Pity About the Abbey

Pity About the Abbey was a 1965 BBC television drama written by Stewart Farrar and John Betjeman, and directed by Ian Curteis.^[1] Pity About the Abbey was a 90-minute play written for a strand of programmes titled Londoners.

The play imagined that Westminster Abbey, one of the most significant religious sites in the United Kingdom, was demolished to make way for a by-pass. They play satirised what the two writers saw as the current trend to demolish significant or beautiful structures under the pretext of necessity, for example the Euston Arch. It was recorded for television by the BBC and broadcast on 29 July 1965, and later repeated as part of The Wednesday Play slot in 1966.^[2]

The programme still exists.^[3]

References

↑ Pity About the Abbey at the Internet Movie Database
↑ Elizabeth Guerra, Writer on a Broomstick (R J Stewart books, 2008), 68.
↑ Londoners: Pity About the Abbey, lostshows.com

Television programmes written by or presented by John Betjeman

John Betjeman: A Poet in London (1959)
Journey into a Lost World (1960)
John Betjeman in the West Country (1962)
John Betjeman Goes by Train (1962)
Branch Line Railway (1963)
One Man's County (1964)
Something about Diss (1964)
Discovering Britain with John Betjeman (1964)
Pity About the Abbey (1965)
Betjeman's London (1967)
A Poet Goes North (1968)
Four with Betjeman: Victorian Architects and Architecture (1971)
Railways Forever! (1972)
Thank God it's Sunday (1972)
Metro-land (1973)
A Passion for Churches (1974)
Summoned by Bells (1976)
Vicar of this Parish (1976)
Time with Betjeman (1983)

The Wednesday Play series

Fable (1965)
Up the Junction (1965)
The End of Arthur's Marriage (1965)
Stand Up, Nigel Barton (1965)
Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton (1965)
Cathy Come Home (1966)
Pity About the Abbey ([repeat] 1966)
In Two Minds (1967)
A Beast With Two Backs (1968)
Spoiled (1968)
The Big Flame (1969)
Son of Man (1969)
No Trams to Lime Street (1970)
The Year of the Sex Olympics ([repeat] 1970)
The War Game (1985, completed 1965)

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