Department of Media Arts Royal Holloway, University of London
Research Team Professor John Hill (Principal-Investigator) Dr Lez Cooke (Co-Investigator) Dr Billy Smart (Research Assistant)
to uncover a 'lost' history of UK television drama BBC: ITV: particular focus on regional drama production
to produce an alternative history of television drama in the UK that will: add to our knowledge of television history challenge ideas concerning the television drama 'canon‘ encourage awareness of the regional diversity of television drama
collaborate with regional and national archives to establish the existence and availability of regionally-produced dramas make this drama better-known and more accessible through screenings and publications record interviews with selected production personnel who worked on 'forgotten' dramas
(Any or all of the following may apply) Lost or not recorded (e.g. live drama) Extant but unavailable (e.g. no DVD release) Not repeated since first transmission Lack of critical attention (at the time or since) Absent from histories of TV drama (not part of the ‘canon’)
Symposium on Forgotten TV Drama in Belfast (February 2014) Season of ‘Forgotten Drama’ at BFI Southbank (February 2015) Conference: Television Drama: the Forgotten, the Lost and the Neglected (Royal Holloway, April 2015) Special Issue of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television Book on The History of Forgotten Television Drama in the UK Various articles and book chapters
Second City Firsts: Early to Bed (BBC2, 1975) + Jack Flea’s Birthday Celebration (BBC2, 1976) Anastasia (BBC, 1953) Johnson Over Jordan (BBC2, 1965) The Logic Game (BBC2, 1965) + Shotgun (BBC2, 1966) Pity About the Abbey (BBC2, 1965) + The Golden Road (ITV, 1973) The Common (BBC2, 1973)
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