Margaret Matheson

An anthology of plays and novels adapted into feature length TV movies, broadcast on BBC2 from September 1977 to April 1979.

This series shows the workings of an English hospital through the eyes of its junior doctors. Naive and idealistic Dr Andrew Collins (Andrew Lancel), soon realises he still has much to learn. His boss, Dr Claire Maitland (Helen Baxendale) on the other hand, has seen it all. She is a competent doctor, with a cynical view, and is ready to work the system when needed, but she and Collins work well together as she guides him through the many minefields of working in the NHS.

Tales Out of School is a British anthology of television plays by David Leland: Birth of a Nation, Flying Into the Wind, R.H.I.N.O.: Really Here in Name Only, and Made in Britain.

January 1978. After their success in England, the punk rock band Sex Pistols venture out on their tour of the southern United States. Temperamental bassist Sid Vicious is forced by his band mates to travel without his troubled girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, who will meet him in New York. When the band breaks up and Sid begins his solo career in a hostile city, the turbulent couple definitely falls into the depths of drug addiction.

The story of a no-holds-barred, go-getting property dealer played by celebrated comedian Mel Smith, who has the view that everyone has a price though the price may not always be money.

James and his three closest lifelong friends go on an ill-advised trip to the stunning coastal area of Barafundle Bay in West Wales. What follows is a touching and comical adventure dealing with friendship, heroism and love.

After being abandoned by their Nazi parents at the end of World War II, five German siblings embark on a harrowing journey across their war-torn country. Led by the eldest, 14 year-old Lore, the children are forced to confront their parents’ actions and the reality of a new world.

Summer heats up in rural Louisiana beside Eve’s Bayou, 1962, as the Batiste family tries to survive the secrets they’ve kept and the betrayals they’ve endured.

Based on the much-loved series of books by Mairi Hedderwick, Katie Morag is a small red-headed girl who lives with her family on the remote and beautiful fictional Scottish island of Struay. Although she lives in a fairly unique setting, her adventures are full of experiences and feelings that all children can recognize and identify with. Her stories are full of jealousy, bravery and rivalry – surrounded by an annoying little brother, busy shopkeeper parents, a perfectly perfect best friend and a couple of grandmothers who between them know everything about everything. The stories celebrate the intrinsic sense of community, the preciousness of the environment and the universal tensions and joys of family life. Katie Morag is a feisty character who has been known to get herself into scrapes but who generally emerges from them (usually with some assistance from one or other of her Grandmothers) in a funny and endearing way.

After being sent to a detention centre, a teenage skinhead clashes with the social workers who want to conform him to the status quo.

Abandoned by her mother when she was a child, Shell has stayed to take care of her dying father but now feels trapped within the beautiful but desolate landscape that surrounds her. With only her routine of running the decaying petrol station, taking care of her father, and spending afternoons in her bedroom with a local mechanic, life is passing Shell by with every passing truck that rattles her walls. One day a salesman stops to re-fuel and offers Shell a taste of the outside world that takes her closer than ever to the edge of the road and her desire to escape.

In 1970s Britain, 18-year old Dean feels hampered by his working-class background and his family. In order to make something of himself, he assumes another identity and manages to enter high society. Uses a unique projection technique that displays three side-by-side frames of nearly simultaneous action, giving the impression of simultaneous events, rather than a multi-camera recording. This innovative "three-camera" or triple-image effect was an "almost innovation" for the time, offering a novel cinematic experience alongside the film's compelling story and strong direction.

A hard and shocking story of life in a British borstal for young offenders.

A multi-part documentary about Alan Clarke, featuring interviews with various actors, writers and producers.

Struggling with her grief, Anglican priest Rebecca Ashton tries to replace her deceased daughter with another girl.

A feisty young woman returns to Glasgow to run her deceased father's curry house.

An isolated, overweight girl with a penchant for shoplifting, gets pushed from pillar to post as the authorities struggle to know what to do with her.

Based on James Herriot's books about life as a 1930s veterinarian in Yorkshire, John Alderson plays the kindly doctor who ministers to animals in this enjoyable family film. Sequel to the 1975 film All Creatures Great and Small.

A new teacher at a highly problematic comprehensive school feels that corporal punishment may just be inflaming the problems, and so begins to campaign against it.

A small town shopkeeper is conned into standing for an extreme right-wing party at a by-election, and later discovers that it's financed by the corporation that has dispossessed him of his business.