Acting
Crown Court is an afternoon television courtroom drama produced by Granada Television for the ITV network that ran from 1972, when the Crown Court system replaced Assize courts and Quarter sessions in the legal system of England and Wales, to 1984.
A one-hour anthology television series of one-off contemporary and classic dramas produced by the BBC.
Rumpole of the Bailey is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer. It stars Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, an aging London barrister who defends any and all clients, and has been spun off into a series of short stories, novels, and radio programmes.
An adaptation of the novel by Charlotte Brontë.
When John Franklin crash-lands his Wellington bomber in occupied France at the height of the Second World War, he is concerned for the safety of his crew and worried about his own badly injured arm. His crew escapes, but the family of a mill owner risk their lives to hide Franklin in their home until he regains his health. During the following balmy summer months, the pilot's situation is further complicated by his feelings for Francoise, the daughter of the house, but as German patrols move in, his only chance of survival is to flee from France.
An anthology of single plays offering up adaptations of either of prominent stage plays or novels.
Kizzy is a six-part 1976 BBC television miniseries based on Rumer Godden's novel The Diddakoi. It starred Vanessa Furst as orphan traveller (or Romani girl) called Kizzy, who faces persecution, grief and loss in a hostile, close-knit village community.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a seven-part BBC2 spy drama written by Arthur Hopcraft, adapted from John le Carré's eponymous 1974 novel. The serial, which stars Alec Guinness, Alexander Knox, Ian Richardson, Michael Jayston, Bernard Hepton, Anthony Bate, Ian Bannen, George Sewell and Michael Aldridge, was broadcast from 10 September to 22 October 1979. George Smiley, the ageing master spy of the Cold War and once heir-apparent to Control, is brought back out of retirement to flush out a top level mole within the Circus. Smiley must travel back through his life and murky workings of the Circus to unravel the net spun by his nemesis Karla 'The Sandman' of the KGB and reveal the identity of the mole before he disappears.
Hazell is a British television drama based on the novel series by Terry Venables and Gordon Williams (collectively known as P.B. Yuill), and starring Nicholas Bell as James Hazell, a 'smart parody' of Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade. The program ran for 2 series, from January 1978 to July 1979.
Sinister Street is a 1969 British television miniseries based on Compton Mackenzie's 1913-14 novel of the same name. Dramatised by Ray Lawler, the six-part serial stars Brett Usher, Gillian Hawser, Kate Lansbury, and Jo Kendall. Being the sole televised adaptation produced, all episodes were wiped and are believed to be lost. A psychological coming-of-age drama, two children, Michael Fane and his sister Stella, are born out of wedlock, something considered taboo at the time, but to rich parents.
Pennies From Heaven is a 1978 BBC television drama serial written by Dennis Potter. The title is taken from a song of the same name written by Johnny Burke and Arthur Johnston. It was one of several Potter serials to mix the reality of the drama with a dark fantasy content, and the earliest of his works where the characters burst into miming to popular 1930s songs. During the Great Depression, a sheet music salesman seeks to escape his dreary life through popular music and a love affair with an innocent schoolteacher.
Murder Most English: A Flaxborough Chronicle (often referred to simply as Murder Most English) is a seven-part British detective miniseries based on Colin Watson's Flaxborough novel series. While Martin Lisemore receives billing on all episodes, he died midway through filming, and was replaced by Bill Sellars, who refused credit. Flaxborough, near the sea, near the countryside, seems such a nice town, so quiet, so charming. But underneath its placid surface, all kinds of scandalous things go on.
Chéri is a 1973 British drama television series produced and aired by the BBC. The five-episode miniseries is an adaptation of the acclaimed French novels by Colette, following the turbulent romantic entanglement between an older courtesan and a much younger, spoiled man.
One pill, and you're floating on air. A different one, and you're full of lead. Married, mortgaged, broke, a love-affair gone sour - which drug can help Alec?
A domineering, reclusive and ostentatiously pious widow in a small Spanish town keeps such close watch on her daughters that they are unable to have normal social lives. However, the eldest is allowed to become engaged to an unprincipled young man, primarily for the financial advantages it will bring the mother, Bernarda. Jealousy and envy ensues among the other daughters.
Lazy repairman Des Kinvig's life changes when he imagines meeting a glamorous alien from Mercury, who looks a lot like his latest customer Miss Griffin.
Gerald is on the edge of a complete breakdown. During an afternoon spent with his father, he starts to come to terms with the wounding confusions and mistakes of his past-his lies, his girl-friend's suicide, his mother's obsessive love of his - younger brother and her death in a hospital when he arrived too late to communicate his real feelings for her.
A fateful day in the life of a great composer. A play with music
Adapted from the D. H. Lawrence novel this tells the romantic story of Siegmund and Helena. Siegmund, an orchestral violinist who is married with three children, has tutored Helena for several years and they've fallen in love but he will not leave his wife or consummate their passion physically. Helena arranges for them to go on an idyllic holiday to the Isle of Wight, hoping that will convince Siegmund to break away from his marriage and they can be together.
In between working in a supermarket by day and in a cinema by night, Connie caters for her placid Stan and adolescent kids Cheryl and Paul. But slowly she starts to rebel against the traditional women's roles she's been pushed into.
