Style in British Television Drama

L. Cooke

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137265920
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film Direction & Production

This pioneering book provides detailed analysis of scenes from nine British television dramas produced between 1954 and 2001. Taking dinner table scenes as a recurring motif, the study analyses changes in televisual style with reference to production practices, technology, aesthetic preferences, and social and institutional change.

1

Nineteen Eighty-Four (BBC, 1954)

The BBC Sunday Night Theatre play, Nineteen Eighty-Four (BBC, 1954), is one of the earliest surviving examples of British television drama. The play was broadcast live on Sunday 12 December 1954, at 8.35 pm, and repeated the following Thursday, at 9.35 pm, when the cast reassembled in the BBC’s Alexandra Palace studios for another live transmission.¹ It was this second performance of Nineteen Eighty-Four that was recorded, through the process known as ‘telerecording’, by filming the live transmission of the play from a television monitor as it was broadcast. Telerecording had first been demonstrated in 1947 but there were problems synchronising the film camera with the electronic television signal and it was not until the early 1950s that results were considered suitable for archiving. The earliest surviving recording of a complete British television drama is another Sunday Night Theatre play, It Is Midnight, Dr Schweitzer (tx.26 February 1953) and it is significant that it was plays from this prestigious Sunday evening showcase that were deemed worthy of preservation when other drama productions were not. Even so, only 24 complete productions survive from more than 500 Sunday Night Theatre plays broadcast between 1950 and 1959.

Nineteen Eighty-Four was adapted by Nigel Kneale from the novel by George Orwell and directed by Rudolph Cartier. Kneale and Cartier had collaborated the previous year on the six-part science-fiction serial The Quatermass Experiment (July–August, 1953), an original serial which had a huge impact.² Nineteen Eighty-Four was equally ground-breaking, not least because it included 14 film sequences in its two-hour running time – some of them inserts of just a few seconds, some lasting several minutes – which serve to open out the drama, enabling it to depart from the naturalism of studio drama in quite significant ways.³ For a science-fiction drama, set 30 years in the future at the time of its television production, Cartier believed it was important to make Nineteen Eighty-Four look significantly different to other Sunday Night Theatre plays, which included many adaptations from classic literature and theatre, such as T.S. Eliot’s The Family Reunion (tx.19 and 24 February 1950), Chekhov’s The Seagull (tx.5 and 10 March 1950), Shaw’s Candida (tx.31 December 1950 and 4 January 1951), Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew (tx.20 and 24 April 1952), and Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea (tx.10 and 14 May 1953).

The filmed sequences in Nineteen Eighty-Four were a combination of stock library footage, such as the atomic explosions at the beginning of the play, and sequences pre-filmed by Cartier which were to be telecined into the live broadcast.⁴ As Jason Jacobs notes in his detailed analysis of the play in The Intimate Screen, these film sequences contributed significantly to the cost of the production, making it ‘the most expensive of any drama production at the time’ (Jacobs, 2000: 139). They also contributed significantly to reducing the average shot length in the drama:

The average shot length (ASL) for Nineteen Eighty-Four is around 15 seconds; for the film sequences alone the ASL works out at 6 seconds; for studio/film composite scenes the ASL is around 13 seconds; counting the studio scenes alone, the ASL works out at 17 seconds. It is no surprise, therefore, that film inserts reduce the overall ASL significantly, although this is partly a result of a fast montage scene.

Jacobs (2000: 143)

The overall average shot length (ASL) of ‘around 15 seconds’ can be compared to a more typical ASL (for the time) of 25 seconds in It Is Midnight, Dr Schweitzer, which Cartier also directed, with far fewer film inserts, in February 1953 (see Cooke, 2005a: 85). While the inclusion of filmed inserts to link scenes was not uncommon in early television drama, the inclusion of inserts within scenes, in order to achieve dramatic effects that could not easily be achieved in live drama, was less common. It is the inclusion of such inserts, together with the increased number of film sequences in the whole play, that makes Nineteen Eighty-Four, stylistically, such an innovative production.

Before coming to Britain, Rudolph Cartier had been a screenwriter in Weimar Germany from 1928 to 1933, working on a range of genre films. His preference was for crime dramas and thrillers and he co-directed his first film, a romantic crime drama called Teilnehmer antwortet nicht (Participant Doesn’t Answer), in 1932. Like many of his colleagues, Cartier left Germany following the arrival of Nazism, eventually settling in Britain where he made an unsuccessful attempt to establish himself in the film industry. It was not until 1952, when television was beginning to grow in popularity, that he managed to secure a position with the BBC as a drama producer.⁵ After producing several plays for Sunday Night Theatre Cartier collaborated with Nigel Kneale on The Quatermass Experiment, an original production which, as Tobias Hochscherf observes, gave Cartier the opportunity to bring to British television drama some of the visual techniques that were characteristic of the crime thrillers he had worked on in Germany in the early 1930s:

Capitalising on new technological developments, such as the arrival of the variable lens camera in 1952 which allowed for deeper-focus filming, Cartier gave precedence to television as a visual medium by placing more emphasis on the use of cinematic devices such as elements of mise en scene and cinematography over dialogue. Indeed, by common consent among critics of the period and since, programmes such as the Quatermass serials or Nineteen Eighty-Four incorporate many expressive aesthetics including lighting, performance, décor, costumes and special effects. An auteurist approach, thereby, reveals a striking continuity between Cartier’s early cinema career and his later work for the BBC in the form of recurring tropes and visual techniques that were a signature style of Weimar cinema.

Hochscherf (2010: 408)

The significance of Cartier’s contribution to British television drama has been highlighted by a number of writers, including Jason Jacobs who has discussed how Cartier challenged the ‘intimate’ model of television drama that prevailed until the early 1950s by introducing an element of ‘expansiveness’ into the medium. The intimacy of early television drama derived from the tendency in studio drama to concentrate on dialogue and facial expressions by framing in medium shots (MSs) and CUs, literally bringing the actors close to the television viewer watching on a small screen in the privacy of their home. Cinema, by contrast, was a more ‘expansive’ medium, with its ability to film on location and situate characters in their environment, making use of a greater variety of camera shots, including long shots and techniques such as reverse-angle shooting for conversations which were not available to live television drama.

Schooled in cinematic conventions, and skilled in the creation of narrative tension for his Weimar crime thrillers, Cartier brought this expansiveness to bear on British television drama. At his first meeting with Michael Barry, the Head of BBC Television Drama, Cartier made clear his belief that British television drama needed a fresh approach: ‘When Michael Barry asked my opinion of British television drama, I told him I thought it was terrible. I said that the BBC needed new scripts, a new approach, a whole new spirit, rather than endlessly televising classics like Dickens or familiar London stage plays’ (quoted in Myles and Petley, 1990: 126). The ‘new scripts’ came from writers such as Nigel Kneale and Cartier’s ‘new approach’ was to expand the horizons of television drama by opening it out, incorporating more filmed inserts in order to give it a new dimension. Branching out into the genre of science fiction with The Quatermass Experiment and Nineteen Eighty-Four was part of this new approach, venturing into territory not previously charted in British television drama.

Nineteen Eighty-Four contains 23 studio scenes in its two-hour running time, but Cartier ventured to open out the drama by augmenting these studio scenes with 14 film sequences.⁶ These film inserts are sometimes brief and used for expediency; sometimes they are longer and used to develop the narrative or to convey the dereliction of the post-apocalyptic world of Nineteen Eighty-Four. An example of this comes when, after the early scenes set in the Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith (Peter Cushing) leaves the building and walks home through a desolate landscape, a scene filmed mostly in long shot in order to convey the bleakness of the environment.

Film is used from the beginning to establish the dystopian nature of the drama. After the titles, stock footage of atomic explosions is accompanied by a narrational voiceover setting the scene. The voiceover continues as the camera pans across the ruins of London in 1984 before tilting up to reveal the imposing Ministry of Truth, a skyscraper dominating the devastated landscape.⁷ There is then a mix to a closer shot of Winston Smith looking out of a window, followed by a cut to the interior of the building as Winston turns round, reprimanded by the telescreen for the length of time (‘over eighty seconds’) he has been looking out of the window.⁸ This is the first live studio shot. Winston is ordered to return to his cubicle and does so, but the journey to his cubicle takes the form of a pre-filmed telecine sequence showing him walking along a corridor, encountering O’Brien (Andre Morell), an Inner Party member, on the way. This telecine sequence, which is made up of three shots, has a dual function. On the one hand it is ‘expansive’, portraying the Ministry of Truth as a labyrinth of corridors; on the other hand it has a practical function, giving Peter Cushing time to get to the second studio set, which is, in fact, the same cubicle workspace that appears in the telecine sequence. When Winston arrives at his cubicle, the fact that we have returned to the ‘live’ time of the studio broadcast is betrayed by the shadow of the microphone boom on the wall above Peter Cushing’s head, a not-infrequent occurrence in live studio drama.

The remainder of this scene introduces us to the nature of Winston Smith’s work at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting news reports to conform to Big Brother’s version of history. This sequence comprises a MS of Winston sitting at his cubicle, reading news stories that have been sent to him to ‘correct’, with brief cutaways to show the console where the reports arrive, rolled up in a tube, and the telescreen, when an announcement is made about the impending ‘Two Minutes Hate’. A large portion of this sequence is taken up with a 96-second shot showing Winston revising the first news report. This shot is mainly static, the only camera movement being a tilt up to accommodate the entrance of O’Brien who takes up a position behind Winston, reading the ‘erroneous’ news report over his shoulder. The length and static nature of this shot is not uncommon in live studio drama of this period when narrative information is being conveyed. In this case the information is communicated, initially, through a ‘voiceover’ explaining the reason for the correction which Winston is required to make. The source of this dialogue is not clear, but it is presumably supposed to be coming from the speaker on Winston’s console and is therefore not a voiceover at all but a diegetic voice. Any inclination to read the voiceover as Winston’s subjective reading of the report is discouraged by the fact that the voiceover begins before he has unfolded the report, and that it is clearly not his voice. When O’Brien appears he reads aloud from the report, confirming that Winston is required to change an ‘erroneous’ statement by Big Brother that Eurasian forces would launch an attack in North Africa when, as O’Brien points out, ‘the offensive in fact came in India [ … ] such a careless report must not exist’. Winston dutifully revises the newspaper report and requests a reprint of ‘the entire back number’.

The second news report, which Winston hurriedly deals with before going off to the Two Minutes Hate, has a narrative significance that will shortly be realised in the canteen scene. This involves another ‘routine correction’, this time to a report from the Ministry of Plenty that there will be no reduction to the chocolate ration. Winston revises the report to read: ‘A spokesman for the Ministry of Plenty stated last night that it will be necessary to reduce the chocolate ration to 20 grams in April.’ As we shall see, this will be contradicted by a telescreen announcement in the canteen scene that the chocolate ration is being increased to 20 grams a week, an announcement that reinforces Winston’s scepticism and confirms his disloyalty towards Big Brother.

The next scene is the Two Minutes Hate, a scene in which Ministry of Truth workers are invited to express their hatred towards Emmanuel Goldstein (Arnold Diamond), the revolutionary leader opposed to Big Brother. This scene, in fact, lasts nearly five minutes and appears to be shot entirely on film, although Jacobs suggests it is a mixture of studio and film:

Scene 3, the Two Minutes Hate, demonstrates a more complex use of film and studio. The scene dramatizes the use of Party propaganda, and the mass hysteria it provokes among Party members. Assembled in a hall, they watch on the telescreen a speech by the enemy of the party, Goldstein. As he berates the Party, the audience rise in a shrieking mass to denounce the enemy. As the crowd shout, ‘I hate him!’ a track in to Winston visualizes his ‘thoughtcrime’ and we hear him secretly chanting ‘I hate Big Brother’. This is the moment when the central character reveals his secret treachery.

The transitions from audience to Goldstein, from film to live studio, have to be rapid: they are reacting to his taunts. The cutting between studio shots is very quick, often under a second per shot, as we are given a selection of hysterical denouncements. Here is an example of scene dissection – not simply cutting within a space using multiple studio cameras – but between multiple cameras and film inserts supplied by a telecine machine.

Jacobs (2000: 146)

In his list of filmed material (p.140) Jacobs suggests that the shots of Goldstein and a Eurasian soldier constitute the film inserts within this otherwise studio scene. Yet the rapidity of the cutting as the scene builds to a climax, cutting from a long shot (LS) to a medium close-up (MCU) and then a series of CUs in quick succession, would have been very difficult to achieve in live studio drama and is more likely to have been achieved through filming the entire scene, editing it to achieve the desired montage of images, and then running it as telecine during the live broadcast. Andrew Pixley’s account of the filming schedule seems to confirm this to be the case:

Despite some problems with the sets not being ready, shooting started in Studio B of the BBC’s Alexandra Palace studios on November 10th with the inserts for the Ministry of Truth cubicles, the Two Minutes Hate and of Winston and Syme queuing in the canteen. Next day, the same venue was used for the live-action elements of Emmanuel Goldstein’s speech, some close-ups on the canteen set, and the scary shot of the Eurasion [sic] soldier.

Pixley (2003: 52)

This suggests that the shots of Goldstein and the Eurasian soldier were filmed separately, on 11 November, the day after the rest of the Two Minutes Hate sequence was filmed. The pre-filming of the Two Minutes Hate scene would be more in-keeping with Cartier’s desire to use film in order to expand the nature of television drama. However, the CU of Winston Smith, visualising his ‘thought-crime’, is a more ‘intimate’ moment, showing how adept Cartier was at combining expansiveness and intimacy within a scene. Winston’s subjective utterance, ‘I hate Big Brother’, is further confirmation that this scene is filmed. It would have been far more difficult to achieve this expression of subjectivity in a live studio sequence, but Cartier would no doubt have been familiar with this subjective technique, ubiquitous in film noir, having previously worked on crime thrillers. This is the first use in Nineteen Eighty-Four of a subjective voiceover, used to convey a character’s secret thoughts, and it is significant that it is used for the revelation of Winston Smith’s ‘secret treachery’.⁹

At the end of the Two Minutes Hate, Winston finds himself momentarily alone with a woman who has deliberately chosen to sit next to him. This, we subsequently learn, is Julia (Yvonne Mitchell). At this stage, it is not clear whether her interest in Winston is romantic or otherwise. In the totalitarian world of Big Brother, where everyone is constantly being watched by the telescreen and where levels of paranoia are high, Winston is wary and,...