Adventures of Annabel, The

1 9 5 5 – 1 9 5 6 (UK)
6 x 30 minute episodes

This six-part Saturday night drama series from the BBC premiered on 10 December 1955 and starred Elizabeth Allan in the title role of Annabel, an “incident-prone” concert pianist.

Episodes dealt with her life in London and her travels to Ireland, the Continent (including visits to Nice, Prague, and Munich) and South Africa, where she became involved in exciting adventures. Each episode dealt with a different incident and was a self-contained story covering an 18-month period from the summer of 1954 to the autumn of 1955.

Annabel’s first adventure (‘The Hundred Million Francs’) was brought about by her friend and flatmate Nyassa (Margaret Tyzack), a young novelist whose main tool of trade was not a typewriter but a tape recorder. The tape recorder “overheard” a conversation in a hotel lounge in Nice, which suggested that Annabel’s husband – an RAF pilot believed killed while ferrying members of the Resistance into France – may have still been alive.

The news took Annabel to Nice, and on the plane, she met Robert Hayward (Hugh Sinclair) – who always somehow happened to be on the scene when Annabel became unwittingly involved in five more subsequent adventures.

Norman Pierce appeared in four of the episodes as Sergeant Murray. Guest stars in the various episodes included Patrick Troughton, Alfred Burke, Edward Mulhare, Paul Eddington, and Richard Caldicot.

The series was adapted for television by Anthony Steven from stories by Charles Franklin and produced by Chloe Gibson.

Annabel
Elizabeth Allan
Robert Hayward
Hugh Sinclair
Nyassa Gordon
Margaret Tyzack
Sergeant Murray
Norman Pierce

Episodes

The Hundred Million Francs | Say It with Music | Busman’s Holiday | The Memento Mori | Fair Exchange | Trouble for Company