Brian Bovell
The Football Monologues tells the stories of seven different people living in and around the beautiful game. Each of our subjects talks intimately, unveiling their innermost hopes and fears. One by one they touch on themes central to us all: the fragility of our mental selves, the failings of our bodies, the complexities of our relationships and ambitions and our need to connect.
A dark, surreal comedy about a local man who becomes convinced that a vast conspiracy is behind the impossibly rapid gentrification in his London area. But is it all in his head, or is the truth even darker than he imagines? Cla'am is the debut short from Nathaniel Martello-White, one of the UK's leading young playwrights.
After mishearing a pair of fishermen talking about the superior flood barriers in The Netherlands, Noah devises an escape plan to Never Land. The only person who takes an interest in his plan is Katie, Noah's wild-hearted next-door neighbor. Noah's parents think his compulsion to turn off taps is foolish, but even they can't deny the growing storms that are threatening their little fishing village.
Documentary celebrating the British sitcom and taking a look at the social and political context from which our favourite sitcoms grew. We enjoy a trip through the comedy archive in the company of the people who made some of the very best British sitcoms. From The Likely Lads to I'm Alan Partridge, we find out the inspiration behind some of the most-loved characters and how they reflect the times they were living in.
London 1939. In the weeks before the beginning of the Second World War, the Say When jazz club keeps London's Shoreditch swinging. Run by Thomas (Richie) and his wife Massie (Natasha Wightman), it's a place where gangsters and aristocrats, home office gents, and loose women can kick back and relax. Thomas' job is to keep everything running smoothly. But when he starts having an affair with singer Butterfly (Joely Richardson), this carefully balanced world disintegrates into blackmail, drugs, and suicide.
Follows seemingly unrelated people as their lives begin to intertwine while they fall in – and out – of love. Affections languish and develop as Christmas draws near.
Penny works at a supermarket and Phil is a gentle taxi-driver. Penny’s love for Phil has run dry and they lead joyless lives with their two children, Rachel, a cleaner, and Rory, who is unemployed and aggressive.
In 1997, six African women pledged that in the first year of the new millennium they would tell their stories, stories by African women. They called their series "Mama Africa" and drew their tales from the depths of their hearts. The result is a groundbreaking initiative bringing together the incredibly fresh talents of six female directors from the vast and diverse continent of Africa.
The Murder of Stephen Lawrence, which originally aired in Britain in 1999, was one of the most quietly incendiary made-for-TV productions of 2002. As he did for his acclaimed feature Bloody Sunday, writer-director Paul Greengrass based the story on actual events and filmed it cinéma vérité-style. The cast is equal to the task in bringing the case to wrenching life. We're there in 1993 as racists viciously attack Stephen, an 18-year-old of Jamaican descent. We're there as his parents (Hugh Quarshie and Marianne Jean-Baptiste) grieve their loss. And we're there as they muster their resources, resolving to do whatever it takes to see his killers brought to justice. Although authorities attempted to bury the case, Stephen's murder became a cause célèbre due to the two ordinary individuals who refused to rest until it was solved. Thanks to their efforts, crimes against minorities aren't likely to be treated so lightly ever again.
Linda La Hughes (Kathy Burke) shares a flat with Tom Farrell (James Dreyfus). Linda is overweight, loudmouthed and not particularly attractive. She thinks she's gorgeous and irrestible, however. She's also sex mad and obsessed with men. Tom is an aspiring actor. He's got an agent, but finds it difficult to get parts. He doesn't like Linda much, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that they share a flat. She isn't completely comfortable with his homosexuality, perhaps because she finds it difficult to live with a man who doesn't find her sexually attractive.
A middle-aged London factory worker is shocked when the mixed-race daughter she gave up at birth decides to track her down. At first she denies she is her mother. All family members become emotional, as everyone's secrets are exposed.
In 1958, a Caribbean couple make the journey to a new life by moving to England.
Spike and his sister Anjela live in the Terrordome, a huge ghetto that all the blacks have been forced to live in. Jodie, Spike's pregnant white girlfriend, ran away from an abusive white boyfriend who, after seeing her with Spike, sets up a trap for her. Spike's 11-year old nephew Hector dies as a result of this trap, and Anjela, finding the body of her son, goes on a police-killing rampage. Her apprehension sets off tension between Spike and his brother-in-law, as a race war broods inside the Terrordome.
Television interviewer George Grant, renowned for his ability to get at the truth, is at the peak of his career. But when he receives a message at his office that his wife needs to see him urgently - a matter of life and death - his life is irreversibly altered. And so the frantic search begins for George Grant 's truth - and his wife.
This bold, stunning exploration of a white mother who undergoes a radical mastectomy and her Black daughter who embarks on a modeling career reveals the profound effects of body image and the strain of racial and sexual identity on their charged, intensely loving bond. At the heart of Onwurah’s brave excursion into her mother’s scorned sexuality is a provocative interweaving of memory and fantasy. The filmmaker plumbs the depths of maternal strength and daughterly devotion in an unforgettable tribute starring her real-life mother, Madge Onwurah.
A young man looks back over his unhappy marriage and struggles to come to terms with his wife's suicide.
This classic mini series in six episodes tells the story of a young woman who goes in search of the father she has never known. Her search takes her from Australia to England and then on to Bangkok. There she meets up with a charming young man, Arkie Regan, who plants drugs in her luggage and leaves her to her fate when the authorities find them during a routine search at the airport. Following her imprisonment in the notorious Bangkok Hilton prison she awaits the decision of the authorities on whether she should face the death penalty.
Set in a commercial radio station in an enterprise zone called ‘Riverside’, Thin Air involved property development on a massive scale, the disruption and forced exodus of a local community, the stripping away of local authority powers, left-wing activism, designer drugs, media hacks.
To mark the conclusion of their "Third World Week" celebration, a cricket team in a small English village invites a black cricket team from South London to a charity game with comical results.
Prospects is a British television comedy drama series that was written by Alan Janes and originally shown on Channel 4 in 1986. Created by Euston Films who had a pedigree of producing successful, gritty drama such as The Sweeney and Minder, it followed the exploits of two East End 'geezer' characters - Jimmy 'Pincy' Pince played by Gary Olsen and Billy played by Brian Bovell and their trials and tribulations of making a living in London's Isle of Dogs. Comprising 12 episodes Prospects - with a comic slant, dealt with many of the major issues affecting British society at the height of the "Thatcherite" '80's including unemployment, crime, poverty, regeneration, social change and racism. Prospects gained a cult following and ratings wise it performed well above expectation for Channel 4. At that time Channel Four received a large subsidy from the rival commercial network ITV in exchange for the right to sell airtime; this gave ITV a significant input into the management of the station. The success of Prospects and the fact that it was produced by a subsidiary of the ITV network's largest station Thames Television meant it was moved to a 9pm prime-time repeat slot on ITV in the Spring/Summer of 1987. This fuelled rumours that the network wanted to develop Prospects into a long-running comedy drama series. However despite seeing potential ITV declined the opportunity to develop it beyond the original first series.
A bored and frustrated suburban housewife follows her dream of becoming a racing driver
Jack Strachan, a shady ex-sports star in hiding out in Norway, is stalked by a mysterious woman he cannot identify who closely resembles his murdered wife, Veronique. Convinced of her evil intent and determined to unmask her, he forces himself to re-live the harrowing events that culminate in Veronique's brutal murder at the hands of violent associate, Karim, and confront the demons that first drove him underground.
