Written by John Hopkins Narrated by Keith Barron Original language(s) English | Directed by Christopher Morahan Country of origin United Kingdom | |
Starring Ronald Lacey,
Eileen Atkins,
Thomas Baptiste,
Barbara Assoon | ||
Fable is a British television play, shown on 27 January 1965 as an episode of The Wednesday Play series on BBC 1. Written by John Hopkins, the play is set in a parallel totalitarian Britain where those in authority are black people, and white people are their social underdogs - a reversal of the situation in contemporary apartheid South Africa.
Contents
It was directed by Christopher Morahan and produced by James MacTaggart.
Cast
Commentary
Although Hopkins had anti-racist intentions in writing the play, Audience Research at the time of the original broadcast suggested that, rather than eliciting compassion from whites in the audience, they saw the role reversal as threatening. Carmen Munroe has said that for the actors the production was a frightening experience "because suddenly you were being asked to perform the sorts of acts that were performed against you in real life". The programme's original screening, scheduled for 20 January 1965, was postponed by the BBC for one week "to avoid accentuating the colour issue" during the Leyton by-election to be held on 21 January. In an era when negative responses to immigration were very high, some viewers interpreted the play in the opposite way to the one intended by Hopkins and his colleagues.