Comedy Playhouse
The first and most celebrated of all pilot and comedy trial seasons, Comedy Playhouse was originally devised to find new programmes for Ray Galton and Alan Simpson following the end of Hancock's Half Hour.
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Broadcast: 1961 |
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Broadcast: 1961 |
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Broadcast: 1961 |
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Broadcast: Fri 5th January 1962 Albert Steptoe and his son Harold run a rag and bone business. Harold wants to move on in the world and leave home but his plans are always thwarted. |
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Broadcast: Fri 12th January 1962 A group of old friends find that their reunion has unfortunate consequences for all concerned. |
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Broadcast: Fri 19th January 1962 If you are worried about the world situation pick up your telephone and do something about it? Lionel Baxter does .. and regrets it!. |
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Broadcast: Wed 24th January 1962 Cyril Bradley tries to persuade his customer, Wilfred Swann, to park his Rolls Royce outside his garage in order to attract customers .. |
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Broadcast: Fri 2nd February 1962 There's always one patient in hospital who looks forward to their operation more than a visit from relatives. |
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Broadcast: Fri 9th February 1962 When two people agree to meet after a long romance by letter, they find themselves caught in the web of lies they have spun for each other. |
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Broadcast: Fri 16th February 1962 Clive is about to swim the Channel but is unaware that his manager is planning to make money out of him. |
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Broadcast: 1963 |
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Broadcast: 1963 |
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Broadcast: 1963 |
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Broadcast: 1963 |
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Broadcast: 1963 |
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Broadcast: 1963 |
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Broadcast: 1963 |
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Broadcast: 1963 |
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Broadcast: 1963 |
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Broadcast: 1963 |
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Broadcast: 1963 |
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Broadcast: 1963 |
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Broadcast: 1963 |
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Broadcast: Fri 8th March 1963 Comedy Playhouse pilot from Galton and Simpson, starring Eric Barker as a man brought from Borneo to his brother's This Is Your Life appearance. |
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Broadcast: Fri 5th April 1963 Comedy Playhouse one-off starring John Le Mesurier as a conman who impersonates a clergyman upon release from prison. |
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Broadcast: Sat 12th October 1963 Major Humphrey Carlton has retired from the Army and finds that arranging his own domestic affairs is more meddlesome than he ever expected. |
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Broadcast: Sat 14th December 1963 Gascoigne Quilt & Luther Flannery meet in a graveyard. The two old men have little in common but Luther's sense of adventure leads them into scrapes. |
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Broadcast: Sat 28th December 1963 Plumber Freddie Blacklock lives with his wife Thora in the north of England. Freddie is a down-to-earth bloke who likes to take things easy whereas his wife has ambitions for the couple to improve their social standing. Snobbish Thora often put on a 'posh voice' in an attempt to impress those she was speaking to. |
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Broadcast: 1964 |
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Broadcast: 1964 |
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Broadcast: 1964 |
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Broadcast: 1964 |
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Broadcast: 1964 |
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Broadcast: 1965 Captain Para Handy steers his famous 'puffer', The Vital Spark, up and down the Clyde, together with his motley crew. |
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Broadcast: 1965 |
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Broadcast: 1965 |
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Broadcast: 1965 |
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Broadcast: 1965 |
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Broadcast: 1965 Improbable stories from the chaotic world of a man called Hudd. |
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Broadcast: 1965 |
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Broadcast: 1965 |
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Broadcast: Fri 25th June 1965 Kingsley Binns is a man who can't switch off from his job and that involves him trying to make everybody he meets more efficient. |
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Broadcast: Thu 8th July 1965 Murray believes he can train his mind for practical purposes and he endeavours to teach his skills to young Tommy, a young boy he is looking after. |
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Broadcast: Thu 22nd July 1965 Opinionated Alf Garnett regularly reels off a string of misinformed, bigoted, reactionary opinions each week - his long-suffering wife Else mostly turns a deaf ear. |
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Broadcast: Thu 5th August 1965 1910 - when three long term friends and fellow stokers are let ashore, a bet over downing a pot of ale causes the friendship to be broken. |
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Broadcast: 1966 |
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Broadcast: 1966 The corridors of power have never been the safest of places, but for one minister there are an unusual amount of booby traps. |
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Broadcast: 1966 |
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Broadcast: 1966 |
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Broadcast: 1966 |
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Broadcast: Tue 17th May 1966 The fictional St. Ogg's Cathedral is the setting for a good natured look at life among the clergy. |
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Broadcast: Tue 24th May 1966 |
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Broadcast: Tue 31st May 1966 Comedy Playhouse pilot starring Jack Hulbert and Cicely Courtneidge. |
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Broadcast: Tue 14th June 1966 |
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Broadcast: 1967 |
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Broadcast: 1967 |
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Broadcast: 1967 |
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Broadcast: 1967 |
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Broadcast: 1967 |
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Broadcast: 1967 |
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Broadcast: Fri 26th May 1967 The domestic bliss of "oldly-weds" Jennifer and Henry Corner and their three young children. |
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Broadcast: Fri 30th June 1967 |
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Broadcast: 1968 |
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Broadcast: 1968 |
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Broadcast: 1968 |
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Broadcast: 1968 |
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Broadcast: 1968 |
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Broadcast: Fri 24th May 1968 |
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Broadcast: Fri 7th June 1968 The arrival of an pretty au pair has an explosive effect on a successful T.V. family's life. |
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Broadcast: Fri 14th June 1968 |
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Broadcast: Fri 28th June 1968 A Comedy Playhouse presentation about Edward Wilkins, whose vision of retirement turns out to be rather different than the reality. |
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Broadcast: 1969 |
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Broadcast: 1969 |
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Broadcast: 1969 |
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Broadcast: Mon 14th April 1969 Vintage sitcom about two girls who share a flat together in Liverpool. |
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Broadcast: Mon 21st April 1969 Reg and Stan are local reporters in Wales who make up stories and sell them to Fleet Street. They are in for a shock when they are taken seriously. |
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Broadcast: Mon 5th May 1969 A travelling cook turns a run down transport cafe into a fashionable restaurant. |
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Broadcast: Thu 18th December 1969 A Comedy Playhouse presentation starring Keith Barron in a tale of domestic disharmony with a radical solution. |
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Broadcast: 1970 |
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Broadcast: 1970 |
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Broadcast: 1970 |
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Broadcast: 1970 |
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Broadcast: 1970 |
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Broadcast: 1970 |
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Broadcast: 1970 |
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Broadcast: Thu 1st January 1970 A Comedy Playhouse written by and starring Bob Grant and Stephen Lewis as brothers who work in a block of flats as caretakers. |
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Broadcast: Thu 8th January 1970 A Comedy Playhouse starring James Grout as a military man finding it hard to embrace civilian life without the help of his faithful Army batman. |
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Broadcast: Wed 25th March 1970 Basil Bulstrode is pompous, grouchy and stubborn - he's also an undertaker who loves his work. |
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Broadcast: Wed 29th July 1970 A Comedy Playhouse revolving around the Northern working men's clubs and two agents who find a rich, new boy has hit town. |
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Broadcast: 1971 Three Irish labourers spend their lives digging away on the Waterloo tunnel. |
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Broadcast: 1971 |
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Broadcast: 1971 |
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Broadcast: 1971 |
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Broadcast: 1971 |
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Broadcast: Thu 1st April 1971 A married couple struggle with the age-old problem of coping with the adolescent behaviour of their teenage daughter. |
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Broadcast: Thu 22nd April 1971 The misadventures of two bachelor flat mates working on a terrible radio serial. One's an east Londoner, the other an old Etonian. |
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Broadcast: 1972 |
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Broadcast: 1972 |
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Broadcast: 1972 |
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Broadcast: 1972 |
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Broadcast: Fri 21st January 1972 Comedy Playhouse pilot set in Nazi-occupied France. |
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Broadcast: Fri 8th September 1972 Mr Grainger and his staff learn they must share their floor with the Ladies' Intimate Apparel department at Grace Brothers, a London department store. |
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Broadcast: 1973 |
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Broadcast: Thu 4th January 1973 Gentle sitcom following a group of pensioners living in Yorkshire. This show is Britain's longest-running comedy programme. |
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Broadcast: Thu 11th January 1973 Comedy Playhouse pilot about a man who tries to commit suicide and the problems he causes his rescuer. |
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Broadcast: Thu 18th January 1973 Sherlock Holmes finds Edwardian solutions to problems in 1973. |
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Broadcast: Thu 1st February 1973 Luke Elms must marry off his five daughters before they bankrupt him. |
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Broadcast: Thu 8th February 1973 When Bill's wife leaves him to become a traffic warden - she makes him her most frequent victim. |
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Broadcast: 1974 |
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Broadcast: 1974 |
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Broadcast: 1974 |
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Broadcast: 1974 |
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Broadcast: 1974 |
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Broadcast: 1974 |
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Broadcast: 1974 |
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Broadcast: Tue 30th April 1974 Period sketch show starring Frankie Howerd and Patrick Newell. A Comedy Playhouse pilot. |
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Broadcast: Tue 7th May 1974 Now that all the children have left, Terry and June Fletcher can look forward to doing all the things they have planned - until Aunt Lucy arrives. |
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Broadcast: Tue 21st May 1974 Eddie finds that if he's planning a bank job or robbing the local post office it is probably not a good idea to involve the rest of his family. |
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Broadcast: Tue 25th June 1974 A Comedy Playhouse pilot, written by Roy Clarke and starring Leonard Rossiter. |
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Broadcast: Wed 3rd July 1974 A 1974 sitcom pilot about a mother who shares her daughter's boyfriends. Broadcast as part of the Comedy Playhouse series. |






























