Afternoon of a Nymph

Afternoon of a Nymph is an episode of the British Armchair Theatre series made by the ITV franchise holder ABC Weekend TV and first broadcast by the ITV network on 30 September 1962.^[1] It was written by Robert Muller and features Janet Munro and Ian Hendry in the lead roles. It was directed by Philip Saville and produced by Sydney Newman.^[2]

"Afternoon of a Nymph"
Armchair Theatre episode
Directed by	Philip Saville
Teleplay by	Robert Muller
Original air date	September 30, 1962 (1962-09-30)
List of episodes

The production was precorded at a time when plays were typically broadcast live. The script was published.^[3]

Premise

A young woman, Elaine, wants to be an actress but struggles against the demands of the profession.

Cast

• Janet Munro as Elaine
• Ian Hendry as David Simpson
• Peter Butterworth as Ronnie Grimble
• Patrick Holt as Rogers
• Jackie Lane as Ginger
• Aubrey Morris as Joe, make-up man
• Jeremy Lloyd as Lord Tony Bright)

Production

Afternoon of a Nymph was Muller's first play.^[4] Sydney Newman recalled that Muller, a showbiz columnist, "thought he would like to try his hand at a TV play about the grind of an unknown curvy actress trying to succeed in the cutthroat showbiz world of randy men. I sicced Peter Luke onto Robert and eventually we got a dandy script, which, again, Philip Saville directed most imaginatively. "^[5] Muller had interviewed a young Shirley Bassey in November 1958; according to her biographer John L. Williams, who described the interview as "exceptionally revealing" and Afternoon of a Nymph as "a damning account of the explotation of a starlet", "it’s not hard to imagine that some of the inspiration for the play may have come from this encounter with a clearly troubled young Shirley."^[6]

Reception

The second of Muller's seven plays for Armchair Theatre, Mark Duguid writes: "Although it lacks the cynical bite of, say, Alexander Mackendrick's The Sweet Smell of Success (US, 1957), Muller's script convincingly evokes the sordid shallows of showbiz."^[1]

A contemporary reviewer, Maurice Wiggins in The Sunday Times described the play negatively as being "a pretentious affair".^[7]

Variety wrote the "trouble with the script was that Muller cleverly and sharply drew the background and witty dialog, but he couldn't win much sympathy for Elaine."^[8]

Hendry and Munro married in 1963.^[1]