Martin Duncan

Life seems easy for picture-perfect couple Ivy and Theo: successful careers, a loving marriage, great kids. But beneath the façade of their supposed ideal life, a storm is brewing – as Theo's career nosedives while Ivy's own ambitions take off, a tinderbox of fierce competition and hidden resentment ignites.

For nearly a decade, Gilbert and Sullivan’s collaborations have delighted the English people. But in 1884, as a London heat wave cuts into the theater trade, their latest work, "Princess Ida", receives lukewarm press. In an effort to reconcile their creative differences and drawing inspiration from Japanese culture, they went on to create the hit opera "The Mikado", one of the duo's greatest successes.

After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.

An elderly ex-serviceman and widower looks to avenge his best friend's murder by doling out his own form of justice.

Just north of London live Wendy, Andy, and their twenty-something twins, Natalie and Nicola. Wendy clerks in a shop, Andy is a cook who forever puts off home remodeling projects, Natalie is a plumber and Nicola is jobless. This film is about how they interact and play out family, conflict and love.

Penny works at a supermarket and Phil is a gentle taxi-driver. Penny’s love for Phil has run dry and they lead joyless lives with their two children, Rachel, a cleaner, and Rory, who is unemployed and aggressive.

When the young, attractive Joe Orton meets the older, more introverted Kenneth Halliwell at drama school, he befriends the kindred spirit and they start an affair. As Orton becomes more comfortable with his sexuality and starts to find success with his writing, Halliwell becomes increasingly alienated and jealous, ultimately tapping into a dangerous rage.

Based on real events from 1983; DC Peter Finch is awarded a medal for the courage he showed in arresting a dangerous criminal. Meanwhile transvestite David Martin is released once again from prison - he's provocative and aggressive and, when he's caught again during a burglary, he shoots one of the police officers, leading to a nation wide manhunt. Innocent filmmaker Steven Waldorf is subsequently shot as a suspect by Finch, provoking a national scandal that rocks the police force.

A young college student in London moves into a flat and becomes best friends with a flatmate; the former moves into her own flat 4 years later but 6 years after their parting, the former returns to London to pay the latter a visit.

Opera North’s enchanting staging of The Adventures of Pinocchio, Jonathan Dove’s 21st opera, is a wittily inventive feast for the eyes and ears.