The Forgotten Hamlet

The article examines critical reception to the television adaptation by Peter Brook of his staging of Hamlet with Paul Scofield in the title role. Transmitted on 27 February 1956 by Associated Television (ATV), this was the first broadcast of a Shakespeare play franchised by the Independent Television Authority, the newly formed and first UK commercial television company. The article also considers the impact of television advertising during the transmission of the play and comments on the friction between culture and commercialism in the very early days of television broadcasting.