Tom Brown's School Days - Dramatic Adaptations

Dramatic Adaptations

Tom Brown's School Days was adapted for film in 1916 (British), 1940 (U.S.), and 1951 (British). In the 1940 U.S. version of Tom Brown's School Days, the role of Dr. Thomas Arnold as a reform-minded educator was given greater prominence than in the novel. Arnold was portrayed by Cedric Hardwicke and the title role was played by Jimmy Lydon. The June 27, 1940, debut of the film version at New York City's Radio City Music Hall was chronicled in a photo spread by The New York Times, "showing some of the pastimes, curricular and otherwise", as the fight scene between Tom Brown and Flashman was captioned. The 1940 film version was released on DVD in 2004, with a cover illustration portraying Arnold lecturing the two dishevelled schoolboys following their fight.

In the 1951 version Robert Newton portrayed Thomas Arnold and John Howard Davies portrayed Tom Brown.

It has also been adapted for television, as a serial in 1971 by the BBC, and as a two-hour ITV 2005 television movie that is now on DVD, starring Alex Pettyfer as Tom and Stephen Fry as Dr. Arnold. The 1973 BBC documentary Omnibus: The British Hero featured Christopher Cazenove playing Brown.

A musical version with music by Chris Andrews and Book and Lyrics by Jack and Joan Maitland was presented at the Cambridge Theatre in London's West End in 1971 with Keith Chegwin, Roy Dotrice, Simon Le Bon, Tony Sympson, Richard Willis and Dougal Rose. The rights to that version were acquired in the late 1970s by Bruce Hertford of Orem, Utah, who had a composer named Mark Ogden flesh out the score. The result played for a sold-out run at Brigham Young University.