The Wednesday Play

Based on the play "La foire d'empoigne" by Jean Anouilh.

A soldier named Postnikov rescues a drowning man.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

A tale of romance between two working class navvies.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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?

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

Martin has a mid-life crisis.

Fable is a British television play, shown on 27 January 1965 as an episode of The Wednesday Play series on BBC 1. Written by John Hopkins, the play is set in a parallel totalitarian Britain where those in authority are black people, and white people are their social underdogs - a reversal of the situation in contemporary apartheid South Africa. It was directed by Christopher Morahan and produced by James MacTaggart.