Ann Beach
Blues rinses, portraits of the queen and stand up bingo. Chris Shepherd delves into his past and recalls the world of his Aunty Glad and her local Conservative Club. The hues of blue that make up the Tory heartland are more than just a party - they are a state of mind.
Ruby and Garnet are identical twins, ten years old and inseparable. Since mother's death they live with father and grandmother in the big city. When one day attractive Rose steps into father's life, Ruby and Garnet's whole life is turned upside down. They must leave their beloved granny and move to the countryside with father and that much hated "new one" because father wants to fulfill his most ardent dream to open a bookstore. The girls consider this to be quite terrible and try everything to be thrown out of the new school. But then everything goes quite different: Ruby discovers that identical twin girls are being looked for to star in a TV series. Suddenly, they notice that they are not as similar at all as they thought, and that each one must find her own way.
William Thacker is a London bookstore owner whose humdrum existence is thrown into romantic turmoil when famous American actress Anna Scott appears in his shop. A chance encounter over spilled orange juice leads to a kiss that blossoms into a full-blown affair. As the average bloke and glamorous movie star draw closer and closer together, they struggle to reconcile their radically different lifestyles in the name of love.
Sir Anthony Blunt, who was a Soviet agent for 25 years, is routinely questioned and gives no answers, but is knighted and works as Director of the Courtauld Institute, and presents his interrogator with a puzzle in the shape of a doubtful Titian painting. He also does art restoration work in Buckingham Palace, where he gets into an interesting conversation with HMQ.
As the only relative to take over the Royal throne, a down on his luck American slob must learn the ways of the English.
A boy, a girl, a tramp and a piano with the most amazing effect on people, find each other in a park in a heatwave.
Brecht's company of actors tells the story of Bertolt Brecht: his theatre, plays, poetry and his life.
Career army man Bill Paterson faces discharge in this examination of the harsh treatment of British NCOs.
'Alice' and the children try to foil the attempt of thieves to steal the presents from a wedding reception, with hilarious results.
Alice's attempts to reach the children by climbing down the chimney of their grandmother's house result in various people being stranded on the roof. Eventually the Fire Brigade is called.
'Alice's' attempts to help with house decorating result in disaster. She is banished to the tree-house but a violent storm drives her indoors, to the consternation of the children's mother.
Family life is turned upside down when it's revealed that the daughter's pregnant by her teacher.
A man meets a woman at a wedding and manages to sweet talk her, only to end up inadvertently helping out another male.
Eddie Ritchie once ' played for England,' or did he? The team have their doubts.
A stolid British family from Bishops Stortford are adventurous and book a holiday in a villa in Morocco, where things befall them.
The delightful if peculiar story of a day in the life of a small, Welsh fishing village called "Llareggub" in which we meet a host of curious characters (and ghosts) through the 'eyes' of Blind Captain Cat.
Fresh-faced young Michael Rimmer worms his way into an opinion poll company and is soon running the place. He uses this as a springboard to get into politics and in the mini-skirted flared-trousered world of 1970 Britain starts to rise through the Tory ranks.
Monsieur Feydeau has writer's block, and he needs a new play. But he takes an opportunity to observe the upper class of 1900 Paris - Monsieur Boniface with a domineering wife, and the next-door neglectful husband Henri with a beautiful but ignored wife Marcelle. Henri traces architectural anomalies (most ghost sounds are drains), and plans a night at the Hotel Paradiso; but this hotel is the assignation spot of Marcelle and Boniface. One wife, two husbands, a nephew, and the perky Boniface maid, all at this 'by the hour' hotel, and consummation of the affair is, to say the least, severely compromised (not the least by a police raid). All of this under Feydeau's eye, and his play is the 'success fou' of the next season.
A Scottish civil servant (Stanley Baxter) must learn how to drive a Bentley to impress his girlfriend's (Julie Christie) tycoon father (James Robertson Justice).
Tricked into joining the RAF by a wily judge, wide boy Horace Pope sets his sights on the main chance, teams with slow-witted, good-hearted gypsy Pedlar Pascoe, and works up a lucrative racket in conning both his colleagues and the RAF. By means of various devious schemes Pope and Pascoe manage to avoid the front lines until they are sent to France - where they find themselves making unexpected and uncomfortably close contact with the enemy.
A young college student arrives in a sleepy Massachusetts town to research witchcraft; during her stay at an eerie inn, she discovers a startling secret about the town and its inhabitants.
