Simon Callow
The Fringe, Fame and Me is the story of how a small Scottish arts festival that began 75 years ago this year became a national institution – a crucible where new stars are forged, careers made, and sometimes, dreams dashed. Told by the stars who first found fame at the Edinburgh Fringe, this is the inside story of what it takes to make a name here, from those who enjoyed overnight success to those who slogged for years to make it. Through their triumphs, favourite jokes, and sometimes painful failures, we’ll discover a hidden history of British comedy – revealing how the gags we find funny and the comedians we love reflect our changing culture.
A broke and frustrated IT technician decides to embark on a one woman heist to steal valuable data worth millions on the black market.
Join the likes of Jeremy Renner, Hailee Steinfeld, Florence Pugh, and Vincent D’Onofrio as they reveal how Marvel Studios’ “Hawkeye” was conceived and created. Witness firsthand what it took to pull off the show’s pulse-pounding action set pieces, and discover how iconic characters from the pages of Marvel Comics such as Kate Bishop were adapted and brought to life for the six-episode series.
From ancient rituals and traditions to tourism, we go behind the scenes to discover a place at the heart of Britain for almost 1,000 years.
Jamie and Lucy have an encounter with what appears to be a pair of ghost children. But these spooky kids, Sara and Georgie, aren’t actually ghosts. They’ve travelled forwards in time to seek help, believing they’re going to be murdered by the wicked Mr and Mrs Wickens. And Lucy and Jamie’s strange visitor seems to be the key to it all. With his help, they must travel back to 1821 to save Sara and Georgie and redeem their remorseful new friend – The Amazing Mr Blunden.
Docudrama that recounts the astonishing life story of a forgotten genius, English poet Alexander Pope, who lived from 1688 to 1744.
Set and filmed at the iconic Maida Vale studios, The Dead Room tells the story of a long-running radio horror series and its veteran presenter and national treasure Aubrey Judd. But times are changing. Tastes are shifting. There’s a new young producer. Whatever happened to the classic ghost stories? The good old days? Aubrey soon discovers that all is not quiet in the eerie radio studio and that elements of his own past are not as dead and buried as he perhaps hoped…
He's a low level criminal with no future and just out of prison. She's a low level lawyer never noticed by others, a lost soul without a life. Their anger and hostility makes them serious criminals. Love happens in the strangest of places.
Based on Charles Dickens’s own performance adaptation, Simon Callow and director-designer Tom Cairns have created a one-man theatrical extravaganza of festive storytelling that is both heart-warming and deeply moving.
In the final 15 years of the life of legendary director Orson Welles he pins his Hollywood comeback hopes on the film "The Other Side of the Wind".
In 1947, Lord Mountbatten assumes the post of last Viceroy, charged with handing India back to its people, living upstairs at the house which was the home of British rulers, whilst 500 Hindu, Muslim and Sikh servants lived downstairs.
Emily Walters is an American widow living a peaceful, uneventful existence in the idyllic Hampstead Village of London, when she meets local recluse, Donald Horner. For 17 years, Donald has lived—wildly yet peacefully—in a ramshackle hut near the edge of the forest. When Emily learns his home is the target of developers who will stop at nothing to remove him, saving Donald and his property becomes her personal mission. Despite his gruff exterior and polite refusals for help, Emily is drawn to him—as he is to her—and what begins as a charitable cause evolves into a relationship that will grow even as the bulldozers close in.
In 1843, despite the fact that Dickens is a successful writer, the failure of his latest book puts his career at a crossroads, until the moment when, struggling with inspiration and confronting reality with his childhood memories, a new character is born in the depths of his troubled mind; an old, lonely, embittered man, so vivid, so human, that a whole world grows around him, a story so inspiring that changed the meaning of Christmas forever.
Queen Victoria strikes up an unlikely friendship with a young Indian clerk named Abdul Karim.
Leading activists and commentators explore the changes that have taken place since homosexuality was decriminalised in the UK in 1967 and the influence of gay culture on society.
Fate, the pensions crisis and a steadfast refusal to accept the injustice of old age have contrived to force law abiding, retired couple, Arthur and Martha Goode into a life of crime.
An adaptation of David Garrick's 1747 afterpiece, this lighthearted comedy follows Miss Biddy Bellair as she pits her suitors against eachother in order to find true love.
The First Silent Night tells viewers a tale that has been two hundred years in the making. A story that begins in humble circumstances, ends with the world’s most popular carol. Join renowned actor Simon Callow as he uncovers the moving origins of … Silent Night. Simon journeys to the Austrian village of Oberndorf as well as the city of Salzburg, where the story of the world’s favorite carol had its origins. The First Silent Night introduces us to two impoverished children – Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber – who grew up in Austria’s cobbled streets and wooded villages. Silent Night would speak a message of hope to their country, recovering from the harsh Napoleonic wars that had devastated their cities and villages. The guns would fall silent at last, replaced by the gentle strains of music…
The extraordinary life of Orson Welles (1915-1985), an enigma of Hollywood, an irreducible independent creator: a musical prodigy, an excellent painter, a master of theater and radio, a modern Shakespeare, a magician who was always searching for a new trick to surprise his audience, a romantic and legendary figure who lived only for cinema.
This documentary takes a look at some of the most horrible and despicable murders in modern British history. From Jack the Ripper in the 1880s to Agatha Christie's best known stories.
Featuring a tour de force performance from Simon Callow, Being Shakespeare is a one-man show about the life and work of the world’s greatest playwright. Written by the renowned scholar Jonathan Bate, and taking its cue from Jacques’ famous ‘Seven Ages of Man’ speech in As You Like It, the drama traces Shakespeare’s life from his birth in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564 to his burial there fifty-two years later. Weaving together this story with extracts from many of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, Simon Callow presents a vivid and very human portrait of the man and of the Elizabethan world in which he lived. Recorded before an audience during the play’s triumphant London run, Being Shakespeare is both a wonderful introduction to the author and a richly nuanced, funny and fascinating study for those who already love his plays.
At a two-day business conference, God (Simon Callow) decides to romantically pair Terry, a moral crusader, with his "win-at-all-cost" antithesis, Jacqui. However, fate, assisted by unique and corrupt characters, attempt to beset God's arrangements.
Released alongside a spectacular edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets for the Apple iPad, this beautifully produced DVD features specially filmed performances of all 154 Sonnets by a stellar cast of actors including, Fiona Shaw, Sir Patrick Stewart and David Tennant. William Shakespeare’s Sonnets are among the most beautiful and most fascinating poems ever written. All of the poems, together with their enigmatic Dedication, are featured in readings by a star-studded cast. A full-colour accompanying booklet features each actor, a list of their Sonnets and a short biography.
The documentary film Art of Freedom answers the most poignant questions on the phenomenon of Polish expeditions to the Himalayas. Poles have reigned the highest mountaintops of the world for more than 20 years. They not only set down new trails, but new rules of behavior. They set themselves apart with an original style of climbing, endurance, conscientiousness about the overall well-being of the team - and solidarity.
Them From That Thing is a sketch show featuring a host of Channel 4 comedy stars. The series features Blake Harrison (The Inbetweeners), Kayvan Novak (Facejacker), Sally Phillips (Smack The Pony) and Morgana Robinson (Very Important People) alongside with a host of famous faces from the world of drama. Set in the modern world where serious characters say and do very stupid things, Them From That Thing combines the look and feel of great British drama with a silly and slightly unhinged comic sensibility.
Late Bloomers stars Isabella Rossellini and William Hurt as a married couple pulled apart by the threat of old age. Each reacts in a different way: Hurt’s distinguished architect chases after his glory days, while Rossellini’s housewife installs handrails about the house.
Rob Haley (Dougray Scott), an up-and-coming chef and restaurateur in London, is grief-stricken when he loses his wife. With encouragement from his infamous friend and real life TV Chef Gordon Ramsay, Rob decides to spice up his life by turning a run-down country pub into a gourmet restaurant. His food catches the eye - and taste buds - of beautiful American food critic Kate Templeton (Claire Forlani) and they soon both write a recipe for love that leaves both their hearts - and their stomachs - in full.
To commemorate the centenary of the birth of one of Britain’s most influential and best-loved poets, this film combines dramatisations of telling events in the life of WH Auden with interviews from the TV and radio archives and extracts from Auden’s poetry, notebooks, letters and journals. (BBC)
When Orson Welles went into self-imposed exile in Europe, he first found stardom with The Third Man and then immersed himself in challenging films, television, theatre and bullfighting. Simon Callow trails the complex actor-director.
8 part series behind the scenes at the famous Theatre Royal, Haymarket, with a focus on a production Waiting for Godot featuring Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Ronald Pickup and Simon Callow. Also covers the early stages of Breakfast at Tiffany's starring Anna Friel and Joseph Cross.
A shy, stuttering professor brings satanist Aleister Crowley back to life.
Arn, the son of a high-ranking Swedish nobleman is educated in a monastery and sent to the Holy Land as a knight templar to do penance for a forbidden love. This is the international cut of the two movies Arn: The Knight Templar and Arn: The Kingdom at Road's End. The movie is cut to fit a higher tempo, but lacks some of the details and depth of the original story.
Arn, the son of a high-ranking Swedish nobleman is educated in a monastery and sent to the Holy Land as a knight templar to do penance for a forbidden love.
Our hero Adam gets drawn into a web of intrigue as evidence is planted on him of a gay royal affair.
The Company tells the thrilling story of Cold War CIA agents imprisoned in double lives, fighting an amoral, elusive, formidable enemy – and each other – in an internecine battle within the Company itself.
Roman Mysteries is a television series based on the series of children's historical novels by Caroline Lawrence. It is reportedly the most expensive British children's TV series to date at £1 million per hour. The series began filming in June 2006 and was first broadcast from 8 May 2007. The series is divided into "scrolls", each based on one book, starting with The Secrets of Vesuvius. The stories are told in the same order as the book series, except for book 6, The Twelve Tasks of Flavia Gemina, which is transposed to the second season. Books 11 and 12 were not adapted, and the series ends with the adaptation of Book 13. Each scroll consists of two half-hour episodes. The first scroll guest-starred Simon Callow as Pliny the Elder. On 22 May 2007, after just two episodes, Anne Foy announced on CBBC on BBC One that the show has been postponed due to recent events in the news and would return later in the year on CBBC on BBC One. Since "The Pirates of Pompeii" was about children being kidnapped, the postponement was most likely due to the then recent disappearance of Madeleine McCann. On 19 June the series began broadcasting again from the beginning. Filming for the second season began on 13 August 2007. The episodes are based on the novels The Gladiators from Capua, The Twelve Tasks of Flavia Gemina, The Colossus of Rhodes, The Fugitive from Corinth and The Slave-girl from Jerusalem.
Charting the evolution of public and political attitudes to homosexuality over the last four decades, from decriminalisation in 1967 to today's advances in gay sexual freedom, How Gay Sex Changed the World examines how the gay sexual revolution gathered pace in the face of gradually changing legislation, from the first Gay Pride march to groundbreaking dramas such as Queer as Folk.
Orson Welles Biographer Simon Callow discusses the making of "Mr. Arkadin" (aka "Confidential Report.")
Radio producer Harry Alan Towers discusses his work with Orson Welles.
Documenting the days and weeks preceding Boy George's appearance in a New York courtroom in June 2006 for cocaine possession and his subsequent sentencing to 5 days community service as a street cleaner by order of the US justice department.
After a series of bad relationships, a man orders a mail order bride and receives more than he bargained for.
Bob, an incompetent man, is searching for an available job by alphabetical order. He had just failed all of the A's, and discovers an ad in the Yellow Pages for a butler school. He is the only one in the butler school course to pass, because all of the other people quit due to the embarrassment and pressure of the teacher. Meanwhile, Tess (Genevieve Buechner) and Bates (Benjamin B. Smith) Jamieson
Charles Dickens and the Doctor team up as corpses stalk the streets of Victorian Cardiff.
Documentary with an affectionate look back at the classic Granada TV dramatisation of Evelyn Waugh's famous novel "Brideshead Revisited".
When writer's block derails the literary dreams of Olly Pickering, he has to move in with his friend Murray after losing all his money. Things start to look up when Olly's college pal James asks him to be the best man at his wedding. Prior to the nuptials, Olly is drawn to a woman whom he thinks is the bride's sister -- only she turns out to be the bride, Sarah. Can Murray, who dislikes James, help get Sarah and Olly together?
Deformed since birth, a bitter man known only as the Phantom lives in the sewers underneath the Paris Opera House. He falls in love with the obscure chorus singer Christine, and privately tutors her while terrorizing the rest of the opera house and demanding Christine be given lead roles. Things get worse when Christine meets back up with her childhood acquaintance Raoul and the two fall in love
Shoebox Zoo is a children's fantasy TV series made in a collaboration between BBC Scotland and various Canadian television companies. It is mostly live-action, but with CGI used for the animal figurines. It was first broadcast in 2004 by CBBC. The series was broadcast in the United States by the Showtime network.
A knight returning from the Crusades takes on a dragon and becomes a legend.
Set in 1985, the miniseries has at its core the story of two couples whose relationships dissolve amidst the backdrop of Reagan era politics, the spreading AIDS epidemic, and a rapidly changing social and political climate.
In the 1930s, a social set known to the press – who follow their every move – as the “Bright Young Things” are Adam and his friends who are eccentric, wild and entirely shocking to the older generation. Amidst the madness, Adam, who is well connected but totally broke, is desperately trying to get enough money to marry the beautiful Nina. While his attempts to raise cash are constantly thwarted, their friends seem to self-destruct, one-by-one, in an endless search for newer and faster sensations. Finally, when world events out of their control come crashing around them, they are forced to reassess their lives and what they value most.
The only child in a wretchedly poor family in the Danish village of Odense, Hans Christian Andersen lives in a fantasy world. His hand carved dolls and puppets, his father's bedtime stories, and his own natural flair for fantastic tales brings the child temporary escape. It takes him all the way to Copenhagen where, he's been told, dreams can really come true.
A gay young man is recruited into an illicit love triangle to watch a much older man’s sexual liaison, but ends up witnessing what turns out to be his murder. The next day the young man's opera diva mother informs him that his estranged father has been in Paris... until the previous night when he was murdered. Seeking help with a psychiatrist, the young man comes across an eccentric actress who has come totally unhinged by the death of that psychiatrist, the infamous Docteur Rey. At first mistaking her for the doctor, the young man embarks on a madcap mystery, reminiscent of an Agatha Christie novel, with Paris as the backdrop.
This star-studded gala celebrates the centenary of the birth of legendary Broadway composer Richard Rodgers. Rodgers' contribution to musical theatre was extraordinary, including 900 published songs, 40 Broadway musicals and several film scores. Rodgers, together with lyricists Lorenz Hart and later Oscar Hammerstein II, wrote many of the best known musicals of the 20th Century, including Babes In Arms, Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music. This performance at London's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, directed for the stage by Simon Callow, includes songs, dance, staged numbers and anecdotes featuring leading stars from both Broadway and London's West End. The cast comprises luminaries drawn from Oklahoma!, Kiss Me Kate, Chicago, The King and I and other recent productions as well as from television. This musical extravaganza features many of Rodgers' best-loved classics.
An 11-year-old boy's amazing ability to break wind leads him first to fame and then to death row, before it helps him to fulfill his ambition of becoming an astronaut.
The film begins with a live-action sequence set in Boston in 1857, the site of a live reading by renowned novelist Dickens. As he begins his 'story of ghosts' a woman in the audience screams because she has seen a mouse and Dickens points out that this is appropriate since his story begins with a mouse. At this point the story turns into the animated version and Dickens explains that the mouse, na
Don't Eat the Neighbours is a children's comedy series that originally aired in the United Kingdom and Canada in 2001-2002. It was filmed mainly with puppets, but occasionally used computer graphics. The series was focused on the characters Rabbit, Wolf, and their children. Music for the show was done by Jim Guttridge, with the theme done by Dan Gagnon, Sandy Nuttgens, and Michael Scott. Only four episodes were released on VHS and DVD in the 2001 volume A Rabbit for All Seasons.
Two soldiers from opposite sites get stuck between the front lines in the same trench. The UN is asked to free them and both sides agree on a ceasefire, but will they stick to it?
Joanne Kilbourn, ex-detective turned university lecturer, is still haunted by the unsolved murder of her politician husband,
William Thacker is a London bookstore owner whose humdrum existence is thrown into romantic turmoil when famous American actress Anna Scott appears in his shop. A chance encounter over spilled orange juice leads to a kiss that blossoms into a full-blown affair. As the average bloke and glamorous movie star draw closer and closer together, they struggle to reconcile their radically different lifestyles in the name of love.
Young Shakespeare is forced to stage his latest comedy, "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter," before it's even written. When a lovely noblewoman auditions for a role, they fall into forbidden love -- and his play finds a new life (and title). As their relationship progresses, Shakespeare's comedy soon transforms into tragedy.
Passions erupt between a German hussar (Jean-Marc Barr) serving with King George III's personal cavalry and the only daughter of an English solicitor (Emma Fielding) in this period tearjerker adapted from a short story by Thomas Hardy. Longing to escape their own personal imprisonments -- he, his service to the king, and she, her engagement to a man she doesn't love -- they find solace in each other's arms.
At the suggestion of a straight friend, gay man Leo joins a men’s group, where he causes some upsets by declaring his attraction to one of its members.
Based upon Wilkie Collins Victorian mystery, the gothic tale tells of a pair of half sisters whose lives end up caught in a grand conspiracy revolving around a mentally ill woman dressed in white. As the story unfolds, murder, love, marriage, and greed stand between the two women and happy lives. Their only hope is the secret the woman in white waits to tell them.
When the young orphan boy James spills a magic bag of crocodile tongues, he finds himself in possession of a giant peach that flies him away to strange lands.
His wife having recently died, Thomas Jefferson accepts the post of United States ambassador to pre-revolutionary France, though he finds it difficult to adjust to life in a country where the aristocracy subjugates an increasingly restless peasantry. In Paris, he becomes smitten with cultured artist Maria Cosway, but, when his daughter visits from Virginia accompanied by her attractive slave, Sally Hemings, Jefferson's attentions are diverted.
Summoned from an ashram in Tibet, Ace finds himself on a perilous journey into the jungles of Africa to find Shikaka, the missing sacred animal of the friendly Wachati tribe. He must accomplish this before the wedding of the Wachati's Princess to the prince of the warrior Wachootoos. If Ace fails, the result will be a vicious tribal war.
Col. Guile and various other martial arts heroes fight against the tyranny of Dictator M. Bison and his cohorts.
Over the course of five social occasions, a committed bachelor must consider the notion that he may have discovered love.
Labour councillor Judith Silver invites N.K. Edwards and Vijay Shah to stand for election to the local council. Who will win the seat? And will Tory councillor Edward Feathers have the last laugh?
Sicilian-born Maddalena has moved to a Devonshire village in England to escape volatile sexual tempers. She marries, but the lust she inspires in the villagers makes them drop dead.
A saga of class relations and changing times in an Edwardian England on the brink of modernity, the film centers on liberal Margaret Schlegel, who, along with her sister Helen, becomes involved with two couples: wealthy, conservative industrialist Henry Wilcox and his wife Ruth, and the downwardly mobile working-class Leonard Bast and his mistress Jackie.
A beautiful young woman asks Holmes to help her father, a former army captain and hopeless opium addict break free of the curse surrounding a stolen treasure.
Dramatization of the famous 1971 trial in which the editors of the British underground magazine "Oz" were charged with obscenity.
Daniel is an obeying and high-flying barrister with the good life on his side. Nathaniel Quass is a rich and bizarre recluse, generous, obsessed and sad. This reluctant pair are caught up in an alliance againstu an ingenious conspiracy which threatens both of their lives.
Set during World War II, an upper-class family begins to fall apart due to the conservative nature of the patriarch and the progressive values of his children.
Substance-addicted Hollywood actress Suzanne Vale is on the skids. After a spell at a detox centre her film company insists as a condition of continuing to employ her that she live with her mother Doris Mann, herself once a star and now a champion drinker. Such a set-up is bad news for Suzanne who has struggled for years to get out of her mother's shadow, and who finds her mother still treats her like a child. Despite these problems - and further ones to do with the men in in her life - Suzanne can begin to see the funny side of her situation, and it also starts to occur to her that not only do daughters have mothers, mothers do too.
Four monologues by playwright Peter Barnes celebrating the bicentennial of the French Revolution.
When Cariani the painter falls in love with the beautiful girl who receives mysterious visitors in the rooms below, he is drawn into a web of danger and deceit.
London based petty crook, Eddie Cass agrees to pick up a package and courier it across the capital. When nobody answers the door at the drop off address Eddie opens the package and finds a woman’s severed head in a hatbox. He panics and dumps it in the River Thames. Returning home Cass is kidnapped by the mysterious Eldridge and his heavies who inform Eddie that he has been framed for the murder.
A miniseries adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic, following David Copperfield's life starting from his idyllic childhood and continuing through to adulthood.
When Lucy Honeychurch and chaperon Charlotte Bartlett find themselves in Florence with rooms without views, fellow guests Mr Emerson and son George step in to remedy the situation. Meeting the Emersons could change Lucy's life forever but, once back in England, how will her experiences in Tuscany affect her marriage plans?
Bill Hooper -- bitter after a messy divorce -- tries to help a friend gain custody of his child any way he can.
Chance in a Million is a British sitcom broadcast between 1984 and 1986, produced by Thames Television for Channel 4. The series was co-written by Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen and starred Simon Callow and Brenda Blethyn. The producer and director of the series was Michael Mills.
BBC Play for Today. Maximillian Schreiber runs a series of gruelling motivational courses - all coming at a cost to the participants - including VAT.
Brilliant but emotionally guarded Caro Drake arrives in Oxford with the singular goal of attaining her PhD - but through a turbulent friendship with a charming young man, Caro begins to open herself up to mystery, vulnerability, and love.
A celebration of the life and career of Sir Harry Secombe, one of Britain's best-loved entertainers.
Documentary about the history of "Merchant Ivory Productions".
