The Wednesday Play was an anthology series of British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 television play

Television play

From the 1950s until the early 1980s, the television play was a popular television programming genre in the United Kingdom, with a shorter span in the United States. The genre was often associated with the social realist-influenced British drama style known as "kitchen sink realism", which depicted...

s which ran on BBC1

BBC One

BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

 from October 1964 to May 1970. Every week's play was usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured. The series gained a reputation for presenting contemporary social dramas, and for bringing issues to the attention of a mass audience that would not otherwise have been discussed on screen.
The series was suggested to the BBC's Head of Drama Sydney Newman

Sydney Newman

Sydney Cecil Newman, OC was a Canadian film and television producer, who played a pioneering role in British television drama from the late 1950s to the late 1960s...

, by the corporation's director of television Kenneth Adam

Kenneth Adam

Kenneth Adam CBE was an English journalist and broadcasting executive, who from 1957 until 1961 served as the Controller of the BBC Television Service.-Education:...

 after his cancellation of the two previous series of single plays.