Nicholas Bond-Owen
Oliver Twist is a 1985 BBC TV serial. It was directed by Gareth Davies, and adapted by Alexander Baron from the novel by Charles Dickens. It follows the book more closely than any of the other film adaptions.
Dramarama is the name of a British children's anthology series broadcast on ITV between 1983 and 1989. It tended to feature drama of a science fiction or supernatural bent. The series was created by Anna Home, then head of children's and youth programming at TVS, however production responsibilities were divided amongst most of the regional ITV franchise holders. Thus, each episode was in practice a one-off production with its own cast and crew, up to and including the executive producer. Dramarama was largely a place for new talent to prove themselves and was a launching pad for the likes of Anthony Horowitz, Paul Abbott, Kay Mellor, Janice Hally, Tony Kearney, David Tennant and Ann Marie Di Mambro. It was one of Dennis Spooner's last credits. One of Dramarama's episodes, "Dodger, Bonzo And The Rest", gained so much popularity that it was turned in to its own series the following year. It starred Lee Ross and was based around a large foster home. The episode "Blackbird Singing In The Dead of Night" was developed by Granada into the TV series Children's Ward. It was also repeated for the first time since its original broadcast on 5 January 2013, during CITV's 30th anniversary Old Skool Weekend. The Series 7 episode "Back To Front" – notable for featuring a mirror image of the Yorkshire Television logo card at the end – was repeated on 6 January 2013, again as part of CITV's 30th anniversary Old Skool Weekend.
Airline is a British television series produced by Yorkshire Television for the ITV network in 1982. The series starred Roy Marsden as Jack Ruskin, a pilot demobbed after the end of the Second World War who starts up his own air freight business. Airline was created by Wilfred Greatorex and lasted for one series of nine episodes broadcast in January & February 1982, with a repeat in the summer of 1984. Other leading cast members were Polly Hemingway, Richard Heffer, Sean Scanlan and Terence Rigby, while noted guest-stars included Anthony Valentine and Walter Gotell. It was partially filmed at the former RAF Rufforth in Yorkshire..
Big screen spin-off of the Seventies sitcom. Mildred Roper (Yootha Joyce, who died shortly after filming was completed) is determined to make husband George (Brian Roper) celebrate their wedding anniversary in style, at a posh hotel in London. However, upon arrival George is mistaken by a gangland criminal for a rival hitman, and soon the Ropers find themselves up to their necks in trouble on the wrong side of the law!
Timmy Lea and his brother-in-law Sidney Noggett are working as entertainment officers at Funfrall, a typical British holiday camp. The staff are lazy and inefficient, preferring to laze by the pool rather than organise activities for the holiday campers. A new owner, Mr. Whitemonk, an ex-prison officer, takes over the camp and is determined to install discipline into the staff. He is on the verge of dismissing Timmy and Sidney; however, Sidney's suggestion of organising a beauty contest changes his mind.
George and Mildred is a British sitcom produced by Thames Television that aired from 1976 to 1979. It was a spin-off from Man About the House and starred Brian Murphy and Yootha Joyce as an ill-matched married couple, George and Mildred Roper. The premise of the series had George and Mildred leaving their flat as depicted in Man About the House and moving to a modern, upmarket housing estate. Their arrival horrifies their snobbish neighbour Jeffrey Fourmile, an estate agent who despairs that the Ropers' presence will devalue his home. It was written by Brian Cooke and Johnnie Mortimer. Like many sitcoms of the day, George and Mildred was also turned into a film, which was dedicated to actress Yootha Joyce who died suddenly in 1980, just as the cast had been looking forward to recording a sixth series.
