The Adventures of Sir Lancelot

The Adventures of Sir Lancelot is a British television series first broadcast in 1956, produced by Sapphire Films for ITC Entertainment and screened on the ITV network. The series starred William Russell as the eponymous Sir Lancelot, a Knight of the Round Table in the time of King Arthur at Camelot.

In the United States, it was originally broadcast on NBC from 1956 to 1957. Its success on the network led to it becoming the first British television series to have entire episodes filmed in colour, with episodes 16–20 and 22–30 being shot in colour, although they were only seen in colour in the US at the time of television transmission. While the BBC's 1954 TV series Zoo Quest pre-dated The Adventures of Sir Lancelot's use of colour film stock by two years, this was only for the location work, whilst the studio links were captured by monochrome video cameras.

As was common with other British television series of the time, the programme employed several American screenwriters who had moved to Britain after being placed on the Hollywood blacklist, often under pseudonyms. These included Ian McLellan Hunter, Hy Kraft and Ring Lardner Jr. The series was made at Nettlefold Studios in Walton-on-Thames.

Cast and characters

• William Russell as Sir Lancelot (30 episodes)
• Cyril Smith as Merlin (24 episodes)
• Ronald Leigh-Hunt as King Arthur (22 episodes)
• Bruce Seton as King Arthur (Episodes 1-3 only)
• Robert Scroggins as Brian (Lancelot's squire) (22 episodes)
• David Morrell as Sir Kay & others (21 episodes)
• Jane Hylton as Queen Guinevere (14 episodes)
• Derren Nesbitt (credited as Derry Nesbitt) as Sir Tristan & others (14 episodes)

Broadcast history

The series debuted in the UK on Saturday 15 September 1956, on weekend ITV franchise holders ABC Weekend TV (Midlands and North) and ATV (London), with ABC showing the series half an hour ahead of ATV, and on the NBC network in the United States nine days later. The last episode was shown on 13 April 1957 on ATV and on 16 September 1957 on NBC. It later transferred networks in the US to ABC, who repeated the episodes from October 1957 to September 1958. The series was gradually introduced on the different ITV regional channels in the UK as they came on the air from 1956 to 1962.

Episodes

Air dates are for ABC Midlands and North; ITV regions varied date and order. The bolded episode titles were shot in colour.

Home release

The complete series of 30 episodes were released as a DVD boxed set in the UK by Network DVD in 2004. Of the 14 episodes made in colour, only 12 are presented in colour on the Network DVD release for financial reasons. The other two colour episodes ('The Ugly Duckling' and 'The Missing Princess') are taken from black and white prints. In the US, the series was released as a DVD boxed set on 19 August 2008 by Timeless Media Group with the exact same 12 episodes presented in colour, taken from US public domain prints. In addition the end credits for episode 24 (The Bridge) are wrong and are in fact the end credits for episode 22 (Double Identity). The end credits do not mention the actress (Zena Walker) who played the "Angela" character, but instead credits Howard Pays who plays the characters Sir Richard and Sir Alfred in the Double Identity episode.

See also

• List of early colour TV shows in the UK

References

• Thompson, Raymond H. (1991) "Television Series". In Lacy, Norris J. (Ed.), The New Arthurian Encyclopedia, pp. 445–446. New York: Garland. Template:ISBN.
• Vahimagi, Tise (1994). British Television: An Illustrated Guide. Oxford. Oxford University Press / British Film Institute. Template:ISBN.

External links

• Template:Trim/ Template:Trim at IMDbTemplate:EditAtWikidataTemplate:WikidataCheck
• The Adventures of Sir Lancelot at the BFI's Screenonline
• Episode guide at The Historical Adventure Series Guide website.