About this season
Dame Joan Collins takes on all of Gertrude Lawrence's lead roles in rare and entertaining television productions of eight out of the nine thirty-minute playlets by Noël Coward which he and Lawrence performed on-stage in sets of three from 1935 as "Tonight at 8.30".
Episodes (8)
1. Hands Across the Sea
Aired 14 April 1991
A wealthy couple invites people over for drinks, and a couple arrives whom they don't recognize at all. They believe the two are someone else and spend their time trying to remember where they met and what they did before this meeting.
2. Red Peppers
Aired 21 April 1991
Lily and George Pepper are a music hall act called "The Red Peppers," and one day onstage, late in their current engagement, they criticize the conductor and blame one another for trouble in their act. They also criticize a performer on the bill who is elderly, but still a respected star. When they appear onstage for their final performance, the conductor gets them back by railroading their orchestrations.
3. The Astonished Heart
Aired 28 April 1991
School friends meet again after many years, and while a wife holds the candle for her Doctor husband, the friend has an affair with him, creating torment among the three until tragedy tears them apart.
4. Family Album
Aired 5 May 1991
Following their father's death, his family of survivors make plans for the future. When they open a trunk, they find costumes they'd played with as children and the tense funereal air is suddenly lightened, leading to singing and dancing.
5. Fumed Oak
Aired 12 May 1991
After being browbeaten by his overbearing wife and mother-in-law, and his spoiled daughter, a man makes the choice to leave his family. When he informs them of his best-laid plans, they are astonished, because now they must learn to fend for themselves.
6. Ways and Means
Aired 19 May 1991
After a night in the casino in Cannes, the Cartwrights realize they're broke. Furthermore, their hostess needs to turn them out, because their suite is needed for incoming guests. When a thief arrives to rob them, they plan ways and means to benefit themselves, and the robber.
7. Still Life
Aired 26 May 1991
A doctor and a housewife meet by happenstance at a train station, and through five beautifully played scenes, they fall in love, but the relationship is doomed to fail, because both are married to others, and the doctor has plans for a future away from England.
8. Shadow Play
Aired 2 June 1991