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A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983.
1965
During the early 16th century, idealistic German monk Martin Luther, disgusted by the materialism in the church, begins the dialogue that will lead to the Protestant Reformation.
Cultural mistrust and false accusations doom a friendship in British colonial India between an Indian doctor, an Englishwoman engaged to marry a city magistrate, and an English educator.
The story of Charles 'Chinese' Gordon, a brilliant but eccentric military commander, and his death defending Khartoum in 1885.
After a rich Edwardian widow impulsively marries a handsome but poor Tuscan dentist and dies in childbirth, her English in-laws try to gain custody of the baby.
The life of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who shot President John F. Kennedy, as reported to the Warren Commission enquiry into the circumstances of the assassination.
Antique dealer Charlie yearns to own a beautiful Portland vase.
Willy Loman is an over-the-hill salesman who faces a personal turning point when he loses his job and attempts to make peace with his family: Willy's long-suffering wife Linda, and Biff and Happy, his troubled sons and his life.
The discovery of mysterious egg-shaped objects at the sites of a series of disasters lead people to believe that we are being attacked by alien beings, but it is revealed to be a conspiracy hatched by a team of scientists intent on using an alien menace to unite the world. But their scheme backfires with fatal consequences...
1983
An unexpected suicide prompts much speculation about honesty and theft.
1970
Scotland, 11th century. Driven by the twisted prophecy of three witches and the ruthless ambition of his wife, warlord Macbeth, bold and brave, but also weak and hesitant, betrays his good king and his brothers in arms and sinks into the bloody mud of a path with no return, sown with crime and suspicion.
1974
In 1947 England, in the home of Professor Robert Linden, chair of modern history at the provincial University of Burmanley, rationing and austerity seem to have fostered opportunism, escapism and confrontation within the Linden family, gathered to celebrate Robert's 65th birthday and each of whom is struggling with their own crises.
1982
Guests at a small hotel are disquieted by the insistence of a mysterious doctor that he has been there before.
1975
Pip is a socialist who has seen the squalor of the East End, typified by greasy cafés offering 'chips with everything'. Pip is also the only privately-educated recruit in a draft of other National Service recruits. He's tried to buck the system by not applying for an officer's commission.
1976
A corrupt young man somehow keeps his youthful beauty, but a special painting gradually reveals his inner ugliness to all.
1973
Nemov is an honest man serving a term of 10 years for violations of Article 58. Nemov falls in love with Lyuba, who is having sex with the camp doctor Mereshchun, in exchange for better food and living conditions.
1978
The great actor Edmund Kean is involved in a variety of romantic and other entanglements and wonders where acting ends and real life begins.
A reformed philanderer attempts to embark on monogamy.
A satire of the hypocrisies of French aristocratic society, but also engages a more serious tone when pointing out the flaws that afflict all humans.
An exploration of love, infidelity, and social class through the story of Silvia and her lover Arlequin, who are separated and tempted by a prince and a lady of the court, respectively.
Ross, it seems, is just an ordinary airman in the RAF, albeit more private, more of a loner, than most. But why is he so alarmingly scarred, and who is he, really?
A retired professor has returned to his estate to live with his beautiful young wife, Yelena. The estate originally belonged to his first wife, now deceased; her mother and brother still live there and manage the farm. For many years the brother—Uncle Vanya—has sent the farm's proceeds to the professor, while receiving only a small salary himself.
A long-married couple are at war with each other and with their teenage son and daughter. The presence of a handsome young tutor complicates and sensitizes the savage domestic tensions which arise as the secret emotions of members of the family are shockingly revealed.
Mr. Norton asks the Jacksons to let someone be a lookout for a mystery man. When Gordon Lonsdale is seen visiting the Krogers across the road, MI5 decides to use the Jacksons' home as a base to trap the Portland spy ring.
Idealistic Reverend Morell tries to unite Socialism and Christianity.
A loving family's world is shattered by an old friend's arrival, carrying a dark secret.
In Hell, Don Juan argues with the Devil, and confronts a woman from his past.
A brilliant fellow, Platonov, and he might be a good husband, too — if only women would let him.
In the city of Mycenae, a few years after the Trojan War, a bitter struggle for justice is undertaken by Electra and her brother Orestes for the murder of their father Agamemnon by Clytemnestra and their stepfather Aegisthus.
A luncheon party gathers to celebrate a wealthy unmarried man's birthday; his sister hopes he'll marry Sonya, the daughter of a selfish gout-ridden old professor who makes life Hell for his son George and his young wife, Helen.
An English slave trader is marooned on a remote tropical island, forced to fend for himself and deal with crushing loneliness.
King Magnus's position as monarch is in danger – can he 'upset the apple cart' and preserve his throne?
Scandalmonger Lady Sneerwell controls a nest of gossipy vipers, and young Lady Teazle, bored by her elderly husband Sir Peter, has been lured into the circle too.
An aging King invites disaster, when he abdicates to his corrupt, toadying daughters, and rejects his loving and honest one.
A personal dispute between a union leader and a management leader causes chaos for workers at a troublesome tin mining company.
Wealthy widow Maria invites long-time dinner companion Richard to spend a month at her house in Scotland. If she still likes him after a month together, they will marry. Mutual friends George, Duke of Bristol and his companion Helen decide to make it a foursome.
Writer Alfred is trapped in a loveless, unfulfilled marriage to wealthy Rita. The death of their disabled son wreaks havoc on their relationship as they struggle to find redemption for their personal failures.
Foppish, would-be playwright-critic Mr Puff invites his literary-minded associates to a production of his horrendous and nonsensical spectacular, The Spanish Armada, confident that he's written a hit.
In late 1918 Ukraine, the various armies of the Ukrainian War of Independence (the White Army, the Red Army, the Imperial German Army and Ukrainian nationalists) fight over the city of Kiev, leaving the fate of the Turbin family in ambiguity.
In rural 1840s Scotland, Gavin Dishart arrives to become the new 'little minister' of Thrums's Auld Licht church. He meets a mysterious young gypsy girl in the dens and to his horror Babbie draws him into her escape from the soldiers after she incites a Luddite riot. But unknown to Gavin, Babbie is more than she seems, and they must overcome her secret, the villagers' fears of her, and--worst of all--Gavin's devotion to his mother's sensibilities, before they can openly declare their love.
A scholarly king and his three companions swear off the society of women for three years, only to have a diplomatic visit from a French princess and her three ladies-in-waiting thwart their intentions.
At the turn of the 20th century, a set of long-married couples discover that due to a bureaucratic quirk they have never actually been married.
Trilby, a young Irish girl in Paris, falls under the influence of the sinister hypnotist Svengali.
A quartet of mystery plays originally based in Chester.
The romantic and comic adventures of a quintet of young Englishmen in France, on a course to learn the language.
Grace has agreed to marry Sir Harcourt Courtly in return for his financial support of her family. At a house party in her father's place, Harcourt's son Charles also falls in love with Grace. When his father appears on the scene, he has to convince him that there is a case of mistaken identity and he is somebody else.
A disillusioned, angry university graduate comes to terms with his grudge against middle-class life and values.
In pre-WWI England, a youngster is expelled from a naval academy over a petty theft, but his parents raise a political furor by demanding a trial.
Pinchwife brings his simple young wife to London for his sister's wedding. Lest she falls prey to the town's temptations, he keeps her under lock and key.
Strether is sent to Europe to rescue a young American from the charms of a mysterious French beauty. But he is soon under the liberating influence of Europe himself.
On the eve of World War I, Ellie Dunn, her father, and her fiancé are invited to one of Hesione Hushabye's infamous dinner parties. Unfortunately, her fiancé is a scoundrel, her father's a bumbling prig, and she's actually in love with Hector, Hesione's husband. This bold mix of farce and tragedy lampoons British society as it blithely sinks towards disaster.
An exploration of the relationship between two couples from different social classes: one wealthy and Conservative, one poor and socialist.
Scoundrels are put on notice and women (literally) wear the pants in this uproarious comedy. Recruiting officers travel from port to port wooing men into service at sea, and women into their beds. Two such men, Worthy and Plume, land in Shrewsbury each in love with a woman who lives there.
When linguistics professor Henry Higgins boasts that he can pass off Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle as a princess with only six months' training, Colonel George Pickering takes him up on the bet. Eliza moves into Higgins's home and begins her rigorous training after the professor comes to a financial agreement with her dustman father, Alfred. But the plucky young woman is not the only one undergoing a transformation.
A woman falls in love with a sea captain, and plots to kill her fiance.
Two young gentlemen living in 1890s England use the same pseudonym ('Ernest') on the sly, which is fine until they both fall in love with women using that name, which leads to a comedy of mistaken identities.
A woman unhappy in her passionless marriage leaves her husband for a younger and more ardent lover.
The rivalry between a wealthy businessman and his lower-class, self-made rival gets very personal indeed.
A portrait of the sordid underbelly of Soviet society during the Russian Civil War.
Edward Voysey's highly principled world upturns when he discovers the family business he's inheriting has been defrauding its clients for years because his father has been illegally speculating with their money. To compound matters, he quickly discovers his large, scandal-fearing family knew of the crime but allowed it to continue rather than face the shame of public disclosure.
Siblings Johnnie and Hester delay the responsibility of becoming adults to the point they lose the purpose of existence.
Kate is secretly betrothed to a struggling journalist, Merton Densher. But she knows her Aunt Maude will never approve of the match, since Kate's deceased mother has lost all her money in a marriage to a degenerate opium addict. When Kate meets a terminally ill American heiress named Millie traveling through Europe, she comes up with a conniving plan to have both love and wealth.
A woman cannot decide between two men who love her, and the trio agree to try living together in a platonic friendly relationship.
1968
In 15th century France, a teenage peasant leads the army to victories against the English after claiming she has heard the voices of saints.
The Midwestern University trustees have forced three teachers out for being suspected communists. Trustee Ed Keller has also threatened mild-mannered English professor Tommy Turner, because he plans to read a controversial piece of prose in class. Tommy is upset that his wife Ellen also suggested he not read the passage. Meanwhile, Ellen's old boyfriend, football player Joe Ferguson, comes to visit for the Homecoming.
Aging actress Arkidana pays summer visits to her brother Sorin and son Konstantin on a country estate. On one occasion, she brings with her Trigorin, a successful novelist. Meanwhile, Nina, a free and innocent girl on a neighboring estate, falls for Trigorin.
Lonely people in a quiet hotel find their lives shaken up by the arrival of the glamorous, assertive Helen Lancaster.
Mary Stuart, named Queen of Scotland when she was only six days old, is the last Roman Catholic ruler of Scotland. She's imprisoned at 23 by her cousin Elizabeth Tudor, the English Queen and her arch adversary. Nineteen years later, Mary's life is to end on the scaffold and with her execution, the last threat to Elizabeth's throne has been removed. The two Queens with their contrasting personalities make a dramatic counterpoint to history.
Maigret responds to a call from a young woman in the middle of the night, but he then finds himself accused of raping her. He is forced to clear his name, and search for what had really taken place that night.
Ginny plots to keep her affair with the much older (and married) Philip from her regular boyfriend Greg.
Highly-placed Romans plot the murder of Julius Caesar.
Sir Robert Chiltern is a successful Government minister, well-off and with a loving wife. All this is threatened when Mrs Cheveley appears in London with damning evidence of a past misdeed. Sir Robert turns for help to his friend Lord Goring, an apparently idle philanderer and the despair of his father. Goring knows the lady of old, and, for him, takes the whole thing pretty seriously
1972
An Indian doctor meets a willful and arrogant heiress stuck in a dull marriage in order to satisfy the conditions of her father's will.
Hedda Gabler is a beautiful woman married to the solid and respectable academic George Tesman. Then an old flame, the dreamer Eilert Lovborg, turns up on the scene with tragic results.
Resolving the riddle of the Sphinx makes Oedipus the king of Thebes, but he also resolves another mystery — and it destroys him.
A widow weds a magistrate and makes her 19-year-old son act as a boy.
A self-proclaimed 'knight' and his hapless squire travel the Spanish countryside, attacking 'giants' that are really windmills in his attempt to win the love of the fair Dulcinea.
Candide falls in love with the beautiful but materialistic Cunegonde. Her barron father doesn't approve of the affair so Candide wanders, meeting all the misfortunes along the way.
When Lucy Honeychurch and chaperon Charlotte Bartlett find themselves in Florence with rooms without views, fellow guests Mr Emerson and son George step in to remedy the situation. Meeting the Emersons could change Lucy's life forever but, once back in England, how will her experiences in Tuscany affect her marriage plans?
Grusha sacrifices her happiness and dignity for the sake of an abandoned child she takes as her own.
1971
Mistaken identity, unrequited love, and the supernatural are combined in Shakespeare's classic set in the woods of Greece on a moonlit night.
In early 20th century Russia, a peasant monk exerts great influence upon the superstitious wife of the Russian Tsar.
Orgon is a man of property duped by the false piety of the penniless Tartuffe. Orgon takes him into his house, believing him a paragon of virtue. Orgon orders his daughter to reject her fiancé and marry Tartuffe.
Madamr Ranevskaya is a spoiled, aging aristocrat who returns from Paris to face the loss of her magnificent cherry orchard estate after a default on the mortgage. In denial, she continues living in the past, deluding herself and her family, while the beautiful cherry trees are being axed down by the repossessor Lopakhin, her former serf, who has his own agenda.
A plain, repressed spinster falls for a dashing young medical student, but he prefers the wilder life, until it's too late.
Stephen Dedalus comes of age in a Dublin changing radically as the 20th century nears.
Antonio's friend Bassanio is in love and needs money to go courting. Using Antonio as his collateral, he borrows money from Shylock. But when the debt comes due, Shylock demands repayment in the form of a pound of Antonio's flesh.
Lady Windermere suspects that her husband is having an affair with another woman; she confronts him with it.
A theatrical troupe from the west end of London loses its leading lady when she elopes with a wealthy young man from the other side of town.
1977
A dentist falls in love and a family accidentally meet the father they have never known.
Centres around ambitious independent politician Henry Trebell, his plans for a bill to disestablish the Church of England, and his fall from grace and suicide after his affair with a married woman who dies following a botched abortion.
Ossian Flint is an elderly Anglican vicar whose way of life has long been the cause of scandal. He has had as little respect for the seventh commandment during nearly half a century of married life as he has had faith since his ordination. The winter of his life is transformed by his encounter with Dixie, a simple young Irish hirl, unmarried and pregnant, late of Holloway prison.
A group of friends and relations gather at a country estate to see the first performance of an experimental play written and staged by the young man of the house, Konstantin, an aspiring writer who dreams of bringing new forms to the theatre.
In 1907, after a tempestuous storm claims the life of a well-known and loved member of the community, the reactions of the villagers are explored, as well as the attempts by two young lovers to break away from the constraints of the hierarchical, and sometimes irrational, society.
Two gentlemen have fallen on hard times, so they plan to travel through small towns, entrap young heiresses, steal their money and move on, but romance gets in the way.
Georges Danton, a leader of the French Revolution, created the office of the Revolutionary Tribunal as a strong arm for the Revolutionary Government. Within months, he knew this power was a terrible mistake and fought to have it ended with tragic consequences.
1969
A naive young woman falls for a handsome young man who her emotionally abusive father suspects is a fortune hunter.
Charley and Jack pressure classmate Fancourt to pose as Charley's aunt Donna Lucia. Their purpose is to have a chaperone for their amorous visits with Amy and Kitty, niece and ward of crusty Stephen Spettigue. Complications begin when Fancourt, in drag, becomes the love object of not only old Spettigue but also Jack's grandfather.
In a small Russian town at the turn of the century, Olga, Irina, Masha, and their brother Andrei live but dream daily of their return to Moscow, where life is charming and stimulating meaningful. But for now, they exist in a malaise of dissatisfaction. Soldiers from the local military post provide them some companionship and society, but nothing can suffice to replace Moscow in their hopes. Andrei marries provincial Natasha and begins to settle into a life of much less meaning than he'd hoped. Natasha begins to run the family her way. Masha, though married, yearns for the sophisticated life and begins a dalliance with Vershinin, an army officer with a sick and suicidal wife. Even Irina, the freshest, most optimistic of the sisters, begins to waver in her dreams until, finally, tragedy strikes.
The stories of several people are told as they stay at a seaside hotel in Bournemouth.
A businessman thwarts his wife's bequest of an estate to another woman.
A glittering "fancy-dress" comedy that bubbles over with the wit and humour of Richard Sheridan, and characters like Mrs Malaprop and Sir Anthony Absolute, "the very pineapple of perfection".
1966
A dramatisation of the defection of Soviet intelligence officer Vladimir Petrov, who, fueled by disillusionment with the Soviet system and his fear of returning, led to a Royal Commission investigating Soviet espionage in Australia, marking a significant impact on Australian politics.
Set in a future where people peacefully coexist in a sealed bubble, they are divided into four levels — Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and deviants unable to conform. Elizabeth hails from a Beta family and her father seeks to pair her off with Bindon, a civil servant with prospects. Elizabeth, however, is in love with Jon, a modest rocket pad official. When Elizabeth's father decides to have her mind altered to remove feelings for Jon, the lovers flee, discovering fresh air and the beauty and cruelness of nature for the first time.
Concerns the attempts of an English MP to influence the country's policy on nuclear weapons in the 1950s.
1967
Loosely inspired from Gauguin's life, Charles Strickland is a middle-aged stockbroker who abandons his middle-classed life, his family, his duties to start painting, what he has always wanted to do. He is from now on a awful human being, wholly devoted to his ideal: beauty.
Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet fall in love against the wishes of their feuding families. Driven by their passion, the young lovers defy their destiny and elope, only to suffer the ultimate tragedy.
As the Nazis grow ever more powerful, Werner Roger grows up in an aristocratic household, hating his domineering father and making enemies in high places.
Long-nosed Cyrano de Bergerac helps an army officer woo Roxanne, the woman he loves.
A young student idealizes the lives of the inhabitants of a stylish Stockholm apartment building, only to find that it a nest of betrayal and sickness.
A schoolteacher mentors a talented young miner and seeks to get him into a university.
The magician Prospero, once Duke of Milan, now rules a small, enchanted island – but a storm brings visitors from the past.
A trio of middle-aged women set up housekeeping together.
John Tanner is determined not to lose his independence - which comes under threat when he falls in love with an ardent feminist.
Weekend guests of the Bliss family finds their hosts distinctly eccentric.
