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Colin Welland

Colin Welland

Acting

Biography

Actor and writer Colin Welland will perhaps be forever remembered for his triumph at the 1982 Academy Awards, when he won the Best Screenplay Oscar for his screenplay for the hit film Chariots of Fire, proclaiming "The British are Coming!" As an actor, his first film appearance is perhaps still his best-loved, the sympathetic Mr Farthing in Kes (1969), for which he won a BAFTA. Born in Liverpool, but raised in Leigh, Welland initially started out as an art teacher before moving into acting and becoming a household name playing the role of PC Graham in the long running BBC police serial Z Cars. Aside from Chariots of Fire, he wrote many other plays and films including the BAFTA winning Kisses at Fifty (later remade for Hollywood with Gene Hackman as Twice in a Lifetime), Leeds United! based on the rag trade strike that his own mother-in-law was active in, Yanks, A Dry White Season and War of the Buttons. As a film and TV actor his credits include Kes, Straw Dogs, Blue Remembered Hills, Cowboys and Sweeney! He died at the age of 81 on November 2, 2015, having suffered from Alzheimer's disease for several years.

Known For

Play for Today
6.6

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

1970
Z-Cars
7.3

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.

Z-Cars

1962
The Sweeney
8.0

Jack Regan, an unethical officer of the Flying Squad, uses unorthodox methods to pursue criminals with the help of his partner, George Carter.

The Sweeney

1975
ITV Saturday Night Theatre
7.0

Anthology series of dramatic works.

ITV Saturday Night Theatre

1969
Trial & Retribution
6.8

Devised and written by Lynda La Plante as a follow-on from her successful television series Prime Suspect, this vast police procedural follows police detectives in England as they investigate crimes and the trials that come about as a result.

Trial & Retribution

1997
Bramwell
4.2

The story of Eleanor Bramwell , a pioneering female doctor in the late nineteenth century, and the struggles she has with her friends, her colleagues and society. Determined to take the medical profession out of the dark ages, her strongly held opinions often draw her into conflict with the chief surgeon, a man keener on tradition than he is on progress.

Bramwell

1995
Screen One
7.2

Anthology drama series.

Screen One

1989
Chariots of Fire
6.8

In the class-obsessed and religiously divided UK of the early 1920s, two determined young runners train for the 1924 Paris Olympics. Eric Liddell, a devout Christian born to Scottish missionaries in China, sees running as part of his worship of God's glory and refuses to train or compete on the Sabbath. Harold Abrahams overcomes anti-Semitism and class bias, but neglects his beloved sweetheart in his single-minded quest.

Chariots of Fire

1981
Straw Dogs
7.2

David Sumner, a mild-mannered academic from the United States, marries Amy, an Englishwoman. In order to escape a hectic stateside lifestyle, David and his wife relocate to the small town in rural Cornwall where Amy was raised. There, David is ostracized by the brutish men of the village, including Amy's old flame, Charlie. Eventually the taunts escalate.

Straw Dogs

1971
Armchair Theatre
6.0

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

1956
For the Greater Good
9.0

For the Greater Good is a three-part 1991 BBC Two television drama serial written by G.F. Newman and directed by Danny Boyle. It centres on three politicians attempting to reform the British prison system. However, their efforts are undermined when the tabloid press exposes their private lives.

For the Greater Good

1991
Kes
7.4

Bullied at school and ignored and abused at home by his indifferent mother and older brother, Billy Casper, a 15-year-old working-class Yorkshire boy, tames and trains his pet kestrel falcon whom he names Kes. Helped and encouraged by his English teacher and his fellow students, Billy finally finds a positive purpose to his unhappy existence.

Kes

1970
No image
N/A

An anthology series wherein the ten commandments are interpreted in contemporary scenarios by different writers. It was transmissioned from 30 March to 1 June 1971 on ITV Yorkshire.

The Ten Commandments

1971
The Fix
3.8

The story of the British betting scandal of 1964, uncovered by journalist Mike Gabbert which saw a number of British professional footballers were jailed and banned from football for life for conspiring to fix the results of matches. Prominent among those jailed and banned were the Sheffield Wednesday F.C. stars Peter Swan, Tony Kay and David Layne.

The Fix

1997
Yanks
5.9

During WWII, the United States set up army bases in Great Britain as part of the war effort. Against their proper sensibilities, many of the Brits don't much like the brash Yanks, especially when it comes to the G.I.s making advances on the lonely British girls. One relationship that develops is between married John, an Army Captain, and the aristocratic Helen, whose naval husband is away at war. Helen loves her husband, but Helen and John are looking for some comfort during the difficult times.

Yanks

1979
Villain
6.2

In 1970s London, Scotland Yard orchestrates the downfall of mob boss Vic Dakin after he crosses the line by blackmailing Members of Parliament.

Villain

1971
Cowboys
7.5

Cowboys is a British sitcom that aired on the ITV network during the early 1980s. The show was created by Peter Learmouth whom would go on to create Granada television sitcom Surgical Spirit and starred Lancastrian Character-actor Roy Kinnear as Joe Jones "whose small building firm hardly seems to do anything right at all" with co-stars David Kelly as 'Wobbly' Ron, "Oscar-Winning Writer" Colin Welland as Geyser and James Wardroper with Debbie Linden and Janine Duvitski. The show is based on the British colloquial use of "cowboy" to describe a workman of doubtful professionalism e.g. a "cowboy builder".

Cowboys

1980
A Dry White Season
6.7

During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.

A Dry White Season

1989
War of the Buttons
7.0

War between two Irish youth gangs consists of removing and retrieving buttons from each other's clothing.

War of the Buttons

1994
Sweeney!
6.7

When one of Regan's snouts complains that his girlfriend's recent suicide was murder, the flying squad detective feels compelled to investigate. He uncovers a conspiracy that reaches the heart of the government, and finds himself fitted up, suspended and under the scrutiny of Special Branch.

Sweeney!

1977