Reviews

Seven Deadly Sins

Seven Deadly Sins (1966)

Seven Deadly Sins

Seven self-contained plays by different writers - each featuring one of the sins categorised by the founders of the Christian Church as "deadly."

Seven Deadly Virtues

Seven Deadly Virtues (1967)

Seven Deadly Virtues

When 1966's Seven Deadly Sins proved popular with viewers, series producer Peter Willes decided to repeat the idea the following year.

The Short Stories of Conan Doyle

The Short Stories of Conan Doyle (1967)

The Short Stories of Conan Doyle

13-part anthology series featuring Conan Doyle's non-Sherlock Holmes stories encompassing many genres, including comedy, romance, crime, medicine, and the supernatural.

Shout Aloud Salvation

Shout Aloud Salvation (1951)

Shout Aloud Salvation

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.

The Silent Village

The Silent Village (1951)

The Silent Village

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.

The Sin Shifter

The Sin Shifter (1962)

The Sin Shifter

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.

The Snow Goose

The Snow Goose (1971)

The Snow Goose

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

Strange Interlude

Strange Interlude (1958)

Strange Interlude

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

The Survivors

The Survivors (1957)

The Survivors

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

Sword of Vengeance

Sword of Vengeance (1962)

Sword of Vengeance

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

Tearaway

Tearaway (1956)

Tearaway

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."

They Throw It At You

They Throw It At You (1964)

They Throw It At You

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

This Land of Ours

This Land of Ours (1950)

This Land of Ours

'Lost' BBC drama set on a farm between 1938 and 1944 which tells of turmoil within a family as their whole livelihood is threatened

Threads (1984)

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

Three Sisters

Three Sisters (1954)

Three Sisters

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.

Time Slip

Time Slip (1953)

Time Slip

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

The Troubled Air (1953)

The Troubled Air

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.

Tunnel Trench ITV Play 1963

Tunnel Trench (1963)

Tunnel Trench ITV Play 1963

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.

The Two Popes Netflix movie

The Two Popes (2019)

The Two Popes Netflix movie

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

Two Thousand Minus Sixty

2000 - 60 (1958)

Two Thousand Minus Sixty

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...

Uncle Harry

Uncle Harry (1958)

Uncle Harry

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

Up the Junction (1965)

The BBC's switchboard was jammed with complaints following the showing of its controversial play depicting the harsh realities of poverty, unwanted pregnancies, and the struggle for freedom amid societal constraints. Possibly the most important docudrama of all time...

Victoria Regina

Victoria Regina (1964)

Victoria Regina

Peter Wildeblood's adaptation of Laurence Housman's Victoria Regina was broadcast in 1964 as four individual plays and starred Patricia Routledge who portrayed four ages of the monarch.

The Walls Came Tumbling Down

The Walls Came Tumbling Down (1966)

The Walls Came Tumbling Down

Harold Crombie (Robert Lang) is something of a nonentity-the sort of man who merges into the background so well that even his office colleagues barely notice he's there.

The War Game

The War Game (1965)

The War Game

A Chinese invasion of South Vietnam triggers a new world war between East and West. In the town of Rochester, Kent, the anticipation of a nuclear attack leads to mass evacuations. This one-off drama proved to be so controversial that the BBC, who made it, refused to broadcast it for 20 years.