In order to convince Welles to come to London and put on his theater play Moby Dick Rehearsed, writer, playwright, journalist and theater manager Wolf Mankowitz, together with Michael Barry, director of the BBC Drama Department, put together the mini-series The Orson Welles Sketchbook. In each episode Welles sat  in front of the camera for fifteen minutes and told stories. Sometimes drawings by Welles were also included. The titles of the single episodes, aired weekly during the months of April and May, 1955 are: The Early Days, Critics, The Police, Houdini, The War of the World, and Bullfighting. Much to everyone’s surprise, the series was so successful that Welles – much to the dismay of theater managers Wolf Mankowitz and Oscar Lewenstein – interrupted the theater performances of Moby Dick Rehearsed after only a four week run (June 16 – July 9, at Duke of York’s Theatre in London) in order to accept the proposal of a commercial television station to make a second analogous series entitled: Around the World with Orson Welles. The copies, in 35 mm with optical sound, come from the Orson Welles Collection at the Filmmuseum and have been transferred to DigiBeta. Sound was digitally remastered.

Stefan Droessler, Filmmuseum München