Ken Howard
Sound
Biography
Ken Howard was an English songwriter, lyricist, author and television director. In the 1960s and 1970s, in collaboration with Alan Blaikley, Ken Howard composed the music and words for many international top 10 hits, including two UK number ones, "Have I the Right?" (The Honeycombs)[17] and "The Legend of Xanadu" (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich). Among other performers for whom they wrote were The Herd, Petula Clark, Phil Collins, Sacha Distel, Rolf Harris, Frankie Howerd (the theme song for his film Up Pompeii), Engelbert Humperdinck, Horst Jankowski, Eartha Kitt, Little Eva, Lulu and Matthews Southern Comfort. They were also the first British composers to write for Elvis Presley, including the hit "I've Lost You". Howard and Blaikley were responsible for theme and incidental music for several television drama series including The Flame Trees of Thika (1981) and By the Sword Divided (1983–1985),and the BBC's long-running series of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple (1984–1992). Howard also scored BBC TV's BAFTA and Emmy Award-winning Shadowlands with Claire Bloom and Joss Ackland in 1985, Mervyn Peake's Mr Pye with Derek Jacobi and Judy Parfitt, and Ronald Neame's last film, Foreign Body in 1986, plus BBC TV's The Black and Blue Lamp and The Angry Earth in 1989.
Known For

When a handful of grain is found in the pocket of a murdered businessman, Miss Marple seeks a murderer with a penchant for nursery rhymes.
Miss Marple: A Pocketful of Rye

Mr Jason Rafiel seeks Miss Marple's help to solve a crime but he does gives her any details. In fact, he can't be sure that a crime was committed at all.
Miss Marple: Nemesis

Faced with two false confessions and numerous suspects after a despised civil magistrate is found shot in the local vicarage, Detective Inspector Slack reluctantly accepts help from Miss Marple.
Miss Marple: The Murder at the Vicarage

The residents of a quiet English village begin to receive nasty, threatening letters. The wife of the local vicar calls in her friend Miss Marple to investigate.
Miss Marple: The Moving Finger

There's a murder at the elegant hotel where Miss Marple is staying and international adventurer Bess Sedgwick is the prime suspect.
Miss Marple: At Bertram's Hotel

When a young bride moves into a country manor, long repressed childhood memories of witnessing a murder come to the surface.
Miss Marple: Sleeping Murder

Miss Marple, an elderly woman and amateur detective whose sharp mind helps her solve a series of seemingly baffling cases.
Miss Marple

Mr Pye travels to the Channel Island of Sark to spread the love of God. But doing good deeds means something strange starts to happen to him, he starts to grow wings.
Mr Pye

While on vacation at a resort hotel in the West Indies, Miss Marple correctly suspects that the apparently natural death of a retired British major is actually the work of a murderer planning yet another killing.
Miss Marple: A Caribbean Mystery

Elspeth and her unconventional parents decide to settle down in Kenya and begin a coffee plantation. This is a time of discovery for Elspeth, as she encounters the incredible beauty and cruelty of nature, and new friendships with both Africans and British expatriates. A side plot involves the beautiful and bored British Lettice Palmer who enters into an affair with a handsome safari guide. Eventually, however, the excitement of Elspeth's life is disrupted by the onset of WW I, and the changes it brings.
The Flame Trees of Thika

A town busybody is poisoned at a busy reception in the home of famous film star Marina Gregg. The poisoned drink seemed intended for Marina, but Miss Marple is not so sure. She sets out to discover the true identity of the killer before he or she can strike again.
Miss Marple: The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

Travelling on the 4.50 from Paddington, Mrs McGillicuddy witnesses a murder on a passing train - but where is the body?
Miss Marple: 4.50 from Paddington

A funny thing happens to Lurcio on the way to the rent-a-vestal-virgin market stall. A mysterious scroll falls into his hands, listing the names of all the conspirators plotting to murder Emperor Nero. And when the upstart slave is elected to infiltrate the ringleader's den, the comical ups-and-downs lead to total uproar.
Up Pompeii

About the oppression of the Welsh coal miners during the 19th century and early 20th century as seen through the the eyes of Gwen, a 110 year old woman.
The Angry Earth

Banerjee stars as Ram Das, a jobless Indian man who, tired of life in Calcutta, steals money from his father in order to afford a passage to Britain and while there, falls in love with a white woman.
Foreign Body
Mr. Pye is a missionary whose mission to spread God's love on the tiny English Channel island of Sark faces supernatural setbacks in this comic fantasy from the author of Gormenghast.
Mr. Pye

To commemorate the fifth anniversary of John Lennon's murder. Journey in the Life chronicles the life of the musician, making use of dramatizations, fantasy-like images, and commentary. The material for the special is drawn from Lennon's writings and songs, along with stills, interviews, and documentary footage of the famous Beatle and dramatic recreations of his life.
John Lennon: A Journey in the Life

A play based on the friendship between CS Lewis and Joy Gresham.
Shadowlands

The world is coming to an end, and the last survivors board a space-ship ready to leave the doomed planet Earth in search of a new world.
Orion

Satirical and surreal play by Arthur Ellis, dealing with the manner in which the British police force has been represented on TV for four decades. In 1949 Tom Riley is arrested for the murder of PC George Dixon. As he awaits interrogation at the station he is mysteriously transported into an episode of The Filth - a 1988 police series where the hard men rule, where he is told by the local CID that he'll be confessing to the murder or else his genitals are getting cut off ! This black comedy questions whether the police have changed or is it the way film and television present them.