or 'The Intruder'
by Francois Mauriac
Translated by Basil Bartlett
[Starring] Eileen Peel and Peter Cushing
Scene: The country house of Marcelle de Barthas in Les Landes, France
(Previously televised on December 9, 1952)

The success of Asmodee when it was first televised last December was not altogether surprising, since it is an intimate play, well suited to the medium. It was first produced in Paris before the war at the Comedie Francaise, where, in spite of excellent acting, it was rather overwhelmed by the size of the stage. The tiny Gate Theatre, Charing Cross, where it was first seen in London, suited it in some ways better. Indeed Francois Mauriac himself, after visiting the Gate, remarked: "Enfin j'ai retrouve ma piece." The television screen, which is the smallest stage in the world, is perhaps the ideal setting for a play of this kind, dealing, at it does, with the emotional impact on each other of a handful of people.
The title refers to the devil 'Asmodee,' who is reputed to take the roofs off houses and disturb the occupants. In Mauriac's play 'Asmodee' is represented by a young Englishman, Harry Fanning, who comes to stay au pair with a French family living not far from Bordeaux. He falls in love with the daughter of the house, the saintlike Emmy, and both she and her mother, Marcelle de Barthas, fall in love with him. The play is concerned with Emmy's religious scruples, with her mother's jealousy, above all with the twisted mind of the tutor, Blaise Lebel, one of the most fascinating characters in the modern theatre, who himself loves Marcelle with a love half servile, half domineering. Minor parts are played by an anguished Mademoiselle and a wise, tolerant priest.
Asmodee consists mainly of duologues, cunningly strung together. It is a passionate play, written with a bitter pen by a master of prose who has a terrifying gift of penetrating deep into the recesses of the human heart.
Francois Mauriac, who is best known in this country for his novels, was recently awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Asmodee was his first play.
(Basil Bartlett)

[Photo caption] The tutor Blaise Lebel (Peter Cushing) confronts Marcelle (Eileen Peel) who comforts the saintlike Emmy (Elizabeth Henson).