Saturday Playhouse

1. S1.E1 ∙ The Man Upstairs

Air Date: 1958-01-04

An anthology series of dramatisations of plays.

2. S1.E2 ∙ The Distaff Side

Air Date: 1958-01-11

An upper middle-class family is ruled by the ancient and churlish matriarch. Her daughters' marriages are all in jeopardy, with affairs and communions with the dead. It's difficult to find any solitude or sanity in the family.

3. S1.E3 ∙ Heroes Don't Care

Air Date: 1958-01-18

4. S1.E4 ∙ Britannia of Billingsgate

Air Date: 1958-01-25

5. S1.E5 ∙ The Corn Is Green

Air Date: 1958-02-01

A spinster schoolteacher arrives in a Welsh mining valley and discovers a boy genius in her class.

6. S1.E6 ∙ Design for Murder

Air Date: 1958-02-08

7. S1.E7 ∙ My Flesh, My Blood

Air Date: 1958-02-15

8. S1.E8 ∙ Ladies in Retirement

Air Date: 1958-02-22

Ellen Creed struggles to hold down her job as housekeeper-companion to the retired actress Leonora Fiske whilst trying to protect her two disturbed sisters from the threat of incarceration.

9. S1.E9 ∙ A Likely Tale

Air Date: 1958-03-01

A dying old man changes his will to leave everything to the new housemaid who has caught his eye, much to the alarm of his three grown up children and grandson.

10. S1.E10 ∙ And No Birds Sing

Air Date: 1958-03-08

11. S1.E11 ∙ Carry On, Admiral

Air Date: 1958-03-15

The action takes place in a bedroom in a Portsmouth hotel, the wardroom of H.M.S. Sherwood, and the living-room at Admiralty House.

12. S1.E12 ∙ French Without Tears

Air Date: 1958-03-22

The love affairs of three young Englishmen at a language cramming school in the south of France. Diana, the sister of one of the boys, arrives in town to flirt with all of her brothers' schoolmates.

13. S1.E13 ∙ High Heaven

Air Date: 1958-03-29

14. S1.E14 ∙ The Ware Case

Air Date: 1958-04-05

A financier is accused of murder when his brother-in-law is found dead in his garden pond. After winning the court case he returns home to find that his lawyer has romantic inclinations towards his wife.

15. S1.E15 ∙ The Fourth Wall

Air Date: 1958-04-12

The host of a dinner party is murdered.

16. S1.E16 ∙ Dr. Angelus

Air Date: 1958-04-19

17. S1.E17 ∙ A Young Affair

Air Date: 1958-04-26

18. S1.E18 ∙ The Dover Road

Air Date: 1958-09-13

A wealthy man lives on the Dover Road, a traditional path of elopers. His practice of forcing such couples to see one another in the sober light of home life in his house leads to a personal involvement for him.

19. S1.E19 ∙ Day of Retirement

Air Date: 1958-09-20

20. S1.E20 ∙ A Private Eye for Pennsylvania

Air Date: 1958-09-27

21. S1.E21 ∙ Four for Solitaire

Air Date: 1958-10-25

22. S1.E22 ∙ Trespass

Air Date: 1958-11-22

23. S1.E23 ∙ The Duke in Darkness

Air Date: 1958-12-06

A duke imprisoned for 15 years in a castle in France feigns blindness for five years to lull the suspicions of his captors in order to plan his escape.

24. S1.E24 ∙ The Magistrate

Air Date: 1958-12-20

A widow weds a magistrate and makes her 19-year-old son act as a boy.

25. S1.E25 ∙ So Many Children

Air Date: 1958-12-27

26. S1.E26 ∙ Trilby

Air Date: 1959-01-17

in 19th-century Paris, a sinister hypnotist tries to turn a simple Irish girl into an opera star.

27. S1.E27 ∙ Murder on the Agenda

Air Date: 1959-02-14

Eynon Evans plays the part of Inspector Probert George, who was tortured in a prisoner-of-war camp when his plans for escape were discovered, is dead after five years in a mental home. His five fellow prisoners had sworn that if George died they would kill the man who had betrayed him to the Germans. But which of them was to do the killing? And how?

28. S1.E28 ∙ Golden Rain

Air Date: 1959-02-28

29. S1.E29 ∙ While the Sun Shines

Air Date: 1959-03-28

30. S1.E30 ∙ The Cat and the Canary

Air Date: 1959-05-09

At an old, dark house, on a dark and stormy night, an ill-assorted group of people meet for the reading of a millionaire's will. But there's a madman on the loose.

31. S1.E31 ∙ The Larford Lad

Air Date: 1959-06-20

The story of a young boxer's rise to fame.

32. S1.E32 ∙ Black Chiffon

Air Date: 1959-07-04

A woman who has an absolutely untarnished reputation unaccountably steals a black-chiffon nightgown days before her son's wedding.

33. S1.E33 ∙ My Young Brother

Air Date: 1959-07-18

34. S1.E34 ∙ Love and Miss Figgis

Air Date: 1959-08-01

35. S1.E35 ∙ Unfinished Journey

Air Date: 1959-08-08

36. S1.E36 ∙ The Cathedral

Air Date: 1959-08-15

37. S1.E37 ∙ Last Day in Dreamland

Air Date: 1959-08-29

38. S1.E38 ∙ It Isn't Enough

Air Date: 1959-09-26

39. S1.E39 ∙ Haul for the Shore

Air Date: 1959-10-24

40. S1.E40 ∙ Bed and Breakfast

Air Date: 1959-11-21

41. S1.E41 ∙ The Farmer's Wife

Air Date: 1959-12-05

After his daughter weds, a middle-aged widower with a profitable farm decides to remarry but finds choosing a suitable mate a problematic process.

42. S1.E42 ∙ Through a Glass Darkly

Air Date: 1959-12-19

43. S1.E43 ∙ Conflict at Kalanadi

Air Date: 1960-01-16

44. S1.E44 ∙ The Difficult Age

Air Date: 1960-01-30

45. S1.E45 ∙ Going Like a Fox

Air Date: 1960-02-13

46. S1.E46 ∙ The Return of Peggy Atherton

Air Date: 1960-02-27

47. S1.E47 ∙ Home and the Heart

Air Date: 1960-03-12

48. S1.E48 ∙ A Matter of Age

Air Date: 1960-03-26

49. S1.E49 ∙ Devonshire Cream

Air Date: 1960-04-09

50. S1.E50 ∙ The Country Boy

Air Date: 1960-04-23

51. S1.E51 ∙ The Man Who Came to Dinner

Air Date: 1960-05-07

Sheridan Whiteside, famous as an author, broadcaster and expert on just about everything, is invited to dinner by a pompous small-town businessman - and stays rather longer than anyone anticipated.

52. S1.E52 ∙ Marriage Settlement

Air Date: 1960-05-21

53. S1.E53 ∙ The Guinea Pig

Air Date: 1960-06-04

A working-class boy gets a scholarship to a public school.

54. S1.E54 ∙ The Breadwinner

Air Date: 1960-06-18

55. S1.E55 ∙ On the Edge

Air Date: 1960-07-16

56. S1.E56 ∙ Dream Girl

Air Date: 1960-08-13

A young lady is filled with daydreams until she meets her reality man.

57. S1.E57 ∙ The Shop at Sly Corner

Air Date: 1960-08-27

Descius Heiss is a French expatriate, and former Devil's Island prisoner, with two passions; driving shrewd bargains in antiques at his Sly Corner Shop, and the care of his motherless, violin-playing daughter, Margaret. But, his comfortable wealth comes more from being a fence for stolen goods than it does buying-and-selling antiques. His secret is discovered by his shop assistant Archie Fellowes, a nasty, sniveling young rat, and he begins blackmailing Heiss. Heiss employs the usual solution to blackmailers, and the film ends in a London concert-hall where Margaret is playing the Mendelssohm Violin Concerto.

58. S1.E58 ∙ Family Occasion

Air Date: 1960-10-08

What is Margaret hiding from the rest of the family when they arrive for their father's funeral?

59. S1.E59 ∙ The Bachelor Brothers

Air Date: 1960-10-22

60. S1.E60 ∙ Your Obedient Servant

Air Date: 1960-11-19

61. S1.E61 ∙ The Druid Circle

Air Date: 1960-12-03

An embittered professor comes near to wrecking the lives of a young man and young woman whose love for each other has been accidentally revealed to him through a letter written by the boy to the girl.

62. S1.E62 ∙ The Colonel

Air Date: 1960-12-17

63. S1.E63 ∙ A Run for the Money

Air Date: 1960-12-31

64. S1.E64 ∙ A Sense of Guilt

Air Date: 1961-01-14

65. S1.E65 ∙ The Four Poster

Air Date: 1961-01-28

The up-and-down lives of a married couple over decades, depicted as a series of bedroom scenes.

66. S1.E66 ∙ The House with the Green Shutters

Air Date: 1961-02-11

67. S1.E67 ∙ A Perfect Stranger

Air Date: 1961-02-25

68. S1.E68 ∙ Seagulls Over Sorrento

Air Date: 1961-03-04

A Navy lieutenant is borrowed by the British to supervise torpedo experiments after one of their scientists is killed.