The Wednesday Play Season 1 poster

The Wednesday Play — Season 1

196434 episodes5.2/10 (5 votes)

About this season

An anthology series of television plays which aired on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured.

Episodes (34)

1
E1

1. Catch As Catch Can

Aired 30 September 1964 • 75 min

Based on the play "La foire d'empoigne" by Jean Anouilh.

2
E2

2. A Crack in the Ice

Aired 28 October 1964 • 75 min

A soldier named Postnikov rescues a drowning man.

3
E3

3. In Camera

Aired 4 November 1964 • 85 min

Three people find themselves sharing a room with no way out. As they talk, the nature of the room and how they came to be there is gradually revealed.

4
E4

4. Pale Horse, Pale Rider

Aired 11 November 1964 • 85 min

A young woman's dreams of death but The Pale Rider fills her dreams along with her lover.

5
E5

5. The Big Breaker

Aired 18 November 1964 • 90 min

A lodger, recuperating from a heart attack, sets his sights on his landlady.

6
E6

6. Mr. Douglas

Aired 25 November 1964 • 70 min

Coronation Day, 1761: A merchant entertains a guest with an extraordinary secret.

7
E7

7. Malatesta

Aired 2 December 1964 • 95 min

Sigismondo Malatesta is a condottiere, a mercenary for hire and patron of the arts.

8
E8

8. The July Plot

Aired 9 December 1964 • 95 min

Dramatisation of the failed plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler in July 1944 by a conspiracy of high-ranking German Army officers.

9
E9

9. First Love

Aired 16 December 1964 • 85 min

A study of a boy's passion for an older girl as he discovers the difference between infatuation and true love.

10
E10

10. Tap on the Shoulder

Aired 6 January 1965 • 75 min

Archibald Cooper is a London gangster who is living the life of a country squire while running a criminal empire. He learns that he's getting a knighthood so invites some old associates to country house unaware they are planning a robbery.

11
E11

11. Sir Jocelyn, the Minister Would Like a Word...

Aired 13 January 1965 • 75 min

A group of politicians and university dons argue over whether a new university should have a chapel or a state-of-the-art lecture hall.

12
E12

12. The Navigators

Aired 20 January 1965 • 75 min

A tale of romance between two working class navvies.

13
E13

13. Fable

Aired 27 January 1965 • 75 min

In a parallel totalitarian Great Britain, those in authority are Black people, and white people are their social underdogs — a reversal of the situation in then-contemporary apartheid South Africa.

14
E14

14. Dan, Dan the Charity Man

Aired 3 February 1965 • 75 min

Dan Sankey, the charity knocker, has become a national celebrity but who is the man behind the image?

15
E15

15. Ashes to Ashes

Aired 10 February 1965 • 75 min

Barbara is an assertive, clever, liberated woman, her own boss. Who'd think she could be swept off her feet by a handsome stranger for whom she'd give up her career, London, everything? Especially as her new husband maybe wants to kill her.

16
E16

16. Wear a Very Big Hat

Aired 17 February 1965 • 75 min

A young couple celebrate their wedding anniversary with a night on the town.

17
E17

17. The Confidence Course

Aired 24 February 1965 • 61 min

A trio of swindlers advertise a self-assertiveness seminar, lure a dozen victims to a hotel and attempt to persuade them to enroll in their course. However, a man claiming to be 18th century critic-essayist William Hazlitt attacks the consumerist values outlined by the motivational speaker.

18
E18

18. Campaign for One

Aired 3 March 1965 • 75 min

Astronaut Osborne is stuck in a malfunctioning capsule. As he goes round and round the Earth, he starts telling jokes and secrets. When the time comes to bring him down to Earth, he can't face it as he feels like a sexual failure.

19
E19

19. Horror of Darkness

Aired 10 March 1965 • 70 min

Peter and Cathy are initially delighted to see their charismatic, subtly domineering friend Robin. But he outstays his welcome, and that's to say the least of it.

20
E20

20. A Little Temptation

Aired 17 March 1965 • 75 min

A writer is having an affair with a married woman and gets embroiled with the other women in her life.

21
E21

21. Moving On

Aired 24 March 1965 • 75 min

A soldier faces a court-martial for killing his friend.

22
E22

22. Cat's Cradle

Aired 31 March 1965 • 75 min

A couple move to the country, but the wife feels isolated and finds companionship with her cat.

23
E23

23. Three Clear Sundays

Aired 7 April 1965 • 75 min

A dull witted young labourer from a criminal family is sent to gaol for a minor crime, leaving his pregnant girlfriend unmarried. But while there he is talked into attacking a guard, who later dies, so he's then sentenced to hang for his crime, despite a protest and newspaper campaign for leniency.

24
E24

24. The Interior Decorator

Aired 14 April 1965 • 75 min

An interior decorator takes a millionaire's wife on a guided tour of her new home.

25
E25

25. Auto-Stop

Aired 21 April 1965 • 75 min

A young couple go on a hitch-hiking tour of Europe.

26
E26

26. The Good Shoe Maker and the Poor Fish Peddler

Aired 28 April 1965 • 75 min

An account of the shocking Sacco-Vanzetti case of the 1920s, where two working-class Italian immigrants to the US were executed after seven years on Death Row.

27
E27

27. Cemented with Love

Aired 5 May 1965 • 75 min

It is general election night in a constituency in Northern Ireland.

28
E28

28. A Knight in Tarnished Armour

Aired 12 May 1965 • 75 min

Tom is a working class Scots teenager, but he dreams of much more.

29
E29

29. For the West

Aired 26 May 1965 • 75 min

White mercenary forces prepare to attack rebel, pro-Lumumbist troops in the Congo

30
E30

30. And Did Those Feet?

Aired 2 June 1965 • 75 min

Lord Fountain hates his illegitimate twin boys as he does not seem to be able to produce legitimate heirs.

31
E31

31. The Man Without Papers

Aired 9 June 1965 • 75 min

Years ago, it was Roscoe who kept his friends alive in a Korean prison camp. Now, he's penniless and without papers in London - will his now-prosperous former friends help him?

32
E32

32. The Pistol

Aired 16 June 1965 • 75 min

A young private with a pistol deals with the aftershock of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

33
E33

33. Women in Crisis: With Love and Tears

Aired 23 June 1965 • 75 min

34
E34

34. The Seven O'Clock Crunch

Aired 30 June 1965 • 75 min

Martin has a mid-life crisis.

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