"Underground" was a science-fiction television play presented as part of the British anthology series ''

Armchair Theatre ''Armchair Theatre'' is a British television drama anthology series of single plays that ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by ABC Weekend TV. Its successor Thames Television took over from mid-1968. The Canad ...

'' which was broadcast live by the ITV commercial network on 30 November 1958. It is chiefly remembered because an actor had a fatal heart attack during transmission. Written by dramatist James Forsyth (1913–2005) the play depicted survivors from a

nuclear holocaust A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear Armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes globally widespread destruction and radioactive fallout. Such a scenar ...

living in the

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The ...

.Quentin Falk and Ben Falk ''Television's Strangest Moments: Extraordinary But True Tales from the History of Television'', London: Robson Books, 2005, p.41 It featured actors

Donald Houston Donald Daniel Houston (6 November 1923 – 13 October 1991) was a Welsh actor whose first two films—'' The Blue Lagoon'' (1949) with Jean Simmons, and '' A Run for Your Money'' (1949) with Alec Guinness—were highly successful. Later in ...

, Ian Curry,

Patricia Jessel Patricia Helen Mary Jessel (15 October 1920 – 8 June 1968) was an English actress of stage, film and television. Biography Jessel was born in the then British Crown Colony of Hong Kong, daughter of Clement Edward Jessel and Ursula Theodor ...

Warren Mitchell Warren Mitchell (born Warren Misell; 14 January 1926 – 14 November 2015) was a British actor. He was a BAFTA TV Award winner and twice a Laurence Olivier Award winner. In the 1950s, Mitchell appeared on the radio programmes ''Educatin ...

Peter Bowles Peter Bowles (16 October 1936 – 17 March 2022) was an English television and stage actor. He gained prominence for television dramas such as '' Callan: A Magnum for Schneider'' and ''I, Claudius''. He is however, best remembered for his roles ...

and 33-year-old Gareth Jones in what would be his last role. A little over halfway through the production, Gareth Jones complained of feeling unwell while off-set in make-up between two of his scenes, and then suddenly collapsed and died as he was about to continue. His character was due to die from a heart attack during the course of the play. Peter Bowles recalled many years later: "During transmission, a little group of us was talking on camera while awaiting the arrival of Gareth Jones's character, who had some information for us. We could see him coming up towards us, but we saw him fall. We had no idea what had happened, but he certainly wasn't coming our way. The actors started making up lines, 'I'm sure if so-and-so were here he would say'..." Producer

Sydney Newman Sydney Cecil Newman (April 1, 1917 – October 30, 1997) was a Canadian film and television producer, who played a pioneering role in British television drama from the late 1950s to the late 1960s. After his return to Canada in 1970, Newman w ...

instructed director

Ted Kotcheff William Theodore Kotcheff (born April 7, 1931) is a Bulgarian-Canadian film and television director, writer and producer, known primarily for his work on British and American television productions such as '' Armchair Theatre'' and '' Law & Or ...

to continue with the play and "shoot it like a football match", meaning to follow the characters around as they improvised a way of coping with the missing cast member. Kotcheff hurriedly re-structured the story during a commercial break in order to be able to bring the play to an end without the missing character being noticed by the audience. While Kotcheff was on the studio floor, the inexperienced production assistant

Verity Lambert Verity Ann Lambert (27 November 1935 – 22 November 2007) was an English television and film producer. Lambert began working in television in the 1950s. She began her career as a producer at the BBC by becoming the founding producer of ...

, later to become the founding producer of '' Doctor Who'', directed camera movements from the studio gallery.Obituary: Verity Lambert
''Daily Telegraph'', 24 November 2007 The actors were not informed that Jones had died until after the play had finished. Houston was a close friend and it was thought he would have been unable to continue if he had known. No recording of this play exists, as live television transmissions at the time were not automatically recorded or preserved (See

Wiping Lost television broadcasts are mostly those early television programs which cannot be accounted for in studio archives (or in personal archives) usually because of deliberate destruction or neglect. Common reasons for loss A significant prop ...

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* {{Armchair Theatre 1958 television plays 1958 in British television November 1958 events in the United Kingdom ITV television dramas Lost television episodes Armchair Theatre Television shows produced by ABC Weekend TV

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