Penny Irving
Hi-de-Hi! is a British sitcom set in Maplins, a fictional holiday camp, during 1959 and 1960, and was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, who also wrote Dad's Army and It Ain't Half Hot Mum amongst others. It aired on the BBC from 1980 to 1988. The title was the phrase used to greet the campers and in early episodes was written Hi de Hi. The series revolved around the lives of the camp's management and entertainers, most of them struggling actors or has-beens. The inspiration was the experience of writers Perry and Croft: after being demobilised from the Army, Perry was a Redcoat at Butlins, Pwllheli during the holiday season. The series gained large audiences and won a BAFTA as Best Comedy Series in 1984. In 2004, it came 40th in Britain's Best Sitcom and in a 2008 poll on Channel 4, Hi-de-Hi! was voted the 35th most popular comedy catchphrase.
A singer holes up at a sinister estate to write new songs for his act. The ghost of his murdered wife begins to haunt him, then the person who actually killed her shows up at the mansion.
Renowned criminologist and occult investigator William Sebastian (Culp) recruits his old friend Dr. Hamilton (Young) to aid him in his current case. Anitra Cyon (Bell), the sister of prominent British businessman Geoffrey Cyon (Villiers), believes her brother is dabbling in the black arts. In turn, Geoffrey claims that she is mentally unfit. Sebastian and Hamilton travel to the Cyon estate to investigate the matter. Complicating the issue is Sebastian's debilitating heart condition that was induced by his own experimentations with the black arts.
The clothing department's floor requires renovation; rather than let the staff sit idle while the area is closed off, the management sends them on a paid holiday in Costa Plonka, a fictional city in Spain. Their hotel and its surroundings prove to be dismal, and the group tries to pass the time by acting on the crushes they have developed for one another in the workplace. This results in disaster, as multiple amorous notes reach the wrong recipients and everyone gets wrong ideas about who fancies whom. Meanwhile, Carlos, the hotel manager receives an unwelcome visit from an old acquaintance, Cesar Rodriguez, who is after Mrs. Slocombe after seeing her passport. He is also plotting a revolutionary uprising and wants to use the hotel as his base.
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.
With the destruction of their previous neighbourhood has inevitably come the destruction of the lads’ favoured watering hole The Fat Ox. Again, it’s Bob rather than Terry who is visibly distressed by this. Upset and much the worse for free alcohol, Bob then storms into the library to seek sympathy from Thelma - who is, predictably, unimpressed. So when Thelma finds out that Terry has been getting semi-serious with glamorous Finnish shop assistant Chris, she takes it upon herself to try and pair them off for good via planning first a dinner party and then that mainstay of 70s comedy, a camping expedition. Of course, things don’t go quite according to plan and before you can say ‘I can see the way this is going’ we are set up for japes, larks and embarrassing incidents aplenty, which culminate in the lads getting rather fed up with their partners’ attempts to inflict the rugged outdoor lifestyle upon them and trying to hitch up and drive off with the girls still asleep in the caravan.
Percy, the man with the world's first penis transplant, discovers that there is a chemical in the city's water that makes men impotent.
Somewhere in the middle of the English countryside a former judge and a group of former prison warders, including his lover, run their own prison for young women who have not been held properly to account for their crimes. Here they mete out their own form of justice and ensure that the girls never return to their old ways.
Dick Turpin is terrorising the countryside around Upper Dencher. Captain Fancey and Sergeant Jock Strapp plan to put an end to his escapades, and enlist the help of the Reverend Flasher. Little do they know that the priest leads a double life. Then Madame Desiree and her "Birds of Paradise" arrive in the village...
A female private detective, Harriet Zapper, is hired by a rich old man to find his missing children, and becomes involved in counterfeiting and murder.
Light-hearted and occasionally unclothed adaptation of a British comic strip in the over-the-top, on-beyond-Bond spy fantasy vein. Based on the Daily Mail comic strip.
