WELCOME BLASTS FROM THE PAST ON EMI
An EMI Treasure Trove opened.
Rod Dungate passes on details of a welcome initiative from EMI on their Classics for Pleasure label.
EMI has launched an intriguing set of plays. Among them are Laurence Oliver playing Archie Rice in the original The Entertainer by John Osborne. Also a recording of the original Birthday Party by Harold Pinter.
Here are some details from EMI’s press release. I’m hoping to review the plays a bit later when I’ve had chance to listen to them. But in case you can’t wait, here are the details . . .
Long-Lost Live Recordings of Plays by John Osborne and Harold Pinter
On 2 October 2006, the UK’s best-loved budget label, Classics for Pleasure, releases on CD and digital download six titles in its new Classic Drama series. They are headed up by two sensational finds in the EMI archives.
The first is an unpublished Columbia recording of the first production of The Entertainer by John Osborne, taped live at the Palace Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, on 17 September 1957. It stars Laurence Olivier, for whom the title-role of Archie Rice was written and who went on to star in the 1960 film of the play. The production had transferred from the Royal Court to the Palace just a week before, with Joan Plowright, soon to be Olivier’s third wife, replacing Dorothy Tutin as Jean Rice.
The second discovery resulted from a conversation with EMI’s engineer in 1957, Christopher Parker. He and Sir George had also recorded, for Parlophone, The Caretaker by Harold Pinter. This time we have the complete original cast (Alan Bates, Donald Pleasence and Peter Woodthorpe), caught at the Duchess Theatre, Aldwych, London, on 4 August 1960 following the play’s transfer from the Arts Theatre in May.
The remaining titles are all first-time CD transfers of studio recordings that initially appeared on LP in the mid-1950s. Robert Donat has unique authority as Thomas Becket in the Old Vic’s 1953 revival of T. S. Eliot’s verse drama Murder in the Cathedral; while a galaxy of stars (the chief are listed below) was assembled at Abbey Road for Sheridan’s brilliant comedy The School for Scandal.
In that galaxy was the incomparable Edith Evans, whose classic Lady Bracknell (The
Importance of Being Earnest) was preserved – alongside Gielgud’s equally classic
Jack Worthing – in 1953, the year Gielgud was knighted. Finally, a single CD
demonstrates Evans’s matchless prowess in Restoration comedy, not least as the celebrated Mrs Malaprop. The critic Alastair Macaulay has said of this album that ‘there is no better recorded evidence of genius in acting’.
Illustrated booklets have extensive notes and synopses by Alastair Macaulay, chief drama critic of the Financial Times (and by Carole Woddis for Murder in the Cathedral).
John Osborne: The Entertainer
Sir Laurence Olivier ∙ Joan Plowright
George Relph ∙ Brenda de Banzie
Previously unpublished live recording from the Palace Theatre, London, 1957
0946 3 70536 2 1 / dig audio 0946 3 70536 5 2 (2CD)
Harold Pinter: The Caretaker
Alan Bates ∙ Donald Pleasence ∙ Peter Woodthorpe
Previously unpublished live recording from the Duchess Theatre, London, 1960
0946 3 70542 2 2 / 0946 3 70542 5 3 (2CD)
T. S. Eliot: Murder in the Cathedral
Robert Donat
in the 1953 Old Vic production by Robert Helpmann
0946 3 70528 2 2 / 0946 3 70528 5 3 (2CD)
Richard Brinsley Sheridan: The School for Scandal
cast includes
Cecil Parker ∙ Baliol Holloway ∙ Harry Andrews
Alec Clunes ∙ Claire Bloom ∙ Dame Edith Evans
0946 3 70552 2 9 / 0946 3 70552 5 0 (2CD)
Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest
Sir John Gielgud ∙ Dame Edith Evans
Roland Culver, Celia Johnson, Pamela Brown, Jean Cadell, Aubrey Mather
Produced by Sir John Gielgud
0946 3 70557 2 4 / 0946 3 70557 5 5 (2CD)
An 18th-Century Comedy Album
Scenes from
The Way of the World ∙ The Beaux’ Stratagem ∙ The Rivals ∙ The School for Scandal
Dame Edith Evans
Sir John Gielgud, Pauline Jameson, Ralph Truman, Miles Malleson, Anthony Quayle and others
0946 3 70562 2 6 / 0946 3 70562 5 7 (1CD)
2006-09-15 19:44:55