William Russell
The Thirteenth Doctor faces multiple threats from Daleks, Cybermen and the Master in a fight for her very existence.
This is the definitive set of interviews with the team of actors who brought the William Hartnell era of Doctor Who to life! Together with a special tribute to William Hartnell (the Second Doctor), containing messages from a host of stars and production staff from Doctor Who, this also features the best in-depth interviews ever undertaken with, Carole Ann Ford (Susan), Jacqueline Hill (Barbara), William Russell (Ian), Peter Purves (Steven) and Jackie Lane (Dodo)!
This special one-off drama travels back in time to 1963 to see how Doctor Who was first brought to the screen. Actor William Hartnell felt trapped by a succession of hard-man roles. Wannabe producer Verity Lambert was frustrated by the TV industry's glass ceiling. Both of them were to find unlikely hope and unexpected challenges in the form of a Saturday tea-time drama. Allied with a team of unusual but brilliant people, they went on to create the longest running science fiction series ever made.
Don't Lose Your Head was a DVD documentary concerning Doctor Who that was released on 28 January 2013.
The Sets of Marinus is a BBC documentary looking at set design for the Doctor Who story The Keys of Marinus. It was released on the DVD of the serial.
A feature on Doctor Who: The Beginning box set which tells the stories of the Doctor's time machine - the TARDIS.
Featured on the "Doctor Who: The Beginning" box set and tells the story of the Creation of the Daleks.
Documents the making of the Doctor Who Serial, "The Edge of Destruction". It was released on the DVD of the serial and hence in The Beginning box set.
A 55-minute documentary, detailing the creation of Doctor Who, including a rare interview with creator Sydney Newman, and new interviews with producer Verity Lambert, directors Waris Hussein and Richard Martin, actors William Russell and Carole Ann Ford, title sequence designer Bernard Lodge, and TARDIS sound effect creator Brian Hodgson
The guest actors of the 1964 "Doctor Who" (1963) story, "The Aztecs", reminisce about their time on the programme and making the series.
As the very first Doctor, William Hartnell created the character that made Doctor Who a success. No other actor made such a lasting contribution to the programme or influenced it so greatly. In this special Myth Makers, Nicholas Briggs meets William’s friends, colleagues and family and explores the personality of this shy, complex and private man. With contributions from William Russell, Carole Ann Ford, Maureen O’Brien, Peter Purves, Verity Lambert, Michael Craze, Anneke Wills, Donald Tosh, Christopher Barry and a revealing interview with Jack Pitt, who was an extra in Doctor Who and shared William’s flat in London. Also featured is Jessica Carney, who has written a biography of the grandfather’s life titled Who’s There? This is not just a Myth Makers tribute… it’s almost a chance to meet the man himself.
A documentary about Shakespeare's Globe opening performance of "Henry V" in 1997. The documentary combines the performance of Act IV with rehearsal shots and opening gala footage.
In a future world where the disease has been finally defeated and everything can be sold, even the crude spectacle of death, the rare case of a dying woman becomes the morbid theme of a revolutionary reality show, broadcast through the curious eyes of a peculiar camera.
BBC Play for Today. Maximillian Schreiber runs a series of gruelling motivational courses - all coming at a cost to the participants - including VAT.
A dramatization of Vera Brittain's 1933 autobiography Testament of Youth---a memorial to a generation devastated by WWI--- chronicles her experiences as a nurse in London and Malta and at the front lines in France. It opens with 18-year-old Vera, the genteel daughter of a paper-mill owner, nurturing 'hopes of escaping from provincial young ladyhood.' Her plan is to attend Oxford.
One hot June day, three friends decide there is nothing they would like to do more than to get away from London. A boating holiday with lots of fresh air and exercise would be just the very thing, or so their doctors tell them. So, after debating the merits of hotel or camp beds and what to pack, they set off on their voyage - a trip up the Thames from Henley to Oxford - but very quickly find themselves ill-equipped for the trials of riverbank life. Comedy drama written by Tom Stoppard (based on the novel by Jerome K Jerome). Stars Michael Palin, Tim Curry and Stephen Moore.
Landing in Rome, A.D. 64 the travellers take a rare holiday. While Ian and Barbara are happy to relax, the Doctor and Vicki set off to pursue adventure. However, adventure soon finds Ian and Barbara too as they are kidnapped by slave traders, and the Doctor's imitation of Maximus Pettulian sees him taken to the court of Emperor Nero where he inadvertently plays a part in deciding the course of history...
The travellers learn from the Time-Space Visualiser taken from the Moroks' museum that Daleks, equipped with their own time machine, are on their trail with orders to exterminate them. They flee in the TARDIS. The chase begins on the desert planet Aridius and takes in a number of stopping-off points, including a spooky haunted house which is actually a futuristic fun-fair attraction.
The Doctor, Ian and Barbara arrive on the planet Dido. They find a crashed spaceship, the only two survivors of which are terrorised by the monster Koquillion. But who is Koquillion?
On the planet Vortis, the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki are swept up in the struggles of the butterfly-like Menoptera, the original denizens of Vortis who were forced to flee the planet for the moon Pictos to escape the encroaching web of the Animus and its mind-controlled minions, the ant-like Zarbi and their living weapons, the larvae guns.
The TARDIS arrives in 12th century Palestine where a holy war is in progress between the forces of King Richard the Lionheart and the Saracen ruler Saladin. Barbara is abducted in a Saracen ambush and the Doctor, Ian and Vicki make their way to King Richard's palace in the city of Jaffa.
The TARDIS jumps a time track and the travellers arrive on the planet Xeros. There they discover their own future selves displayed as exhibits in a museum established as a monument to the galactic conquests of the warlike Morok invaders who now rule the planet. When time shifts back to normal, they realise that they must do everything they can to avert this potential future. Vicki helps the native Xerons obtain arms and revolt against the Moroks. The revolution succeeds and the travellers go on their way, confident that the future has been changed.
The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Susan, Barbara, and Ian to the planet Skaro where they meet two indigenous races — the Daleks, malicious mutant creatures encased in armoured travel machines, and the Thals, beautiful humanoids with pacifist principles. They convince the Thals of the need to fight for their own survival.
The TARDIS arrives on the planet Marinus on an island of glass surrounded by a sea of acid. The travellers are forced by the elderly Arbitan to retrieve four of the five operating keys to a machine called the Conscience of Marinus, of which he is the keeper. These have been hidden in different locations around the planet to prevent them falling into the hands of the evil Yartek and his Voord warriors, who plan to seize the machine and use its originally benevolent mind-influencing power for their own sinister purposes.
The TARDIS returns to London; however, it's the 22nd century. With bodies in the river, and quiet in the docklands, the city is a very different place. The Daleks have invaded and it's up to the Doctor to thwart them once again.
The TARDIS materialises inside an Aztec tomb. Outside it, the Doctor and his companions soon discover that Mexico in the 15th century is a bloodthirsty and dangerous place... And with Barbara mistaken for a reincarnation of an ancient high priest called Yetaxa, the history teacher thinks that she can put an end to the barbaric human sacrifices once and for all. But can she rewrite history without disastrous consequences?
The TARDIS crew lands in the Himalayas of Cathay in 1289, their ship badly damaged, and are picked up by Marco Polo's caravan on its way along the fabled Silk Road to see the Emperor Kublai Khan. The story concerns the Doctor and his companions' attempts to thwart the machinations of Tegana, who attempts to sabotage the caravan along its travels through the Pamir Plateau and across the treacherous Gobi Desert, and ultimately to assassinate Kublai Khan in Peking, at the height of his imperial power.
As they slowly recover from the shock of being thrown to the TARDIS floor, the Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara all seem to be acting strangely. It gradually dawns on the travellers that what they have been experiencing is an attempt by the TARDIS itself to warn them of something. The Doctor finally realises the fast return switch he used when leaving Skaro has stuck, and the ship has been plunging back to the beginning of time and its own destruction.
The TARDIS materialises not far from Paris in 1794 — one of the bloodiest years following the French Revolution of 1789. The travellers become involved with an escape chain rescuing prisoners from the guillotine and get caught up in the machinations of an English undercover spy, James Stirling — alias Lemaitre, governor of the Conciergerie prison.
The doors of the TARDIS open of their own accord just before it materialises, running out of control. On emerging, the travelers find the ship has been reduced in size and they are now only about an inch tall. As tiny people, they stumble across a plot by a ruthless businessman, Forester, and his misguided scientist colleague, Smithers, to launch a new insecticide, DN6 — a product so destructive that it would kill not only those insects harmful to agriculture but also those vital to it. Forester is willing to commit murder to ensure the success of his business, as civil servant Arnold Farrow discovers to his cost. The criminals are brought to justice when the Doctor and his friends — hampered by the fact that Barbara is ill from the insecticide — tamper with the telephone in Smithers' laboratory, fuelling the suspicions of the local exchange operator, Hilda Rowse, who sends her police constable husband Bert to investigate.
The Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan arrive in the TARDIS on board a spaceship. Their initial concern is for the ship's human crew, who are suffering from telepathic interference from the Sensorites, but Susan communicates with the Sensorites and finds the aliens fear an attack by the humans and are just defending themselves. Travelling to the Sense Sphere (the Sensorites' planet) the Doctor seeks to cure an illness to which the Sensorites and Ian have succumbed, but finds it has been caused by deliberate poisoning. The political manoeuvring of the Sensorite City Administrator poses another threat to the TARDIS crew as he seeks to discredit and implicate them.
The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocate them to a high-security 'escape-proof' camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story.
Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton, two humble teachers during 1963, discover a genius student's grandfather, simply known as "the Doctor", and his police box time machine. Deciding that the pair knows too much about his otherworldly origins, they are whisked away on a journey through time and space.
A fraudster is arrested for stealing a large sum of money from his partners. When he learns that a particularly brilliant barrister will lead the prosecution against him he sets out to undermine the credibility of the barrister.
A gang of high class corporate thieves use blackmail to induce their victims to sell property at knock-down prices.
A very old Austin 7 car is found by two children and bought by their uncle, the Vicar, but the garage proprietor conceals its faulty transmission, which leads to some surprising developments.
A clerk sees his big chance to escape a humdrum existence, but his resolve is tested as many unexpected obstacles arise.
The true story of a British effort to trick the Germans into weakening Sicily's defenses before the 1943 attack. A dead soldier is dressed as a British officer and outfitted with faked papers showing that the Allies were intending to invade occupied Greece. His body is put into the sea where it will ultimately drift ashore and the papers be passed along to German Intelligence.
The Adventures of Sir Lancelot is a British television series first broadcast in 1956, produced by Sapphire Films for ITC Entertainment and screened on the ITV network. The series starred William Russell as the eponymous Sir Lancelot, a Knight of the Round Table in the time of King Arthur at Camelot.
In World War II, the greatest threat to the British navy is the German battleship Tirpitz. While anchored in a Norwegian fjord, it is impossible to attack by conventional means, so a plan is hatched for a special commando unit to attack it, using midget submarines to plant underwater explosives.
Norman is the oldest orphan at Greenwood Children's Home and now acts as their caretaker. All the orphans are very happy and well cared for. The adventures start when a nasty property developer (boo hiss) who is also the chairman of the orphanage board wants to close the orphanage and build a factory on the site. The children are sent to Brighton for the day and Norman is very excited because he's "Never seen the Sea". When they get back they discover the plan to close the orphanage and have to decide what to do
In Greece during the war a small group of British commandoes and patriots land on an island with orders to attack two airfields from which the Luftwaffe is threatening allied forces in Egypt. The island is crawling with troops, and even moving by night the men soon run into trouble.
Jim Gay loves his racing greyhound but, out of town, he finds a dog with a better chance to win. His friends bet on his dog while he bets against.
Crisis in a middle-class family when the son falls in love with his father's mistress. Family ties are stretched to breaking point, and the mother fears she'll lose her son as well as her husband.
In 1942 Britain was clinging to the island of Malta since it was critical to keeping Allied supply lines open. The Axis also wanted it for their own supply lines. Plenty of realistic reenactments and archival combat footage as the British are beseiged and try to fight off the Luftwaffe. Against this background, a RAF reconnaissance photographer's romance with a local girl is endangered as he tries to plot enemy movements.
Wing-commander Tim Mason leads a squadron of Lancaster bombers on almost nightly raids from England. Having flown eighty-seven missions he will shortly be retiring from flying, but the strain is showing. He tries to make sure his men concentrate only on their job and so keeps women away from the base, but then he himself meets naval officer Eve Canyon.
Compton Bennett's war drama The Gift Horse follows the fortunes of ageing destroyer The Ballantrae and her crew from the time they come together in 1940 until the climactic raid on occupied St Nazaire in 1942. Trevor Howard plays Lt Cmdr Hugh Alginon Fraser, the newly appointed captain, back in service after having left the navy following a court martial.
The Doctor, Ian and Barbara are forced to surrender to Tegana and Marco, leaving both of them the opportunity to gain possession of the TARDIS.
