The run
- Network
- BBC
- Years active
- 1943–1945
- Surviving broadcasts
- 4
- Genre
- horror
Appointment with Fear was a long-running BBC radio thriller that began its run in 1943 as the British version of Suspense , complete with many of the same scripts as its American counterpart (most by John Dickson Carr) and also hosted by the Man in Black. That original series ran for nine seasons, until 1955, but its mysterious host has never really left the British airwaves, returning to host Fear on 4 from 1988-1992 then The Man in Black from 2009-2011. These four episodes are the ones from that original nine-season run are in circulation today. But as I detail on this page , I’ve found several “lost episodes” from Appointment with Fear ’s 7-episode TENTH season, which ran from December 19 Public-domain transfers from the Internet Archive.
Source collection
Internet Archive audio collections
Rights
Public domain — no renewed US copyright
Cataloguing
Air dates and notes from the Archive item record
The shape of the run
What survives, year by year
2 dated broadcasts across 84 years on the air, with 83 years where nothing is known to survive. Brightness is transfer quality; empty cells are months lost to time.
Episodes
Start here
Listen to the run in order
Restored broadcasts from 2026, in original transmission order.
- 1. The Last Train Out · 14 Jul 2026
- 2. Night Broadcast · 21 Jul 2026
- 3. The Case of the Missing Hour · 28 Jul 2026
Sign Off
4 Aug 2026 · 29 min
Three interviews, one archive reel, and a question nobody wanted asked.
The Case of the Missing Hour
28 Jul 2026 · 44 min
Recorded on location, with the room left in.
Night Broadcast
21 Jul 2026 · 59 min
New tape, a reluctant witness, and a timeline that finally stops making sense.
The Last Train Out
14 Jul 2026 · 22 min
We go back to the beginning and read everything again.
Also on BBC
BBC in 1943–1945
Other series the network carried while Appointment with Fear was on the air.
Same seasons
horror on the air then
Series in the same genre whose runs overlapped this one.
Vintage
Beyond Midnight
PG57 EpisodesTwice weekly
Turn the lights out. That was always the instruction.
Vintage
Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde
PG52 EpisodesWeekly
Turn the lights out. That was always the instruction.
What it became
The anthology of dread
A voice, a creaking door, and a self-contained story designed to frighten you in half an hour. Suspense and Lights Out built the grammar every horror anthology still uses.
Lineage is written by our editors, not inferred from listening data.
Descendants
Working in the tradition of Appointment with Fear
Modern series carrying this form forward.
If you liked this
More to explore
Chosen by the same editors.
