Three Ring Circus: the ur-text of modernist television drama

Abstract

Three Ring Circus (BBC, 2 February 1961) was a BBC Scotland production, written by Jack Gerson and directed by James MacTaggart. A sixty-minute studio drama in which a man with amnesia seeks to recover his identity, Three Ring Circus has been described by John McGrath as the ‘ur-drama’ in a tradition of experimental television drama produced at the BBC in the early 1960s. What is remarkable about the production, especially for a 1961 studio drama, is its innovative, non-naturalistic style. Virtuoso long-take studio sequences alternate with modernist montage sequences to create a kaleidoscopic fantasy world, embellished by sound effects from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. The precocious stylistic innovations of Three Ring Circus led to an invitation for MacTaggart to join the BBC Drama Department in London, where he produced a number of ground-breaking drama series prior to becoming the first producer on The Wednesday Play. This essay examines the origins of the experimental tradition in British television drama at the BBC in the late 1950s and early 1960s, analyzing sequences from Three Ring Circus in order to establish the veracity of McGrath's claim that the play is the founding text of modernist television drama.