Jack Gold
We're in an English village shortly before Dunkirk. "Mr. Tom" Oakley still broods over the death of his wife and small son while he was away in the navy during WWI, and grief has made him a surly hermit. Now children evacuated from London are overwhelming volunteers to house them. Practically under protest, Mr. Tom takes in a painfully quiet 10-year-old, who gradually reveals big problems.
Contemporary thriller set partly on the island of Rhodes. A bankrupt former garage owner, now working as a waiter and a caretaker on the Greek isle, is hauled in by the local police when a young Englishwoman he has befriended goes missing. Under suspicion of murder, he flees the island and returns to England, where he begins trying to piece together the missing woman's background and her reasons for visiting Rhodes in the first place.
At Blandings Castle, the Earl of Emsworth only cares about his prize pig 'The Empress' and is wilfully ignorant of the fact that his brother is planning to publish a book which might ruin the family name forever. Moreover, the Earl's nephew might cause the family some major damage by getting married to a terribly unsuitable chorus girl. An adaptation of P.G. Wodehouse's novel of the same name.
Eustacia Vye, an exquisite beauty despairing at her boring life on an English moor, sets up a fateful lovers' triangle when she uses her wiles to entice two men, a dashing suitor and a successful man who made his name abroad and returned to his home on the heath.
The failing economic fortunes of a small turn-of-the-century Nebraska town interrupt a blossoming romance between a pair of star-crossed lovers.
A semi-fictionalized account of the life of writer F.R. Leavis, his mentor Arthur Quiller Couch, and Leavis's own students at Cambridge University.
Prudence Crandall establishes herself in Cantenbury, and starts a girls-school. When Eliza Harris, a black girl, wants to take lessons at this school, the local people resist and forbid their daughters to go to the school any longer. William Lloyd Garrison, writer of The Liberator, helps Prudence to turn her school to a black girls-school.
Detective Allan Pinkerton, working for the Union, becomes obsessed with Southern socialite Rose O'Neal Greenhow, a spy for the Confederacy.
Experienced Green Beret sergeant Johnny Gallagher is escorting a prisoner, Airborne Ranger Thomas Boyette, back to the US, but Boyette escapes and Gallagher must risk life and limb to catch him.
Joe and Sarah Marriot are a pair of European campers who have pitched their tent for a little R & R at a campsite in France. The other families that have come to the site on holiday provide great comedy and plenty of people watching for the Marriots. Of course, you'd expect hilarity from characters dubbed the Fitness Family, Mr. and Mrs. Topless, Fatty Granada, and the In-the-Trades. But the Marriots' enjoyment of observing the outside world turns inward when the entrance of Early Bird, a free-spirited female, shakes up their little nest.
Rich L.A. party brat Tim spins into a cycle of despair after his parents divorce, and trying to fill the void with drugs and trouble only buys him a ticket to an asylum. But with the help of a psychiatrist who has taken an interest in him, will Tim try to pull himself out of the muck of teenage rebellion and ennui?
A couple moves to a small Mexican town called Ibarra. They help open a local mine which brings new life to the town and the local ways help the two of them find peace they were missing.
During World War 2 the Germans arrested people at random off the streets of Paris and in retaliation to sabotage by the resistance announced the execution of one in ten prisoners. Chosen as one of the victims, lawyer Chavel trades his place with another man in return for all his possessions. At the end of the war he returns to his house and tries to integrate himself with the family of the man who traded places with him, all the while hiding his true identity. However matters are complicated when a stranger arrives claiming to be Chavel.
The true story of WWII's notorious Sobibor Nazi death camp, where a courageous inmate orchestrates and leads the escape of over 300 prisoners.
George Banks recalls his past life travelling in charge of a dancing troupe.
British comedy satirising Stalin's inner circle as an absolute monarchs court. In the face of rampant abuse of power and poisonous distrust some still manage to keep faith with the Bolshevist creed until the very end. In front of the firing squad a stalwart bolshevist of the first hour exclaims: "Even in the best democracy errors are being made!"
The story, told partly in flashback to 1968, concerns a clique of English public schoolboys who bully and humiliate an unpopular younger pupil (Cox) who is 'bad at games'. Ten years later Cox uses the naive and equal outsider Niles, who is only included in the clique because he is 'good at games', to find out more about the lead persecutor (Mount), in order to exact revenge
A middle-aged professor's young bride and his assistant plan to commit a double murder disguised as a "Crime Passionel", but discover too late that one of their intended victims has become a fellow conspirator.
The dynamic young headmaster of St Peter's Primary School decides to liven up a parents' fundraising social by hiring a Bavarian band.
A rich merchant, Antonio is depressed for no good reason, until his good friend Bassanio comes to tell him how he's in love with Portia. Portia's father has died and left a very strange will: only the man that picks the correct casket out of three (silver, gold, and lead) can marry her. Bassanio, unfortunately, is strapped for cash with which to go wooing, and Antonio wants to help, so Antonio borrows the money from Shylock, the money-lender. But Shylock has been nursing a grudge against Antonio's insults, and makes unusual terms to the loan. And when Antonio's business fails, those terms threaten his life, and it's up to Bassanio and Portia to save him.
Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American. But after the death of the Earl's remaining son, he decides to accept Cedric as his heir.
Charlie Muffin, top British Intelligence operative, has just broken up a major Soviet spy network in England. However, a new Director with new ideas takes over and wants Charlie out. But then a high-ranking Soviet spy-master hints that he wants to defect, and both British Intelligence and the CIA want him and will do anything to get him. Charlie may be the only man who can bring the defection off successfully, but is the whole thing an elaborate set-up? And when your so-called allies are stabbing each other and you in the back to get this prize, whom can Charlie trust on either side?
A French detective in London reconstructs the life of a man lying in hospital with severe injuries with the help of journals and a psychiatrist. He realises that the man had powerful telekinetic abilities.
Based on the 1925 novel The Sailor's Return by David Garnett. A sailor returns to his hometown to open a pub bringing with him his new black wife. Very quickly they find themselves ostracised by the community.
The first World War is in its third year and aerial combat above the Western Front is consuming the nation's favored children at an appalling rate. By early 1917, the average life-span of a British pilot is less than a fortnight. Such losses place a fearsome strain on Gresham, commanding officer of the squadron. Aces High recreates the early days of the Royal Flying Corps with some magnificently staged aerial battles, and sensitive direction presents a moving portrayal of the futilities of war.
Story of the life of Quentin Crisp, an Englishman who was brave enough to live his life according to his own style even in the hostile days of WW2.
Englishman Robinson Crusoe, stranded alone on an island for years, is overjoyed to find a fellow man, a black islander whom he names Friday. But Crusoe cannot overcome the shackles of his own heritage and upbringing and is incapable of seeing Friday as anything other than a savage who needs Crusoe's brand of cultural and religious enlightenment. Friday attempts to share his own more generous and unashamed culture, but ultimately realizes that Crusoe can never see him as anything but an inferior being. With that awareness, Friday sets out to turn the tables on Crusoe.
Set in the near future. As a consequence of an ecumenical movement (Vatican Council IV), the Catholic Church has joined other religions and has eliminated much of the original dogma of Catholicism. A group of Irish monks rebel against this situation and react back to the past: they begin to say Mass in Latin and act according to traditional Catholic dogma. So, Rome decides to send a representative (Martin Sheen) to investigate what is happening
Peter Nichols adapted his own hit play to the screen, based on his experiences in hospitals. A riotous black comedy that's as timely today as ever, it contrasts the appalling conditions in a overcrowded London hospital with a soap opera playing on the televisions there. In an ingenious touch, the same actors appear in the "real" story as well as the "TV" one, thus blurring the distinctions even further. Jack Gould directs such outstanding British actors as Lynn Redgrave, Colin Blakely, Eleanor Bron, Jim Dale, Donald Sinden, Mervyn Johns, and, in only his second film, Bob Hoskins. The renowned Carl Davis composed the score.
In August 1913 a strike at a Cornish clay pit leads to Welsh police being sent to keep order. Having no other source of income, a striking miner is forced to take in one of the policemen as a lodger. They soon become friends, but escalating tension at the mine means that conflict will become inevitable.
The rise to underworld eminence of the notorious Chicago gangster Artuto Ui - who bears a striking resemblance to Adolf Hitler.
Michael Marler, a successful business man in London, is about to make his way to the top. The death of his father brings him - after 37 years - back to his hometown Liverpool, where he is confronted with his lost Irish roots. He finds out that his father died because of a fight with some anglo-saxon teddy boys. It becomes "a matter of honour" for him, to take his revenge without involving the British police
A national service NCO (David Warner) comes face to face with an embittered Irish Gunner (Nicol Williamson) who is determined to humiliate him.
Thirty-Minute Theatre is an anthology drama series of short plays shown on BBC Television between 1965 and 1973, which was used in part at least as a training ground for new writers, on account of its short running length, and which therefore attracted many writers who later became well known. It was initially produced by Graeme MacDonald. Thirty-Minute Theatre followed on from a similarly named ITV series, beginning on BBC2 in 1965 with an adaptation of the black comedy Parsons Pleasure. Dennis Potter contributed Emergency – Ward 9, which he partially recycled in the much later The Singing Detective. In 1967 BBC2 launched the UK's first colour service, with the consequence that Thirty-Minute Theatre became the first drama series in the country to be shown in colour. As well as single plays, the series showed several linked collections of plays, including a group of four plays by John Mortimer named after areas of London in 1972, two three-part Inspector Waugh series starring Clive Swift in the title role, and a trilogy of plays by Jean Benedetti, broadcast in 1969, focusing on infamous historical figures such as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.
The Wednesday Play is an anthology series of British television plays which ran on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured. The series gained a reputation for presenting contemporary social dramas, and for bringing issues to the attention of a mass audience that would not otherwise have been discussed on screen.
Alan Whicker interviews billionaire J. Paul Getty, who discusses reports of his meanness, his unsuccessful marriages, why he keeps working and what he's had to sacrifice to become the world's richest man.
1982. A shop worker saves money all year for a holiday in France, using a magazine as guide to the mode of dress and manners of behaviour she thinks expected of a wealthy woman.
