Leonard Rossiter and Angela Crow in an ITV Play of the Week, Between the Two of Us, from 1965.  Photograph: ITV / Rex Features

A rediscovered haul of television dramas that has been lost for 40 years or more is set to change the way we think about many of Britain's biggest acting stars. 

The extraordinary cache of televised plays – described by experts as "an embarrassment of riches" – features performances from a cavalcade of postwar British stars.  The list includes John Gielgud, Sean Connery, Gemma Jones, Dorothy Tutin, Robert Stephens, Susannah York, John Le Mesurier, Peggy Ashcroft, Patrick Troughton, David Hemmings, Leonard Rossiter, Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith and Jane Asher.  The tapes have been unearthed in the Library of Congress in Washington DC. 

After months of negotiation, the library and the New York-based public service television station WNET have agreed to allow the British Film Institute in London to showcase the highlights in November, an occasion that is certain to generate intense nostalgia for what many critics maintain was the golden age of television. 

A hint of what is to come appears in the joint BFI and National Film Theatre guide for November, which refers to the forthcoming "Missing Believed Wiped" event and mentions the discovery of hundreds of hours of British TV drama.  The tapes are understood to have been sent out to WNET for broadcast and later stored in the TV station's collection inside the Library of Congress, where they were recently catalogued with British assistance. 

They were originally broadcast by the BBC and the independent television companies Granada and Associated-Rediffusion between 1957 and 1970.  News of their rediscovery was inadvertently leaked to the public in an events bulletin put out at the weekend.  The programmes include works by Shakespeare, Chekhov and Ibsen, as well as new work written for weekly shows such as The Wednesday Play and Thursday Theatre. 

Among other gems found in the archives are a BBC production of Jean Anouilh's version of Sophocles' Antigone starring Dorothy Tutin and David McCallum, that made the front cover of the Radio Times in 1959 but has not been seen since.  Notes inside the listings magazine confirm the production was Tutin's BBC television debut and describe her as the "leading young actress of the contemporary scene".  A BBC production of Henrik Ibsen's Rosmersholm from 1965 stars Peggy Ashcroft with a supporting cast including John Laurie. 

Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens star opposite each other as Beatrice and Benedick in a 1967 production of Much Ado About Nothing recorded for the BBC, while Sean Connery appears with Dorothy Tutin in a rare BBC Sunday Night Theatre production of Anouilh's Colombe from 1960. 

The earliest rediscovered recording is a 1957 production of Ibsen's The Wild Duck, directed for ITV by Charles Crichton and starring Tutin opposite Emlyn Williams and Michael Gough.  The library's hoard also includes finds of interest for social reasons.  A production of Twelfth Night, starring John Wood as Malvolio, was made by Rediffusion for its schools programming in the afternoons.  It was a 75-minute reduction of the play and was broadcast at the end of a nine-part series that examined the work's cultural and historical background. 

"Negotiations to secure the release of these dramas have been going on for some time and we have been holding on to the information until the time is right," said a spokesman for the BFI. " It is very exciting, but we don't have all the information yet." 

Jane Asher appears in a 1962 schools production of Romeo and Juliet, along with another 1967 Play of The Month staging of the same Shakespeare play, starring Kika Markham as Juliet, Hywel Bennett as Romeo and John Gielgud as the chorus.  Among the bit players are Thora Hird and Michael Gambon, while Ronald Pickup plays Mercutio. 

The Library of Congress initially approached Kaleidoscope, the classic TV experts, who took the good news to the BBC and ITV this spring. " We brokered the deal for the BFI because so many different companies have copyright over the material," wrote Kaleidoscope's Chris Perry in a blog this weekend. 

The cast list for a production of The Young Elizabeth shows Hugh Paddick playing a courtier, while Hannah Gordon stars in a Wednesday Play from 1965.  Robert Stephens, who died in 1995, appears several times, starring in a 1967 production of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale alongside Jeremy Kemp and Anna Calder-Marshall.  A year earlier Stephens stars in a 1966 Theatre 625 production of Chekhov's The Seagull with Annette Crosbie and Pamela Brown. 

An early ITV Play of the Week from 1963 will also be of great interest to theatre historians.  It stars Jill Bennett, the fourth wife of playwright John Osborne, in a production of Chekhov's The Three Sisters with the actress Hilda Barry.