Lawrence Gordon Clark
British soldiers force a recently captured IRA terrorist to cooperate with them and then assign him to go undercover with a gang of terrorists and prevent them from killing the U.S. President. But the spy isn't in long before he realizes that the first plot is but a ruse for a more sinister scheme that could result in trouble between China and Great Britain. - Written by Ørnås
When his estranged wife is brutally attacked by a burglar, a law-abiding locksmith unconvinced that the junkie charged for the crime is the real attacker starts his own investigation.
British crime drama based on the "Dalziel and Pascoe" series of books by Reginald Hill, set in the fictional Yorkshire town of Wetherton. The unlikely duo of politically incorrect elephant-in-a-china-shop-copper Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel (pronounced Dee-ell) and his more sensitive and university educated sidekick Detective Sargent, later Detective Inspector, Peter Pascoe is always on hand to solve the classic murder mystery, while maintaining a down to earth wit and humour.
Vusi Madlazi returns to the South African village he left as a young boy (he was organizing against apartheid, and left in fear of his life) to bury his father. He meets up with his brother Ernest, who tells him their other brother Stephen couldn't be contacted. Vusi goes to Johannesburg to find him, but at first can only find his neighbor/girlfriend, Karin, a stripper. Vusi proceeds to learn how conditions have changed since the end of apartheid, not always for the better for black men.
Chiller is a five-part British horror fantasy anthology television series, produced by Yorkshire Television, that first broadcast on ITV on 9 March 1995. Described by The Guardian as ITV's "answer to The X Files", the series was inspired by, but unconnected to, the 1991 Channel 4 thriller Gray Cray Dolls, which broadcast under the Chiller banner, the series featured writing contributions from renowned playwrights Stephen Gallagher, Glenn Chandler and Anthony Horowitz.
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.
An American intelligence agent uncovers a plot to assassinate Soviet Premier Gorbachev just at the time when glasnost is coming into place.
An IRA informer and his family are given new identities and new lives in Australia but the IRA are still determined to track them down.
While his parents are renovating a cottage in an English village, Tim Ingram uncovers a mystery about the 15 year old boy who had once lived in the house and had died in 1910. With the help of his friend Rebecca, Tim investigates, but finds events from the past being mirrored in his own life.
British television miniseries based on the 1975 novel of the same name by Gerald Seymour. The three-part serial followed Capt. Harry Brown, a British soldier, as he goes undercover to Northern Ireland to find information to arrest Billy Downes, a Provisional Irish Republican Army gunman.
Sir Francis Drake circumnavigates the world in search of adventure and treasure.
Like NIGHT OF THE DEMON, this adaptation is based only very loosely on the original ghost story by M.R. James. However, it does feature eerie scenic views and is directed by Lawrence 'Ghost Story for Christmas' Gordon Clark.
The Signalman is a 1976 BBC television adaptation of "The Signal-Man", an 1866 short story by Charles Dickens. The story was adapted by Andrew Davies as the BBC's sixth Ghost Story for Christmas, with Denholm Elliott starring as the signalman and Bernard Lloyd as the traveller, an unnamed character who acts as a plot device in place of the short story's narrator. It was the first of the series not to be an adaptation of an M.R. James story, and the last adaptation of an existing story. The production was directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark and filmed on the Severn Valley Railway.
Man of leisure Sir Richard receives notification that his Uncle has died, bequeathing him his stately country manor and all its lands. On his return to England he immediately sets about taking stock of all legal matters concerning his new property, but during these dealings Sir Richard seems to be more than a little distracted, he hears strange noises from the ash tree outside his bedroom window.
Pride comes before a fall in John Bowen' adaptation of MR James' tale of a treasure hunt with a sticky end. Michael Bryant plays The Reverend Somerton whose self-assured intellectual arrogance masks a naked greed.
A young orphan, Stephen, is sent to go and live with his strange, much older cousin at his remote country house. Once there, Stephen experiences terrible dreams in which he sees a young girl and boy who are missing their hearts.
The tale tells the story of Paxton, an amateur archeologist who travels to "Seaburgh" (a disguised version of Aldeburgh, Suffolk) and inadvertently stumbles across one of the lost crowns of Anglia, which legendarily protect the county from invasion. On digging the crown up, Paxton is stalked by its supernatural guardian.
A Ghost Story for Christmas is a strand of annual British short television films originally broadcast on BBC One from 1971 to 1978, and later revived in 2005 on BBC Four. With one exception, the original instalments are directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark and the films are all shot on 16 mm colour film. The remit behind the series was to provide a television adaptation of a classic ghost story referencing the oral tradition of telling supernatural tales at Christmas. Each instalment is a separate adaptation of a short story, ranging from 30 to 50 minutes in duration and each featuring well-known British actors such as Clive Swift, Robert Hardy, Peter Vaughan, Edward Petherbridge and Denholm Elliott in the title roles. The first five are adaptations of ghost stories by M. R. James, the sixth is based on a short story by Charles Dickens and the two final instalments are original screenplays by Clive Exton and John Bowen respectively. An earlier black-and-white 1968 Omnibus adaptation of M.R. James's Whistle and I'll Come to You, directed by Jonathan Miller, is often cited as an influence upon the production of the films, and is sometimes included in the canon. The series was revived by BBC Four in 2005 with a new series of annual adaptations.
Scholar Dr. Black's seemingly mundane assignment of sorting through the assets of the Barchester Cathedral library takes an eerie turn when he comes across the papers of the late Archdeacon, who plotted to gain his position through murder. However, he soon comes to discover something truly horrific about the wooden choir stalls in the church, which are tied to a famous local tree and a sinister local legend.
ITV Playhouse is a British comedy-drama TV series that ran from 1967 to 1983, which featured contributions from playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Rhys Adrian and Alan Sharp. The series began in black and white, but was later shot in colour and was produced by various companies for the ITV network, a format that would inspire Dramarama. Actors appearing in the series included Leslie Anderson, Gwen Nelson, Ricky Alleyne, Pat Heywood, Michael Elphick, Ian Hendry, Edward Woodward, Margaret Lockwood, Jessie Matthews and Lloyd Peters.
