Leap in the Dark

1 9 7 3 (UK)
7 x 30/40 minute episodes
1 9 7 5 (UK)
4 x 30/40 minute episodes
1 9 7 7 (UK)
6 x 30/40 minute episodes
1 9 8 0 (UK)
7 x 30 minute episodes

This spooky Bristol-produced anthology series premiered on BBC2 on 9 January 1973 and began life as a docudrama series relating real-life stories (of ESP, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, water divining and the like) dramatised by John Elliot and Colin Godman and “reported” by Linda Blandford, Gordon Snell and John Taylor.

The anthology was hosted by Colin Wilson in 1975 and 1977.

With a format change to standalone 30-minute dramatic plays in 1980, the series produced some great dramatic works, such as Peter Redgrove’s “Jack Be Nimble” (4 September) – which featured a 17-year-old girl (Lisa Vanderpump) who had occasional flashes of knowledge that were strange and malicious -, David Rudkin’s “The Living Grave” (9 September) – the story of a nurse who, under hypnosis, began to speak in the voice of “Kitty”, reliving events from her life 200 years ago  – and Alan Garner’s “To Kill a King” (12 September) – about a house and how the events that took place in it destroyed the writer who lived there.

Actors included Brian Blessed, Keith Barron, Bernard Hepton, Carol Hawkins, Wendy Allnutt, Rula Lenska, Lesley Dunlop, Christian Rodska, Patricia Quinn, Juliet Harmer, and Lalla Ward.