The Mayfly and the Frog

The Mayfly and the Frog is one of the few surviving episodes of the BBC series The Wednesday Play, for which Delia is credited for BBC Radiophonic Archive tape TRW 6569.

Unfortunately, it seems not to have been blessed with any Delian music, which fits the Radiophonic Database's notes for its tape, dated 1st October 1966, which say "FX: Pings, door slams and motors."

The Radio Times describes the programme:

John Gielgud stars with Felicity Kendall in tonight's play by Jack Russell: The action begins at a filling station in a Belgravia mews, where an argument develops between two vehicles. They are an improbable contrast; a dirty, ancient, and rusting scooter and a palatial, dazzling Rolls Royce. The Rolls, although meticulously trained in every social nicety, is not used to taking notice of - or avoiding - decrepit two-wheeled vehicles. When the vast limousine knocks the tiny heap of scrap-iron over, it is of no moment to the Rolls' driver or its passenger. But the scooter's owner is in a state of furious indignation. Her headlamp is smashed, she has to reach Dover by dark, and she is broke. So she pursues the Rolls until it disappears sleekly through the gates of a huge Mayfair mansion. Ingeniously defying the amazing expense devoted to keeping intruders out, the girl, vivaciously mobile in jerkin and jeans, gains a determined entry - and finds herself face to face with a millionaire in his bath!
They are the most unlikely pair to meet anywhere or anywhen; the odd, scruffy, disconcerting girl scarcely owning what she stands up in, and the great tycoon, lord of a thousand companies, Rembrandts by the dozen on his walls, "Old Adam Capitalist in his golden garden". And when they meet here in his most secluded and defended sanctum, Gabriel Quantara soon finds himself in a plight that his money, minions, power, and paintings can do nothing to save him from … The Wednesday Play is delighted to present Sir John Gielgud, making his first appearance in a play specially written for television, as Gabriel Quantara. Felicity Kendall, star of the film Shakespeare Wallah, plays the girl.

Credits

• Producer: Chris La Fontaine
• Music: Richard Addinsell. The Radio Times inadvertently attributed Guy Woolfenden as the party responsible, but later printed an apology (some two weeks later) rectifying the matter.

Availability

• Broadcast on 21st December 1966 from 9:05pm to 10:15pm on BBC1.
• Repeated on July 10th, 1968.
• In the BBC Radiophonic Archive on tape TRW 6569
• File:The Mayfly and the Frog (The Wednesday Play S6E08, BBC, 21st December 1966).torrent