The Wednesday Play

Episode 2

A Crack in the Ice

A soldier named Postnikov rescues a drowning man.

Episode 3

In Camera

Three people find themselves sharing a room with no way out. As they talk, the nature of the room and how they came to be there is gradually revealed.

Episode 4

Pale Horse, Pale Rider

A young woman's dreams of death but The Pale Rider fills her dreams along with her lover.

Episode 5

The Big Breaker

A lodger, recuperating from a heart attack, sets his sights on his landlady.

Episode 6

Mr. Douglas

Coronation Day, 1761: A merchant entertains a guest with an extraordinary secret.

Episode 7

Malatesta

Sigismondo Malatesta is a condottiere, a mercenary for hire and patron of the arts.

Episode 8

The July Plot

Dramatisation of the failed plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler in July 1944 by a conspiracy of high-ranking German Army officers.

Episode 9

First Love

A study of a boy's passion for an older girl as he discovers the difference between infatuation and true love.

Episode 10

Tap on the Shoulder

Archibald Cooper is a London gangster who is living the life of a country squire while running a criminal empire. He learns that he's getting a knighthood so invites some old associates to country house unaware they are planning a robbery.

Episode 11

Sir Jocelyn, the Minister Would Like a Word...

A group of politicians and university dons argue over whether a new university should have a chapel or a state-of-the-art lecture hall.

Episode 12

The Navigators

A tale of romance between two working class navvies.

Episode 13

Fable

In a parallel totalitarian Great Britain, those in authority are Black people, and white people are their social underdogs — a reversal of the situation in then-contemporary apartheid South Africa.

Episode 14

Dan, Dan the Charity Man

Dan Sankey, the charity knocker, has become a national celebrity but who is the man behind the image?

Episode 15

Ashes to Ashes

Barbara is an assertive, clever, liberated woman, her own boss. Who'd think she could be swept off her feet by a handsome stranger for whom she'd give up her career, London, everything? Especially as her new husband maybe wants to kill her.

Episode 16

Wear a Very Big Hat

A young couple celebrate their wedding anniversary with a night on the town.

Episode 17

The Confidence Course

A trio of swindlers advertise a self-assertiveness seminar, lure a dozen victims to a hotel and attempt to persuade them to enroll in their course. However, a man claiming to be 18th century critic-essayist William Hazlitt attacks the consumerist values outlined by the motivational speaker.

Episode 18

Campaign for One

Astronaut Osborne is stuck in a malfunctioning capsule. As he goes round and round the Earth, he starts telling jokes and secrets. When the time comes to bring him down to Earth, he can't face it as he feels like a sexual failure.

Episode 19

Horror of Darkness

Peter and Cathy are initially delighted to see their charismatic, subtly domineering friend Robin. But he outstays his welcome, and that's to say the least of it.

Episode 20

A Little Temptation

A writer is having an affair with a married woman and gets embroiled with the other women in her life.

Episode 21

Moving On

A soldier faces a court-martial for killing his friend.

Episode 22

Cat's Cradle

A couple move to the country, but the wife feels isolated and finds companionship with her cat.

Episode 23

Three Clear Sundays

A dull witted young labourer from a criminal family is sent to gaol for a minor crime, leaving his pregnant girlfriend unmarried. But while there he is talked into attacking a guard, who later dies, so he's then sentenced to hang for his crime, despite a protest and newspaper campaign for leniency.

Episode 24

The Interior Decorator

An interior decorator takes a millionaire's wife on a guided tour of her new home.

Episode 25

Auto-Stop

A young couple go on a hitch-hiking tour of Europe.

Episode 26

The Good Shoe Maker and the Poor Fish Peddler

An account of the shocking Sacco-Vanzetti case of the 1920s, where two working-class Italian immigrants to the US were executed after seven years on Death Row.

Episode 27

Cemented with Love

It is general election night in a constituency in Northern Ireland.

Episode 28

A Knight in Tarnished Armour

Tom is a working class Scots teenager, but he dreams of much more.

Episode 29

For the West

White mercenary forces prepare to attack rebel, pro-Lumumbist troops in the Congo

Episode 30

And Did Those Feet?

Lord Fountain hates his illegitimate twin boys as he does not seem to be able to produce legitimate heirs.

Episode 31

The Man Without Papers

Years ago, it was Roscoe who kept his friends alive in a Korean prison camp. Now, he's penniless and without papers in London - will his now-prosperous former friends help him?

Episode 32

The Pistol

A young private with a pistol deals with the aftershock of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Episode 33

Women in Crisis: With Love and Tears

Episode 34

The Seven O'Clock Crunch

Martin has a mid-life crisis.