David Hatton
May 1917. Sixteen year old Indiana Jones joins an international trio of spies plotting against their German counterparts in the neutral city of Barcelona. After his old acquaintance Pablo Picasso helps him get a job at Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, Indy devices a plan to forge a love letter written by the German cultural attaché to make it seem he is having an affair with the Countess of Toledo. In August of the same year, Indiana is reassigned to Prague where he is to receive an important phone call. Unfortunately his hotel room proves to be unequipped with a phone. Indy heads for the Ministery of Telephones, where he learns that having to confront Czech bureaucracy can be quite a trial.
Daniel is an obeying and high-flying barrister with the good life on his side. Nathaniel Quass is a rich and bizarre recluse, generous, obsessed and sad. This reluctant pair are caught up in an alliance againstu an ingenious conspiracy which threatens both of their lives.
In a staid English seaside town after the Second World War, young Lynda grows up with her widowed father and younger sister. Rebellious Lynda has been swearing constantly from an early age. At sixteen, she becomes more exhibitionist and seeks out sexual encounters challenging the prevailing lower-middle class attitudes to sex. She eventually becomes pregnant by an acquaintance of her father.
A reporter Mullen 'stumbles' on a story linking a prominent Member of Parliament to a KGB agent. In fact it is also linked to a near Nuclear disaster involving a teenage runaway and an Americal USAF base. Has there been a Government cover-up,Mullen teams up with Vernon Bayliss, an old hack, and Nina Beckam the MP's assistant to find out the truth.
In 1940, during World War II, an officer is sent to investigate rumours of German spies in a sleepy village where various people are the victims of war hysteria.
A young European boy living in San Francisco is reluctant to marry his long-term girlfriend because he wants to travel around the world first. His wealthy uncle agrees to send him on a global expedition aboard his ship, but en route the boy and his travelling companion are shipwrecked on a remote island, populated by countless prehistoric creatures as well as gold-hunting bandits.
Set against the backdrop of Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II, the play depicts a single mother's struggles as welfare cuts affect the poor and disabled. The derogatory term 'spongers' is used by British tabloid press to describe people who are dependent on welfare support, however the play presents the case of a family who really need the help of welfare support. The title sequence shows the title of the play, 'The Spongers', superimposed over a picture of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, denoting them as 'the real spongers' as Royal finances are paid by British taxpayers.
The first film directed by Anthony Minghella, shot on the Isle of Wight in 1977.
