Intent Armchair Theatre filled a Sunday-evening slot on
ITV, Britain's only commercial network at the time, in which contemporary dramas were the most common form, though this was not immediately apparent. The series was launched by
Howard Thomas, head of ABC at the time, who argued that "Television drama is not so far removed from television journalism, and the plays which will grip the audience are those that face up to the new issues of the day as well as to the problems as old as civilisation." The original producer of the series was
Dennis Vance, who was in charge for the first two years. In its early years the series drew heavily on North American sources. The first play,
The Outsider, was a medical drama adapted from
the stage play by
Dorothy Brandon, which was transmitted live on 8 July 1956 from
ABC's Manchester studios in
Didsbury. Reportedly Vance had a preference for classical adaptations, though some of these—such as a version of
The Emperor Jones (30 March 1958) by the American dramatist
Eugene O'Neill—were not conservative choices. The perils of live transmission caught up with the production team on 28 November 1958, early in Newman's tenure. Whilst
Underground was being broadcast, 33-year-old actor
Gareth Jones suddenly collapsed and died in between his scenes. Such nightmare situations could be handled more easily when
Armchair Theatre was able to benefit from prerecording on
videotape, after production of the series moved from Manchester to
Teddington Studios near London in the summer of 1959. Migrating from his native Canada to take up his responsibilities with ABC, Sydney Newman objected to the basis of British television drama at the time he arrived:"The only legitimate theatre was of the 'anyone for tennis' variety, which, on the whole, presented a condescending view of working-class people. Television dramas were usually adaptations of stage plays, and invariably about upper classes. I said 'Damn the upper classes - they don't even own televisions!'"He converted
Armchair Theatre into a vehicle for the generation of "
Angry Young Men" that was emerging after
John Osborne's play
Look Back in Anger (1956) had become a great success, although older writers such as
Ted Willis were not excluded. Willis' 1958 play
Hot Summer Night (1 February 1959) was adapted to shift its focus, from an unhappy marriage of parents in the original stage version, onto their daughter's mixed-race relationship with a Jamaican man and the problems they might face if they got married. It was one of the earliest British television plays to have race as a theme.
Writers and production staff A script editor,
Peter Luke, was the first to become aware of the writers
Clive Exton, who contributed eight plays to the series,
Alun Owen, who wrote
No Trams to Lime Street (18 October 1959),) and
Harold Pinter, who contributed
A Night Out (24 April 1960).) Owen's play was the first of a trilogy transmitted during 1959 and 1960, which was completed by
After the Funeral (3 April 1960) and
Lena, O My Lena (26 September 1960). Even so, Pinter once estimated that his stage play
The Caretaker, enjoying its first run at the time, would have to be performed for thirty years before matching
A Night Outs audience of 6,380,000. The German Jewish dramatist
Robert Muller, who had arrived in Britain as a refugee in 1938, contributed seven plays to the series, three being transmitted in 1962 and directed by
Philip Saville, including
Afternoon of a Nymph. Saville worked on more than forty episodes in the series, while Muller's wife in his later years, the actress
Billie Whitelaw, had a part in eleven episodes. Newman's three-and-a-half-season involvement in
Armchair Theatre concluded at the end of December 1962. He was succeeded by
Leonard White, an early producer of
The Avengers. In
Armchair Theatres last years Lloyd Shirley was the series producer. A holdover from the Newman era,
Clive Exton's legal satire
The Trial of Dr Fancy (13 September 1964), was among the first television plays on ITV to be suppressed. The deliberately absurd and savage play was a conscious break on Exton's part from the social realism of which he had grown tired. Although the
Independent Television Authority (ITA), the regulator of the commercial channel at the time, had not objected to the production, Howard Thomas of ABC feared that it would give offence to viewers. The programme controller at ABC,
Brian Tesler, explained the later change of heart: "We believe that the climate of opinion concerning black comedy has changed in the past two years. When the play was recorded we felt that many people might fail to appreciate the compassion which underlies the irony in Mr Exton's play." Another play from this period was not so lucky.
The Blood Knot (recorded 18 May 1963), a two-hander by the South African writer
Athol Fugard with
apartheid as its theme, was never scheduled.
Episodes See main article: List of Armchair Theatre episodes Spin-offs and influence The programme occasionally spun off ideas into full-blown series such as
Armchair Mystery Theatre, hosted by
Donald Pleasence, which specialised in crime and mystery thrillers. A 1962 adaptation of
John Wyndham's short story
Dumb Martian, scripted by Clive Exton, was a deliberate showcase for the spin-off
science fiction anthology
Out of This World. Two 1967 episodes became series. One of these was developed into the sitcom
Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width, while the other,
A Magnum for Schneider, became the pilot for the spy series
Callan. After the 1968
ITV franchise changes and ABC's merger into Thames, the programme continued until 1974. Hugely popular at its peak, with audiences occasionally touching twenty million,
Armchair Theatre had an important influence on later programmes such as the
BBC's
The Wednesday Play (1964–70), a series initiated by
Sydney Newman after he had moved to the BBC. Overall, 426 plays were made and broadcast under the
Armchair Theatre banner between 1956 and 1974. As with much early British television, not all of the plays from the original ABC series survive in the archives, owing either to
live plays not being recorded or to
recordings being destroyed. Two later Thames series used the
Armchair... prefix:
Armchair Cinema, effectively a series of TV movies, and
Armchair Thriller (1978–80), which used a serial format.
Armchair Theatre was satirised on the
BBC Radio comedy series
Round the Horne as
Armpit Theatre. ==Home media==