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ITV Television Playhouse

British anthology TV series 1955–1963

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ107259928 ↗
Source-derived summary

ITV Television Playhouse, often simplified to Television Playhouse, is a British anthology television series produced by and airing on the ITV television network from 1955 through 1963. The series premiered with the teleplay Midlevel on 24 September 1955. Its final episode was the teleplay They Don't Make Summers Like They Used To which aired on 27 December 1963.

Originally airing one hour long episodes weekly on Friday nights during its first season in 1955–1956, the programme was subsequently moved to Thursday night weekly broadcasts for its second (1956–1957) and third (1957–1958) seasons. The programme moved back to weekly Friday night broadcasts for its fourth (1958–1959) and fifth (1959–1960) seasons. It returned to Thursday night weekly broadcasts for seasons 6 (1960–1961) and 7 (1961–1962). The series moved back to Friday night broadcasts for season 8 (1962–1963). Its final season, season 9 (Autumn 1963), was only half as long as the other seasons and aired on Thursday nights.

Cast

Campbell Singer (10 episodes)

Thomas Heathcote (9 episodes)

Richard Caldicot (8 episodes)

June Brown (8 episodes)

Barbara Lott (7 episodes)

Zena Walker (7 episodes)

John Robinson (8 episodes)

Dinsdale Landen (7 episodes)

Mervyn Johns (7 episodes)

Carl Bernard (7 episodes)

Brian Wilde (5 episodes)

Peter Sallis (5 episodes)

Llewellyn Rees (5 episodes)

Robert Desmond (5 episodes)

Francis Matthews (5 episodes)

Wilfrid Brambell (5 episodes)

Patrick McGoohan (1 episode)

Archive status

Out of an original total of 388 episodes, 259 episodes are currently missing.

Episode 32 of season 5, Each Wind That Blows, first broadcast on 15 April 1960, was recovered by the Film is Fabulous project on 22 April 2025.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “ITV Television Playhouse” as british anthology TV series 1955–1963. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Television, Playhouse and British.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1955, 1963, 1956, 1957—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Television, Playhouse and British providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “ITV Television Playhouse”, the useful work is to connect “british anthology TV series 1955–1963” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q107259928. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1955, 1963, 1956 and 1957.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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  2. Expand the search: follow ITV Television Playhouse primary sources, ITV Television Playhouse archive and Television research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “ITV Television Playhouse” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.