Telecrime

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Telecrime was an early British television programme, which could be described as the first multi-episodic television drama series ever made, although transmission was occasional rather than regular. It is also one of the first examples of television drama written specially for the medium rather than adapted from theatre or radio sources.

1 Overview
2 Pre-war episode guide
3 References
4 External link

[edit] Overview

Produced by the BBC and screened on the BBC Television Service during its early years in the late 1930s, five episodes of ten and twenty minutes in length were produced in 1938 and 1939, before the television service was suspended for the duration of the Second World War. As the title suggests, the programme was a crime series, in the "Whodunit?" pattern. Viewers would be presented with enough evidence on screen during the course of the stories to be able to attempt to solve the crimes themselves.

After the reinstatement of the BBC television service in 1946, the series returned for another run, although it had now been renamed Telecrimes in the plural. Twelve new episodes were transmitted, all of fifteen minutes in length, between October 22 and November 25. These episodes were all written by Mileson Horton, who had also written the majority of the pre-war episodes. The producers of the 1946 episodes were Gordon Crier, Stephen Harrison and Douglas Mair.

As with almost all other television programmes of the era, both pre- and post-war episodes were transmitted live and no recording was made – the only visual record surviving being still photographs.