The Wednesday Play first broadcast

Image: The Wednesday Play 'In Camera' by Jean-Paul Sartre from 1964. Jane Arden, Catherine Woodville and Harold Pinter.

The Wednesday Play, first broadcast on 28 October 1964, started a run of single dramas that developed a reputation for controversial and ground-breaking material. It included Cathy Come Home, Stand Up Nigel Barton and Up the Junction. The opening play was A Crack in the Mirror, an adaptation by Ronald Eyre of a Nikolai Leskov short story, starring Bill Fraser, James Maxwell, Derek Newark and Michael Hordern.

The Wednesday Play was instigated by BBC Head of Drama, Sydney Newman, with the intention of saving the full-length single drama on television - then threatened by the success of faster-moving drama series. The plays adopted some of the techniques of series, such as a pre-title teaser sequence. Newman wanted the plays to dramatise 'the turning points in contemporary Britain'.

Cathy Come Home, directed by Ken Loach, was the most celebrated example of this intention, raising the problem of homelessness and giving a great boost to the charity Shelter. Playwrights featured over the years included Dennis Potter, David Mercer, Nell Dunn, Simon Raven, Johnny Speight and Harold Pinter (the latter as actor).

The series lasted until 1970, when it moved to Thursday nights and became Play For Today.