This long-running series of plays from the BBC – broadcast live to air on Sunday nights and repeated the following Thursday (also live) – included such prestigious productions as ‘Rope’ (8 January 1950) with Peter Wyngarde, the “Festival Drama” plays produced for the Festival of Britain in 1951, ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four‘ (12 December 1954) starring Peter Cushing, ‘Mrs Patterson’ (17 June 1956) with Eartha Kitt, ‘The Cold Light’ (29 July 1956) with Marius Goring, ‘Clive of India’ (30 December 1956), ‘Requiem for a Heavyweight’ (31 March 1957) starring Sean Connery (pictured below) and Michael Caine, and ‘The Small Back Room (5 April 1959).
A cast of thousands also included Richard Burton, Donald Pleasence, Peter O’Toole, Vanessa Redgrave, Peter Ustinov, Denholm Elliott, Richard Attenborough, Anthony Quayle, Patrick Troughton, Susannah York, Alfie Bass, Jack Hawkins, Michael Hordern, Margaret Rutherford, Joan Sims, Leslie Phillips, Sam Kydd, Warren Mitchell, Herbert Lom, Arthur Lowe, Patrick McGoohan, Kenneth Williams, Terry-Thomas, Adrienne Corri, Joan Plowright, Wilfred Pickles, Gordon Jackson, Prunella Scales, Clive Dunn, Hattie Jacques, Peter Wyngarde, Angela Baddeley and Dandy Nichols.
‘Requiem for a Heavyweight’ (31 March 1957) with Sean Connery.
The Sunday night BBC drama slot was subsequently renamed The Sunday-Night Play (1960 – 1963).
