BBC Play of the Month Season 9, Episode 2: The Common

The Love Girl and the Innocent

Nemov is an honest man serving a term of 10 years for violations of Article 58. Nemov falls in love with Lyuba, who is having sex with the camp doctor Mereshchun, in exchange for better food and living conditions.

127 min

The Recruiting Officer

Scoundrels are put on notice and women (literally) wear the pants in this uproarious comedy. Recruiting officers travel from port to port wooing men into service at sea, and women into their beds. Two such men, Worthy and Plume, land in Shrewsbury each in love with a woman who lives there.

Pygmalion

When linguistics professor Henry Higgins boasts that he can pass off Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle as a princess with only six months' training, Colonel George Pickering takes him up on the bet. Eliza moves into Higgins's home and begins her rigorous training after the professor comes to a financial agreement with her dustman father, Alfred. But the plucky young woman is not the only one undergoing a transformation.

120 min

The Changeling

A woman falls in love with a sea captain, and plots to kill her fiance.

103 min

The Importance of Being Earnest

Two young gentlemen living in 1890s England use the same pseudonym ('Ernest') on the sly, which is fine until they both fall in love with women using that name, which leads to a comedy of mistaken identities.

100 min

The Deep Blue Sea

A woman unhappy in her passionless marriage leaves her husband for a younger and more ardent lover.

The Skin Game

The rivalry between a wealthy businessman and his lower-class, self-made rival gets very personal indeed.

Mrs. Warren's Profession