Critical orthodoxies around the multi-camera television studio characterise it
as a ‘theatrical’ space, driven by dialogue and performance. Troy Kennedy
Martin (1964) decried television drama’s essential naturalism, demanding a
more filmic form of drama in a polemic which has strongly influenced critical
thinking on multi-camera studio television. Caughie (2000) suggests that
Armchair Theatre created a ‘space for acting’, but in the main, the studio is seen
as a constraining and interiorising dramatic site, in thrall to liveness and reliant
on theatrical unities. This article draws on research at the BBC Written Archives
to extend current understanding of the determinants working upon multicamera,
studio television up to and into the 1970s. It shows how the actors’
union Equity insisted on preserving continuous performance as a specific
feature of television drama. While other determinants (technical, institutional
and economic) of course come into play, Equity’s insistence on ‘theatrical’
continuous performance inhibited the narrative and aesthetic possibilities
of studio drama, resisted the move to rehearse-record studio taping, and
delayed the turn to all-film drama production at the BBC. Drawing on key
productions which acted as contentious ‘test cases’ for negotiations, this article
explores tensions between institutional and artistic determinants, complicating
technologically determinist accounts to argue for a greater understanding of
the role of Equity in dictating material conditions of production in the multicamera
studio paradigm.