No Trams to Lime Street is a 1959 British television

British television

Public television broadcasting started in the United Kingdom in 1936, and now has a collection of free and subscription services over a variety of distribution media, through which there are over 480 channelsTaking the base Sky EPG TV Channels. A breakdown is impossible due to a) the number of...

 play, written by the Welsh

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 playwright Alun Owen

Alun Owen

Alun Owen was a British screenwriter, predominantly active in television, but best remembered by a wider audience for writing the screenplay of The Beatles' debut feature film A Hard Day's Night ....

 for the Armchair Theatre

Armchair Theatre

Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series, which ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation, and later by Thames Television after 1968....

anthology series. Produced by the Associated British Corporation

Associated British Corporation

Associated British Corporation was one of a number of commercial television companies established in the United Kingdom during the 1950s by cinema chain companies in an attempt to safeguard their business by becoming involved with television which was taking away their cinema audiences.In this...

 (ABC) for transmission on the ITV

ITV

ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

 network, the play was broadcast on 18 October 1959. It no longer exists in the archives, having been wiped

Wiping

Wiping or junking is a colloquial term for action taken by radio and television production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotapes, and telerecordings , are erased, reused, or destroyed after several uses...

, as with many programmes of the era.

Set in the northern English city of Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

, where Owen had grown up from the age of eight, the play starred Alfred Lynch

Alfred Lynch

Alfred Cornelius Lynch was a British actor on stage, film and television.Lynch was born in Whitechapel, London, the son of a plumber. After attending a Roman Catholic school, he worked in a draughtsman's office before entering national service...

, Billie Whitelaw

Billie Whitelaw

Billie Honor Whitelaw, CBE is an English actress. She worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and is regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works...

, Jack Hedley

Jack Hedley

Jack Hedley is an English actor, best known for his performances on television....

 and Tom Bell

Tom Bell (actor)

Tom Bell was an English actor on stage, film and television. He was dark-haired, lean, and in his later years often played characters having a sinister side to their nature.-Biography:...

. It was directed

Television director

A television director directs the activities involved in making a television program and is part of a television crew.-Duties:The duties of a television director vary depending on whether the production is live or recorded to video tape or video server .In both types of productions, the...

 and produced

Television producer

The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...

 by two Canadians

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 — Ted Kotcheff

Ted Kotcheff

Ted Kotcheff , sometimes credited as William Kotcheff or William T. Kotcheff, is a Canadian film and television director, who is well known for his work on several high-profile British television productions and as a director of films such as First Blood.-Early life:Kotcheff was born William...

 and 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...

 respectively. Newman was at the time the Head of Drama at ABC. The storyline concerns three sailors on shore leave in Liverpool.
The play was a factor in Owen later being hired to write the script for The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

' first feature film, A Hard Day's Night

A Hard Day's Night (film)

A Hard Day's Night is a 1964 British black-and-white comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring The Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr—during the height of Beatlemania. It was written by Alun Owen and originally released by United Artists...

(1964), as they had been impressed with his depiction of their home city in the production. For his work on that film, Owen was nominated for an Academy Award

Academy Awards

An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

 in 1965.

Also in 1965, No Trams to Lime Street was remade by the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

, as part of their Theatre 625

Theatre 625

Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line...

anthology strand, screened on the new BBC2

BBC Two

BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...

 channel. It was presented as the middle episode in a trilogy of loosely-connected Owen plays, broadcast on 21 March 1965, being preceded by Progress to the Park on 14 March and followed by A Little Winter Love on 28 March.

The play was remade for television a second time, again by the BBC, in 1970, for the The Wednesday Play

The Wednesday Play

The Wednesday Play was an anthology series of British television plays which ran on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. Every week's play was usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured...

strand. Transmitted on 18 March 1970, this time 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...

 this version was directed by Piers Haggard

Piers Haggard

Piers Inigo Haggard is a British film and television director, although he has worked mostly in the latter medium.He is the great grandnephew of H...

 starred Rosemary Nicols

Rosemary Nicols

Rosemary Nicols is a British actress, born Rosemary Claxton in Bradford, West Yorkshire.She comes from a theatrical family and was the author of the 1967 book The Loving Adventures of Jaby....

, Glyn Owen

Glyn Owen

Glyn Griffith Owen was a British stage, television and film actor, probably best known to British TV viewers for two roles: that of Dr...

, Anthony May

Anthony May

Anthony May is a British stage, television and film actor. He attended Ottershaw School, Surrey. May trained at R.A.D.A. from 1965 to 1967....

 and Paul Greenwood

Paul Greenwood

Paul Greenwood is a British film, television and theatre actor. He is best known for his role as PC Michael "Rosie" Penrose in the successful sitcom Rosie direct spin-off from the short-lived sitcom The Growing Pains of PC Penrose...

; and included songs and music by Marty Wilde

Marty Wilde

Marty Wilde is an English singer and songwriter. He was among the first generation of British pop stars to emulate American rock and roll, and is the father of pop singers Ricky Wilde, Kim Wilde and Roxanne Wilde.-Career:Wilde was performing under the name Reg Patterson at London's Condor Club in...

 and Ronnie Scott

Ronnie Scott (songwriter)

Ronnie Scott was a British pop music promoter, group manager and songwriter; known primarily for hit songs co-written with Marty Wilde in the 1960s, and Steve Wolfe in the 1970s.-With Marty Wilde:...

(not the famous jazz saxophonist and club owner).