David Swift
Spoof documentary looking at the life of Normal Stanley Fletcher, the star of 1970s sitcom Porridge played by Ronnie Barker. Featuring fictional footage and interviews with the character's family, friends and associates, the film documents Fletcher's chequered career.
Oscar Charlie was a 13-episode CBBC children's television series that aired for the first time on 26 September 2001. The series is about a boy, Charlie Spinner, who discovers that his grandfather, Oscar Spinner, is actually a secret agent. He acts senile but it is just a cover so that nobody would notice. After Charlie confronts Oscar with this they work together on a dangerous assignment.
Jack always lands on his feet. He lands on his feet when he marries the beautiful Sarah. He lands on his feet when he buys a luxurious new home. However, when Sarah goes into labour, he takes a tumble down the stairs and lands on his head. When he comes around he discovers he is the proud father of a baby girl, but deficient in the spouse department to the tune of 1.
Drop the Dead Donkey is a situation comedy that first aired on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom between 1990 and 1998. It is set in the offices of “GlobeLink News”, a fictional TV news company. Recorded close to transmission, it made use of contemporary news events to give the programme a greater sense of realism. It was created by Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin. The series had an ensemble cast, making stars of Haydn Gwynne, Stephen Tompkinson and Neil Pearson. The series began with the acquisition of GlobeLink by media mogul Sir Roysten Merchant, an allusion to either Robert Maxwell or Rupert Murdoch. Indeed, Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin note on their DVDs that it was fortunate for their libel lawyers that the two men shared the same initials. The series is mostly based on the on-going battle between the staff of GlobeLink, led by editor George Dent, as they try to maintain the company as a serious news organisation, and Sir Roysten’s right-hand man Gus Hedges, trying to make the show more sensationalist and suppress stories that might harm Sir Roysten’s business empire. The show was awarded the Best Comedy Award at the 1994 BAFTA Awards. At the British Comedy Awards the show won Best New TV Comedy in 1990, Best Channel 4 Comedy in 1991, and Best Channel 4 Sitcom in 1994.
The Paradise Club is a BBC television drama starring Don Henderson and Leslie Grantham as Frank & Danny Kane. Two series were produced and were broadcast between 1989 and 1990. The show focuses upon two brothers, Frank & Danny Kane. Their mother, Ma Kane, is the matriarch of a criminal gang in South London, helped by her son Danny. Frank has become a priest but leaves the church; he inherits The Paradise Club on the death of their mother and returns to London to try and steer Danny away from crime.
James Carlisle is a successful architect who sees his children every weekend following his divorce from Lyn. When Lyn falls in love with the unstable Bernard, James is forced to take drastic action.
An aimless young man, Johnny, is sent prison. He entrusts his beloved dog, Evie, to the care of his former lover and best friend, Frank. When he gets out of prison, he has to face difficulties at home. Added to this, is the fact that he may have to give up Evie to Frank.
Lorraine Barrie, a fading but brilliant actress with a penchant for manipulating every theatrical endeavour to her best advantage, meets her match when she must trust her success to an equally willful stage director.
Mickey and Mo head to Liverpool for the chance of a big score
Arthur is the groundsman. He's a perfectionist who has lovingly tended the cricket pitch for 45 years. Now he is given a new assistant.
A remote farmhouse on an isolated island. Strangers with English accents. Quarrels and a lonely child. The year is 1946. The man is George Orwell. The book he has come to write is Nineteen Eighty-four.
Bloomers was a short-lived British sitcom starring Richard Beckinsale that was aired in 1979. It was in production in 1979 but only five episodes were made before Beckinsale died suddenly from a heart attack just before a planned rehearsal for the sixth and final episode of the first series. Bloomers was immediately shelved, though the five completed episodes were broadcast later in the same year.
Richard II, who ascended the throne as a child, is a regal and stately monarch. He believes he is the rightful ruler of England, ordained by God, yet he is a weak and ineffective king - wasteful in his spending habits, unwise in his choise of chansellors, and detached from his country and its people. When he seizes the land of his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, both the commoners and the barons decide that their king has gone too far...
Going Straight is a BBC sitcom which was a direct spin-off from Porridge, starring Ronnie Barker as Norman Stanley Fletcher, newly released from the fictional Slade Prison where the earlier series had been set. It sees Fletcher trying to become an honest member of society, having vowed to stay away from crime on his release. The title refers to his attempt, 'straight' being a slang term meaning being honest, in contrast to 'bent', i.e., dishonest. Also re-appearing was Richard Beckinsale as Lennie Godber, who was Fletcher's naïve young cellmate and was now in a relationship with his daughter Ingrid. Her brother Raymond was played by a teenage Nicholas Lyndhurst. Only one series, of six episodes, was made in 1978. It attracted an audience of over 15 million viewers and won a BAFTA award in March 1979, but hopes of a further series had already been dashed by Beckinsale's premature death earlier in the same month.
A gung-ho ex-military man pursues a secret life of crime, culminating in the kidnapping of a teenage heiress.
Porn store owner Pete orders some new stuff from his supplier Niko but Niko mixes up the address with the address of the local Barclays Bank. Here, newly-weds David (the bank's assistant manager) and Penny Hunter is shocked when first photos, then films and then finally two girls are sent to them in the Bank's flat. They, and their friend, head cashier Brian Runnicles (who slowly starts to have a nervous breakdown), have to deal with getting rid of the porn without letting their boss, Mr. Bromley - the bank's manager (who's very anti-porn), the local police in the form of Inspector Paul, and David's mother, Bertha Hunter, in on what is happening...
Terry and his family fight against a planned eviction when the council decides on a road building programme and their house is in its path.
An international assassin known as ‘The Jackal’ is employed by disgruntled French generals to kill President Charles de Gaulle, with a dedicated gendarme on the assassin’s trail.
Mr. Armistead is the referee for an amateur league Sunday Football match. Disliked and abused by all the players he tries to play fair and ensure they follow the rules. By the end of the match he's had enough and really uses his head to show them that he's not as useless as they all think.
At his mother's funeral, stuffy bank clerk Henry Pulling meets his Aunt Augusta, an elderly eccentric with more-than-shady dealings who pulls him along on a whirlwind adventure as she attempts to rescue an old lover.
The classic BBC dramatisation of Tolstoy's epic story of love and loss set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars. Anthony Hopkins heads the cast as Pierre Bezuhov (a role for which he won the 1972 Best Actor BAFTA); Morag Hood is the impulsive and beautiful Natasha Rostova; Alan Dobie is the dour but heroic Andrei Bolkonsky; and David Swift is Napoleon, whose decision to invade Russia in 1812 has far-reaching consequences for Pierre and the Rostov and Bolkonsky families. The twenty-part serial was the vision of producer David Conroy whose principle aim was to transfer the rich characterisation and incident from Tolstoy's greatest novel to a television drama. Scripted by Jack Pulman and directed by John Davies, Conroy's War And Peace boasts superb acting, award-winning design (1972 Best Design BAFTA) and breathtaking battle sequences which were filmed in former Yugoslavia.
