Three decades after it was declared dead, live TV drama is to return to British screens. Sky will use the occasion to broadcast six debut plays by leading British writers, with all the dangers of actors forgetting their lines or tripping over the scenery - and the added tension of an audience thousands of times that for a theatre production.

The dramas will air in July and August. The authors include Michael Dobbs, best known for his political satire House of Cards; mystery writer Kate Mosse, critically lauded for her novel Labyrinth; and Nicci French, the joint pen name for husband-and-wife thriller authors Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. Each has written a play in their preferred genre.

Dobbs told the Observer: "For me, having written novels for 20 years, getting into a different area like this has all sorts of challenges and makes you ferociously scared of what you're getting into. I've presented a lot of television over my career - live and recorded - and there is nothing like the buzz, the edge of tension that you get when you do something live; it's the difference between a race and the practice lap. It's a great pity that live TV dramas have died out because it's a wonderful art form, and Sky has been quite brave to bring it back."

Sky has had to create a specialist company of actors and directors and build a theatre-cum-studio. The project has been created by presenter and comedian Sandi Toksvig, who is overseeing the productions. She said she wanted to reintroduce an element of danger to drama schedules. "Things probably will go wrong - but that risk is part of the excitement; and in this age of reality television it would be quite nice to have reality television for people who have read a book. It is drama as it happens, whatever happens. Vibrant, immediate, warts and all."

Live television drama has a chequered history. While it was once the mainstay of Saturday night viewing, it fell out of favour owing to its inherent risks. The most controversial incident was a 1958 episode of Armchair Theatre, during which one of the performers died. The play, Underground, was set in a tube station following a nuclear attack and starred Peter Bowles.

The performers were shocked to see 33-year-old Gareth Jones coming towards them, then fall after suffering a fatal heart attack. Unaware of the gravity of his condition, they improvised the rest of the play, with the director hurriedly redistributing Jones's lines during the interval.

Years later, Bowles described the incident: "During transmission, a little group of us was talking on camera while awaiting the arrival of Gareth Jones's character, who had some information for us. We could see him coming up towards us, but we saw him fall.

"We had no idea what had happened, but he certainly wasn't coming our way. The actors started making up lines, 'I'm sure if so-and-so were here he would say'..." At about the same time, another televised death was narrowly avoided during an edition of Emergency-Ward 10, when a cast member accidentally switched on a working defibrillator being "used" on one of the characters, resulting in burns to the chest. The incidents hastened the end of live drama.

One alumnus of Emergency-Ward 10 is Pauline Collins, who will appear in one of the new plays, her first live TV drama in more than 40 years. "The first television I ever did was Emergency-Ward 10, which was live; I was dry-mouthed, walked into the wrong scene, one of the characters said, 'We don't need you, nurse', and I walked off again looking shocked and presuming I would be fired," she said. "So there's always a slight sense of terror, but it will be fun."

Although there have been experiments in the past couple of decades with live editions of long-running series, they have remained little more than stunts. Last year a live episode of the BBC sitcom Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps was notable for the writers deliberately making things difficult for the cast by putting in tongue twisters and juggling with flaming torches - dangers at which even TV drama veterans would balk.

Directing Collins is her husband, the actor John Alderton, most recently seen as Mr Casby in last year's BBC adaptation of Little Dorrit. "It was all live when I started 50 years ago," he said. "It didn't seem extraordinary, because that was just how it was, and it had that wonderful feeling of danger; when you made terrible mistakes or the set fell down, that's what went out."

He said a number of the younger actors were apprehensive about performing live on television. "They are facing the same dangers we faced, and it all seems terrifying to them - if not more so, because back then we were used to covering our mistakes."

The six live plays will be broadcast on Wednesdays starting on 8 July at 9pm on Sky Arts

Five notable live performances

Hancock's Half-Hour: There's an Airfield at the Bottom of My Garden (BBC, 1957)

After part of the set collapsed, Hancock was forced to improvise his lines while he remained rooted to the spot holding up anything left in place. Attempting to re-erect a table, he told the studio audience: "I'll do it if it kills me." At one point, a character asked: "What happened?" after a piece of plaster fell on his head, prompting Hancock to reply: "You may well ask." The experience turned him against live shows.

The Charlie Drake Show (BBC, 1961)

During a slapstick routine, the comedian was thrown through a window - resulting in a fractured skull that left him unconscious for three days. It is rumoured that the prop men had deliberately swapped sugar glass for real glass.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (BBC, 1954)

The controversially realistic TV adaptation of George Orwell's masterpiece starred Peter Cushing and included a full-scale orchestra in one studio accompanying the live action in a neighbouring studio. Newspapers reported that one viewer died from shock and questions were asked in parliament.

ER (Channel 4, 1997)

George Clooney persuaded producers to make the opening episode of the 1997 series live - twice, so that both east and west coast America could see it. He later regretted his decision, saying it looked "cheap - like a soap opera".

Live From Her Majesty's (ITV, 1984)

Not strictly a drama, but a poignant live TV moment, when the "magician" Tommy Cooper collapsed from a heart attack during his act. Viewers and audience members initially thought it was a gag, but his death was soon announced.