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Experimental moments: R.U.R. and the birth of British television science fiction

Drawing on material from the BBC Written Archive Centre, this article examines the earliest sf dramas broadcast by the BBC Television Service: two adaptations of Karel Čapek's R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) from 1938 and 1948. These productions were used as sites of formal experimentation with the possibilities of the new medium, representing one aspect of contemporary debates about the purpose of television and the style that it should assume.