
James Ferman
Directing
Biography
James Alan Ferman was an American television and theatre director. He was the Secretary of the British Board of Film Classification from 1975 to 1999.
Known For

Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.
Play for Today

An anthology series of television plays which aired on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured.
The Wednesday Play

Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.
Theatre 625

Anthology series of dramatic works.
ITV Saturday Night Theatre
Drama 61-67 is anthology drama series which took a different title, based on year of transmission, each year. It alternated with Armchair Theatre from ABC in the Sunday evening slot. The series was described at the time as epitomising ATV drama.
Drama 61-67

Anthology series of half hour plays produced in BBC's Television Centre's studios.
Centre Play

Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries is a British television anthology series produced by Anglia Television for the ITV network and broadcast between 1973 and 1974. The series presents standalone adaptations of classic mystery, crime, and supernatural stories drawn from literary sources including Dickens, Conan Doyle, Wilkie Collins, Balzac, Maugham, O. Henry, and others. Each episode is framed by original introductory and closing sequences performed by Orson Welles, who serves as the series’ host and sole recurring on-screen presence. These segments, written and directed by Welles (uncredited), function as stylized narrative framing devices rather than dramatic participation in the stories themselves. The dramatic content of each episode is performed by separate casts and directors, with no continuing characters or serialized narrative, establishing the series as a unified television anthology rather than a collection of standalone films.
Orson Welles' Great Mysteries
An anthology series based on the varied stories by W. Somerset Maugham divided into three categories: "Rule Britannia" about colonial life, "Women of the World" which focus on female characters, and "Victims of Fate".
W. Somerset Maugham

"Fall of Eagles" is a 13-part British television drama aired by the BBC in 1974. The series portrays historical events from 1848 to 1918, dealing with the collapse of the ruling dynasties of Austria-Hungary (the Habsburgs), Germany (the Hohenzollerns) and Russia (the Romanovs).
Fall of Eagles

A BBC television series of forty-five-minute excerpts from stage plays running in London.
Theatre Night

An anthology series of BBC television dramas on sexual themes. The same cast are featured in each production.
The Sextet

Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series of single plays that ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation, and later by Thames Television from mid-1968.
Armchair Theatre

Zodiac was a six-part series transmitted by ITV in 1974. Starring Anton Rogers and Anouska Hempel as cynical detective David Gradley and his astrologer associate Esther Jones, the unusual astrological premise set this show apart from the humdrum detective dramas of the time. Little seen since its original broadcast, the series has garnered something of a cult status.
Zodiac
A collection of one-off thrillers, each ending with a disturbing twist.
The Wednesday Thriller
Four-part series demonstrating different kinds of censorship, such as censorship by the government or of art.
Banned in the UK
Six of Britain's top television playwrights were given the opportunity to write the plays they had always wanted to write.
Plays of Today
The history of film and video censorship in Great Britain.
Empire of the Censors

Documentary commemorating the 40th anniversary of the 'Carry On' comedy film series. Archive clips and out-takes are mixed with interviews with the cast.
What's a Carry On?

A documentary analyzing the furore which so-called "video nasties" caused in Britain during the 1980s.
Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape
A young private with a pistol deals with the aftershock of the attack on Pearl Harbor.