BBC Play of the Month

Defection! The Case of Colonel Petrov

A dramatisation of the defection of Soviet intelligence officer Vladimir Petrov, who, fueled by disillusionment with the

Days to Come

Set in a future where people peacefully coexist in a sealed bubble, they are divided into four levels — Alpha, Beta, G

Corridors of Power

Concerns the attempts of an English MP to influence the country's policy on nuclear weapons in the 1950s.

The Making of Jericho

The Cabinet Makers

Girls in Uniform

The Moon and Sixpence

Loosely inspired from Gauguin's life, Charles Strickland is a middle-aged stockbroker who abandons his middle-classed li

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet fall in love against the wishes of their feuding families. Driven by their passion, th

The Parachute

As the Nazis grow ever more powerful, Werner Roger grows up in an aristocratic household, hating his domineering father

Cyrano de Bergerac

Long-nosed Cyrano de Bergerac helps an army officer woo Roxanne, the woman he loves.

Ghosts

A young student idealizes the lives of the inhabitants of a stylish Stockholm apartment building, only to find that it a

The Corn Is Green

A schoolteacher mentors a talented young miner and seeks to get him into a university.

The Tempest

The magician Prospero, once Duke of Milan, now rules a small, enchanted island – but a storm brings visitors from the

The Old Ladies

A trio of middle-aged women set up housekeeping together.

Man and Superman

John Tanner is determined not to lose his independence - which comes under threat when he falls in love with an ardent f

Hay Fever

Weekend guests of the Bliss family finds their hosts distinctly eccentric.

St. Joan

In 15th century France, a teenage peasant leads the army to victories against the English after claiming she has heard t

The Male Animal

The Midwestern University trustees have forced three teachers out for being suspected communists. Trustee Ed Keller has

The Seagull

Aging actress Arkidana pays summer visits to her brother Sorin and son Konstantin on a country estate. On one occasion,

Waters of the Moon

Lonely people in a quiet hotel find their lives shaken up by the arrival of the glamorous, assertive Helen Lancaster.

Mary, Queen of Scots

Mary Stuart, named Queen of Scotland when she was only six days old, is the last Roman Catholic ruler of Scotland. She's

Maigret at Bay

Maigret responds to a call from a young woman in the middle of the night, but he then finds himself accused of raping he

Relatively Speaking

Ginny plots to keep her affair with the much older (and married) Philip from her regular boyfriend Greg.

Julius Caesar

Highly-placed Romans plot the murder of Julius Caesar.

An Ideal Husband

Sir Robert Chiltern is a successful Government minister, well-off and with a loving wife. All this is threatened when Mr

The Heiress

A naive young woman falls for a handsome young man who her emotionally abusive father suspects is a fortune hunter.

Charley's Aunt

Charley and Jack pressure classmate Fancourt to pose as Charley's aunt Donna Lucia. Their purpose is to have a chaperone

The Marquis

Three Sisters

In a small Russian town at the turn of the century, Olga, Irina, Masha, and their brother Andrei live but dream daily of

In Good King Charles's Golden Days

Separate Tables

The stories of several people are told as they stay at a seaside hotel in Bournemouth.

Howards End

A businessman thwarts his wife's bequest of an estate to another woman.

The Rivals

A glittering "fancy-dress" comedy that bubbles over with the wit and humour of Richard Sheridan, and characters like Mrs

Macbeth

Scotland, 11th century. Driven by the twisted prophecy of three witches and the ruthless ambition of his wife, warlord M

Ross

Ross, it seems, is just an ordinary airman in the RAF, albeit more private, more of a loner, than most. But why is he so

Uncle Vanya

A retired professor has returned to his estate to live with his beautiful young wife, Yelena. The estate originally belo

Five Finger Exercise

A long-married couple are at war with each other and with their teenage son and daughter. The presence of a handsome you

Act of Betrayal

Mr. Norton asks the Jacksons to let someone be a lookout for a mystery man. When Gordon Lonsdale is seen visiting the Kr

Candida

Idealistic Reverend Morell tries to unite Socialism and Christianity.

The Wild Duck

A loving family's world is shattered by an old friend's arrival, carrying a dark secret.

Don Juan in Hell

In Hell, Don Juan argues with the Devil, and confronts a woman from his past.

Platonov

A brilliant fellow, Platonov, and he might be a good husband, too — if only women would let him.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Mistaken identity, unrequited love, and the supernatural are combined in Shakespeare's classic set in the woods of Greec

Rasputin

In early 20th century Russia, a peasant monk exerts great influence upon the superstitious wife of the Russian Tsar.

Tartuffe

Orgon is a man of property duped by the false piety of the penniless Tartuffe. Orgon takes him into his house, believing

The Cherry Orchard

Madamr Ranevskaya is a spoiled, aging aristocrat who returns from Paris to face the loss of her magnificent cherry orcha

Summer and Smoke

A plain, repressed spinster falls for a dashing young medical student, but he prefers the wilder life, until it's too la

Stephen D

Stephen Dedalus comes of age in a Dublin changing radically as the 20th century nears.

The Merchant of Venice

Antonio's friend Bassanio is in love and needs money to go courting. Using Antonio as his collateral, he borrows money f

Lady Windermere's Fan

Lady Windermere suspects that her husband is having an affair with another woman; she confronts him with it.

The Playboy of the Western World

She Stoops to Conquer

Trelawny of the "Wells"

A theatrical troupe from the west end of London loses its leading lady when she elopes with a wealthy young man from the

The Millionairess

An Indian doctor meets a willful and arrogant heiress stuck in a dull marriage in order to satisfy the conditions of her

Hedda Gabler

Hedda Gabler is a beautiful woman married to the solid and respectable academic George Tesman. Then an old flame, the dr

King Oedipus

Resolving the riddle of the Sphinx makes Oedipus the king of Thebes, but he also resolves another mystery — and it des

The Magistrate

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

The Adventures of Don Quixote

A self-proclaimed 'knight' and his hapless squire travel the Spanish countryside, attacking 'giants' that are really win

Candide

Candide falls in love with the beautiful but materialistic Cunegonde. Her barron father doesn't approve of the affair so

A Room with a View

When Lucy Honeychurch and chaperon Charlotte Bartlett find themselves in Florence with rooms without views, fellow guest

The Caucasian Chalk Circle

Grusha sacrifices her happiness and dignity for the sake of an abandoned child she takes as her own.

The Duchess of Malfi

Peer Gynt

The Love Girl and the Innocent

Nemov is an honest man serving a term of 10 years for violations of Article 58. Nemov falls in love with Lyuba, who is h

The Common

An exploration of the relationship between two couples from different social classes: one wealthy and Conservative, one

The Recruiting Officer

Scoundrels are put on notice and women (literally) wear the pants in this uproarious comedy. Recruiting officers travel

Pygmalion

When linguistics professor Henry Higgins boasts that he can pass off Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle as a princess w

The Changeling

A woman falls in love with a sea captain, and plots to kill her fiance.

The Importance of Being Earnest

Two young gentlemen living in 1890s England use the same pseudonym ('Ernest') on the sly, which is fine until they both

The Deep Blue Sea

A woman unhappy in her passionless marriage leaves her husband for a younger and more ardent lover.

The Skin Game

The rivalry between a wealthy businessman and his lower-class, self-made rival gets very personal indeed.

Mrs. Warren's Profession

The Linden Tree

In 1947 England, in the home of Professor Robert Linden, chair of modern history at the provincial University of Burmanl

Electra

In the city of Mycenae, a few years after the Trojan War, a bitter struggle for justice is undertaken by Electra and her

The Wood Demon

A luncheon party gathers to celebrate a wealthy unmarried man's birthday; his sister hopes he'll marry Sonya, the daught

Robinson Crusoe

An English slave trader is marooned on a remote tropical island, forced to fend for himself and deal with crushing lonel

The Apple Cart

King Magnus's position as monarch is in danger – can he 'upset the apple cart' and preserve his throne?

The School for Scandal

Scandalmonger Lady Sneerwell controls a nest of gossipy vipers, and young Lady Teazle, bored by her elderly husband Sir

King Lear

An aging King invites disaster, when he abdicates to his corrupt, toadying daughters, and rejects his loving and honest

Strife

A personal dispute between a union leader and a management leader causes chaos for workers at a troublesome tin mining c

The Shadow of a Gunman

Chips with Everything

Pip is a socialist who has seen the squalor of the East End, typified by greasy cafés offering 'chips with everything'.

The Little Minister

In rural 1840s Scotland, Gavin Dishart arrives to become the new 'little minister' of Thrums's Auld Licht church. He mee

Love's Labour's Lost

A scholarly king and his three companions swear off the society of women for three years, only to have a diplomatic visi

When We Are Married

At the turn of the 20th century, a set of long-married couples discover that due to a bureaucratic quirk they have never

Trilby

Trilby, a young Irish girl in Paris, falls under the influence of the sinister hypnotist Svengali.

Loyalties

The Chester Mystery Cycle

A quartet of mystery plays originally based in Chester.

French Without Tears

The romantic and comic adventures of a quintet of young Englishmen in France, on a course to learn the language.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

A corrupt young man somehow keeps his youthful beauty, but a special painting gradually reveals his inner ugliness to al

London Assurance

Grace has agreed to marry Sir Harcourt Courtly in return for his financial support of her family. At a house party in he

Look Back in Anger

A disillusioned, angry university graduate comes to terms with his grudge against middle-class life and values.

The Winslow Boy

In pre-WWI England, a youngster is expelled from a naval academy over a petty theft, but his parents raise a political f

The Country Wife

Pinchwife brings his simple young wife to London for his sister's wedding. Lest she falls prey to the town's temptations

The Ambassadors

Strether is sent to Europe to rescue a young American from the charms of a mysterious French beauty. But he is soon unde

Heartbreak House

On the eve of World War I, Ellie Dunn, her father, and her fiancé are invited to one of Hesione Hushabye's infamous din

You Never Can Tell

A dentist falls in love and a family accidentally meet the father they have never known.

Waste

Centres around ambitious independent politician Henry Trebell, his plans for a bill to disestablish the Church of Englan

Flint

Ossian Flint is an elderly Anglican vicar whose way of life has long been the cause of scandal. He has had as little res

The Seagull

A group of friends and relations gather at a country estate to see the first performance of an experimental play written

The Sea

In 1907, after a tempestuous storm claims the life of a well-known and loved member of the community, the reactions of t

The Beaux Stratagem

Two gentlemen have fallen on hard times, so they plan to travel through small towns, entrap young heiresses, steal their

Danton's Death

Georges Danton, a leader of the French Revolution, created the office of the Revolutionary Tribunal as a strong arm for

Kean

The great actor Edmund Kean is involved in a variety of romantic and other entanglements and wonders where acting ends a

Marya

A portrait of the sordid underbelly of Soviet society during the Russian Civil War.

The Voysey Inheritance

Edward Voysey's highly principled world upturns when he discovers the family business he's inheriting has been defraudin

Hello and Goodbye

Siblings Johnnie and Hester delay the responsibility of becoming adults to the point they lose the purpose of existence.

The Wings of the Dove

Kate is secretly betrothed to a struggling journalist, Merton Densher. But she knows her Aunt Maude will never approve o

Design for Living

A woman cannot decide between two men who love her, and the trio agree to try living together in a platonic friendly rel

The Kitchen

I Have Been Here Before

Guests at a small hotel are disquieted by the insistence of a mysterious doctor that he has been there before.

On Approval

Wealthy widow Maria invites long-time dinner companion Richard to spend a month at her house in Scotland. If she still l

Little Eyolf

Writer Alfred is trapped in a loveless, unfulfilled marriage to wealthy Rita. The death of their disabled son wreaks hav

The Critic

Foppish, would-be playwright-critic Mr Puff invites his literary-minded associates to a production of his horrendous and

The White Guard

In late 1918 Ukraine, the various armies of the Ukrainian War of Independence (the White Army, the Red Army, the Imperia

Dangerous Corner

An unexpected suicide prompts much speculation about honesty and theft.

The Gay Lord Quex

A reformed philanderer attempts to embark on monogamy.

The Misanthrope

A satire of the hypocrisies of French aristocratic society, but also engages a more serious tone when pointing out the f

Infidelities

An exploration of love, infidelity, and social class through the story of Silvia and her lover Arlequin, who are separat