Richard Beckinsale
Times are hard for habitual guest of Her Majesty Norman Stanley Fletcher. The new prison officer, Beale, makes MacKay look soft and what's more, an escape plan is hatching from the cell of prison godfather Grouty and Fletcher wants no part of it. The breakout is set for the day of a morale-raising football match between a 'celebrity' football team and the inmates of Slade. Everything is going to plan until Godber is injured on the goal post. In the ensuing confusion, Fletcher finds himself on the wrong side of the prison walls and must now try and break back into prison.
Bloomers was a short-lived British sitcom starring Richard Beckinsale that was aired in 1979. It was in production in 1979 but only five episodes were made before Beckinsale died suddenly from a heart attack just before a planned rehearsal for the sixth and final episode of the first series. Bloomers was immediately shelved, though the five completed episodes were broadcast later in the same year.
Going Straight is a BBC sitcom which was a direct spin-off from Porridge, starring Ronnie Barker as Norman Stanley Fletcher, newly released from the fictional Slade Prison where the earlier series had been set. It sees Fletcher trying to become an honest member of society, having vowed to stay away from crime on his release. The title refers to his attempt, 'straight' being a slang term meaning being honest, in contrast to 'bent', i.e., dishonest. Also re-appearing was Richard Beckinsale as Lennie Godber, who was Fletcher's naïve young cellmate and was now in a relationship with his daughter Ingrid. Her brother Raymond was played by a teenage Nicholas Lyndhurst. Only one series, of six episodes, was made in 1978. It attracted an audience of over 15 million viewers and won a BAFTA award in March 1979, but hopes of a further series had already been dashed by Beckinsale's premature death earlier in the same month.
A comedy about the law - seen from the inside. All formality and procedure on the surface but not quite so convincing when you see the works.
Set in a seedy bedsit, the cowardly landlord Rigsby has his conceits debunked by his long suffering tenants.
Set in a cemetery, the film tells the story of a young man whom a blind man wrongly imagines to be black, and explores the nature of human prejudice.
Porridge is a British situation comedy broadcast on BBC1 from 1974 to 1977, running for three series, two Christmas specials and a feature film also titled Porridge. Written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, it stars Ronnie Barker and Richard Beckinsale as two inmates at the fictional HMP Slade in Cumberland. "Doing porridge" is British slang for serving a prison sentence, porridge once being the traditional breakfast in UK prisons. The series was followed by a 1978 sequel, Going Straight, which established that Fletcher would not be going back to prison again. Porridge was voted number seven in a 2004 BBC poll of the 100 greatest British sitcoms.
Reprising the television series roles which first made them household names, Richard Beckinsale and Paula Wilcox star as Geoffrey Scrimshaw and Beryl Battersby, a hesitant, inexperienced, young couple attempting to negotiate the sexual minefield of the ‘permissive’ society. This big-screen transfer of Jack Rosenthal’s hugely likeable sitcom sees old-fashioned girl Beryl continuing to slap down the advances of her frustrated boyfriend, whose clumsy attempts to initiate ‘Percy Filth’ suggest he’s not quite up to speed himself! Like everyone else, Geoffrey and Beryl want to fall in love – or they think they do; like everyone else, since Adam and Eve. But Adam and Eve didn’t live in Manchester in 1972…
Armitage runs a chemical company that is on the verge of producing a gas that causes temporary disability. Clearly the military want it but it is also sought by a group of Japanese. Both Armitage and Madam Greenfly hire different people in the same detective agency to guard the gas and steal it respectively... confusion, double crosses and hilarity ensue...
A cat and mouse game develops between a big man of crime and a young detective constable. But the big man doesn't realize, that this mouse roars.
The Lovers is a British television sitcom by Jack Rosenthal, starring Richard Beckinsale and Paula Wilcox as a courting couple, Geoffrey and Beryl. It was made between 1970 and 1971 by Granada Television for the ITV network. The hook for the show was the mismatch between the two, particularly in the area of sex. Beryl was a slightly dizzy character with a penchant for pet names such as "Geoffrey bubbles bonbon", while Geoffrey, though dreamy, was somewhat rough around the edges, obsessed with taking Beryl to bed. A typical exchange between them might consist of the following: The series ran for 13 episodes over one year. Like several other British sitcoms of the time, it was used as the basis for a movie in 1973.
A 1976 play concerning an unemployed school leaver becomes involved with professional car thieves. Part of the ITV Playhouse strand.
