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Les Blair

Directing

Biography

Born in 1941, Les Blair is a BAFTA winning television, film and theatre director famous for productions that have political or socially aware themes and are often improvised or naturalistic in flavour. He attended Salford Grammer School and, whilst there, acted in plays alongside fellow pupil Mike Leigh. After graduating at Liverpool University, Blair met up with RADA graduate Leigh again and the pair became flatmates and proponents of Improvisational drama in Birmingham. After joining the London Film School they collaborated together on Leigh's first feature film, Bleak Moments. Blair's own work includes the groundbreaking and controversial BBC miniseries Law and Order (1978) and the 1993 film Bad Behaviour.

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
Screen Two
7.1

Series of single made-for-television dramas.

Screen Two

1985
ITV Playhouse
7.0

ITV Playhouse is a British comedy-drama TV series that ran from 1967 to 1983, which featured contributions from playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Rhys Adrian and Alan Sharp. The series began in black and white, but was later shot in colour and was produced by various companies for the ITV network, a format that would inspire Dramarama. Actors appearing in the series included Leslie Anderson, Gwen Nelson, Ricky Alleyne, Pat Heywood, Michael Elphick, Ian Hendry, Edward Woodward, Margaret Lockwood, Jessie Matthews and Lloyd Peters.

ITV Playhouse

1967
ScreenPlay
6.0

Screenplay was a drama anthology television series, broadcast on BBC between 1986 and 1993. Numerous episodes were produced including one named "Boswell and Johnson's Tour of the Western Islands" starring Robbie Coltrane as English writer Samuel Johnson who in the autumn of 1773, visits the Hebrides off the north-west coast of Scotland. That episode was directed by John Byrne and co-starred John Sessions and Celia Imrie.

ScreenPlay

1986
Screen One
7.2

Anthology drama series.

Screen One

1989
Law & Order
7.3

Law & Order is a series of four British television plays written by G. F. Newman and directed by Les Blair. It was first transmitted in 1978 on BBC2.

Law & Order

1978
Plays for Britain
6.0

An anthology series of six contemporary plays from writers at relatively early stages in their careers.

Plays for Britain

1976
Number One
6.7

A down on his luck Irishman in London decides to play snooker for money.

Number One

1985
H3
5.0

'H3' is a universal story of endurance and courage set inside Europe's most secure prison, the Maze prison in Northern Ireland. Here, in H3 - the bleakest of all the H-blocks - a group of young republican prisoners hold out for what they believe in, refusing to be labeled as criminals or co-operate with prison authorities. However, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is determined that these Republican prisoners will be treated like all the other common criminals in British jails, ending a special regime which allowed the inmates political status to organise life inside the jail along POW lines. The republican prisoners immediately start a 'no-wash' protest, refusing to wear prison-issue clothes or perform work duties, a protest which results in their being locked in their cells for hours on end without exercise, recreation, reading materials and with only blankets to wear for heat...

H3

2001
Bleak Moments
6.1

Moments from the uncompromisingly bleak existence of a secretary, her intellectually disabled sister, aloof and uneasy teacher boyfriend, bizarre neighbor and irritating workmate.

Bleak Moments

1971
The Accountant
N/A

London middle class Jewish accountant Lionel is preparing for his son's bar mitzvah when he does a little favour for a friend, and ends up getting mixed up with the Mafia.

The Accountant

1989
London's Burning: The Movie
8.5

It's Josie Ingham's first day at Blackwall Firestation but things aren't going so well being the only female firefighter in an all-male team. Not only does she have to prove to them that she can do the job, problems at home complicate her life even further. Outside, in the heart of the city, tensions are rising to the extreme, Blue Watch have a long night ahead.

London's Burning: The Movie

1986
Tracey Ullman: A Class Act
10.0

A short series of 15 minute programmes, really expanded sketches, in which Tracey Ullman and Michael Palin play various roles satirizing the British class system.

Tracey Ullman: A Class Act

1993
No image
N/A

Anthology of short plays on the topic of seduction

Seduction

1991
No image
7.0

The launch of Chaser lager could be big for KFS if Alun shows some commitment; if Mike's lifestyle doesn't catch up with him; if the rest of the team concern themselves more with the product's image and less with their own - they might just have a winner on their hands.

Honest Decent & True

1986
Amazing Grace
7.0

A young man (Aidan Gillan) arrives in the midst of London's Soho. He's from Belfast, he's anxious and he looks like he's running away from something. Then, by chance, he meets Grace, a prostitute who happens to come from Belfast too. A connection is made and, for a brief time, she seems to offer the chance of a new future.

Amazing Grace

1997
Beyond the Pale
N/A

"The British Brothers leave Hackney at 4:30 today and will march with bands and banners through the Jewish quarters of Whitechapel and Bethnal Green." The story of Jewish immigrants in London's East End in the early 20th century.

Beyond the Pale

1981
Bad Behavior
5.6

The McAllister family house is the setting for Gerry and Ellie's grapples with work, children and how to get the bathroom fixed. Both have reached the stage where reason cannot be heard above the ticking clock of experience and ambition. When temptation comes, how will they react?

Bad Behavior

1993
News Hounds
N/A

Every cub reporter wants a front page 'splash' and the journalists from The Brit, a top-selling daily tabloid, are no exception. They're on the trail of a sensational story and their jobs depend on it.

News Hounds

1990
Blooming Youth
N/A

An improvised character piece, overseen by Les Blair and Tony Garnett set in the everyday life of a group of polytechnic students.

Blooming Youth

1973