John Thomson
A celebration of the much-loved holiday camp sitcom, featuring classic scenes and interviews with members of cast and crew including Su Pollard, Ruth Madoc, Jeffrey Holland, Paul Shane and Jimmy Perry. The programme reveals that Butlin's, the real-life inspiration for the series, were not impressed with the show, and there are backstage secrets, such as the day several cast members nearly drowned in the swimming pool
Bono estente! It's been over 25 years since quickfire sketch show classic The Fast Show first hit our screens, and what better way to celebrate its enduring success than with a two-hour extravaganza of archive clips, cast interviews and rarely seen footage?
In celebration of 63 Up, the latest instalment of Michael Apted’s groundbreaking documentary series that began in 1964, a number of British and American celebrity fans now discuss its impact on popular culture and its lasting legacy. The film also candidly explores pivotal moments of celebrities’ own lives - from school days and first loves to family and fulfilled ambitions - while tapping into changes in social history around topics such as class, education, and parenting.
The hilarious and bizarre story of Frank Sidebottom, the cult British comedian in a papier mâché head, and the secretive life of Chris Sievey, the artist trapped inside.
Alan leaves behind his comfortable existence and heads to the north to ask whether, in this once united kingdom, a 'schasm' has formed between north and south, between the have's and have-nots.
The story of Len, who made a billion dollars from inventing a new toilet roll, and his 12-year-old son Joe who appears to have everything he could want but what he really needs is a friend.
Raymond Briggs' classic family story about smelly monsters, dangerous humans and what happens when the things that go bump in the night move in next door comes to life on Sky 1. Timothy Spall, Victoria Wood and Keeley Hawes star
Set in 1974, an authentic and uplifting tale of two friends whose horizons are opened up by the discovery of black American soul music.
A young man who has lost his car in a huge airport car park meets a beautiful woman in the same predicament. Stuck together at the Help Point, his attempt to charm her does not quite work out as planned.
This documentary sheds light on the background of the famous, infamous Darts Split. Many dart players like Phil Taylor, Rod Harrington, Raymond van Barneveld, Michael van Gerwen or James Wade but also the main responsible people like Olly Croft, Tommy Cox and Barry Hearn have their say.
Uncle Wormsley is a grey, decaying old man with cobweb-like hair and rotten fingernails. A lone figure who keeps himself to himself, Wormsley's only friend is a monstrous crab called Crabsley, who lives in a dungeon under his house.
A look at the life of John Cooper Clarke. From his rise as a 'punk poet', through his heroin addiction, and finally to his comeback.
The story of how 22 year old writer Tony Warren conceived, wrote and fought for the record breaking UK TV series Coronation Street.
Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash discuss the creation of The Royle Family, with a look behind the scenes at the production of the show and interviews with the cast.
Big Top was a BBC television situation comedy series which first aired on 25 November 2009 and was set in and around a travelling circus, the show aired on BBC One and BBC HD simultaneously. The series revolved around the performers and backstage staff of Circus Maestro. The series consisted of six episodes, each thirty minutes in length. Big Top was not recommissioned for a second series and was formally cancelled by the BBC in February 2010.
Big Chris leads a chorus of characters from various animated children's television shows in a medley of seven songs: 1. "Can You Feel It" 2. "Don't Stop" 3. "Jai Ho!" 4. "Tubthumping" 5. "Never Forget" 6. "Hey Jude" 7. "One Day Like This"
Signing up for the 2006 season of the most extreme and exciting motorsport, six-part series Engineering the World Rally joins the Subaru World Rally Team as they and 2003 champion, Petter 'Hollywood' Solberg, fight for the championship through six countries and 11 months of intense competition. This ultimate off-road challenge pits massively powerful four-wheel drive rally cars - in the hands of some of the world's greatest drivers - against the toughest and most varied terrain on the planet. These guys hurtle down narrow twisty roads, along bumpy, dusty tracks, through deep water and across solid ice at speeds exceeding 130mph. They're supported by teams of dedicated engineers and mechanics, together with their straight-talking bosses and success-hungry sponsors. It's a world of fragile egos, high emotions and constant human drama. With unprecedented access, Engineering the World Rally gets under the skin of the Subaru WRC team and follows their every move as they engineer and prepare the cars for each event, test and shakedown, and enjoy the highs and suffer the lows of each three-day rally. It is an emotional rollercoaster of action both behind-the-scenes and on the rally stage.
Mobile is a 3-part British television drama series with an interweaving plot based around a fictional mobile phone operator and the adverse-effect of mobile phone radiation to health. The series was screened by ITV in the United Kingdom, during March 2007. The cast includes Jamie Draven, Neil Fitzmaurice, Keith Allen, Sunetra Sarker, Samantha Bond, Brittany Ashworth and Julie Graham. It was written by John Fay.
Kingdom is a British television series produced by Parallel Film and Television Productions for the ITV network. It was created by Simon Wheeler and stars Stephen Fry as Peter Kingdom, a Norfolk solicitor who is coping with family, colleagues, and the strange locals who come to him for legal assistance. The series also starred Hermione Norris, Celia Imrie, Karl Davies, Phyllida Law and Tony Slattery. The first series of six one-hour episodes was aired in 2007 and averaged six million viewers per week. Despite a mid-series ratings dip, the executive chairman of ITV praised the programme and ordered a second series, which was filmed in 2007 and broadcast in January and February 2008. Filming on the third series ran from July to September 2008 for broadcast from 7 June 2009. Stephen Fry announced on his blog in October 2009 that ITV was cancelling the series, which was later confirmed by the channel, which said that given tighter budgets, more expensive productions were being cut.
Ghosthunting With... was a British paranormal television programme based on investigating purported paranormal activity. Yvette Fielding hosts the programme, broadcast on digital channel ITV2 between 2006-2011, where she took celebrities to haunted buildings to investigate.
The exploits and cases of two rival barristers' chambers with very different attitudes to justice.
Cheese-loving eccentric Wallace and his cunning canine pal, Gromit, investigate a mystery in Nick Park's animated adventure, in which the lovable inventor and his intrepid pup run a business ridding the town of garden pests. Using only humane methods that turn their home into a halfway house for evicted vermin, the pair stumble upon a mystery involving a voracious vegetarian monster that threatens to ruin the annual veggie-growing contest.
Monkey Trousers was a short-lived comedy series on ITV in 2005, featuring Alistair McGowan, John Thomson, Ronni Ancona, Mackenzie Crook, Griff Rhys Jones, Neil Morrissey, Vic Reeves, Bob Mortimer, Marc Wootton and Steve Coogan. It was directed by David Kerr and produced by Bob Mortimer and Vic Reeves' production company, Pett Productions. It succeeded The All Star Comedy Show, which was written by Reeves and Mortimer, and produced by Coogan. Sketches of the show included the moronic, yet fearless 'Croc Botherer', Roy the eerie, lonely toy-shopkeeper, Alistair the hopeless estate agent, who replies to every question with "I don't know", the swearing chef, and the 'Geordie Astronauts'. A DVD of the series was released on 4 July 2005.
Ripley Holden is a small-time entrepreneur desperate to make it big with his new state-of-the-art amusement arcade. The opening extravaganza is overshadowed by the find of a dead body on the premises. DI Carlisle is called in and quickly finds he has more on his mind than murder, when he falls in love with Ripley's long-suffering wife.
Comic Relief Does Fame Academy is a spin-off of the original Fame Academy show where celebrities sing as students of the Academy. The programme was launched in 2003 to help raise money for the charities supported by Comic Relief, with the final of the show occurring on Red Nose Day. Coverage of the show was widely shown on BBC One, BBC Three, BBC Prime and the CBBC Channel. Many consider the celebrity version of the show to be far more successful than its predecessor. The Comic Relief series returned in 2005 and again in March 2007. It was announced by the BBC that Cat Deeley would not return because she was hosting So You Think You Can Dance. However, Patrick Kielty returned with co-host and host of the former spin-off show Claudia Winkleman.
In 1976, Tony Wilson sets up Factory Records and brings Manchester's music to the world.
A group of twenty-somethings, one of whom is a single father with a precious daughter, have been unsuccessfully in getting into a certain club so they can have a chance to DJ in their and start a career out of it. A series of events has lumbered them with a dog napping scheme gone badly wrong, ending up with them currently owning a particular pooch belonging to a dog-loving local drug dealer.
At a rural railway station in Victorian England, Jim is a spunky Jack Russell Terrier who escapes his mean master at the circus, and is soon befriended by station porter Bob and lonely orphan Henry. His performing feats soon become a local attraction, and before long he's in the middle of a battle to save the local orphanage.
In modern-day London, three men (Craig Ferguson, Jimi Mistry and David Morrissey) and three women (Olivia Williams, Jane Horrocks and Catherine McCormack) fall in and out of love and back again, to the Greek-chorus accompaniment of two cab drivers, who engage in an ongoing conversation about sex. A winning romantic comedy, Born Romantic is the second feature by British writer-director David Kane of This Year's Love fame.
A look at how the Fast Show developed into one of TV's most successful series, with contributions from the creators, writers, cast and some famous fans.
With angels crying in the toilets all because of a jealous Angel Gabriel, it could only be the eagerly awaited performance of the Primary school nativity play - this time with a twist! The UK's finest comedy actors take the leading roles as the eight year old performers. Through the inevitable mishaps, misunderstandings, young egos, fears of failure and fallings out, the children's characters evolve into mirror images of thier parents, the nativity play's audience. You'll be drawn into the amusing and enchanting worlds and minds of young children and reminisce about your own childhood performances!
One-off late 90's comedy special from a cast full of up and coming comic actors and comedians.
The Cobblers Arms have been the best and most feared Amateur Rugby League team for the past ten years. Ex-pro Arthur bets their boss that he could train a bunch of deadbeats to defeat them in a local rugby sevens tournament. But to do so he must first get them into shape with the help of the very attractive Hazel Scott.
Follow the lives and loves of a group of thirtysomethings in a heart-warming comic drama as they try to find true love - or at least keep their relationships on track. In this wry and funny look at a generation which is as confused as it is liberated by the choices it faces, will the chill in their feet put out the passion that burns in their hearts?
An American gets a ticket for an audience participation game in London, then gets involved in a case of mistaken identity. As an international plot unravels around him, he thinks it's all part of the act.
A 13 year old talented athlete struggles to come to terms with the traumas of life as she prepares for a very important athletics event.
The Yo-yo knickered slags get the blues when randy romeo Baz marries their love rival Thelma. But it's during their disastrous honeymoon at the sinister Paradise Park that the action really turns blue!
The quick-paced UK sketch show presents 40 minutes of material themed around the Christmas season, featuring fan favorite characters and gags galore.
Pond Life is a British animated television series that was written and directed by Candy Guard and follows the misadventures of its neurotic and self-obsessed protagonist, Dolly Pond. Two series were broadcast on Channel 4 in 1996 and 2000. A series of 13x15minute episodes was screened from 3 to 18 December 1996, mainly at 5.45pm, but two episodes exploring more adult themes were reserved for a double screening at 11.25pm. This series was repeated between March and June 1998. A second series of 7x30minute episodes followed between 19–30 September 2000 to tie-in with Channel 4's Animation Week of 23–29 September 2000. The series began life in 1992 with a pilot episode entitled I Want a Boyfriend ... Or Do I?, co-commissioned by Channel 4 and S4C. Pond Life was Guard's second breakthrough and was commissioned by Channel 4 in 1996. Scheduling problems marred the series' reception; it was originally intended for broadcast at 9.45pm, but was shown four hours earlier, which required edits to remove adult language. It was shown at the same time as Australian soap Neighbours, and was aimed at the same core audience as the soap. Despite these problems, Pond Life won several awards and received a Writer's Guild nomination for Best Sitcom. Guard was pleased because it was up against several live-action comedy series, including Only Fools and Horses. A second series was broadcast in 2000.
No one thinks a seventeen-year-old girl can take on the hard men of London's gangland, but it's a mistake to underestimate Maura Ryan: she's tough, clever and beautiful - which makes her one very dangerous lady. Together, she and her brother Michael are unbeatable but notoriety has its price. The police are determined to put Maura away once and for all - and not everyone in the family think that's such a bad idea. When it comes to the crunch, Maura has to face the pain of lost love in her past - and the dangerous lady discovers her heart is not make entirely of stone.
Crapston Villas was a British animated television series, in which the characters were made from plasticine and filmed with stop motion clay animation. It was a comedy satire on inner-city London life, directed at a mature audience. It featured a set of characters, living in a grim apartment building in the fictional postcode of SE69, who were plagued by various dilemmas. Foul language, sex and violence are present.
A sinister tale of genius gone wrong, The Young Poisoner's Handbook chronicles a young man's descent into madness against the absurd backdrop of suburban English life. Hugh O'Conor plays Graham Young, a schoolboy from the London suburbs whose deadly obsession with toxic substances causes him to dabble in experimental murder.
The Fast Show is a multi BAFTA award winning sketch comedy show written and produced by Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson.
These are the hilarious video diaries of Christmas and New Year at the Calf's House and at the pub, Steve Coogan's brilliant characters Paul and Pauline Calf and all their antics. The DVD features Paul Calf's Video Diary and Three Fights Two Weddings and a Funeral, Pauline's wedding video diary, and features Gary Olsen in one of his last Tv appearances before his early death.
A mockumentary, rockumentary featuring the spoof radio DJ's from Harry Enfield's sketch shows. Telling of their rise to fame, their influence on music history and fall from grace in a parody of real life radio presenters.
Recorded at Liverpool's Neptune theatre. Coogan appears as Paul and Pauline Calf, Duncan Thickett and Ernest Moss, alongside support from John Thomson's Bernard Right On
Lager lout and philosopher Paul Calf records his video diary over New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Accompanied by his friends Fat Bob and Roland and his sister Pauline, he staggers through two days of drinking, fighting and failed sex, in desperate pursuit of his ex-girlfriend, Julie.
TV sketch comedy featuring Caroline Aherne, John Thomson, and Steve Coogan.
