A Tale of Two Cities (1980 TV series)

GenreHistorical drama

Based onA Tale of Two Cities
by Charles Dickens

Written byPeter Harding

Directed byMichael E. Briant

A Tale of Two Cities
Genre	Historical drama
Based on	A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Written by	Peter Harding
Directed by	Michael E. Briant
Starring	Paul Shelley Sally Osborne Nigel Stock
Composer	Paul Reade
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of series	1
No. of episodes	8
Production
Producer	Barry Letts
Cinematography	Elmer Cossey
Running time	30 minutes
Production company	BBC
Original release
Network	BBC One
Release	5 October (1980-10-05)[1] – 23 November 1980 (1980-11-23)[1]

A Tale of Two Cities is a British television series which first aired on BBC1 in 1980. It is an adaptation of the novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.^[2] Paul Shelley plays the dual roles of Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay, the first actor to do so since William Farnum in the 1917 silent adaptation.^[3] Two weeks later, an American production was released featuring Chris Sarandon in the same dual roles.^[4]

It is the only BBC adaptation known to exist entirely.^{[citation needed]}