The Venturers
The Venturers is a British television series produced by the BBC in 1975. The series, created by Donald Bull, had started out as an edition of Drama Playhouse in 1972 before being commissioned as an ongoing series. The Venturers took place in the high pressure world of Prince's Merchant Bank and dealt with the intricacies of high finance amongst its millionaire clients. Geoffrey Keen starred as director Gerald Lang, in a virtual reprise of his role as oil executive Brian Stead in Mogul / The Troubleshooters. Other major cast members included James Kerry, David Buck, Cyril Luckham and William Squire. The Venturers lasted for a single series of ten episodes.
Casts & Crew
Also Directed by Gerald Blake
Softly, Softly is a British television drama series, produced by the BBC and screened on BBC 1 from January 1966. It centred around the work of regional crime squads, plain-clothes CID officers based in the fictional region of Wyvern, supposedly in the Bristol area of England.
"What's a lock-out, my son? A lock-out is engraved in the history of the class struggle. A lock-out is our Glencoe. It's where they try and drive a stake into our underbelly." A factory's workforce is dwindling as divisions between the workers and management widen.
The Omega Factor is a British television series produced by BBC Scotland in 1979. It was created by Jack Gerson and produced by George Gallaccio, and transmitted in ten weekly episodes between 13 June and 15 August.
Dr. Finlay's Casebook is a television series that was broadcast on the BBC from 1962 until 1971. Based on A. J. Cronin's novella entitled Country Doctor, the storylines centred on a general medical practice in the fictional Scottish town of Tannochbrae during the late 1920s. Cronin was the primary writer for the show between 1962 and 1964.
Thirty-Minute Theatre is an anthology drama series of short plays shown on BBC Television between 1965 and 1973, which was used in part at least as a training ground for new writers, on account of its short running length, and which therefore attracted many writers who later became well known. It was initially produced by Graeme MacDonald. Thirty-Minute Theatre followed on from a similarly named ITV series, beginning on BBC2 in 1965 with an adaptation of the black comedy Parsons Pleasure. Dennis Potter contributed Emergency – Ward 9, which he partially recycled in the much later The Singing Detective. In 1967 BBC2 launched the UK's first colour service, with the consequence that Thirty-Minute Theatre became the first drama series in the country to be shown in colour. As well as single plays, the series showed several linked collections of plays, including a group of four plays by John Mortimer named after areas of London in 1972, two three-part Inspector Waugh series starring Clive Swift in the title role, and a trilogy of plays by Jean Benedetti, broadcast in 1969, focusing on infamous historical figures such as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.
Mysterious forces are at work in 1930s Tibet. The once gentle Yeti have turned savage and besieged a Buddhist monastery. The Second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria arrive expecting a friendly welcome from the abbot, but soon become ensnared in the plans of the extradimensional being known as the Great Intelligence.
It was a time when England was a nation on the cusp of change, an evolving landscape tht lay between Victorian England and the First World War. 'The Edwardians' explores the lives of and events in the lives of many who helped define the era, the "Belle Epoque".
It is the mid-1980s. The economy has not improved. For 17 years Professor Frank Merrick has been ensconced in a research lab of a provincial university working on a cure for the common cold. He is very near success. Can he avoid becoming yet another victim of the eternal cutbacks?
Z-Cars or Z Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.
Also Directed by Douglas Camfield
A documentary filmmaker’s latest work attracts the attentions of African secret agents - but what is it they want from the film?
Inferno is a top-secret project that involves drilling down into the crust of the Earth to unleash a new energy source. However, the Doctor, along with his assistant Liz Shaw, is concerned that this drilling will have disastrous consequences for the whole world.
Van der Valk is a British television series that was produced by Thames Television for the ITV network. It starred Barry Foster in the title role as Dutch detective Commissaris "Piet" van der Valk. Based on the characters and atmosphere of the novels of Nicolas Freeling, the first series was shown in 1972.
The Lotus Eaters is a BBC television drama made between 1972 and 1973. The series, written by Michael J. Bird, dealt with the lives of various British expats living on the island of Crete and their reasons for being there. The central characters were a married couple, Erik and Ann Shepherd who ran a tavern called "Shepherd's Bar". In the first episode, Ann was revealed to be a "sleeper agent" of British Intelligence with Erik having been a broken down drunk whom she was made to marry as part of her cover story. A clash with Soviet and Chinese agents resulted in both of them having to leave Crete. In the final scene on a plane leaving Heraklion airport, they have a partial reconciliation, since each is the only person the other can trust. The Lotus Eaters was filmed in the Cretan resort of Aghios Nikolaos and derived its title from the Lotus Eaters of Greek mythology, where those who ate the fruit of the Lotus tree lost the desire to return home. The series was also the first of the Mediterranean based dramas written by Michael J. Bird for the BBC. The others included Who Pays the Ferryman?, also set in Crete, The Aphrodite Inheritance set in Cyprus and The Dark Side of the Sun set in Rhodes.
When the Doctor, Sarah Jane and Harry arrive in Scotland, having received an urgent request for assistance from the Brigadier, they discover that the mysterious force which has destroyed three oil rigs has left giant teeth marks on the wreckage. The mystery deepens, leading them to the shores of Loch Ness where they find that the legendary monster really does exist – and is the murderous tool of the Zygons, aliens intent on overpowering the planet. The Doctor, his companions and UNIT must find a way to defeat the deadly Loch Ness Monster and its controllers, but the Zygons have the terrifying power to change shape. The Doctor's life has never been in more danger, as the line between allies and enemies is tested to the very limit...
The Doctor, Vicki, and new companion Steven Taylor arrive in Saxon Northumbria on the eve of the Viking and Norman invasions. It is 1066, a pivotal moment in British history. The hand of a mysterious Monk is at work in the nearby monastery, intending that history takes a different course.
In the year 4000, the Daleks conspire to conquer the Solar System. Their scheme involves treachery at the highest levels and a weapon capable of destroying the very fabric of time. Only the Doctor and his friends can prevent catastrophe — and there is no guarantee they will escape with their lives...
This is a remake of Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. Ivanhoe, a worthy and noble knight, the champion of justice returns to England after the holy wars. He find England under the reign of Prince John and his henchmen and finds himself being involved in the power-struggle for the throne of England. Will justice prevail and will all fair ladies in distress be rescued?
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 narrowly avoids becoming engulfed in a cobwebby substance in space. It arrives in the London Underground railway system, the tunnels of which are being overrun by the web and by the Great Intelligence's robot Yeti. The time travellers learn this crisis was precipitated when Professor Travers, whom they first met in the Himalayas some thirty years earlier, accidentally caused one of the Yeti to be reactivated, opening the way for the Intelligence to invade again.
Also Directed by David Sullivan Proudfoot
The series starred Thora Hird as crusading local councillor Sarah Danby and was set around the fictional borough of Furness in Lancashire. Capitalising on the popularity of its lead actress, The First Lady was a down-to-earth series exploring the inner workings of local government.
The Mask of Janus is a British television series produced by the BBC in 1965. The series was set in the fictional European country of Amalia and dealt with the political interests of the British, American and Communist espionage communities within. Eschewing the action formula of its ITV contemporaries, the series dealt with more politically oriented plots such as defections to the west, awakening "sleeper" agents and the leaking of official secrets. As of 2009, 7 of the original episodes of this programme are still missing from BBC archives. A spin-off series called The Spies followed in 1966.
Softly, Softly is a British television drama series, produced by the BBC and screened on BBC 1 from January 1966. It centred around the work of regional crime squads, plain-clothes CID officers based in the fictional region of Wyvern, supposedly in the Bristol area of England.
Oil Strike North is a BBC television drama series produced in 1975. The series was created and produced by Gerard Glaister and dealt with life on Nelson One, a North Sea oil rig owned by the fictional company Triumph Oil. Eschewing the corporate power struggles of Mogul / The Troubleshooters and concentrating on more personal storylines, Oil Strike North was essentially a character study of how workers faced life on the rig and the impact it had on the lives of their families and loved ones. The scenario was later revived by the BBC for the mid-1990s drama Roughnecks. Oil Strike North lasted for one series of thirteen episodes. The leading cast members included Nigel Davenport, Glyn Owen, Barbara Shelley, Angela Douglas, Andrew Robertson, Richard Hurndall, Sean Caffrey and Maurice Roëves. Gerard Glaister later moved onto to produce the Second World War resistance drama Secret Army, the air freight series Buccaneer and then onto the boating soap serial Howards' Way. Two of the leading actors in Oil Strike North, Nigel Davenport and Glyn Owen, also later appeared in Howards' Way.
Doomwatch is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC, which ran on BBC 1 between 1970 and 1972. The series was set in the then present-day, and dealt with a scientific government agency led by Doctor Spencer Quist, responsible for investigating and combating various ecological and technological dangers. The series was followed by a film adaptation produced by Tigon British Film Productions and released in 1972, and a revival TV film was broadcast on Channel 5 in 1999.
Codename, which premiered in April 1970, was about the secretive MI17 Spy Organisation of the same name based in the residential hall of a Cambridge College. Eventually the series attained a more international flavour, although its base was always in Great Britain. Primarily Codename dealt with the themes of espionage and counter-espionage at the time of the Cold War of the sixties. Its cast contained many of Great Britain's most versatile and talented actors.
Warship was a popular British television drama series produced by the BBC between 1973 and 1977. The series dealt with life on board a Royal Navy warship, the fictional HMS Hero.