About this season
Sunday Night Theatre was a long-running series of televised live television plays screened by BBC Television from early 1950 until 1959. The productions for the first five years or so of the run were re-staged live the following Thursday, partly because of technical limitations in this era, and the theatrical basis of early television drama. Some of the earliest collaborations between Rudolph Cartier and Nigel Neale were produced for this series, including Arrow to the Heart and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The Sunday night drama slot was subsequently renamed The Sunday-Night Play which ran for four seasons between 1960 and 1963. ITV transmitted its own unrelated run of Sunday Night Theatre between 1971 and 1974.
Episodes (18)
5. The Creature
Aired 30 January 1955
A scientist searches for the Yeti in a Himalayan fastness, and is soon at odds with an adventurer who wants to find the Creature for less exalted reasons.
8. Candida
Aired 20 February 1955
The idealist Reverend Morell tries to unite Socialism and Christianity.
11. The Merchant of Venice
Aired 13 March 1955
A rich merchant, Antonio is depressed for no good reason, until his good friend Bassanio comes to tell him how he's in love with Portia. Portia's father has died and left a very strange will: only the man that picks the correct casket out of three (silver, gold, and lead) can marry her. Bassanio, unfortunately, is strapped for cash with which to go wooing, and Antonio wants to help, so Antonio borrows the money from Shylock, the money-lender. But Shylock has been nursing a grudge against Antonio's insults, and makes unusual terms to the loan. And when Antonio's business fails, those terms threaten his life, and it's up to Bassanio and Portia to save him.
12. The Merchant of Venice/II
Aired 17 March 1955
A rich merchant, Antonio is depressed for no good reason, until his good friend Bassanio comes to tell him how he's in love with Portia. Portia's father has died and left a very strange will: only the man that picks the correct casket out of three (silver, gold, and lead) can marry her. Bassanio, unfortunately, is strapped for cash with which to go wooing, and Antonio wants to help, so Antonio borrows the money from Shylock, the money-lender. But Shylock has been nursing a grudge against Antonio's insults, and makes unusual terms to the loan. And when Antonio's business fails, those terms threaten his life, and it's up to Bassanio and Portia to save him.
16. Midsummer Fire
Aired 17 April 1955
18. It Could Happen Only in Paris
Aired 1 May 1955
21. Romeo and Juliet
Aired 22 May 1955
In Shakespeare's classic play, the Montagues and Capulets, two families of Renaissance Italy, have hated each other for years, but the son of one family and the daughter of the other fall desperately in love and secretly marry.
23. The Legend of Pepito
Aired 5 June 1955
24. Holiday for Simon
Aired 12 June 1955
33. The Powder Magazine
Aired 14 August 1955
35. A Life in the Sun
Aired 28 August 1955
38. The Scarlet Pimpernel
Aired 18 September 1955
A noblewoman discovers her husband is The Scarlet Pimpernel, a vigilante who rescues aristocrats from the blade of the guillotine.
42. The Makepeace Story #1: The Ruthless Destiny
Aired 16 October 1955
43. The Makepeace Story #2: A New Generation
Aired 23 October 1955
44. The Makepeace Story #3: Family Business
Aired 30 October 1955
47. Idiot's Delight
Aired 20 November 1955
A group of disparate travelers are caught are thrown together in a posh Alpine hotel when the borders are closed at the start of WWII.
50. The Devil Came from Dublin
Aired 11 December 1955
51. The Devil's General
Aired 18 December 1955
A veteran hero of the German army finds himself at odds with the Nazi regime.