Love on the Dole

Love on the Dole

1967 - United Kingdom

Hankey Park, Salford, 1933. The slump, unemployment, the means test: "I wonder how much longer us women'll take to learn that living and loving's all a damn swindle? Love's all right on the pictures, but love on the dole ain't quite the same thing." 

Walter Greenwood's moving 1933 novel about the crisis of unemployment following the General Strike of 1926 (although the main action takes place in 1931), concentrates on a working-class community trying to come to terms with poverty whilst retaining their dignity. The novel was adapted for the stage by Ronald Gow and opened at the Manchester Repertory Theatre in 1934. This 1967 television adaptation by John Finch starred the comparatively unknown Anne Stallybrass as Sally Hardcastle who falls in love with a doomed socialist agitator, Larry Meath. 

The role of Sally had previously been the springboard for a successful career for Wendy Hiller who was in the London production - following a long and record-breaking tour - that bought her to the West End stage for the first time. She was an instant success. Ruth Dunning (Television Actress of the Year 1961) was next to find Love On The Dole a launch pad for recognition. A walk-on part in the London production, in 1935, was her first professional engagement. And when Wendy Hiller left to lead the New York production, Ruth succeeded her as Sally. 

It was Ronald Gow who first approached Walter Greenwood about turning the novel into a play. "Over coffee we agreed about the play," he said. "But with one condition. We were to make money out of it, so it mustn't be a high-brow piece. I think he had an idea I was some sort of egg-head!" Gow had been a schoolmaster just embarking on what was to prove a successful writing career and had been more of an observer of the slump years than the totally involved Greenwood, who had been on the dole several times and in and out of jobs with monotonous frequency. 

In Love On The Dole, set in his native Salford, he wrote about the Hardcastle family. With their father (played in this production by Jack Woolgar) out of work, the brunt of keeping the family falls on Sally Hardcastle and her brother Harry (Ronald Cunliffe). Sally and Larry Meath (Malcolm Tierney - both pictured) are courting, to the active disapproval of bookmaker Sam Grundy (George A. Cooper) who tries to lure Sally away by offering to make her "housekeeper" of his home in Wales. 

Greenwood said he "tried to show what life means to a young man living under the shadow of the dole, the tragedy of a lost generation who are denied consummation, in decency, of the natural hopes and desires of youth." The novel received much attention from writers, journalists, and politicians. However, the British Board of Film Censors would not allow a film to be made during the 1930s: it was a "very sordid story in very sordid surroundings", and in Gow's words "regarded as 'dangerous'". 

It was eventually filmed and released in 1941 by British National Films with Deborah Kerr as Sally. 

This production, shown from 9.40pm to 11.00pm on Thursday 19 January, 1967 as part of the ATV network's Play of the Week strand, was produced by Derek Bennett. It was made by Granada Television.   

Published on April 3rd, 2020. Written by Based on original TV Times article and adapted for Television Heaven.

Read Next...

Cold Equations

A teenager stows away aboard a rocket in order to visit her brother on another planet. But her actions put everyone else's safety in jeopardy.

Also tagged Single Play

Thorndyke

Edwardian murder-mystery series in which the first real forensic scientist of detective fiction is put to the test

Also starring George A Cooper

The multi-talented Burnett could play everything from a cleaning woman to a femme fatale, thanks to her lithe body, incredible facial expressions and that wonderful booming voice.

Also released in 1967

The Browning Version

Schoolmaster Andrew Crocker-Harris is retiring because of ill-health, and Taplow, one of his pupils, brings him a present on the eve of his retirement in this Terence Rattigan play from 1966.

Also tagged Single Play

Dee Time

Billed as an "early evening scene" Dee Time starred charismatic former BBC Radio 1 DJ Simon Dee in a series of hip talk shows in which he interviewed the big names in the TV and film showbiz-set as well as stars of the world of popular music...

Also released in 1967

Dumb Martian

Earthman Duncan Weaver on a solo tour of duty on one of Jupiter's moons buys a Martian woman as a companion. He mistreats her, assuming her to be just a "dumb Martian." He learns, to his cost, that she has more intelligence than he gives her credit for.

Also tagged Single Play

Ask the Family

BBC quiz show which originally was hosted by Robert Robinson and proved surprisingly durable running from 1967 to 1984.

Also released in 1967

Freedom in September

A Soviet musician is missing from his hotel. He wanders through 1962 London trying to contact people he has met and known in Russia. Who are these people? What lies behind his desperate search?

Also tagged Single Play