Scum, a brutal depiction of life in a British borstal, was shelved by the BBC in 1977 due to its graphic violence and political implications, remaining unaired until 1991 amid mounting controversy and debate
Another 'lost' BBC play from the early days of television. In this uproarious satire, an unhinged anarchist settles in a small Irish community, setting off a series of increasingly ridiculous events.
Alan Ayckbourn's dark, often farcical comedy about nine people who spend four days together over the Christmas period in the hope of having a pleasant family celebration together, only to find they fail dismally...
Seven self-contained plays by different writers - each featuring one of the sins categorised by the founders of the Christian Church as "deadly."
When 1966's Seven Deadly Sins proved popular with viewers, series producer Peter Willes decided to repeat the idea the following year.
13-part anthology series featuring Conan Doyle's non-Sherlock Holmes stories encompassing many genres, including comedy, romance, crime, medicine, and the supernatural.
This BBC Sunday Night Theatre presentation, broadcast on 15 April 1951, tells the story of two young women dispatched towards the latter part of the 19th century to introduce the Salvation Army into a bleak northern town.
Seven tourists arrive and gather in a deserted inn. The dinner lies half-prepared in the kitchen. Cards lie on a bridge table. A tap is running aimlessly, overflowing the bath, and yet there is not a living soul in sight.
A pearl trader and a priest-both fighting for the use of the same hall-one for a casino, the other for a church. Rose becomes the unwilling pawn in this battle between sacred and profane in a small Australian town.
Six single plays linked by a common theme. The hero one week became the villain next week
A powerful, now-lost 1951 TV adaptation of John Galsworthy’s (The Forsyte Saga) 1920s play: class against ambition, honour against ruthlessness, and a fight that costs more than anyone expects
As the shadows of war looms around them, an aging artist who lives a reclusive life in a dusused lighthouse in an Essex fishing village, assists a young orphan girl in caring for a wounded snow goose
Eugene O'Neill's controversial five-hour play, an exploration of loose morals and their consequences, was banned in many theatres. Produced by the BBC in 1958 in two parts, it used an experimental technique that is today commonplace
Richard Burton starred in John Osborne's first play for television, which was turned down by commercial television before it was snapped up by the BBC in 1960
In this ‘lost’ BBC play - the long-drawn and bitterly contested American Civil War is over, but there is a legacy of hatred left over from the fighting - hatred which comes slowly to a climax in a bar in Decker City
Under the flag of truce a Huguenot nobleman cannot refuse shelter, even to his catholic enemies. But he finds that under his roof lies the man who tortured and killed his wife in the massacre six years before
Stark one-off drama about two cold-bloodied thugs who are witnessed violently assaulting an innocent man. But the witnesses, in fear for their own safety, refuse to give evidence. "Sometimes," say one of them, "it doesn't pay to see too much."
A chilling gem of 1970s British television, The Signalman stands as the finest of the Ghost Story for Christmas series — an atmospheric, psychologically rich adaptation of Dickens that still haunts viewers nearly fifty years on
Single play that has been reimagined on several occasions by the BBC and was the inspiration for a movie.
Featuring a number of well-known faces, this 'lost' ITV play is the first in a trilogy which were all set along Blackpool's Golden Mile
'Lost' BBC drama set on a farm between 1938 and 1944 which tells of turmoil within a family as their whole livelihood is threatened
British drama on the effects of a nuclear holocaust on the working class city of Sheffield, and the eventual long-term effects on civilization, which is as traumatising and resonant today as it has ever been
Another 'lost' BBC play. Anton Chekov's celebrated play concerns the lives of an aristocratic family who struggle to search for meaning in the modern world.
Earliest television outing for H.G. Wells' classic sci-fi tale about a time traveller
Something of an oddity in the BBC’s development of science fiction/horror plays and series for television, Time Slip was broadcast live in November 1953 and was unrecorded. The Radio Times didn't even publish a cast list!
The Troubled Air was Irwin Shaw's novel chronicling the rise of McCarthyism in the USA and in particular the anti-Communist witch-hunt among radio-programme workers.
Life in the Royal Flying Corps seems pleasant enough to young Bill St. Aubyn as he basks in the French sun. But when an important offensive is mounted, he is suddenly faced with the grim reality of war.
An intimate story of one of the most dramatic transitions of power in the last 2,000 years. At a key turning point for the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI forms a surprising friendship with the future Pope Francis
Commercial Television's first Science Fiction production: The world stands on the brink as a runaway freighter rocket, containing high explosives, is due to detonate over London at midnight on New Year's Eve 1999...
This 'lost' BBC play is a dark psychological story of how a kindly, benevolent, and somewhat mundane bachelor can transform into a cold and pre-meditated murderer