Sunday Night Theatre

3.5
1950

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.

Seasons

18 Episodes • Premiered 1950

Still image for Sunday Night Theatre season 1 episode 1: Hindle Wakes

1. Hindle Wakes

Still image for Sunday Night Theatre season 1 episode 2: Rope

2. Rope

Two young men strangle their "inferior" classmate, hide his body in their apartment, and invite his friends and family to a dinner party as a means to challenge the "perfection" of their crime.

Still image for Sunday Night Theatre season 1 episode 3: Twelfth Night

3. Twelfth Night

Viola and Sebastian are lookalike twins, separated by a shipwreck. Viola lands in Illyria, where she disguises herself like her brother and goes into the service of the Duke Orsino. Orsino sends her to help him woo the Lady Olivia, who doesn't want the Duke, but finds that she likes the new messenger the Duke's sending. Then, of course, Viola's brother shows up, and merry hell breaks loose. Meanwhile, Olivia's uncle and his cohorts are trying to find some way to get back at Olivia's officious majordomo, Malvolio.

Still image for Sunday Night Theatre season 1 episode 4: Cheapside

4. Cheapside

Still image for Sunday Night Theatre season 1 episode 5: Trespass

5. Trespass

Still image for Sunday Night Theatre season 1 episode 6: The Scarlet Pimpernel

6. The Scarlet Pimpernel

A noblewoman discovers her husband is The Scarlet Pimpernel, a vigilante who rescues aristocrats from the blade of the guillotine.

Still image for Sunday Night Theatre season 1 episode 7: The Indifferent Shepherd

7. The Indifferent Shepherd

Still image for Sunday Night Theatre season 1 episode 10: The Seagull

10. The Seagull

This quintessential Chekhov drama--his first success--is both comic and tragic. 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.

Still image for Sunday Night Theatre season 1 episode 11: The Lady's Not for Burning

11. The Lady's Not for Burning

Still image for Sunday Night Theatre season 1 episode 16: Promise of Tomorrow

16. Promise of Tomorrow

Marius Goring stars as Tommy Savidge, a crippled poet who longs to compose verse dramas but is forced to write trashy plays for dingy provincial repertory companies to make a living.

Still image for Sunday Night Theatre season 1 episode 17: Othello

17. Othello

Still image for Sunday Night Theatre season 1 episode 30: Dark Tribute

30. Dark Tribute

Still image for Sunday Night Theatre season 1 episode 31: Adventure Story

31. Adventure Story

The story of Alexander the Great, a compulsive conqueror.

Still image for Sunday Night Theatre season 1 episode 33: The History of Mr. Polly

33. The History of Mr. Polly

Still image for Sunday Night Theatre season 1 episode 36: Vanity Fair

36. Vanity Fair

Still image for Sunday Night Theatre season 1 episode 40: Party Manners

40. Party Manners

Still image for Sunday Night Theatre season 1 episode 48: The Secret Sharer

48. The Secret Sharer

A ship's captain must conceal a stowaway from his crew.

Still image for Sunday Night Theatre season 1 episode 49: An Enemy of the People

49. An Enemy of the People

A scientist stands against an entire town when he discovers their medicinal spa is polluted.

Cast

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