What happens
Professor Herbert Carpenter lives under the control of his domineering wife Hermione in an English university town, and the couple are preparing to sail for America. Herbert, who has taken up a secret interest in a plant he calls his devil's garden, meets the bookshop clerk Marion Markham and grows close to her. Hermione insists on running every detail of their lives, and the couple's friends gather for a farewell tea before the voyage. The episode is an adaptation of John Collier's story Back for Christmas, broadcast on the Escape series on 1947-12-24, with Paul Frees as Herbert and Eleanor Audley as Hermione.
A university town in England, the Carpenter household, a village bookshop, and a transatlantic voyage toward America.
Characters: Herbert Carpenter, Hermione Carpenter, Marion Markham, Freddie, Professor Hewitt, Mrs. Hewitt
Listen for: Hermione's constant insistence on planning every detail of their lives, and Herbert's quiet changes as he prepares for the trip.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.