Roald Dahl and Ian McKellen – The South Bank Show: A Life In His Day – Original LWT Press Photograph – 1986

Description

A remarkable original 1986 London Weekend Television press photograph of Roald Dahl with Ian McKellen, produced for the South Bank Show film devoted to Dahl’s life, imagination and writing.

Measuring 20.4 × 25.3 cm, approximately the classic 10 × 8-inch press format, the photograph is an extraordinary composition. Dahl occupies the foreground wearing his familiar outdoor hat and looking directly towards the camera, while Ian McKellen appears immediately behind him in elaborate grotesque make-up and costume, representing one of the strange characters inhabiting the imaginative world created for the programme.

The juxtaposition is wonderfully Dahlian: the recognisable author in the foreground and an unsettling figure from the fantastical landscape of his fiction looming immediately behind him.

The reverse retains two original London Weekend Television publicity sheets, both headed with the period LWT – London Weekend Television logo.

The principal sheet records:

“THE SOUTH BANK SHOW … Roald Dahl – A Life In His Day”

and gives the transmission information:

“Transmission: Sunday, 19 October”

before identifying the photograph:

“IAN McKELLEN and ROALD DAHL”

A second, more extensive publicity sheet provides an unusually evocative contemporary description of the programme, explaining that Roald Dahl – A Life In His Day takes Dahl on a fantasy journey in which he encounters colourful characters, events and situations that are both real and imagined. It describes Dahl as a leading writer of children’s books and characterises the film as a world in which the magical and the mundane intermingle with unexpected results.

The survival of this original LWT documentation gives the photograph exceptional provenance and identifies its exact contemporary television context.

The South Bank Show and Roald Dahl

The programme was transmitted on ITV on 19 October 1986 as part of The South Bank Show. Contemporary and later sources also catalogue Jack Bond’s film as Roald Dahl: Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum. It was an unconventional portrait rather than a conventional author interview, using dramatised and fantastical sequences to move through Dahl’s imagination and writings.

The BFI has described the film as an impressionistic portrait in which Ian McKellen moved through the psychological landscapes of Dahl’s books. The production subsequently had an unexpected cultural afterlife: its unusual visual approach impressed Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys, who recruited director Jack Bond for their own film project It Couldn’t Happen Here.

McKellen’s participation is independently documented, and surviving programme records identify him in transformed roles including a school mistress / witch figure.

Dahl at a Major Point in His Children’s-Writing Career

The date is also excellent from the perspective of Dahl collectors.

By 1986 Dahl had already created many of the books that established his international reputation with children, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Fantastic Mr Fox, The Twits, George’s Marvellous Medicine, The BFG and The Witches.

He was still actively writing, with further major works yet to appear. Matilda would follow in 1988.

The present photograph consequently belongs not to a retrospective commemoration after Dahl’s death, but to a major television portrait made during his lifetime and while his children’s writing career was still active.

Ian McKellen Association

The presence of Ian McKellen adds a substantial second collecting dimension.

Long before his later worldwide screen fame, McKellen was already one of Britain’s foremost stage actors. His participation in this Dahl film was characteristically theatrical: rather than simply appearing as himself, he became part of the strange visual universe through which the programme explored Dahl’s imagination.

McKellen himself has subsequently recalled working with Dahl on the 1986 South Bank Show production.

The photograph therefore has unusual crossover interest across:

Roald Dahl
Ian McKellen
children’s literature
The South Bank Show
LWT / ITV history
British television
author photography
1980s cultural history

Provenance

The verso documentation is exceptionally good and includes:

• two original London Weekend Television publicity sheets;
• original LWT logos;
• programme title Roald Dahl – A Life In His Day;
• transmission instruction for Sunday 19 October;
• direct identification “IAN McKELLEN and ROALD DAHL”;
• contemporary programme synopsis;
• original LWT copyright wording.

This level of surviving documentation makes the photograph materially more important than an uncaptioned Dahl press portrait.

Condition

Very good condition overall for an original working television press photograph dating from 1986.

The image remains sharp, well contrasted and highly detailed, with particularly strong facial definition and an excellent tonal range.

There is light age-related toning, minor surface and handling wear and modest edge and corner wear consistent with genuine press use.

The reverse retains the two original LWT publicity sheets. There is some normal age-related toning and minor handling and adhesive wear associated with the original press material.

Please examine all photographs carefully as they form an integral part of the description.

Subjects: Roald Dahl and Ian McKellen
Programme: The South Bank Show
Contemporary LWT title: Roald Dahl – A Life In His Day
Later title: Roald Dahl: Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum
Date: 1986
Transmission: 19 October 1986
Director: Jack Bond
Broadcaster / issuer: London Weekend Television / ITV
Photographer: Uncredited
Size: 20.4 × 25.3 cm
Format: Original black-and-white television press photograph
Verso: Two original LWT publicity sheets with programme description and identification
Modern reproduction: No

Authenticity

This photograph has been handled, inspected and catalogued in-house at Hornseys.

Its attribution and original purpose are established directly by the surviving contemporary London Weekend Television publicity material, which identifies both Ian McKellen and Roald Dahl, names the programme and records its transmission date.

It is an original 1986 television press photograph and not a later reproduction.

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