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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Television»Drama
    Drama TV Shows - 1950s 2 Mins Read

    Promised Years, The

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    1 9 5 4 (UK)
    2 x 85 minute episodes
    1 x 100 minute episode
    1 x 75 minute episode

    Iain MacCormick’s cycle of four full-length plays dealing with a group of people caught up in the aftermath of war aired between 23 May and 15 August 1954 in the BBC Sunday Night Theatre slot and was the first series of its kind in this format for British television.

    The first of the plays, The Liberators, involved the proposed Allied destruction of the small Italian town of Canavento in 1945 in order to slow the withdrawal of the German army in that region. The decision as to whether the town should be evacuated prior to the bombing was left to young British officer Major Kent (Owen Holder).

    Two of the characters from The Liberators were then carried through to the second play, The Good Partners, which was set during the Berlin Airlift of 1948 and involved the plight of a fugitive eastern European scientist.

    The Small Victory was set in Korea in 1951 and revolved around a Catholic mission overtaken by the Chinese and tyrannised by the sadistic Captain Feng (Alec Mango), who was forcing false confessions by torture.

    The final play, Return to the River, was set in the present day (of 1954) and saw Kent return to the little Italian farmhouse from which he directed the operation that resulted in the destruction of Camevento. There he found that the promised years of peace were anything but.

    In October 1954, MacCormick won the Guild of Television Producers and Directors Award for the best TV script for the cycle. Another prize followed at the Daily Mail National Radio and Television awards.

    Captain/Major Coombe
    Patrick Allen
    Lucia
    Maureen Beck (1)
    Ingeborg Wells (2)
    Corporal/Sgt Little
    Douglas Blackwell
    Anna
    Sheila Burrell
    Sgt Kutsky
    Paul Carpenter
    Mama Valbella
    Ina De La Haye
    Pietro
    Philip Guard
    Major Kent
    Owen Holder
    Vincente
    Laurence Payne
    Seppi
    Jack Rodney
    Padre
    John Welsh
    Papa Valbella
    Paul Whitsun-Jones
    Peter Krek
    John Bailey
    Pvt. Brown
    Ted Follows
    Luise
    Elizabeth Kentish
    Sgt. Martin
    Bill Nagy
    Mary English
    Joyce Cummings
    Thompson
    Rupert Davies
    Mr Hargreve
    Walter Fitzgerald
    Sister Annelise
    Lily Kann
    Nadia
    Delphi Lawrence
    Captain Feng
    Alec Mango
    Sam
    Lionel Ngakane
    Father Riley
    John Welsh
    Mara
    Pamela Alan
    Kent
    Simon Lack
    Alfredo
    Harry Ross
    Poldari
    John Sharplin

    Episodes

    The Liberators | The Good Partners | The Small Victory | Return To The River

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