Andrew Allan, 'Mr.Formality'

Andrew Allan played an important role in Canadian interest in Shakespeare’s plays. Scottish in origin, Allan moved to Toronto at the age of 17, where he took a position as a radio announcer at CFRB radio. There, he was given the chance to write and broadcast much of his own work. In October of 1943, he became Supervisor of Drama at the CBC, Toronto, where he continued to write prolifically. In his time there, he wrote dozens of plays, adapted some fifty others and directed over four hundred. He established the Stage series as well as Wednesday Nights during which many adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays, among others, were live-broadcast and well received by the Canadian public.
 
Despite the success of these programs, Allan was feeling the pressure of continuously composing and adapting captivating radio programs to retain the interest of a public slowly moving toward televised entertainment. In 1948, while on a train to Vancouver Allan, writing his resignation to CBC, had an exchange with a young lady who would unknowingly dissuade him from resigning propelling the series into seven more years of success. 

In 1955, Allan finally retired from CBC and the Stage series. In the five years that followed, only five adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays were broadcast. This decline is further proof of just how central Allan’s role was in bringing Shakespeare to Canadians. It is a shame that there was such a drop in the production of radio drama, but this opened up the doors to so much performance and exposition of Shakespeare through many other media.