Dead of Night

7.6

1972•50m

Production

Dead of Night was a British television anthology series of supernatural fiction, produced by the BBC and broadcast on BBC2 in 1972. It ran for a single series; of its seven 50-minute episodes, only three—'The Exorcism', 'Return Flight', and 'A Woman Sobbing'—are known to survive in the Archives. Another programme made by the same production team under Innes Lloyd, 'The Stone Tape', intended to be the eighth episode, does survive in the Archives but was not broadcast under the Dead of Night banner. BBC Four rebroadcast "The Exorcism" on 22 December 2007.

Seasons

7 Episodes • Premiered 1972

1. The Exorcism

Four friends gather for Christmas dinner at an old cottage. Suddenly, there's a power failure and the phone goes dead. And that's only the beginning.

2. Return Flight

When Captain Rolph reports a plane on a collision course to Ground Control, they're unable to find any trace of the mystery intruder. Did he imagine it, or was there really an aircraft?

3. Bedtime

Newly married Lorna and Geoffrey find a deal too good to pass up on an antique Victorian brass bedstead: however, they soon find that it exerts a strange influence over their lives.

4. Death Controls All Debts

World-renowned writer Powys Jubb wakes up every morning at 4.20 when his bedroom clock stops ticking. He soon becomes convinced that at 4.20 one morning, he will die.

5. Smith

His name was Smith. It sounded so ordinary yet his crimes horrified and appalled the England of his day. When journalist Jane Hornby investigates, she finds the past lives on in the present.

6. Two in the Morning

Shortly after a woman moves her family to Sussex so that she and her husband can raise their children away from London, she begins hearing sounds coming from the attic at night which no one else can hear.

7. A Woman Sobbing

Jane and Frank Pullar have recently moved to a house in Sussex so that the children can grow up away from the dirt and rush of London. Soon Jane starts hearing sounds at night from the attic. But there is no one there and only she can hear them.