Emergency

When a little girl is knocked down it is discovered that there are only three donors of the right blood type to help with a life-saving operation. One is a murderer awaiting execution, one an atomic scientist selling secrets, and one an international footballer about to get his hundreth cap.

Glyn Houston was never the most versatile of actors but he acquits himself well enough here as the police inspector "Harris" who has to try and track down one of three potential blood donors for a young girl whose only hope of surviving a road accident is an immediate transfusion. It turns out that this search isn't exactly straightforward as one man is already on death row; an other is a reclusive scientist - with a secret he desperately wants to keep - and the third is actually the most decent of the three: a footballer about to play for his 100th England cap. The production is a bit basic, the story a little episodic and contrived at times but Francis Searle manages to keep all three plates in the air for much of this as the tension quickly mounts. Not much jeopardy, no - hardly likely with a little girl lying on an hospital bed in 1962 - but even so, it's still not a bad hour of drama.