Acting
The adventures of The Doctor, a time-traveling humanoid alien known as a Time Lord. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, The Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right many wrongs.
A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983.
The BBC's answer to Dynasty, Howards' Way was launched in 1985 with an enormous 1 million pound budget. The main characters in the show were 'best boat designer in the world' Tom Howard, his boutique running wife Jan Howard, 'I'll have a drink' Jack Rolfe and a nasty man called Ken Masters. It starred Maurice Colbourne.
World War II drama about covert organisation Lifeline helping allied airmen escape after being shot down in occupied Europe, working with the Resistance and hiding from the Gestapo.
Based on real-life experiences, Tenko remains one of the most fondly remembered and acclaimed BBC dramas of the early 1980s. It follows a group of women, formerly comfortably well-off ex-pats living in Singapore, as they are captured by the Japanese during World War II.
Brought together by professional and personal heartache, two plucky ladies plant the seeds for a brighter future. Rosemary Boxer, with a doctorate in plant pathology, and Laura Thyme, a former police constable and avid gardener, discover their shared love of green-thumbness and start a gardening business. As they restore various English gardens back to their lavish states, the inquisitive pair also find themselves uncovering an assortment of mysteries.
Against the backdrop of world events that led to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Victor 'Pug' Henry is a career naval officer who, along with his family, learns to navigate the waters of his dangerous times in the late 1930s.
Follow the swashbuckling exploits of Simon Templar, a modern-day Robin Hood of sorts.
Bird of Prey is a British techno-thriller television serial written by Ron Hutchinson and produced by Michael Wearing and Bernard Krichefski for the BBC in 1982. From its video game-inspired opening titles to its pervasive electronic music track, Bird of Prey went to great lengths to demonstrate its credentials as 'a thriller for the electronic age'. These elements, together with a clever and complex plot that combines a breathless fascination with the still-young field of computing with pan-European fraud, international terrorism, rogue intelligence operatives and organised crime, link it firmly to the early 1980s, expressing that era's growing anxieties about the burgeoning 'Eurocracy'.
London itself takes the starring role in this series of plays from the BBC – a role which varies between hero and villain, enchantress and harpy. The series features extensive location filming, ranging from Soho to the Law Courts, Wembley to the docks. Of the twelve episodes, eleven are believed to be lost.
Set on a famous nudist beach, Maslin Beach is a film about crazy people involved in crazy misunderstandings and romantic squabbles, a naked and hilarious search for the meaning of life. And it's also a gentle story about love. Simon attempts to summon the courage to face the truth about his relationship with Marcie over the course of one afternoon, leading to a bittersweet jolt to his life. With other relationships on the beach interfering with his objective to propose, a myriad of characters attempt to make sense of life, love and it all.
After an unusual meteor shower leaves most of the human population blind, a merchant navy officer must find a way to conquer tall, aggressive plants which are feeding on people and animals.
British sitcom in which happy-go-lucky character Peter Barnes comically and haphazardly tries to deal with the daily frustrations his life throws at him.
Home Sweet Home is an Australian comedy television series created by Vince Powell and produced by Michael Mills, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Thames Television starring John Bluthal as Enzo Pacelli, a ham-fisted Italian immigrant taxi driver keen to champion his Italian values while his three Australian-educated children embrace the culture of their adopted country.
In Sydney, the newly married Midori is honeymooning with her husband, Yukio. She does not love him and fakes her own kidnapping to escape the marriage. Her lover is supposed to meet her, but fails to appear. She goes to a bank to get some cash, only to become a hostage in an unfolding robbery, until the getaway driver, Colin, saves her from his fellow robbers. They hit the road together, with the cops, her husband and the robbers in pursuit.
Codename Icarus is a five-part British television serial produced by the BBC. Combinijg elements of teen drama and Cold War era conspiracy thriller, young prodigy Martin Smith is recruited by the mysterious Icarus Foundation, a shadowy organisation that exploits gifted children to develop advanced weapons, including a 'quark bomb'. The serial was broadcast twice-weekly, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, from 8-9 December, 15-16 December, and 22 December. It is well remembered for being intelligent and hard-hitting, respectful of its young audience, and tackling complex themes, primarily the militarisation of science.
In 1829, a recently widowed Englishman brings his children to New South Wales to claim land and begin a new life, only to find it already occupied. Forced to settle as squatters, the family faces mounting challenges from colonial authorities, rival settlers, and the harsh conditions of the frontier.
Anzacs was a 1985 5-part Australian miniseries set in World War I. The series follows the lives of a group of young Australian men who enlist in the 8th Battalion of the First Australian Imperial Force in 1914, fighting first at Gallipoli in 1915, and then on the Western Front for the remainder of the war.
Based on the novel by Martin Boyd (1946) this miniseries tells the story of many generations of a family who migrate from England to Australia and eventually back to England, suffering poverty and becoming social climbers. The family's social ambitions lead to conflicts between Lucinda and her parents over the attentions of Tony Duff. She therefore marries wealthy Englishman Hugo Brayford and moves to England with him. A series of failures and adulterous episodes in England lead to her experience of "geographical schizophrenia" and personality disintegration.
Driving cross-country to a job interview, Colin takes a short cut and comes across a fatal road accident. One of the drivers, Jina, is shaken but unhurt; the other has been killed instantly. Beside the dead body is a briefcase full of money, which Colin turns in to the local police. But getting out of town proves a nightmare, as Colin's good deed causes a series of bizarre events to unfold.
