BBC Play of the Month

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

Edward Voysey's highly principled world upturns when he discovers the family business he's inheriting has been defrauding its clients for years because his father has been illegally speculating with their money. To compound matters, he quickly discovers his large, scandal-fearing family knew of the crime but allowed it to continue rather than face the shame of public disclosure.

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

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

Ossian Flint is an elderly Anglican vicar whose way of life has long been the cause of scandal. He has had as little respect for the seventh commandment during nearly half a century of married life as he has had faith since his ordination. The winter of his life is transformed by his encounter with Dixie, a simple young Irish hirl, unmarried and pregnant, late of Holloway prison.

Centres around ambitious independent politician Henry Trebell, his plans for a bill to disestablish the Church of England, and his fall from grace and suicide after his affair with a married woman who dies following a botched abortion.

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

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

Grace has agreed to marry Sir Harcourt Courtly in return for his financial support of her family. At a house party in her father's place, Harcourt's son Charles also falls in love with Grace. When his father appears on the scene, he has to convince him that there is a case of mistaken identity and he is somebody else.

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

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

A scholarly king and his three companions swear off the society of women for three years, only to have a diplomatic visit from a French princess and her three ladies-in-waiting thwart their intentions.

In rural 1840s Scotland, Gavin Dishart arrives to become the new 'little minister' of Thrums's Auld Licht church. He meets a mysterious young gypsy girl in the dens and to his horror Babbie draws him into her escape from the soldiers after she incites a Luddite riot. But unknown to Gavin, Babbie is more than she seems, and they must overcome her secret, the villagers' fears of her, and--worst of all--Gavin's devotion to his mother's sensibilities, before they can openly declare their love.

Pip is a socialist who has seen the squalor of the East End, typified by greasy cafés offering 'chips with everything'. Pip is also the only privately-educated recruit in a draft of other National Service recruits. He's tried to buck the system by not applying for an officer's commission.

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

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

A luncheon party gathers to celebrate a wealthy unmarried man's birthday; his sister hopes he'll marry Sonya, the daughter of a selfish gout-ridden old professor who makes life Hell for his son George and his young wife, Helen.

In the city of Mycenae, a few years after the Trojan War, a bitter struggle for justice is undertaken by Electra and her brother Orestes for the murder of their father Agamemnon by Clytemnestra and their stepfather Aegisthus.

In 1947 England, in the home of Professor Robert Linden, chair of modern history at the provincial University of Burmanley, rationing and austerity seem to have fostered opportunism, escapism and confrontation within the Linden family, gathered to celebrate Robert's 65th birthday and each of whom is struggling with their own crises.

Two young gentlemen living in 1890s England use the same pseudonym ('Ernest') on the sly, which is fine until they both fall in love with women using that name, which leads to a comedy of mistaken identities.

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

When linguistics professor Henry Higgins boasts that he can pass off Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle as a princess with only six months' training, Colonel George Pickering takes him up on the bet. Eliza moves into Higgins's home and begins her rigorous training after the professor comes to a financial agreement with her dustman father, Alfred. But the plucky young woman is not the only one undergoing a transformation.

Scoundrels are put on notice and women (literally) wear the pants in this uproarious comedy. Recruiting officers travel from port to port wooing men into service at sea, and women into their beds. Two such men, Worthy and Plume, land in Shrewsbury each in love with a woman who lives there.

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

Nemov is an honest man serving a term of 10 years for violations of Article 58. Nemov falls in love with Lyuba, who is having sex with the camp doctor Mereshchun, in exchange for better food and living conditions.

Candide falls in love with the beautiful but materialistic Cunegonde. Her barron father doesn't approve of the affair so Candide wanders, meeting all the misfortunes along the way.

A self-proclaimed 'knight' and his hapless squire travel the Spanish countryside, attacking 'giants' that are really windmills in his attempt to win the love of the fair Dulcinea.

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

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

Hedda Gabler is a beautiful woman married to the solid and respectable academic George Tesman. Then an old flame, the dreamer Eilert Lovborg, turns up on the scene with tragic results.

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

Antonio's friend Bassanio is in love and needs money to go courting. Using Antonio as his collateral, he borrows money from Shylock. But when the debt comes due, Shylock demands repayment in the form of a pound of Antonio's flesh.

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

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

Madamr Ranevskaya is a spoiled, aging aristocrat who returns from Paris to face the loss of her magnificent cherry orchard estate after a default on the mortgage. In denial, she continues living in the past, deluding herself and her family, while the beautiful cherry trees are being axed down by the repossessor Lopakhin, her former serf, who has his own agenda.

Orgon is a man of property duped by the false piety of the penniless Tartuffe. Orgon takes him into his house, believing him a paragon of virtue. Orgon orders his daughter to reject her fiancé and marry Tartuffe.

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

Mistaken identity, unrequited love, and the supernatural are combined in Shakespeare's classic set in the woods of Greece on a moonlit night.

Mr. Norton asks the Jacksons to let someone be a lookout for a mystery man. When Gordon Lonsdale is seen visiting the Krogers across the road, MI5 decides to use the Jacksons' home as a base to trap the Portland spy ring.

A long-married couple are at war with each other and with their teenage son and daughter. The presence of a handsome young tutor complicates and sensitizes the savage domestic tensions which arise as the secret emotions of members of the family are shockingly revealed.

A retired professor has returned to his estate to live with his beautiful young wife, Yelena. The estate originally belonged to his first wife, now deceased; her mother and brother still live there and manage the farm. For many years the brother—Uncle Vanya—has sent the farm's proceeds to the professor, while receiving only a small salary himself.

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 alarmingly scarred, and who is he, really?

Scotland, 11th century. Driven by the twisted prophecy of three witches and the ruthless ambition of his wife, warlord Macbeth, bold and brave, but also weak and hesitant, betrays his good king and his brothers in arms and sinks into the bloody mud of a path with no return, sown with crime and suspicion.

In a small Russian town at the turn of the century, Olga, Irina, Masha, and their brother Andrei live but dream daily of their return to Moscow, where life is charming and stimulating meaningful. But for now, they exist in a malaise of dissatisfaction. Soldiers from the local military post provide them some companionship and society, but nothing can suffice to replace Moscow in their hopes. Andrei marries provincial Natasha and begins to settle into a life of much less meaning than he'd hoped. Natasha begins to run the family her way. Masha, though married, yearns for the sophisticated life and begins a dalliance with Vershinin, an army officer with a sick and suicidal wife. Even Irina, the freshest, most optimistic of the sisters, begins to waver in her dreams until, finally, tragedy strikes.

Charley and Jack pressure classmate Fancourt to pose as Charley's aunt Donna Lucia. Their purpose is to have a chaperone for their amorous visits with Amy and Kitty, niece and ward of crusty Stephen Spettigue. Complications begin when Fancourt, in drag, becomes the love object of not only old Spettigue but also Jack's grandfather.

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

Mary Stuart, named Queen of Scotland when she was only six days old, is the last Roman Catholic ruler of Scotland. She's imprisoned at 23 by her cousin Elizabeth Tudor, the English Queen and her arch adversary. Nineteen years later, Mary's life is to end on the scaffold and with her execution, the last threat to Elizabeth's throne has been removed. The two Queens with their contrasting personalities make a dramatic counterpoint to history.

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

Aging actress Arkidana pays summer visits to her brother Sorin and son Konstantin on a country estate. On one occasion, she brings with her Trigorin, a successful novelist. Meanwhile, Nina, a free and innocent girl on a neighboring estate, falls for Trigorin.

The Midwestern University trustees have forced three teachers out for being suspected communists. Trustee Ed Keller has also threatened mild-mannered English professor Tommy Turner, because he plans to read a controversial piece of prose in class. Tommy is upset that his wife Ellen also suggested he not read the passage. Meanwhile, Ellen's old boyfriend, football player Joe Ferguson, comes to visit for the Homecoming.

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

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

A young student idealizes the lives of the inhabitants of a stylish Stockholm apartment building, only to find that it a nest of betrayal and sickness.

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

As the Nazis grow ever more powerful, Werner Roger grows up in an aristocratic household, hating his domineering father and making enemies in high places.

Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet fall in love against the wishes of their feuding families. Driven by their passion, the young lovers defy their destiny and elope, only to suffer the ultimate tragedy.

Loosely inspired from Gauguin's life, Charles Strickland is a middle-aged stockbroker who abandons his middle-classed life, his family, his duties to start painting, what he has always wanted to do. He is from now on a awful human being, wholly devoted to his ideal: beauty.

A dramatisation of the defection of Soviet intelligence officer Vladimir Petrov, who, fueled by disillusionment with the Soviet system and his fear of returning, led to a Royal Commission investigating Soviet espionage in Australia, marking a significant impact on Australian politics.

After a rich Edwardian widow impulsively marries a handsome but poor Tuscan dentist and dies in childbirth, her English in-laws try to gain custody of the baby.

The story of Charles 'Chinese' Gordon, a brilliant but eccentric military commander, and his death defending Khartoum in 1885.

Cultural mistrust and false accusations doom a friendship in British colonial India between an Indian doctor, an Englishwoman engaged to marry a city magistrate, and an English educator.

During the early 16th century, idealistic German monk Martin Luther, disgusted by the materialism in the church, begins the dialogue that will lead to the Protestant Reformation.