Fenella Woolgar
In 1933, Welsh journalist Gareth Jones travels to Ukraine, where he experiences the horrors of a famine. Everywhere he goes he meets henchmen of the Soviet secret service who are determined to prevent news about the catastrophe from getting out. Stalin’s forced collectivisation of agriculture has resulted in misery and ruin—the policy is tantamount to mass murder.
We join the jury of a television awards company as they decide on who is going to win the Best Actress award. But only one of the eight actresses can be chosen.
Queen Victoria strikes up an unlikely friendship with a young Indian clerk named Abdul Karim.
The story of the inhabitants of the isolated Scottish island of Todday, in the Outer Hebrides, where gloom sets in as their wartime rationing of whisky runs out. When cargo ship the SS Cabinet Minister runs aground the shrewd islanders run rings around the buffoonish English Home Guard commander Captain Waggett and conspire to hide away cases of the precious amber nectar.
Four children dream of escaping the tedium of a summer holiday with their mother. When finally given permission to camp on their own on an island in the middle of a vast lake, they are overjoyed. But when they get there they discover they may not be alone… The battle for ownership of a lonely island teaches them the skills of survival, the value of friendship and the importance of holding your nerve.
Eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner lives his last 25 years with gusto and secretly becomes involved with a seaside landlady, while his faithful housekeeper bears an unrequited love for him.
A military attaché at the French embassy is drawn into a world of abduction, betrayal and intrigue in the diplomatic salons and back alleys of Warsaw. A classic tale of spying, intrigue, and romance, based on the novels of Alan Furst and adapted by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais.
England, 1932. Today is Dolly Thatcham's wedding day, and her family is arriving at the manor house with all the cheerfulness, chaos and grievances that accompany such gatherings. Trouble soon appears in the shape of Joseph, Dolly's lover from the previous summer, who throws her feelings into turmoil. But Dolly's mother will not allow her carefully laid plans for her daughter's future to be threatened...
Poirot's friend Ariadne Oliver attends a children's Halloween party at Woodleigh Common. During the party, a young girl known for lies and overexaggerating says she has seen a murder once. Later on the girl is found dead. Mrs Oliver asks for Poirot's assistance on finding the murderer.
Two married couples find only trouble and heartache as their complicated lives unfold. After 40 years of marriage, Alfie leaves his wife to pursue what he thinks is happiness with a call girl. His wife, Helena, reeling from abandonment, decides to follow the advice of a psychic. Sally, the daughter of Alfie and Helena, is unhappy in her marriage and develops a crush on her boss, while her husband, Roy, falls for a woman engaged to be married.
A British writer struggles to fit in at a high-profile magazine in New York.
When their beloved school is threatened with closure should the powers that be fail to raise the proper funds, the girls scheme to steal a priceless painting and use the profits to pull St. Trinian's out of the red.
Satirical drama by Evelyn Waugh, adapted by Sam Hobkinson. Visiting her father Lord Moping in the county asylum, Angela meets a fellow inmate who appears far too sane to be locked up in an institution. She manages to get him released, but he returns two hours later, having achieved a terrible ambition.
Humble Maria, who outfits top London theater star Ned Kynaston, takes none of the credit for the male actor's success at playing women. And because this is the 17th century, Maria, like other females, is prohibited from pursuing her dream of acting. But when powerful people support her, King Charles II lifts the ban on female stage performers. And just as Maria aided Ned, she needs his help to learn her new profession.
Abortionist Vera Drake finds her beliefs and practices clash with the mores of 1950s Britain – a conflict that leads to tragedy for her family.
He Knew He Was Right was a 2004 BBC TV adaptation of the Anthony Trollope novel He Knew He Was Right. It was directed by Tom Vaughan.
In the 1930s, a social set known to the press – who follow their every move – as the “Bright Young Things” are Adam and his friends who are eccentric, wild and entirely shocking to the older generation. Amidst the madness, Adam, who is well connected but totally broke, is desperately trying to get enough money to marry the beautiful Nina. While his attempts to raise cash are constantly thwarted, their friends seem to self-destruct, one-by-one, in an endless search for newer and faster sensations. Finally, when world events out of their control come crashing around them, they are forced to reassess their lives and what they value most.
British filmmaker Simon Cellan Jones directs the BBC drama Eroica, starring Ian Hart as Ludwig van Beethoven. Shot on digital video, this TV film depicts the first performance of Beethoven's Third Symphony, June 9th, 1804, in Vienna, Austria. Prince Lobkowitz (Jack Davenport) has invited friends to listen to Beethoven conduct his new symphony for the first time. Among the aristocratic attendees are Count Dietrichstein (Tim Pigott-Smith), Countess Brunsvik (Claire Skinner), and composer Josef Haydn (Frank Finlay). The actual musical score is performed by the Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique, under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner.
During a village's Hallowe'en party, a young girl boasts of having witnessed a murder from years before. No one believes her tale until her body is found later on in the evening, drowned in the apple-bobbing bucket.
