Global Playhouse, intermittently also known as Bell Canada Playhouse or Bell Canada Global Playhouse, is a Canadian television drama anthology series, which aired on Global Television Network in the 1980s.[1] A coproduction of Atlantis Films and the National Film Board of Canada,[2] the series aired film adaptations of short stories by Canadian writers.[1]
Its most noted episode was The Painted Door, a dramatization of a short story by Sinclair Ross which was an Academy Award nominee for Best Live Action Short Film at the 57th Academy Awards in 1985.[3] Other stories adapted for the series included Ross's "One's a Heifer",[4] Mordecai Richler's "Bambinger",[1] Margaret Laurence's "To Set Our House in Order",[5] W. D. Valgardson's "Capital",[6] W. P. Kinsella's "John Cat",[4] Guy Vanderhaeghe's "Cages",[4] Morley Callaghan's "All the Years of Her Life" and "A Cap for Steve",[4] David Walker's "A Good Tree",[4] Isabel Huggan's "Jack of Hearts", and Alice Munro's "Connections".[7]
The series produced 26 episodes overall, which aired monthly from 1984 to 1986,[8] and ended production at the discretion of Atlantis Films rather than being cancelled by the network.[9] All 26 episodes were rebroadcast weekly in the 1986-87 television season.[10]