Writing refugees into television history: Leo Lehman and the Europeanness of early British TV drama

This article examines the work of playwright Leo Lehman for British television in the 1950s and 1960s. Originally from Poland, Lehman came to England as a refugee during the Second World War. The study of Lehman’s work, and particularly his stories about refugees and asylum, opens a window to a still largely unmapped history of remarkable cultural diversity on British screens and beyond. This case study also sheds light on the ways in which the history of British television cuts across national borders and intersects with European history