Saturday Playhouse
Saturday Playhouse was a 60-minute UK anthology television series produced by and airing on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) from 4 January 1958 until 1 April 1961. There were sixty-eight episodes, among them adaptations of the plays The Man Who Came to Dinner and The Cat and the Canary. One of the episodes, Alex Atkinson’s classic thriller Design for Murder, was featured twice on the BBC: first on Saturday Playhouse (Saturday, 15 March 1958; S1/Ep.6) and again from the BBC's own theatre in Bristol (Thursday, 6 July 1961).
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Cast
Seasons
- Ep 1
1.S1.E1 ∙ The Man Upstairs
04-01-1958An anthology series of dramatisations of plays.
- Ep 2
2.S1.E2 ∙ The Distaff Side
11-01-1958An 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...
- Ep 3
3.S1.E3 ∙ Heroes Don't Care
18-01-1958 - Ep 4
4.S1.E4 ∙ Britannia of Billingsgate
25-01-1958 - Ep 5
5.S1.E5 ∙ The Corn Is Green
01-02-1958A spinster schoolteacher arrives in a Welsh mining valley and discovers a boy genius in her class.
- Ep 6
6.S1.E6 ∙ Design for Murder
08-02-1958 - Ep 7
7.S1.E7 ∙ My Flesh, My Blood
15-02-1958 - Ep 8
8.S1.E8 ∙ Ladies in Retirement
22-02-1958Ellen 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 incar...
- Ep 9
9.S1.E9 ∙ A Likely Tale
01-03-1958A 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.
- Ep 10
10.S1.E10 ∙ And No Birds Sing
08-03-1958 - Ep 11
11.S1.E11 ∙ Carry On, Admiral
15-03-1958The action takes place in a bedroom in a Portsmouth hotel, the wardroom of H.M.S. Sherwood, and the living-room at Admiralty House.
- Ep 12
12.S1.E12 ∙ French Without Tears
22-03-1958The 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 brot...
- Ep 13
13.S1.E13 ∙ High Heaven
29-03-1958 - Ep 14
14.S1.E14 ∙ The Ware Case
05-04-1958A 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 inclina...
- Ep 15
15.S1.E15 ∙ The Fourth Wall
12-04-1958The host of a dinner party is murdered.
- Ep 16
16.S1.E16 ∙ Dr. Angelus
19-04-1958 - Ep 17
17.S1.E17 ∙ A Young Affair
26-04-1958 - Ep 18
18.S1.E18 ∙ The Dover Road
13-09-1958A 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...
- Ep 19
19.S1.E19 ∙ Day of Retirement
20-09-1958 - Ep 20
20.S1.E20 ∙ A Private Eye for Pennsylvania
27-09-1958 - Ep 21
21.S1.E21 ∙ Four for Solitaire
25-10-1958 - Ep 22
22.S1.E22 ∙ Trespass
22-11-1958 - Ep 23
23.S1.E23 ∙ The Duke in Darkness
06-12-1958A 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.
- Ep 24
24.S1.E24 ∙ The Magistrate
20-12-1958A widow weds a magistrate and makes her 19-year-old son act as a boy.
- Ep 25
25.S1.E25 ∙ So Many Children
27-12-1958 - Ep 26
26.S1.E26 ∙ Trilby
17-01-1959in 19th-century Paris, a sinister hypnotist tries to turn a simple Irish girl into an opera star.
- Ep 27
27.S1.E27 ∙ Murder on the Agenda
14-02-1959Eynon 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 h...
- Ep 28
28.S1.E28 ∙ Golden Rain
28-02-1959 - Ep 29
29.S1.E29 ∙ While the Sun Shines
28-03-1959 - Ep 30
30.S1.E30 ∙ The Cat and the Canary
09-05-1959At 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.
- Ep 31
31.S1.E31 ∙ The Larford Lad
20-06-1959The story of a young boxer's rise to fame.
- Ep 32
32.S1.E32 ∙ Black Chiffon
04-07-1959A woman who has an absolutely untarnished reputation unaccountably steals a black-chiffon nightgown days before her son's wedding.
- Ep 33
33.S1.E33 ∙ My Young Brother
18-07-1959 - Ep 34
34.S1.E34 ∙ Love and Miss Figgis
01-08-1959 - Ep 35
35.S1.E35 ∙ Unfinished Journey
08-08-1959 - Ep 36
36.S1.E36 ∙ The Cathedral
15-08-1959 - Ep 37
37.S1.E37 ∙ Last Day in Dreamland
29-08-1959 - Ep 38
38.S1.E38 ∙ It Isn't Enough
26-09-1959 - Ep 39
39.S1.E39 ∙ Haul for the Shore
24-10-1959 - Ep 40
40.S1.E40 ∙ Bed and Breakfast
21-11-1959 - Ep 41
41.S1.E41 ∙ The Farmer's Wife
05-12-1959After his daughter weds, a middle-aged widower with a profitable farm decides to remarry but finds choosing a suitable mate a problematic process.
- Ep 42
42.S1.E42 ∙ Through a Glass Darkly
19-12-1959 - Ep 43
43.S1.E43 ∙ Conflict at Kalanadi
16-01-1960 - Ep 44
44.S1.E44 ∙ The Difficult Age
30-01-1960 - Ep 45
45.S1.E45 ∙ Going Like a Fox
13-02-1960 - Ep 46
46.S1.E46 ∙ The Return of Peggy Atherton
27-02-1960 - Ep 47
47.S1.E47 ∙ Home and the Heart
12-03-1960 - Ep 48
48.S1.E48 ∙ A Matter of Age
26-03-1960 - Ep 49
49.S1.E49 ∙ Devonshire Cream
09-04-1960 - Ep 50
50.S1.E50 ∙ The Country Boy
23-04-1960 - Ep 51
51.S1.E51 ∙ The Man Who Came to Dinner
07-05-1960Sheridan 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 an...
- Ep 52
52.S1.E52 ∙ Marriage Settlement
21-05-1960 - Ep 53
53.S1.E53 ∙ The Guinea Pig
04-06-1960A working-class boy gets a scholarship to a public school.
- Ep 54
54.S1.E54 ∙ The Breadwinner
18-06-1960 - Ep 55
55.S1.E55 ∙ On the Edge
16-07-1960 - Ep 56
56.S1.E56 ∙ Dream Girl
13-08-1960A young lady is filled with daydreams until she meets her reality man.
- Ep 57
57.S1.E57 ∙ The Shop at Sly Corner
27-08-1960Descius 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 motherl...
- Ep 58
58.S1.E58 ∙ Family Occasion
08-10-1960What is Margaret hiding from the rest of the family when they arrive for their father's funeral?
- Ep 59
59.S1.E59 ∙ The Bachelor Brothers
22-10-1960 - Ep 60
60.S1.E60 ∙ Your Obedient Servant
19-11-1960 - Ep 61
61.S1.E61 ∙ The Druid Circle
03-12-1960An 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...
- Ep 62
62.S1.E62 ∙ The Colonel
17-12-1960 - Ep 63
63.S1.E63 ∙ A Run for the Money
31-12-1960 - Ep 64
64.S1.E64 ∙ A Sense of Guilt
14-01-1961 - Ep 65
65.S1.E65 ∙ The Four Poster
28-01-1961The up-and-down lives of a married couple over decades, depicted as a series of bedroom scenes.
- Ep 66
66.S1.E66 ∙ The House with the Green Shutters
11-02-1961 - Ep 67
67.S1.E67 ∙ A Perfect Stranger
25-02-1961 - Ep 68
68.S1.E68 ∙ Seagulls Over Sorrento
04-03-1961A Navy lieutenant is borrowed by the British to supervise torpedo experiments after one of their scientists is killed.
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