ABSTRACT
The major problem facing any writer coming fresh to television is to understand what it is. Like radio, it is broadcast to a mass-audience grouped in small numbers; it forms part of a daily service; it may be produced inside the studio, outside it, or both; and each program is consumed in one performance, or a small number of performances. The difficulty is that, besides reading well as a piece of narrative, the script has to convey a good deal of technical information to the producer, the actors, the designer, the lighting-supervisor, the studio-manager and several other people. Television drama in Britain has clung too long to its theatrical origins, as if afraid to use its relative mobility, but slowly the apron strings are being untied and it now faces the task of establishing itself as a new, exciting and intelligent form in its own right.
