bbc genome beta
TV Tuesday: The Man Who Stroked Cats 1955
Sixty-five years ago, today, the black & white short drama The Man Who Stroked Cats appeared on BBCtv. Based on the short story The Young Man Who Stroked Cats by Morley Roberts, it was adapted and directed by Anthony Pelissier. It starred Tony Britton as the main character Tom Meredith, Josephine Griffin as The Girl, Dorice Fordred as The Daily Woman and John Gatrell as the Doctor.
There are no pictures or video clips associated with this TV short and IMDb has no written plot, summary or synopsis.
1907
Image Credit: Wikipedia & Wikimedia
From Scribd:
[Thomas] Meredith finds himself the recipient of a very mysterious and unexpected gift…[a] Persian kitten in a basket. More mysterious still, the note accompanying it only reads: For the young man who strokes cats.
Thomas is indeed a cat-lover and, is both delighted and intrigued by his new present. But, before long, things take another strange turn. He receives a mysterious anonymous phone call from a dying woman…and this turns out to be the start of a bizarre nightly telephone romance.
From BBC Genome/Radio Times Magazine (Issue 1672/November 25, 1955):
It has been said that the world is divided into two main classes of people […] those who love cats and those who don’t. Among those who do is Tom, a young man who can’t resist giving a friendly word and a quick stroke to every stray he meets on his way to work, with results that even the most superstitious of black-cat lovers couldn’t possibly have foreseen…
Additional Reading:
A Philosophy of Tramping: Morley Roberts (Cynical Reflections)
Audible Audiobook
BBC Genome Beta
HathiTrust Digital Library
Morley Roberts (Wikipedia)
Scribd Audiobook
TV Tuesday: It’s Not Me, It’s Them! 1965
Up until this point, the only TV shows I have been posting were American. I will be branching out a bit. Naturally, the first non-American show I choose doesn’t have a lot of information written about it…or a video. ~Vic
Fifty-five years ago, today, the British comedy mini-series It’s Not Me, It’s Them! debuted on BBC2. Produced by Graeme Muir and written by Donald Churchill (The Hound of the Baskervilles), it starred Churchill, Norman Bird (Fawlty Towers), Jack Bligh (Doctor Who), George Betton (Coronation Street) and Anthony Dawes (Fawlty Towers).
[This was] an early series from the pen of actor/writer Donald Churchill, focused on Albert Curfew, […] a young man unable to hold down a job for any length of time. The title came from a regular saying of Curfew’s every time he lost his job. Churchill (who also starred as well as wrote the scripts) claimed he based the series on a close friend of his. Guest stars in the single season show included Liz Fraser, Bill Kerr and Kate O’Mara.
BBC Genome Beta
BFI
British Comedy Guide
Episodes
Memorable TV
Cosmic-Observation 