OUT OF THE UNKNOWN

SEASON 4 CLIPS GUIDE

by Colin Cutler

At the time of writing, six productions from this eleven play season are missing from the BBC’s archives.

Uncertainty still surrounds the fate of two tapes (The Chopper and The Shattered Eye), apparently dispatched to Dubai in the 1970’s but not returned. Some BBC records continue to list these as still extant (ironically, this also includes the BBC’s Treasure Hunt website listing).

THE LAST WITNESS

TX. 2nd June 1971

A single clip survives from this production

Story Context: A dying man (Anthony Bate) is washed up on the shores of an island in the Channel Isles. To assuage his guilt at recently committing murder, his fevered mind attempts to construct a different turn of events, in which he pictures himself as an observer to the brutal act rather than its perpetrator...

Clip: The surviving clip derives from one of the play’s numerous telecine sequences – an ‘hallucinatory’ flashback to the murder scene in which Bates’ character is strangling a young woman on a remote cliff top.

The clip was discovered amongst a collection of excised BBC material held by the Australian Censorship board. It was located by researcher Damian Shanahan, who considered this to be one of the most visually interesting finds amongst the batch.

Duration: 33"

THE UNINVITED

TX. 23rd June 1971

Complete Duration: 46'53"

A complete audio recording of this episode exists in a private collection. The recording stems from the play’s repeat broadcast on BBC2 on 15th August 1972.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

With many thanks to the following people whose direct correspondence and guidance (or whose forum postings I’ve gratefully scanned for relevant information) has assisted in the development of this guide:

To Trevor Wells, Keith Underhill, Martin Townley, Mark Slater, Rosalyn Connors, Paul Hillam and Anthony Carr for their invaluable help with the surviving off-air audio recordings.

To Daniel King and John Gorrie for kindly helping out with numerous photographs from their personal collections.

To Dave Auger, Ian Beard, Malcolm Chapman, Nick Cooper, John Kelly, Andrew Martin, Ian Riley, Steve Roberts, Steve Rogers, Lee Rose, Damian Shanahan, Neil Somerville, Vaughan Stanger and Mark Ward for their helpful correspondence or forum replies regarding background information, Radio Times reference material, sources of clips, durations etc.

Colin Cutler

January 2007

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