Tony Wilson

World in Action was Granada Television’s flagship ITV current affairs series, running from 7 Jan 1963 to 7 Dec 1998, and built a reputation for film-led investigative reporting and a forceful editorial stance. Its journalism produced major public and political repercussions—including investigations associated with miscarriages of justice such as the Birmingham Six—and it also served as a platform for landmark documentary projects, including the first broadcast of “Seven Up!” as part of the strand in 1964.

Never Mind the Buzzcocks is a comedy panel game show with a pop and rock music theme. The show is infamous for its dry, sarcastic humour and scathing, provocative attacks on the pop industry.

The story of Joy Division’s lead singer Ian Curtis, from his schoolboy days in 1973 to his suicide on the eve of the band's first American tour in 1980.

Part concert, part documentary, this film follows the band’s preparations in the re-staging of their acclaimed collaboration So It Goes.. with the artist Liam Gillick and the 12-piece synthesiser orchestra that spectacularly captured the headlines during Manchester International Festival 2017.

Channel 4 documentary series covering all branches of the arts.

Manchester, 1976. Tony Wilson is an ambitious but frustrated local TV news reporter looking for a way to make his mark. After witnessing a life-changing concert by a band known as the Sex Pistols, he persuades his station to televise one of their performances, and soon Manchester's punk groups are clamoring for him to manage them. Riding the wave of a musical revolution, Wilson and his friends create the legendary Factory Records label and The Hacienda club.

Steve Coogan, an arrogant actor with low self-esteem and a complicated love life, is playing the eponymous role in an adaptation of "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" being filmed at a stately home. He constantly spars with actor Rob Brydon, who is playing Uncle Toby and believes his role to be of equal importance to Coogan's.

Spoof chat show that sees divorced character Keith Barret explore what makes a successful relationship, with a celebrity guest couple featured on each episode.

Bill Nighy, Pete Postlewaite and (briefly) Julie Walters, then all of the Everyman Theatre Company, feature in this potent reportage/dramatisation hybrid about the occupation of the Fisher-Bendix Factory in Kirkby. Dohany uses a variety of imaginative techniques to explore the longstanding dispute, and a pronounced sense of urgency pervades this act of solidarity.

The acclaimed live concert film by Manchester ensemble The Durutti Column, recorded in Tokyo in April 1985. Domo Arigato followed on the heels of ambitious ‘modern classical’ album Without Mercy a year earlier, and saw composer / guitarist Vini Reilly and percussionist Bruce Mitchell augmented by John Metcalfe on viola and Tim Kellet on trumpet. Their show-cum-recital at the Kan’i Hoken Hall on 25 April was recorded digitally and filmed on two 35mm cameras.

Rising from the ashes of the legendary British post-punk unit Joy Division, the enigmatic New Order triumphed over tragedy to emerge as one of the most influential and acclaimed bands of the 1980's, embracing the electronic textures and disco rhythms of the underground club culture many years in advance of its contempraries. "New Order Story" is the definitive documentary on the band and traces their history all the way back to its origin with Joy Division. This extended version includes additional interviews and live footage, over 2 hours of great New Order footage. A longform video chronicling the band's history and music with interviews by Bono, Neil Tennant, Quincy Jones and others.

Four-part series demonstrating different kinds of censorship, such as censorship by the government or of art.

A one-off series of sixty minute shows where a band were given total control over the programme's content with no input from the production company or Channel 4.

The death of punk icon and X-Ray Spex front-woman Poly Styrene sends her daughter on a journey through her mother's archives in this intimate documentary.

Documentary that outlines the 1990s and the decade the changed the world.

A chronological account of the influential late 1970s English rock band.

In the final days of the yuppie decade, the summer of ’89 saw a new type of youth rebellion rip through the cultural landscape, with thousands of young people dancing at illegal Acid House parties in fields and aircraft hangars around the M25. Set against the backdrop of ten years of Thatcherism, it was a benign form of revolution, dubbed the Second Summer of Love – all the ravers wanted was the freedom to party… The rave scene, along with the drug Ecstasy, broke down social barriers and even football hooligans were ‘loved up’, solving a problem the government had never managed to crack. But lurid tabloid headlines and cat-and-mouse games with the police eventually turned the dream sour, as the gangster element moved in at the end of the summer.

Documentary featuring a cavalcade of Northern comedy stars including the great Frank Randle, George Formby, Arthur Askey, Norman Evans and many more. The North of England has always enjoyed its own very particular brand of comedy, best seen today in Coronation Street. 80 years ago however Mancunian Studios produced feature films for the northern masses. Funny Up North tells the story of the Mancunian Studios, its eccentric owner John E Blakeley and its cavalcade of stars including such household names as Arthur Askey, Jimmy Jewell, George Formby and the legendary Frank Randle. Hosted by Professor Chris Lee, the authority on northern cinema, Funny Up North takes you on a journey from its humble beginnings to its sad demise in the 1960s.

Documentary celebrating the triumph, tragedy and human comedy that was Manchester record company, Factory. Started by the late Tony Wilson, Alan Erasmus, Peter Saville and Martin Hannett in the late 1970s, it became known as the home of Joy Divsion, New Order and Happy Mondays and for creating the Hacienda club. The label pioneered Britain's independent pop culture, creating a new Manchester and blowing a shed-load of money. Includes interviews with all the main players in the Factory story.

An examination into Factory Records. The members of New Order interview founders Tony Wilson and Martin Hannett, who speak on the philosophical and cultural purpose of their label, and their associates, who mostly appear frustrated or confused. Rob Gretton, Factory founder and manager of New Order, interviews himself. Also includes three live performances of New Order at the Haçienda.