Dorothy Tutin and Anthony Quayle starred with ABC contract artist Neil McCallum in this story of an air hostess who tries to smuggle a young refugee to Britain aboard an airliner under the nose of a pursuing Iron Curtain police chief.
George Haslam created the ingeniously designed aeroplane set
A parent-child relationship was also the theme of A Shilling for the Evil Day, an Ulster story by Joseph Tomelty which was one of several plays with a strong regional flavour presented by Armchair Theatre.
J. G. Devlin and Elizabeth Begley, both distinguished Ulster players, came together again in this drama of a fishing village on All Souls’ Night.
Charles Jarrott, an Englishman who had made his name in Canada, came home to join ABC as a director, and this play showed the combination of warmth, sensitivity and technical brilliance that has earned him much praise throughout the year.
George Haslam designed the sets
In Roman Gesture, a romantic drama by Ira Avery, Charles Jarrott again showed his gift for investing a TV play with the gloss and glamour of a good Hollywood film.
With his wife Katharine Blake in the lead, Jarrott and designer George Haslam presented Armchair Theatre audiences with the story of a famous star returning home to Italy to make a film with the director who discovered her.
Miss Blake, an English actress who was three times awarded the Canadian TV ‘Oscar’, was acclaimed for her performance as Carla Mellini, and Arthur Hill flew from New York to play the American publicity man who falls in love with her
Clifford Evans also made a memorable impression in Roman Gesture as the Italian director who discovered, loved and lost Mellini, and now must reassert his authority over her before they can get down to work on their new film.
Here he rejects her rendering of a scene, shows her how he wants it done, and gets a fiery reaction from his star
A form of magic that goes badly wrong provokes Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, when on of London’s eligible bachelors is led into a disasterous series of experiments with explosive devices after a palmist tells him he is destined to commit murder.
Terry-Thomas made his debut as a straight actor on ITV in ABC’s adaptation of the Oscar Wilde story for Armchair Theatre, and Robert Coote, recently released from several years’ service as Colonel Pickering in My Fair Lady, made his British TV debut as Lord Arthur’s manservant.
The palmist was Arthur Lowe.
The director was Alan Cooke, and Englishman home on leave after nine years in Hollywood, and George Haslam designed the magnificently Gothic sets
