
Frank Thornton
Acting
Biography
Frank Thornton Ball (15 January 1921 - 16 March 2013), professionally known as Frank Thornton, was an English actor. He was known for playing Captain Peacock in Are You Being Served? (1972-1985) and its sequel Grace & Favour and as Herbert "Truly" Truelove in Last of the Summer Wine.
Known For

The residents of Coronation Street are ordinary, working-class people, and the show follows them through regular social and family interactions at home, in the workplace, and in their local pub, the Rovers Return Inn. Britain's longest-running soap.
Coronation Street

Drama series about the staff and patients at Holby City Hospital's emergency department, charting the ups and downs in their personal and professional lives.
Casualty

A quirky spy show of the adventures of eccentrically suave British Agent John Steed and his predominantly female partners. Jonathan Steed - an urbane, proper gentleman spy - teams with various assistants throughout the series' run, including Dr. David Keel, Cathy Gale, Emma Peel and Tara King, to repeatedly save the world from diabolical schemes plotted by equally diabolical evil-doers (among them robots and man-eating monsters).
The Avengers

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.
Crown Court

Richard & Judy was a British chat show presented by the married couple Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan. The show originally aired on Channel 4, from 2001 to 2008, but later moved to digital channel, Watch, in October 2008. The programme featured a number of celebrities and a book club. Its final episode aired in July 2009 due to low ratings.
Richard & Judy

Unencumbered by wives, jobs or any other responsibilities, three senior citizens who've never really grown up explore their world in the Yorkshire Dales. They spend their days speculating about their fellow townsfolk and thinking up adventures not usually favored by the elderly. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse in 1973. The show ran for 295 episodes until 2010. It is the longest running comedy Britain has produced and the longest running sitcom in the world.
Last of the Summer Wine
Pebble Mill was a re-launched version of the 1970s daily chat show Pebble Mill (also known as Pebble Mill At One for a while) which aired on BBC1 in the United Kingdom. The series premiered on October 14, 1991. The show was a mixture of celebrity guests and music. Alan Titchmarsh was a presenter on the show throughout it's complete run. Other presenters included Judi Spiers, Gloria Hunniford and Ross King.
Pebble Mill

The Sooty Show is a British children's Puppet series which aired on the BBC from 1955 to 1967 and ITV from 1968 to 1992. It follows the adventures and comedic day to day life of puppets Sooty, Sweep and Soo with their owner Harry Corbett, and in later years, his son Matthew.
The Sooty Show

After a plane carrying three Agents crashes in the Himalayas, they are rescued by an advanced civilisation secretly living in Tibet who grant them enhanced versions of the ordinary five senses, and intellectual and physical abilities.
The Champions

Danger Man is a British television series which was broadcast between 1960 and 1962, and again between 1964 and 1968. The series featured Patrick McGoohan as secret agent John Drake. Ralph Smart created the programme and wrote many of the scripts. Danger Man was financed by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment.
Danger Man

Sunday Night Theatre was a long-running series of televised live television plays screened by BBC Television from early 1950 until 1959. The productions for the first five years or so of the run were re-staged live the following Thursday, partly because of technical limitations in this era, and the theatrical basis of early television drama. Some of the earliest collaborations between Rudolph Cartier and Nigel Neale were produced for this series, including Arrow to the Heart and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The Sunday night drama slot was subsequently renamed The Sunday-Night Play which ran for four seasons between 1960 and 1963. ITV transmitted its own unrelated run of Sunday Night Theatre between 1971 and 1974.
Sunday Night Theatre

This comedy series, which follows the exploits of employees at London's fictional "Grace Brothers" department store, is full of sexual innuendo, slapstick, visual gags, and double entendres. Much of the show's humor parodies Britain's class system, and many of the show's characters are based on stereotypes of the period, including the effeminate Mr. Humphries and the rich, but stingy, store owner.
Are You Being Served?

Blankety Blank is a British comedy game show based on the 1977–1979 Australian game show Blankety Blanks. The British version ran from 18 January 1979 to 12 March 1990 on BBC One, hosted first by Terry Wogan and later by Les Dawson. Regular members of the celebrity panel on this version included Kenny Everett, Lorraine Chase, Gareth Hunt, Gary Davies, and Cheryl Baker. A revival fronted by Lily Savage was produced by the BBC from 26 December 1997 to 28 December 1999, followed by ITV from 7 January 2001 to 10 August 2002. This version was produced by Grundy, then Thames.
Blankety Blank

The New Avengers is a British secret agent fantasy adventure television series broadcast during 1976 and 1977. It is a sequel to the 1960s series The Avengers and was developed by Albert Fennell and Brian Clemens. A joint United Kingdom-France-Canada production, the show picks up the adventures of John Steed and his team of Avengers fighting evil plots and world domination. Whereas in the original series Steed had almost always been partnered with a woman, in the new series he had two partners: Mike Gambit, a top agent, crack marksman and trained martial artist, and Purdey, a former trainee with The Royal Ballet who was an amalgam of many of the best talents from Steed's previous female partners.
The New Avengers

A British television comedy series of the 1970s and early 1980s, combining surreal sketches and situation comedy.
The Goodies

Dixon of Dock Green was a BBC television series following the activities of police officers at a fictional Metropolitan Police station in the East End of London from 1955 to 1976. Some episodes were later remade as a BBC radio series in 2005 and 2006.
Dixon of Dock Green

Hancock's Half Hour is a BBC television comedy series of the 1950s and 60s written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The series starred Tony Hancock with Sid James. The final series, renamed simply Hancock, starred Hancock alone. Comedian Tony Hancock starred in the show, playing an exaggerated and much poorer version of his own character and lifestyle, Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock, a down-at-heel comedian living at the dilapidated 23 Railway Cuttings in East Cheam. The series was influential in the development of the situation comedy, with its move away from radio variety towards a focus on character development.
Hancock's Half Hour

Classic sitcom starring Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques as brother and sister twins who have to tackle the trials and tribulations of suburban life.
Sykes

Sketch comedy show starring Kenny Everett.
The Kenny Everett Television Show

"Fall of Eagles" is a 13-part British television drama aired by the BBC in 1974. The series portrays historical events from 1848 to 1918, dealing with the collapse of the ruling dynasties of Austria-Hungary (the Habsburgs), Germany (the Hohenzollerns) and Russia (the Romanovs).