the previous volumes. I got the book ages ago because my great-grandfather, James Stewart, is credited as one of the bit players in the very first of the radio plays, “Lillibulero”, an account of the siege of Derry in 1688-89, broadcast in 1938. One of the actors brought over from England to narrate the story was 19-year-old Jon Pertwee, his first broadcast job. It’s dramatic stuff; I managed to get hold of a recording and it carries itself well, 87 years on. Unfortunately I am not sure which of the voices is my great-grandfather’s. (Jon Pertwee, even at 19, is unmissable.)
It’s the best of the radio plays. The others are a farce about working in radio drama which I have to hope was funnier on air than it is on the page; a biography of Lord Palmerston which can’t quite decide if it is being funny; a play about the German high command in the first world war which tries to be funny about an awful subject; another funny historical about Lady Blessington where it’s clear that Micheál Mac Liammóir stole the show as her camp lover the Comte d’Orsay; a rather mean-spirited portrait of the novelist Amanda McKittrick Ros, who had only recently died; and a dramatisation of Frank O’Connor’s short story “In The Train” which prompted me to go and re-read the original text, which is better.
The TV plays are more satisfying. There’s a strong start with The Parnell Commission, which succeeds in being didactic and dramatic at the same time; a biographical play about Jonathan Swift; a skit set in the early Irish Free State; a satirical take on the IRA’s 1950s Border Campaign; and an effective story about an 1871 murder in County Tyrone.
The two theatre scripts in an appendix are Blind Man’s Bluff, a comedic adaptation of Die Blinde Gottin (The Blind Goddess) by Ernst Toller, which actually has the same punchline as “Strange Occurrence on Ireland’s Eye”, and a four page skit called Riders to the Sidhe, whose title pretty much says it all.
It’s very much work of its time – even the plays set in the nineteenth century have a slightly tired mid twentieth century feel about them. It’s also pretty long, at 516 pages. But I was glad to work through it.
Denis Johnston (1901-1984) has gone out of fashion now; the only play of his that I have seen on stage was “Strange Occurrence on Ireland’s Eye” in the early 1990s. His daughter Jennifer, who died only last month, had much more staying power with the Zeitgeist.
This book is the third of three volumes of his collected plays, devoted to his work for radio and television. It includes a biographical note and some fascinating essays about the early days of TV drama, when the producer could see only one other camera besides the one that was actively recording (or indeed broadcasting) and the art of cutting between shots was unknown. On a related point, it was not at all obvious that reporters doing outside broadcast should simply hold a microphone and speak into it – much fruitless effort went into managing booms in windy conditions, and in other inhospitable situations.
As well as the essays on TV drama, there are seven radio plays here, five TV plays and two theatre scripts that escaped the previous volumes. I got the book ages ago because my great-grandfather, James Stewart, is credited as one of the bit players in the very first of the radio plays, “Lillibulero”, an account of the siege of Derry in 1688-89, broadcast in 1938. One of the actors brought over from England to narrate the story was 19-year-old Jon Pertwee, his first broadcast job. It’s dramatic stuff; I managed to get hold of a recording and it carries itself well, 87 years on. Unfortunately I am not sure which of the voices is my great-grandfather’s. (Jon Pertwee, even at 19, is unmissable.)
It’s the best of the radio plays. The others are a farce about working in radio drama which I have to hope was funnier on air than it is on the page; a biography of Lord Palmerston which can’t quite decide if it is being funny; a play about the German high command in the first world war which tries to be funny about an awful subject; another funny historical about Lady Blessington where it’s clear that Micheál Mac Liammóir stole the show as her camp lover the Comte d’Orsay; a rather mean-spirited portrait of the novelist Amanda McKittrick Ros, who had only recently died; and a dramatisation of Frank O’Connor’s short story “In The Train” which prompted me to go and re-read the original text, which is better.
The TV plays are more satisfying. There’s a strong start with The Parnell Commission, which succeeds in being didactic and dramatic at the same time; a biographical play about Jonathan Swift; a skit set in the early Irish Free State; a satirical take on the IRA’s 1950s Border Campaign; and an effective story about an 1871 murder in County Tyrone.
The two theatre scripts in an appendix are Blind Man’s Bluff, a comedic adaptation of Die Blinde Gottin (The Blind Goddess) by Ernst Toller, which actually has the same punchline as “Strange Occurrence on Ireland’s Eye”, and a four page skit called Riders to the Sidhe, whose title pretty much says it all.
It’s very much work of its time – even the plays set in the nineteenth century have a slightly tired mid twentieth century feel about them. It’s also pretty long, at 516 pages. But I was glad to work through it.
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