Television

The chronology of Hugh Leonard’s work for television, set out below, (IMDb is the primary source) illustrates his prodigious output, especially in the 1960s and early 1970s. Of particular significance, we can single out: 

Insurrection – 1966, a 50th anniversary, eight part, day by day, account of the Irish 1916 Easter Rising. The dramatisation of events is in the form of television reportage imagined as if television had existed at the time.

Silent Song – Hugh Leonard’s dramatisation of a Frank O’Connor short story – and the first Irish winner of the Prix Italia for television. 

It is noted below that Leonard won a Jacob’s Television Award for his adaptations of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.  He would have personally added his dramatisation of Great Expectations, of which novel he was particularly fond and he adapted it for the stage in the 1990s. DVDs of some still available including Wuthering Heights – for example from the Irish Film Institute. 

Leonard had a particular fondness for some of his source material and special mentions should go to Mollie Keane’s Good Behaviour, Norman Collins’ London Belongs To Me and, of course, Strumpet City by James Plunkett.

The work of Hugh Leonard holds a mirror to the early years of broadcasting, especially in Britain.  This includes the phenomenon of the one-off television play. Anthology series of plays, of either 60 or 30 minutes duration, would be broadcast weekly with different screenwriters contributing single plays.  The most famous of these series was perhaps Armchair Theatre which ran from 1956 to 1974. The Wednesday Play (BBC) ran for four seasons and broadcast Silent Song. Thirty Minute Theatre (ITV) was another popular series.  We can see Hugh Leonard contributing copiously to these throughout the 1960s.

We can also see the phenomenon of the serialised classic novel which was essential Sunday tea-time viewing in the late 1960s and early ‘70s.  Hugh Leonard was the BBC’s adapter of choice : Dickens, Emily Bronte, Conan Doyle, for family viewing but also Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Wilkie Collins, and many more for later slots. This was all a big deal when there were only three British TV channels (BBCs 1 and 2 and ITV) and one Irish channel, RTE, and explains Leonard’s Irish Jacob’s Television Award in 1969 for his work for the BBC in adapting Nicholas Nickleby and Wuthering Heights.

Television / theatre plays

Hugh Leonard turned several of his short TV plays into one act stage plays and these include The Late Arrival of the Incoming Aircraft, A Time of Wolves and Tigers and A View from the Obelisk.  Conversely, several of his own plays were adapted by him for the small screen and these include A Walk on the Water, Stephen D, The Dead, and A Life.  Hugh Leonard’s play All The Nice People, subsequently re-titled Mick and Mick, was based on his television play Great Big Blonde. Or possibly the other way round.

Chronology of the television work of Hugh Leonard, 1960 – 1993

• ITV Play of the Week: “A Leap in the Dark” – from the author’s own play, 1960
• Family Solicitor: “House in Order”, 1961
• ITV Television Playhouse: “A Walk on the Water ” – from the author’s own play, 1961
• Armchair Theatre: “The Irish Boys”, 1962
• ITV Play of the Week: “Misalliance” adaptation of Shaw, 1962
• Saki: 8 episodes dramatisations of stories by HH Munro, 1962
• Festival: Stephen D, from the author’s stage dramatisation of works of James Joyce, 1963
• Armchair Theatre: “A Kind of Kingdom”, 1963
• The Verdict is Yours: “Regina v Curry” ,1963
• Maupassant: 10 episodes, dramatisations of short stories, 1963
• Jezebel ex UK: “Bitter Lemon in Biscay” 1963
• Story Parade: “A Triple Irish”, 1964
• ITV Play of the Week: The Rose Tattoo adaptation of Tennessee Williams, 1964
• ITV Play of the Week: Camino Real, adaptation of Tennessee Williams, 1964
• First Night: “My One True Love”, 1964
• First Night: “The Second Wall”, 1964
• The Liars: 13 episodes, 1964
• Triangle: 7 episodes,1964
• The Hidden Truth: “Sweets to the Sweet”, 1964
• Armchair Theatre: “Realm of Error”, 1964
• Love Story: “The Last of the English Visitors”, 1964
• Love Story: “Toccato for Toy Trumpet”, 1965
• Armchair Theatre: “I Loved You Last Summer”, 1965
• ITV Play of the Week: Come Back, Little Sheba, adaptation of play by William Inge, 1965
• Blackmail: 1 episode, “The Red House”, 1965
• Thirty-Minute Theatre: “The Late Arrival of the Incoming Aircraft”, 1965
• Undermind: 1 episode, “Death in England”, 1965
• The Wednesday Play: “Silent Song”, dramatisation of the short story by Frank O’Connor, 1966
• The Wednesday Play: “The Retreat”, 1966
• Peli-Ilta, Finnish version of the stage play The Poker Session, 1966
• Thirteen Against Fate: 2 episodes: “The Liar” and “The Judge”, from the work of Simenon, 1966
• Public Eye: 2 episodes, 1966
• The Informer: 2 episodes, 1966
• Out of the Unknown: 2 episodes, 1966
• Insurrection: 8 episodes,1966
• Armchair Theatre: “Great Big Blonde” based on the author’s play Mick and Mick, 1966
• Armchair Theatre: “Love Life”, 1967
• Thirty-Minute Theatre: “A Time of Wolves and Tigers”, 1967
• Great Expectations: 10 episodes, dramatisation of Dickens, 1967
• Wuthering Heights: 4 episodes, dramatisation of Emily Bronte, 1967
• Armchair Theatre: “The Egg on the Face of the Tiger”, 1968
• Half Hour Story: “Do You Play Requests?”,  1968
• Half Hour Story: “A View from the Obelisk”, 1968
• The Ronnie Barker Playhouse: 1 episode, “The Removals Person”, 1968
• Nicholas Nickleby: 13 episodes, dramatisation of Dickens, 1968
• Late Night Horror: 2 episodes, 1968
• Sherlock Holmes: 3 episodes, 1968
• The Jazz Age: 1 episode, The Assassin, dramatisation of story by Liam O’Flaherty, 1968
• Comedy Playhouse: “Me Mammy“, 1968; the subsequent series was a spin-off.
• Detective: 2 episodes, 1968–1969
• The Possessed: dramatisation of Dostoevsky in 6 episodes, 1969
• Dombey and Son: 13 episodes, dramatisation of Dickens, 1969
• W. Somerset Maugham: 2 episodes, dramatisations of short stories, 1969–1970
• Me Mammy: 3 series, 21 episodes, 1969–1971
• Sentimental Education: 3 episodes, dramatisation of Flaubert 1970
• The Sinners: 4 episodes dramatisations of stories by Frank O’Connor and Sean O’Faolain, 1970-1971
• Shadows of Fear: 1 episode, “White Walls and Olive Green Carpets, 1971
• Six Dates with Barker: 1 episode, “The Removals Person, 1971
• ITV Saturday Night Theatre: “The Dead”, from the author’s dramatisation of the short story by Joyce, 1971
• ITV Saturday Night Theatre: “”Pandora”, 1971
• The Moonstone: 5 episodes dramatisation of Wilkie Collins, 1972
• Tales from the Lazy Acre: 7 episodes, 1972
• Play of the Month: “Stephen D”, from the author’s adaptation of the works of James Joyce, 1972
• Country Matters: 4 episodes dramatisations of stories by H.E. Bates and A.E. Coppard, 1972–1973
• Seven of One: 1 episode, “Another Fine Mess”, 1973
• Black and Blue: 1 episode, “High Kampf”, 1973
• Father Brown: 6 episodes, dramatisation of stories by GK Chesterton,1974
• Armchair Theatre:  “The Virgins”, 1974
• Nicholas Nickleby: 6 episodes dramatisation of Dickens, 1977
• London Belongs to Me: 7 episodes, dramatisation of Norman Collins’s novel, 1977
• Diana Rigg’s Three Piece Suite: 1 episode, Bitter Suite, 1977
• Wuthering Heights: 2 episodes, dramatisation of Emily Bronte, 1978
• Strumpet City: mini-series dramatisation of novel by James Plunkett 1980
• The Little World of Don Camillo: 12 episodes, dramatisation of work by Giovannino Guareschi, 1981
• Good Behaviour:  dramatisation of novel by Mollie Keane, 1983
• A Life, adaptation of the author’s play of the same name, 1984
• The Irish R.M.: 2 episodes, dramatisation of novels by Somerville and Ross, 1985
• Storyboard: “Hunted Down”, 1989
• Parnell & the Englishwoman: TV mini-series, 1991
• Alleyn Mysteries: 1 episode, dramatisation of novel by Ngaio Marsh, 1993