It Is Midnight Dr Schweitzer - Introduction

The action takes place at night at Dr. Schweitzers hospital at Lambaréné, in Gabon, French Equatorial Africa. The time: August 2, 1914, the twenty-four hours before the outbreak of the first world war.

Saturday, 21st February 1953 saw the production move into Studio D, Lime Grove for camera rehearsals between 02:00pm and 10:00pm, and then continuing from 01:00pm to 07:00pm the next day, with live transmission starting nearly two hours later that same evening. No recording was made of this initial performance - it was not policy to record initial performances, only the repeat performance should circumstances warrant it.

For the repeat performance, the cast and crew reconvened for rehearsal at Studio D on Thursday 26th between 01:00pm and 05:30pm, breaking for ninety minutes before the live performance later that evening, which was telerecorded as live and now has the honour of being the oldest surviving recorded televisoin drama held at the BBC Film & Television Library at Windmill Road, London.

The script lists the transmission slots for the original and repeat performance as 08:40pm to 10:20pm Sunday, 22nd February and 07:00pm to 08:40pm on Thursday, 26th February.

Possibly due to the overrunning of its original transmission slot by twenty minutes, the repeat performance was shorn of some of the film sequences and - again, possibly (theres no anecdotal evidence to either support or disprove this) some of the staged production also, as the repeat performance is 0625 shorter than the original. The PasB for the repeat performance states that Greta Gynt took part on film, but the shot was not used in the repeat performance. The film length noted was also amended accordingly (470 down from 792). The repeat performance also states that Bachs Toccata in F was used instead of Toccata in D, which was used in the original performance (though this may be a typing error). The length of a number of effects tracks varies between performances as well.


Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV_lhIwq2Xg
Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLigP4WFwkI
Part Three: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA7Fj7xdpQw
Part Four: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq8Rkju55Hk
Part Five: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYgb0kPmIlY
Part Six: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Isp6d9PYSRE
Part Seven: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMwd0QIEluc
Part Eight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbu0zn5eKVk
Part Nine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ze1HUUCQYw
Part Ten: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B8kiEzPCOI

Originally transmitted: 26 February 1953

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