The action takes place in 1984, in London, the chief city of 'Airstrip One' (formerly called Great Britain), now a Province of the State of Oceania.
Groundbreaking docudrama exploring the experiences of the then 75,000 West Indians who had newly settled in Britain, and the disparity they found between the mythical country and the real one.
The BBC's triumphant 1961 adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's romantic masterpiece starring Sean Connery and Claire Bloom. When the beautiful young aristocrat Anna Karenina (Claire Bloom) meets the dashing Count Vronsky (Sean Connery) at a Moscow railway station, their first encounter is overshadowed by misfortune. Trapped in a loveless, arranged marriage with the cold Alexei Karenina, Anna tries her best to resist the passionate advances of Vronsky. Eventually succumbing to his allure, Anna grows to be his mistress. Her actions cause outrage in St Petersburg society and her husband not only refuses her the dignity of a divorce but also prevents her from seeing her beloved son unless she agrees to leave Vronsky forever. Shunned, heartbroken and trapped by the very love she'd always sought, Anna's actions become ever more desperate. Anna Karenina is a classic revision adapted by Donald Bull and directed by Rudolph Cartier, who sweeps the film to a shocking conclusion.
Claire Bloom introduces a rare screening of the BBC’s 1961 adaptation of Anna Karenina, in which she delivers one of her own personal favourite performances, playing Tolstoy’s tragic heroine. Claire recalls the challenges involved in bringing 'the world’s greatest novel' to the small screen, assesses how successfully the drama captured Anna’s tale and shares her memories of acting opposite a relatively unknown co-star called Sean Connery, who was cast as Anna’s charismatic lover, Vronsky, not long before James Bond turned him into an international superstar.
A television personality, David Mann, interviews a politician.
1964 production of Shakespeare's famous play. Filmed in Elsinore, Denmark.
In 1964, a young Steven Berkoff was cast in one of his earliest screen roles, as a junior player in Hamlet in Elsinore, a BBC co-production with Danish television. Shot in Denmark by director Philip Saville, it starred Christopher Plummer as Hamlet and Michael Caine, in his only Shakespeare role, as Horatio. Here, Berkoff shares his memories of the production and how he got involved, gives his verdict on how the film stands up today, and describes - as only he can - the excitement and inspiration he felt from watching Plummer and Caine at work.
Adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Starring Ann-Marie Mallik, Michael Redgrave and Peter Sellers. Directed by Jonathan Miller.
Cathy Come Home is a 1966 BBC television play by about homelessness. An industry poll rated it as the best British television drama ever made. Filmed in a gritty, realistic drama documentary style, it was first broadcast on November 16, 1966 on BBC1. The play tells the story of a young couple, Cathy (played by Carol White) and Reg (Ray Brooks).Initially their relationship flourishes and they have a child and move into a modern home. When Reg is injured and loses his job, they are evicted by bailiffs, and they face a life of poverty and unemployment, illegally squatting in empty houses and staying in shelters. Finally, Cathy has her children taken away by social services.
After the bloodshed of civil war, the White Rose and the Red Rose have been united and there has been peace in England for fourteen years. But however strong the King may seem, many still plot to take away his crown. And in the Tower is a prisoner who could well claim to be the rightful King of England
The 1969 Edinburgh Festival production recorded at the Piccadilly Theatre, London.
Adaptation of MR James's ghost story about an ambitious cleric who decides to advance his career by murdering his archdeacon. Soon he is stalked by creatures that seem to spring from the very fabric of his church.
First transmitted in 1971, Daphne du Maurier, author of Rebecca and Jamaica Inn, talks to writer Wilfred De'Ath about her life from her Cornish clifftop home. In her first television interview, the cameras follow du Maurier as she walks through her house and its grounds, recalling key events from her life and revealing memorabilia from her famous theatrical family. She also reflects on the inspirations and influences that shaped her writing and shares archived manuscripts of some of her famous works.
A team of research scientists moves into an old house and uses its scientific equipment to try and record and analyse the strange phenomena that seem to affect a particular room in the building. Television drama about a team of scientists eager to discover a new recording medium who take over a brooding, Gothic mansion recently bought and renovated by their employers, Ryan Electrics. On moving in, they find that one vital room remains unfinished, as the builders refuse to work there because of strange noises and feelings of acute unease.
Aristocratic Victorian investigator deals with a supernatural mystery, travelling from place to place in his personal railway train.
An archaeologist finds a long-lost crown believed to protect the country from invasion. MR James's classic ghost story.
Orphaned Stephen goes to live with his uncle Abney and finds himself haunted by the ghosts of two children. Classic ghost story by MR James, adapted by Robin Chapman.
MR James's detective story cum supernatural tale about a 19th-century historian who, along with his protégé, finds a clue to the whereabouts of hidden treasure in an old stained-glass window, only to find it protected by an ancient guardian.
While Sherlock Holmes is away on holiday, Watson journeys to Darkwater Hall in the Cotswolds to protect a woman's husband from harm.
Drama adapted from Jerome K Jerome's classic tale by Tom Stoppard. Overworked and in need of a rest, three men and a dog set out on an epic voyage of mishap up the Thames.
Adaptation of MR James's classic ghost story. A 17th-century squire is haunted by a curse his great uncle brought upon the household.
The filmed play is set during the Blitz. Loosely based on Rosenthal's personal experiences, it centres on the lives of two Jewish boys, Neville and Danny, who are evacuated from Manchester to Blackpool
Charles Dickens's ghost story in which a lonely signalman is haunted by a hooded figure who seems to warn of danger.
Early in 1939 Sir Robert Hunter takes aim at Adolf Hitler with a high powered rifle, but the shot misses its mark. Captured and tortured by the Gestapo and left for dead, Sir Robert makes his way back to England where he discovers the Gestapo has followed him. Knowing that his government would turn him over to German authorities, Sir Robert goes underground in his battle with his pursuers.
Based on the story by Hans Christian Andersen. Featuring Linda Slater, Joshua Le Touzel, Mercedes Burleigh and Hilda Barry. The Devil makes a mirror -and it shatters. This is the story of what happens to little Kay when one of the pieces finds its way through his eye and into his heart. The powers of evil are unleashed ... the Summer Garden Witch, the Robbers in the Wood, but above all the mysterious elemental figure of The Snow Queen. Only Kay's friend, Gerda, helped by birds and animals has the power to overcome them all.
Television adaptation of the story by Charles Dickens.
A family move into a remote country house on the edge of a stone circle. When they decide to have a stone in their garden moved, they unwittingly unleash an ancient curse.
Science-fiction musical, telling of the journey of a group of people leaving Earth to find a new world on which to live.
The vampire count leaves his Transylvanian home to wreak havoc across the world.
While on a Pyrenees vacation in 1922, upright English gentleman Richard Chandos (Malcolm McDowell, A Clockwork Orange, Heroes) encounters the villainous Vanity Fair (Eileen Atkins, Cold Mountain). Mistress of the turreted Chateau Jezreel and leader of a motley band of criminals, she will inherit millions if she can force her stepdaughter to marry. Pitting his wits against this formidable adversary, Chandos determines to rescue the beautiful young woman. But Vanity Fair keeps one step ahead of him, a trick forever up her sleeve and murder in her heart.
Classic chilling tale. In an attempt to come to terms with his recent divorce, a man seeks solace in a countryside retreat, but does not find the comfort he was looking for.
The poet Dylan Thomas died in New York 25 years ago today at the age of 39. Alcohol and a doctor's injection of morphia were the immediate causes. Ever since his childhood in Wales, his life was a spectacular attempt - comic at times, serious below the surface, tragic at the finish -to survive on his own bizarre terms as the poet to end all poets. By the 1950s, that first postwar decade of uneasiness and change, Dylan Thomas was a legend to his admirers, but a burnt-out case to himself. As he tours America to read poetry to rapt audiences, his past crowds in on him, the fractured memories of a man at the end of his tether.
The complicated relationship between Winston Churchill and the leaders of the British army during World War II.
Captain Torvald is a retired sea captain living alone in a remote cottage in Orkney. He is befriended by Andrina, who over and over again asks for a love story from his past. which he refuses to tell her. When he finally does, the consequences are by no means what he expected.
An English diplomat's wife (Penelope Keith) has a dead man in her lounge, and it's murder.
Bertolt Brecht's first play, set in pre-World War I Germany, depicts scenes from the life of an amoral poet-singer ruthlessly devoted to his own talent. He loves nature and the universe passionately but is coldly indifferent to all ordinary human feeling, with devastating results.
Zoë Wanamaker remembers the 1982 BBC adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s first play, Baal, in which she appeared with David Bowie.
Britain is gripped by the "mad death", an outbreak of rabies, after an afflicted pet cat is illegally smuggled into the country.
Chronicles the effects of a nuclear war on Britain, focusing on two families living in Sheffield. The story follows events from the escalation of tensions between NATO and Warsaw Pact countries through the war itself to the eventual collapse society. This is interspaced with archived civil preparedness broadcasts and documentary-like commentary on likely effects of the radiation and fallout.
It is a warm Saturday afternoon in Cookham. The Bliss family is settling down to a quiet weekend. It is a weekend which turns out to be anything but quiet.
Sam, a quiet West Indian working as a London Transport ticket collector, strikes up an unlikely, but warm, friendship with Joe, an old man who has a room in the same house.
A drama set in the 1950s, portraying the life of C. S. Lewis from the time he met his wife, Joy Davidman, to her death. It was subsequently adapted by the writer, William, Nicholson as a stage play and then as a cinema film.
by PETER ANSORGE starring Leonard Rossiter, Mary Morris and Lesley Manville 'What Hitler did to Czechoslovakia, Max von Konigsberg does to his best friends.' They're cleaning up Soho but someone seems to have forgotten the publisher of Silver Screen - down there in the bunker, surrounded by enemies, plotting a last stand to save his sleazy film magazine. But then the threatening letters arrive - and Max's new editor turns out to be both beautiful and dangerous. Music composed and conducted by ILONA SEKACZ Lighting JOHN SUMMERS Script editor DUSTY HUGHES Designer DAVID HITCHCOCK Producer MICHAEL WEARING Director STUART BURGE
Forced to retire from an English public school, a disliked professor must confront his utter failures as a teacher, a husband, and a man.
A father is intent on finding the truth as to how his soldier son met his death while serving in Northern Ireland.
August 1936, and the BBC prepares for the world's first high-definition television service. However, behind the scenes at Alexandra Palace complications arise in more ways than one.
Comedy road movie scripted by Stan Hey. John Carloff is an American who returns to Liverpool where he spent some time as a youth. There he meets Ritchie Lee w ho owns a mobile disco in the form of an ice cream van. Sharing a love of Motown the two team up.
The story revolves around Richard, a seventeen year-old only son, and his rebellious holiday romances in Southwold, Suffolk, leading to his sexual initiation by a promiscuous Dutch girl named Anna. It starred Edward Rawle-Hicks as Richard, Joan Sanderson as the overbearing landlady of a guest house, John Nettleton as Richard's father, Pippa Hinchley as Anna, and Janine Duvitski.
Harry, an Australian soldier, returns to the cold, disused house he ran away from when he was 12. He has heard the house is haunted, perhaps by his mother.
The story of Donald Campbell's last speed record attempt at Lake Coniston, 1967/8. Featuring Sir Anthony Hopkins as Donald Campbell and Angela Richards as Tonia Bern-Campbell.
A story in rhythm. She was strong, glamorous and powerful. Tony and Toyah tell the story of the greatest warrior queen who ever lived.
When small-time accountant Lionel Ellerman takes on what should be just a routine investigation, he uncovers illegal offshore holding companies, leading to a large firm of City accountants and, in time, to the Mafia. Lionel is abducted to Naples, where d'Amico (Ivano Staccioli), the boss of bosses, suspects him of planning to sabotage the Mafia's attempts to infiltrate the City of London. It all looks very black for Lionel, but by sorting out the boss's books, he might just get himself a second chance.
Bex is an estate agent, with an apparently respectable family life. But he is also a football hooligan, determined to lead a national 'firm' in an assault on Europe. A tough and unflinching look at disaffected youth in 1980s Britain
A retired man decides to fulfil his lifetime ambition and walk the length of Britain from Land's End to John O'Groats. The film centres around the "discovery" of himself, the relationship with his wife (who is unsure of his reasons) and the colourful, and not so colourful, people he meets on his travels.
The history of one of the key commanders of WW2, the head of RAF Bomber Command, Air Chief Marshall Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris.
It is Christmas Eve. Bruce and Renee speak to us from the appropriate corners of their home and we discover that, after 23 years of marriage, they know absolutely nothing about each other.
Bernard Bottle, a mild mannered art buyer, is fired by his greedy boss, abandoned by his girlfriend and discovers a genie in an old bottle. The genie immediately embraces the modern world and helps Bernard on the side.
The BBC gives over a whole evening to an 'investigation into the supernatural'. Four respected presenters and a camera crew attempt to discover the truth behind 'The most haunted house in Britain', expecting a light-hearted scare or two and probably the uncovering of a hoax. They think they are in control of the situation. They think they are safe. The viewers settle down and decide to watch 'for a laugh'. Ninety minutes later the BBC, and the country, was changed, and the consequences are still felt today.
Based on a true story. In 1940, Britain's gold reserves were transferred for safety to Liverpool because of the threat of a German invasion. The top-secret operation was known only to a handful of security men and senior bank officials... and a group of Liverpool dockers who handle the move. Billy Mac, the dockers' leader, hatches an ingenious plan to steal some of the gold bars from under the noses of the guards.
Charlie Dyce has just been released from a juvenile detention centre. He'd been placed there after having broken into his school, not to steal anything but just to sit there in silence. Once released he leaves his home in Scotland and travels to London. He was not prepared for London's harsh reality and aggression. After starting work at a café, he meets Myra, a teenage prostitute, and Myra's pimp, Frank. Frank disapproves of Charlie and Myra's developing relationship, mostly because he's in love with Myra himself. He finds out that Myra is pregnant and reaps a cruel revenge on the couple. Charlie and Myra split up when Myra is forced into hospital, and Charlie reverts to a life of humiliation and prostitution.
Lost Hearts is a classic Ghost Story for Christmas by MR James, adapted by Robin Chapman. Orphaned Stephen goes to live with his uncle Abney and finds himself haunted by the ghosts of two children.
Writer/director Guy Jenkin successfully synthesizes a variety of English social, political and cultural themes in this 1996 British TV film. James Fleet (Vicar of Dibley) plays a smooth-talking Tory Prime Minister who eerily resembles Tony Blair — Fleet’s NHS TV ad is particularly well done. Richard Wilson (One Foot in the Grave) is excellent as the cranky family patriarch and disaffected ex-Lord Chancellor who has the ability to topple a large part of the English Establishment. Prunella Scales (Fawlty Towers) plays the Government’s Minister of Fisheries who is sent to make Wilson’s character, Bill Webster, see some sense. Angus Deayton plays a delightful cameo as the head of MI5, swinging golf balls at Japanese tourists on the Thames. Martin Clunes (Men Behaving Badly) briefly appears as the Minister of Defence and there’s a surprise appearance by old Labour stalwart Dennis Healey. Stephen Moyer plays a reporter who is romancing the girl, but has ulterior motives.It has a fantastic setting as well (around Fowey in Cornwall).
Comedy drama about the trials and tribulations of three sets of parents as they finally realise that their children have grown up and reluctantly they have to let them enroll at Cambridge University.
A biography of the English mathematician Alan Turing, who was one of the inventors of the digital computer and one of the key figures in the breaking of the Enigma code, used by the Germans to send secret orders to their U-boats in World War II. Turing was also a homosexual in Britain at a time when this was illegal, besides being a security risk.
1963: Journalist Mike Gabbert and football reporter Peter Campling set out to uncover the truth about match-fixing in English football.
Drama, marking the centenary of the birth of Welsh politician Aneurin Bevan, founder of the National Health Service. In the last months of his life, Aneurin Bevan reflects upon the most vivid of his memories.
A father and son become caught up in the conflict when British dockworkers refuse to work overtime for no pay, resulting in the firing of 500 employees and a two-year stand-off.
Peter O'Toole stars as the complex, funny, charming, and hard-drinking Jeffrey Bernard in this live performance at the Old Vic Theatre in London.
Hawkins was an original film for BBC Television about a man who lives a double life, as a Nietzschean Philosophy Lecturer and as a Detective who is fascinated by lowlife and criminal mentalities.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson have to confront the forces of evil on Dartmoor when they are called in to investigate the death of Sir Charles Baskerville. With Richard Roxburgh.
In the 1930s, Winston Churchill was out of government, sitting as a backbench MP. His was a lonely voice warning about German rearmament and the coming of a second major war on the Continent. He lost a great deal of money in the Wall Street crash and now writes - a biography of his ancestor the Duke of Marlborough, a newspaper column - and it's his only means of support. He has a close-knit group of supporter not the least of whom is his wife Clemmie, who he loves very dearly. As he continues to press his concerns about Hitler, he is cast as a warmonger and frequently shouted down in Parliament by members on both sides of the aisle. With reliable information from a Foreign Office civil servant who feels the government is not accurately reporting on rearmament, he provides accurate figures to Parliament and the tide begins to turn. With the onset of World War II in September 1939, Churchill returns to government as First Lord of Admiralty.
A comic drama about the weird and wonderful world of Salvador Dali and the Surrealists. This film charts Dali's meteoric rise from obscurity to the world's most publicised artist.
Ian Curteis's controversial dramatisation of how the Thatcher government went to war against Argentina to regain the Falkland Islands. It charts the backroom manoeuvrings between Thatcher's government and the military, between the British and the Americans, and the Americans and the Argentineans that led to a breakdown in diplomacy, to war and to Britain's eventual victory.
In 1941, Werner Heisenberg, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist leading the Nazi's atomic bomb research team, visits his old mentor and friend, Niels Bohr, perhaps with a view to finding out how far the other side's research has gone.
A serial killer stalking the teen-aged daughters of the aristocracy brings Sherlock Holmes out of his drug-filled semi-retirement.
Centres on the life of a fictional Deputy Prime Minister of the British parliament, Bob Galway. Surrounded by inefficiency and corruption in the cut-throat world of Westminster, Galway strives to keep his work and his personal life in order while staying one step ahead of his adversaries, in particular the conniving Steven Sharples.
This powerful drama is about a group of children growing up in a residential care home in south London. Rather than exploring the familiar territory of abuse by wicked care workers, this film looks at some of the more positive aspects of life in an institution. The story unfolds over two different time periods. In 1990, Bella, Martin and Lee are living in Rylands children’s home. Martin and Lee are the best of friends, but both are in love with Bella. Friendship turns to rivalry, and after a series of incidents, Lee is moved to another home and Bella is heartbroken. Thirteen years later and the home is closing down. A reunion is organised for past residents. Bella and Martin turn up but Lee is absent. The film cuts between the different time periods as the audience gradually discovers Lee’s story. In essence this is a love story, played out against a background of life in a care home. Funny, dramatic and shocking, ultimately the film is a positive and uplifting piece of work about human resilience.
Drama relating the remarkable story of Stephen Hawking's early years as a PhD student at Cambridge, following his search for the 'beginning of time' and his courageous struggle against life-threatening illness.
Kwame Kwei-Armah's play is set in a shabby West Indian cafe on Hackney's murder mile. In an area controlled by Yardies, one man's life is a daily battle to maintain an honest living, provide a stable life for his troublesome son, and make a platform to finally step up to his woman.
Story of Lawrence, a civil servant working for the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Ken Stott), who falls in love with Gina, a young woman whom he meets by chance in a London café. Lawrence takes Gina to a G8 summit in Reykjavík, Iceland, where she confronts the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (Corin Redgrave) over the issue of third world debt and poverty in Africa, much to Lawrence's embarrassment and the anger of his employers. However, he realises that she is right and tries to help persuade the Chancellor and others at the summit to do something about the issues concerned.
Adaptation of the classic ghost story by M R James in which Fanshawe is sent to authenticate the collection of his boss's old school friend and finds nothing much of interest except an 'odd couple' squire and servant, a pair of binoculars and a gruesome local legend.
Beautiful and haunting adaptation of MR James's ghost story, starring Edward Petherbridge as a 17th-century squire haunted by a curse that his great uncle brought upon the household.
The Quatermass Experiment is a 2005 live television film remake of the 1953 television series of the same name by Nigel Kneale.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Henshall) is the author of the famous Sherlock Holmes books. This movie shows us how Doyle came up with the idea of the 'super detective' and how he uses the techniques of his mentor Joseph Bell (Cox) in his books. After his father dies, Doyle has to take care of his wife Reeves, who is very ill. This becomes tricky when he falls in love.
In Victorian England, a young woman searches for a priceless ruby and uncovers even greater mysteries.
The Romanian count known as Dracula is summoned to London by Arthur Holmwood. A young Lord who is one the verge of being wed. Unknown to Arthur's future bride Lucy. Her future husband is infected with syphilis and therefore cannot consummate their future marriage. Arthur has laid his hope's on being cured on the enigmatic count. As it is said that Dracula has extraordinary powers. But these supernatural powers have sinister origins. As the Count is a Vampire. Soon Arthur realizes his serious mistake as all hell breaks loose and the Count infects others with his ancient curse. But Dracula has not counted on the young Lord acquiring the assistance of the Dutch Vampire expert. Prof. Abraham Van Helsing.
Following a scientific experiment, a man wakes up in a parallel universe and begins living a life similar to, but different from, his own.
In the Yorkshire Dales, a group of scientists receive radio signals from the Andromeda Galaxy. Once decoded, these give them a computer program that can design a human clone. One physicist decides it is a Trojan horse and decides to destroy the computer.
Finicky,hygiene-obsessed comic actor Kenneth Williams,living in a flat block with mutually adoring mother Louie,looks back on his life. At loggerheads with his homophobic father over his career Kenny fulfils his dream of becoming a classical actor but is spun off into comedy,allowing full rein to his crowd-pleasing array of funny voices. A compulsive,often selfish performer off-screen,he becomes a national treasure following the radio show 'Round the Horne' and the successful series of film farces 'Carry On'... though he is disdainful of the latter,given that he once trod the boards with Orson Welles. Privately he is a tormented closet gay,sickened by his sexuality,unlike his friend,promiscuous playwright Joe Orton,and desperately asks his 'Carry On' co-star Joan Sims for a show marriage,which she refuses. Ultimately Louie's death,his own hypochondria,a down turn in work and a sense of his own isolation will result in a fatal encounter with a bottle of tablets in 1988.
Drama telling the story of the father of science fiction, HG Wells, and his messianic ambition to create a World State and avert mankind's headlong course towards self-destruction.
Drama in which househusband Raymond is desperate to raise enough money to buy his family home before he's evicted by ex-wife Jenny. The accidental discovery that cheery neighbour Lydia is secretly working as a prostitute provides an unexpected solution. With his posh suburban house transformed into a brothel, Raymond thinks he's found a glittering new career.
A political drama about the last days of Harold Wilson's Labour government in the 1970s
Dramatisation based on an MR James short story and in the tradition of the BBC's ghost stories for Christmas. Oxbridge academic Anderson settles into The Golden Lion Hotel in a small cathedral city to research its ecclesiastical history, when the subject of his research begins to disturb his slumber.
Based on the Neil Brand's critically acclaimed play of the same name, this BBC drama tells the story of the world's greatest comedy double act, Laurel and Hardy how they met, worked together and remained close friends. Jim Norton (Father Ted) stars as the Stan Laurel, who somewhat reluctantly goes to visit his friend and long-time collaborator Oliver Hardy (Trevor Cooper) on his death bed in 1957. The story reflects the lives and work of Stan and Ollie in a series of flashbacks throughout their lives, and portrays the conversation between the two men as they bid their final farewells after a lifetime of sharing the world's spotlight. Making over 100 films together Laurel & Hardy remain one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of all time. This fascinating drama from the BBC is a must for all their fans.
Franco’s Spain, 1944. Bookish young Ofelia, stuck in her sadistic new stepfather’s army outpost, where her ailing mother is to give birth, gets drawn to a fantastical alternate world – one just as disturbing and violent as the reality around her. In Spanish with English subtitles.
It is 1958, and the final debutante 'season'. Mary, a brilliant young writer and critic is befriended by Geraldine, a seemingly friendly young debutante of a similar age but a very different background. What starts as a friendship becomes something altogether more unsettling.
Dramatisation of Fanny Cradock's career, scripted by Brian Fillis based on interviews with her friends and family, reveals the private vulnerability behind her tart public persona. Not only a moving and insightful portrait of this enduring culinary icon, it's a black comedy about family, food and heavily-applied foundation.
oad, Mole, Rat and Badger come to life in a thrilling adventure, featuring an all-star cast as you've never seen them before. Shy Mole (Lee Ingleby) leaves his hole one spring and is entranced by the world he discovers along the riverbank. He makes friends with the water-loving Rat, and soon encounters Mr Toad (Matt Lucas), an enthusiastic and mischievous lover of all new things, especially fast cars. But Toad's wild ways and his love of motoring get him into serious trouble. With the help of wise old Badger (Bob Hoskins), can the woodland friends come to his aid? Will Toad ever change his ways?
Drama based on three stories of Saki, 'The Storyteller', 'The Lumber Room' and 'Sredni Vashtar', each one telling a cruelly funny tale of children using their imagination to overcome their repressed upbringing.
This traumatic yet sometimes humorous one-off drama explores the experience of brain damage and its impact. Alan (David Tennant) and Tricia (Sarah Parish) Hamilton are blissfully happy. He's on top of his game and head of a building firm. She's a beautician and mother to their two children. One day their perfect life is torn apart when Alan steps in front of a passing car. The resulting accident leaves him in a deep coma. Tricia is delighted when he awakes - only to discover the man she loved has disappeared. Tricia longs to find her husband but fears she may have lost him forever.
Black comedy drama that looks beneath the veneer of seemingly idyllic village life. Having made a fortune in the City, successful Roger and his wife, the Shrew, celebrate Roger's 43rd birthday with a dinner party for two other couples at their lavish home. While their old friends Jim and Juliet desperately aspire to a more prosperous lifestyle, village newcomers Leo and Jackie have their eyes opened to the hierarchy of the suburbs. As the evening progresses, greed and envy come to the fore.
Fifty years ago, a Home Office committee chaired by Wolfenden, then vice-chancellor of Reading University, recommended the decriminalization of homosexuality. But behind the scenes of what was to become a turning point in British social history, there was an even more extraordinary story. Jack's son Jeremy, then a brilliant undergraduate at Oxford, was himself gay, something his father could not bring himself to acknowledge.
A writer takes a backwards look at the life of his unlikely friend Stuart, a homeless alcoholic who experienced a traumatic event in his childhood.
Philippa Lowthorpe's fast-paced and powerful drama set in the high-octane world of the City of London. Jess, a high-flying banker, is sidelined in her job by her Machiavellian boss when she returns to work after having a baby. She decides to sue the bank and ends up risking everything, including her marriage. The drama is inspired by in-depth interviews with women who have fought major cases in the City.
Maxwell tells the story of the final stage of the former Mirror Group Newspapers owner's life. His empire was collapsing, his marriage was in difficulties and his weight had ballooned. But that was nothing compared with the furore that occurred after his death, when it was discovered that he had taken money from the Mirror Group Newspapers pension fund to keep his companies afloat.
Drama about the relationship between two young brothers. David is a typical 15-year-old with a colourful imagination. Ben is slightly older and has Down's syndrome. When their family decide to move for the sake of Ben's education, David's growing resentment of his brother takes a macabre turn. Written by Mark Haddon, author of the best-selling novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Star-studded adaptation of Shakespeare's play. England's King Henry V, insulted by the Dauphin of France, leads his army into battle across the Channel. Along the way, the young monarch must struggle with the sinking morale of his troops and his own inner doubts. The war culminates at the bloody Battle of Agincourt.
Drama charting the story of Daphne du Maurier's unrequited passion and showing how her inner struggles with her sexuality informed the writing of her compelling stories. It focuses on the most emotionally fraught yet creatively fertile period of the author's life: the years between the Rebecca trial and the writing of her short story The Birds.
Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the popular romance publishing phenomenon Mills and Boon, a colourful and camp drama which charts the witty and moving stories of three very different women affected by the brand's success: co-founder Charles Boon's wife Mary, daydreaming 1970s writer Janet and modern day literature lecturer Kirstie.
Drama starring David Tennant and Andy Serkis. In the spring of 1914, with Europe on the brink of war, no one had heard of an obscure German physicist called Albert Einstein. A British astronomer, Arthur Eddington, realised that Einstein's theories could unlock whole new ways of thinking about time and space. Despite the danger of being labelled traitors, the two men began a unique correspondence. An eclipse in Africa provided an opportunity to prove Einstein's theories to the world. Eddington, an unlikely hero, set out on a journey that would change people's perceptions of the universe forever.
Starring Ken Stott (Rebus, Messiah) as troubled comic genius Tony Hancock and Maxine Peake (Cinderella, Shameless) as Joan, Hancock and Joan charts the final year of his life. Only months after her marriage to Dad's Army favourite John Le Mesurier, Joan Le Mesurier fell in love with his best friend, the godfather of British sitcom, Tony Hancock.
Moving family drama, based on Jacqueline Wilson's novel, following the story of a teenager who sets out to discover her origins and, along the way, discovers where she belongs. Having been left in a dustbin as a baby, the 14-year-old walks out on her foster mother following a row and determines to discover her past. As her foster mother searches frantically for her, their journeys take them on a course that will change their lives forever. While young April goes back into the world foster care, remembering and revisiting the people who shaped her life, her foster mother tries to understand where she went wrong and finally goes in search of the dustbin where the baby was found 14 years before.
Drama based on John Buchan's classic novel, set in the lead-up to the First World War. When an undercover British spy is killed in his flat, a man finds himself accused of murder and caught up in a deadly conspiracy which threatens not only his life, but the safety of the nation. Pursued by spies and the police, he reluctantly joins forces with a feisty suffragette as he attempts to uncover the truth and save Great Britain from invasion.
Focussing on the young Margaret Thatcher's steely determination to get selected to a "winnable" Tory seat in the Fifties, successful novelist and TV newcomer, Tony Saint's script imagines what might have gone on behind the scenes during her ten–year struggle as she was rejected by a succession of five home counties Tory selection committees until – against considerable local opposition – she was finally selected for the seat that she became identified with for the rest of her political career.
Candid and poignant drama about the comedian Frankie Howerd and the relationship with his long-term, long-suffering manager, and gay partner, Dennis Heymer. Despite his overtly camp persona, Howerd kept his companionship with Heymer under wraps for 35 years, until his death in 1992. Yet through career disaster, social stigma, illegality, numerous infidelities and Howerd's own deep-seated issues about his homosexuality, their love endured.
Dramatisation of the life of Vera Brittain, a young woman who lived through the First World War, presented by Jo Brand. In 1914 Vera Brittain was young, in love and preparing to study at Oxford. She was at the heart of an intense friendship that bound five youngsters (four young men and Vera) together, full of ambition and excitement. Four years later, her life and the life of her whole generation had changed unimaginably. The war saw her companions killed. As a volunteer nurse in London and on the Front she witnessed horrors that turned her idealistic passion for a 'just war' to dust. This is the story of the First World War as seen through a woman's eyes. Through Vera's letters, memoirs and her celebrated autobiography Testament of Youth, Jo Brand retells the story of Vera's war that saw her brother Edward, her fiance Roland Leighton and their friends Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow killed, along with an army of boys recruited through their schools. What emerges is a profoundly moving portrait. The correspondence is unmatched in the depth and breadth of its perspective, showing the war as it was for the young officer in the trenches, the volunteer nurse in military hospitals at home and abroad, and the civilian population on the home front. It is unique, yet tells the experience of thousands of people in Britain at the time. Jo uses these letters, school reports, army and hospital records to trace Brittain's experiences. She visits the sites of hospitals in Camberwell and France, the home and university that served as refuge, and talks with Baroness Shirley Williams, Brittain's daughter, about the war's impact on her mother. Dramatic reconstructions reproduce key moments from the story.
Drama about the secret life of Opportunity Knocks and Double Your Money presenter Hughie Green, based on the inside story from his family, friends and peers. It tells of the destructive power of success and celebrity from Green's earliest days as a child star, and explores what family and fatherhood meant to this iconic character, who harboured an explosive secret that would rock the entertainment world after his death in 1997
Drama inspired by the life of Walter Tull who, after years in an orphanage, went on to become a professional footballer and then the first black commissioned officer to lead British troops during WW1. The action concerns Tull's turbulent passage from ordinary soldier to extraordinary officer at officer training camp, where he had to face his own demons as well as fight the prejudice that surrounded him.
In the later years of her life, as she's approaching the age of forty, the novelist Jane Austen helps her niece find a husband.
Drama telling the moving story of life behind the scenes of Steptoe and Son. Two actors find themselves trapped together on the celebrated long-running sitcom.
Debbie lives a poor lifestyle in Britain along with her spouse, and three children, two girls and a boy. The neighborhood is predominantly Islamic and there is a Mosque within a stone's throw of their residence. Foul-mouthed, she finds herself being abused by her spouse, often publicly, and ends up neglecting her children. She, as well as her spouse, are alarmed and shaken when they find out her eldest, Leah, has accepted Islam as her Faith, and when confronted, decides to move out to live with a neighbouring Muslim family. Watch what impact this action has on Debbie, the rest of her family, as well as their neighbours.
In 1963 an unknown housewife and teacher from the Midlands, Mary Whitehouse, embarked on a mission to clean up British television. Her crusade led her into battle with the man she held responsible for a tide of 'filth' - Sir Hugh Carleton-Greene, Director-General of the BBC. With Julie Walters starring as Mary Whitehouse and Hugh Bonneville as her arch enemy, this is a drama inspired by real events that brings life to the battle for Britain's morals.
History states that Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin. This drama uncovers the forgotten team involved in the development and manufacture of the drug.
Drama illuminating one doctor's pioneering efforts to protect the people of Manchester from the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic. Set against the background of the Armistice in November 1918 as millions of exhausted soldiers return home from the Great War, the film tells the little-known story of Dr James Niven, Manchester's medical health officer for thirty years, and his heroic efforts to combat a second wave of fatal influenza as it spreads across the city and the UK.
Margaret is a compelling drama about power and betrayal written by Richard Cottan (Wallander, Hancock & Joan). The extraordinary cast for this powerful production is headed by multi-BAFTA nominated actress Lindsay Duncan (Rome) as the Iron Lady. She is joined by a host of outstanding veteran actors including Ian McDiarmid (Star Wars) as Margaret's loyal husband Denis, James Fox (A Passage To India) as foreign policy adviser Charles Powell, Robert Hardy (All Creatures Great And Small) as Willie Whitelaw, Philip Jackson (Poirot) as chief press secretary Bernard Ingham, Kevin McNally (Pirates Of The Caribbean) as Kenneth Clarke and Oliver Cotton (The Commander) as Michael Heseltine. The film is an intimate portrayal of a woman on the brink of ruin; a very human story about the private Margaret behind the public persona as she loses her grip on the power she has strived so hard to achieve.
Freefall is the first drama to tackle the extraordinary financial crisis we are living through. Helmed by multiple BAFTA-winning director Dominic Savage, the film takes a startling and provocative look at the events that caused our lives to spiral out of control. With pace, edge and real emotional punch, it gives a unique insight into how we came so perilously close to the edge.
Set almost entirely in Wales, Framed tells the story of 10-year-old Dylan Hughes and his family's struggle to keep their small petrol station, which sits at the foot of a mountain in North Wales, afloat. Manod village is a rain-soaked community where hope is thin on the ground, and money even thinner. When Dylan's dad suddenly leaves home, things get even tougher for him, his sisters Minnie and Marie, baby brother Max, and his mother. Da's departure however, coincides with the secretive arrival of a convoy of men and trucks, who take residence on top of the mountain. The villagers discover that the National Gallery in London has been flooded, and the priceless paintings sent by the lorry load to Wales for safe storage in the bowels of the old slate mine inside Manod mountain (as they were back in the Second World War). In charge of this is Lester, an intelligent but uptight art curator who prefers paintings to people. That is, until a funny and pivotal misunderstanding leads him to invite Dylan to view the paintings inside the mountain. What ensues is good news for both Lester and the rather depressed town of Manod. Manod develops an interest in art and Lester develops an interest in Manod, in the form of the lovely Angharad, the local school teacher. Through the transformative power of art, Manod starts to transform itself, beginning with the service station, where Mam and the children revive the flagging fortunes of the petrol station by broadening the services they offer into catering and a coffee bar. However, despite everybody's best efforts, the petrol station faces closure when the family fail to generate enough cash to keep it going. Could an audacious art theft solve their problems?
Docudrama sequel to The Gathering Storm, charting Winston Churchill's rise to power, victory in World War II and subsequent election defeat, set against his personal relationships.
Illuminating and surprising drama telling the story of arguably the most popular children's storyteller of all, Enid Blyton. It reveals how Blyton became the writer who would capture more youthful imaginations than anyone else, following her career from ambitious, driven and as yet unpublished young woman to household name and moral guardian, while glimpsing her own childhood - a dark time, far from the carefree, happy idyll portrayed in her books. Through marriages and children, the roles of Enid the wife (to Hugh and then Kenneth) and mother are portrayed, ones she struggled to fulfil while balancing them with her extraordinary output. The film also uncovers a strong and resourceful woman; a woman who never really grew up; a woman who rewrote the endings of many chapters of her real life, sometimes with cruel and hurtful results; and a woman whose legacy has often been criticised but whose success cannot be argued with, who gave children the stories they wanted.
Singer and comedienne from Rochdale, Gracie Fields was the nation's darling. Beginning on the cusp of World War II and at the phenomenal peak of her career, this heart-breaking love story tells of Gracie's relationship with Italian-born Hollywood director, Monty Banks and its staggering repercussions.
Drama based on events in the life of ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn. At the beginning of the 1960s, Fonteyn faces retirement as a prima ballerina and a crisis in her marriage to Panamanian 'politician' Tito de Arias. When the much younger Rudolf Nureyev arrives on the scene, he transforms Margot's professional and personal life in a partnership celebrated around the world. But when Tito is shot and paralysed, the dancer must face an agonising choice about her future.
David Tennant stars in a film of the Royal Shakespeare Company's award-winning production of Shakespeare's great play. Director Gregory Doran's modern-dress production was hailed by the critics as thrilling, fast-moving and, in parts, very funny. Hamlet must decide whether to avenge his father's murder at the hands of his uncle Claudius (played by Patrick Stewart), who has married his brother's wife - Hamlet's mother, Gertrude. This visually sumptuous screen version was filmed on location with all of the original stage cast.
Drama studying the interactions between the living and the dead. A young governess, Ann, is sent to a country house to take care of two orphans, Miles and Flora. Soon after her arrival, Miles is expelled from boarding school. Although charmed by her young charge, she secretly fears there are ominous reasons behind his expulsion. With Miles back at home, the governess starts noticing ethereal figures roaming the estate's grounds. Desperate to learn more about these sinister sightings she discovers that the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of her predecessor hold grim implications for herself. As she becomes increasingly fearful that malevolent forces are stalking the children the governess is determined to save them, risking herself and her sanity in the process.
Affectionately comic drama about the British home computer boom of the early 1980s. Legendary inventor Clive Sinclair battles it out with ex-employee Chris Curry, founder of Acorn Computers, for dominance in the fledgling market. The rivalry comes to a head when the BBC announce their Computer Literacy Project, with the stated aim of putting a micro in every school in Britain. When Acorn wins the contract, Sinclair is furious, and determines to outsell the BBC Micro with his ZX Spectrum computer. Home computing arrives in Britain in a big way, but is the country big enough for both men?
Family film about three children who find a genie - Genius - on a farm in Alderley Edge. Genius takes them on a wild and unpredictable adventure to a world of magic, dragons and hidden treasure. In return, the kids introduce him to something he has never known: friendship.
The watchwords of the French Revolution were liberty, equality and fraternity. Maximilien Robespierre believed in them passionately. He was an idealist and a lover of humanity. But during the 365 days that Robespierre sat on the Committee of Public Safety, the French Republic descended into a bloodbath. 'The Terror' only came to end when Robespierre himself was devoured by the repressive machinery he'd created. This drama-documentary tells the story of the Terror and looks at how Robespierre's revolutionary idealism so quickly became an excuse for tyranny, and why a lover of liberty was so keen to use the guillotine. Simon Schama and Slavoj Zizek are among the contributors.
One-off period comedy, peeping into the lives of a south Wales family's Christmases across the 1980s, written by comedian Mark Watson and inspired by a Dylan Thomas short story. Christmas in this household may be a less than poetic affair, but it is just as eventful. So much changes across a decade in any family, and yet so much manages to remain the same.
Best: His Mother's Son is a 2009 drama television film that chronicles the life of the late footballer George Best's mother, Ann, and her battles against alcoholism that would ultimately lead to her death at the age of 54. The film was originally broadcast on BBC Two] and BBC Northern Ireland on 26 April 2009, receiving ratings of 2.74 million viewers. Best: His Mother's Son was filmed at County Antrim and Belfast in Northern Ireland, the country where George Best was born in 1946. It starred Tom Payne as the title character, with Michelle Fairley playing his mother Ann and Lorcan Cranitch appearing as his father Dickie. Des McAleer was also featured as the Manchester United manager during George's playing career, Matt Busby.
Julie Walters stars in a one-off drama inspired by the true story of Dr Anne Turner, who in 2006 took her own life in a Zurich clinic having developed an incurable degenerative disease. Having recently witnessed the death of her husband from a neurological disease, Anne Turner is diagnosed with a near-identical illness and determines to end her life once her condition has reached a critical point. As her health deteriorates, Anne's son and two daughters struggle to reach a consensus over their mother's intentions and while they search for alternative options, silent recriminations and stubborn practicality threaten to tear the family apart. With her family at logger heads, Anne must also face the fury of her best friend, whose opposing views bring them into direct conflict. Written by award-winning writer Frank McGuinness.
Drama charting how Winnie Mandela (Sophie Okonedo) went from innocent country girl to an apartheid fighter, and from a wife to a revolutionary.
Bold and passionate drama telling the story of Anne Lister, 1791-1840, a Yorkshire landowner, industrialist, traveller and diarist. She was a lesbian, who, despite needing to keep her orientation secret from society at large, in private defied the conventions of her times by living with her female lover.
It is 1981, Charles loves Di, Toxteth is rioting and Margaret Thatcher is trying to reform the economy. In a small Welsh village beginning to feel the negative effects of Thatcher's free market policies, the royal wedding of Charles and Di gives the community and the Caddock family a chance to forget their problems and unite. Idealistic 15-year-old Tammy Caddock has organised a royal wedding street party but during the course of the celebrations, events unfold which change the lives of her family and the community forever.
Film version of director Rupert Goold's highly-acclaimed production of Macbeth, originally staged by Chichester Festival Theatre and later a sell-out hit in the West End and on Broadway. Shot on location in the mysterious underground world of Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire, the film is set in an undefined and threatening central European world. Immediate and visceral, this is a contemporary presentation of Shakespeare's intense, claustrophobic and bloody drama.
Adaptation of chef Nigel Slater's autobiography, providing a nostalgic trip through everything edible in 1960s Britain. After tragedy strikes food-obsessed young Nigel and his family, he is horrified when his father announces they are moving to the country. Taking solace in domestic science classes at the new school, Nigel's cooking soon becomes the key weapon in the battle for his father's affections. And when Nigel lands a job in the kitchen of his local pub, his eyes are opened to a world of opportunity.
6.53pm. December 9th 1960. Granada Studios, Manchester. With minutes to go until the live transmission of Episode One, creator Tony Warren is being sick in the toilets, actress Pat Phoenix is missing and so is the cat from the opening shot .... The Road to Coronation Street is the epic story of one man's struggle to make a programme that no one wanted. Granada's formidable bosses Sidney Bernstein and his brother Cecil are not enthusiastic. But together with producer Harry Elton and director Derek Bennett, Tony takes up the battle. He wants cobbles, a pub, seven houses and a shop, but above all he wants northern actors. Led by casting director Margaret Morris and her young assistant Josie Scott, the hunt begins for the legendary cast - Doris Speed, Pat Phoenix, Violet Carson and William Roache. With a last minute change of title, Coronation Street is born.
A funny and emotionally powerful drama which exposes the realities and struggles that some inner-city schools face today. Ian, a newly qualified teacher, comes up against Mark, a troubled and disruptive pupil who teachers want to see excluded from school. Against the odds, Ian makes a connection with the boy, but will he put his career on the line to save him?
Feature-length dramatisation following the story of how Boomtown Rats singer Bob Geldof and promoter Harvey Goldsmith put together Live Aid, the global charity music event. Set between the winter of 1984 and the summer of 1985, it focuses on the extraordinary relationship between Geldof and Goldsmith as they created the concert to 'feed the world'.
A dramatisation of Christopher Reid's narrative poem, telling the story of a book editor who, 15 years after their break-up, meets his former love for a nostalgic lunch at the Soho restaurant they used to frequent. As the wine flows, the couple rake over their failed relationship.
Drama-documentary presented by Alan Yentob, with Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead role as Van Gogh. Every word spoken by the actors in this film is sourced from the letters that Van Gogh sent to his younger brother Theo, and of those around him. What emerges is a complex portrait of a sophisticated, civilised and yet tormented man. The film won a Rockie for Best Arts Documentary at the Banff World Media Festival in 2011, receiving critical acclaim for its fascinating insight into the life of the artist and its unique approach to storytelling.
In 1969 the Apollo moon landing is to be televised internationally but at a country fair in England a small boy named Jim meets the 90-year-old Julius Bedford who tells him that,in 1909,as a struggling writer,he met eccentric Professor Cavor,inventor of Cavorite,a gravity-defying substance which they used to build a sphere,which took them to the Moon. Captured by ant-like Selenites,Bedford was anxious to make his escape but Cavor was happy to stay and communicate with the Moon-dwellers. Back on Earth Bedford hears via wireless that Cavor was forced to kill himself and the Moon-dwellers to prevent them from invading Earth. As Jim watches the Apollo landing with his parents back in the present he sees a Selenite,hiding behind a lunar rock,peering at the astronauts.
Christopher Eccleston is John Lennon in a drama which charts his transition from Beatle John to enduring and enigmatic icon. Writer Robert Jones articulates the burden of genius, as well as issues of fatherhood and fame, covering a period of wildly fluctuating fortunes for Lennon from 1967-71. When the Beatles' manager Brian Epstein died unexpectedly in 1967 it was a turning point in Lennon's life and the film focuses on the turbulent and intense period of change that followed, and how John was haunted by his troubled childhood. It also reveals the impact of re-establishing contact with his long-lost father and the events that led Lennon to shed everything both personally and creatively, including calling time on the Beatles. Meeting Yoko Ono was the catalyst for this new era and the film explores the development of their extraordinary relationship, their growing disillusionment with Britain and what caused Lennon to abandon the UK to start a new life in America - a process which ultimately led Lennon to record arguably the most powerful solo work of his career.
In 1963 an unknown housewife and teacher from the Midlands, Mary Whitehouse, embarked on a mission to clean up British television. Her crusade led her into battle with the man she held responsible for a tide of 'filth' - Sir Hugh Carleton-Greene, Director-General of the BBC. With Julie Walters starring as Mary Whitehouse and Hugh Bonneville as her arch enemy, this is a drama inspired by real events that brings life to the battle for Britain's morals.
A chilling new single drama, Whistle and I'll Come to You is the thoroughly modern re-working of the evocative Edwardian ghost story Oh, Whistle and I'll come to You, My Lad by MR James, adapted for BBC Two by Neil Cross. Cross's adaptation delves into themes of ageing, hubris and the supernatural, with a horrifying psychological twist in the tale. James Parkin has just left his wife in the care of a nursing home. Pensive and emotional, he travels to their old favourite destination for rambling, an off-season British seaside town. There he encounters an apparition on a desolate beach, which begins to haunt him - with terrifying consequences.
Powerful drama based on the true story of Sandra Laing, a black woman who - due to a rare genetic irregularity - was born to white Afrikaner parents in 1950s South Africa and ostracised from white society as a result of the apartheid regime.
Thrown into the crucible of the most violent air war ever seen, a boy barely out of school is determined to fight for survival. However, the price of victory will be more than he can bear. Seventy years later, that same boy is still yearning to be free.
Drama set in 1930s Germany. A professor is reluctant to become involved with the Nazi Party when they offer to advance his career.
Drama telling the story of Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise's formative years, as reluctant performer Eric Bartholomew becomes the funny man to precocious Ernie Wiseman's 'feed'.
Drama about the way Carry On actress Hattie Jacques's home life was blown apart by a secret sexual liaison with her young driver while she was married to John Le Mesurier.
Italian learning drama in which the viewer is one of the protagonists. The viewer finds a map which leads one on a mystery adventure through the Emilia Romagna region of Italy. Along the way one meets a cast of characters, uncovers a family secret and some delicious regional specialities, and perhaps finds the lost recipe for La torta di Serretto. And of course one learns to speaks Italian with the guidance of the characters met on the journey. This 90-minute drama is accompanied by a fully interactive website with extensive learning support and an interactive drama in which the player can determine the outcome of the adventure.
The 'divinely decadent' Berlin cabaret scene is in full swing when a young and wide-eyed Christopher Isherwood arrives in the city to stay with his close friend and occasional lover, the poet WH Auden. To Isherwood's reserved English sensibility, the city's thriving gay subculture is thrilling and intoxicating. But Christopher soon finds himself heartbroken after the failure of a hopeless love affair, and so sets out on a process of self-discovery as he forges an identity and place for himself amidst the chaos of 1930s Berlin.
Drama based on the true story of Manchester United's legendary Busby Babes, the youngest side ever to win the Football League, and the 1958 Munich air crash that claimed eight of their number. The film draws on first-hand interviews with the survivors and their families to tell the inspirational story of a team and community overcoming terrible tragedy.
Featuring spectacular visual effects, this factually-based drama tells the gripping story of the greatest natural disaster to shake the ancient world, a disaster that triggered the downfall of a civilisation and spawned a legend. Around 1620 BC, a gigantic volcano in the Aegean Sea stirred from its nineteen-thousand year slumber. The eruption tore the island of Thera apart, producing massive tsunamis that flooded the nearby island of Crete, the centre of Europe's first great civilisation - the Minoans. This apocalyptic event, many experts now believe, led to the eventual downfall of the Minoans, and provided the inspiration for Plato when he later wrote about the people of a mighty island, Atlantis, which sank beneath the waves and was lost forever, 'in a single day and a night of misfortune'. Based on the work of leading scientists, archaeologists and historians, this film immerses viewers in the exotic world of the Minoans.
A fast-paced thriller about a vital and terrifying subject - the trafficking of children - with the heart-stopping vibrancy, compassion and energy that only the fate of children inspires. This is a story that touches all our lives. And it's happening now.
Set against the turbulent backdrop of London in the 1940's, this adaptation of Sarah Waters' best selling novel, The Night Watch, follows four young Londoners inextricably linked by their wartime experiences. In a time when the barriers of sexual morality and social convention have been broken down, Kay, Helen, Viv and Duncan enjoy a freedom never experienced before. Moving back in time through the 1940's into the maelstrom of the Blitz, the lives, loves and losses of these four central characters are unravelled. For them, the post-war victory is bittersweet, for it returns them to the margins of society, from which they hoped they had been liberated. In order to build their future they must each make peace with their past.
Remarkable factual drama based on a true story, starring Ian Hart, Ed Stoppard and Bill Paterson. In the summer of 1931, with Germany on the brink of economic collapse, and the city of Berlin turning into a paramilitary war-zone, audacious young prosecutor Hans Litten (Stoppard) chose to summon a star witness to a trial of Nazi thugs. In spite of the risk to his own safety and against the advice of those who love him, Litten forced rising political star Adolf Hitler (Hart) to make a sensational appearance in the witness stand of Berlin's central criminal court. Litten aimed to expose the true character of Hitler and his politics to the German public, to reveal his hypocrisy and his violent ambitions, and in doing so, halt the electoral success of the Nazi Party. In a humiliating and hostile cross-examination, Hitler was forced to account for his political beliefs, his contempt for the law and his desire to destroy German democracy. For a brief moment, Hitler's political future was genuinely in the balance. Hitler survived the ordeal, but it was a close encounter which he never forgave and for which Litten paid a heavy price.
Spy drama set in London and Cambridge. Johnny Worricker is a long-serving MI5 officer. His boss and best friend Benedict Baron dies suddenly, leaving behind him an inexplicable file, threatening the stability of the organisation. Meanwhile, a seemingly chance encounter with Johnny's striking next-door neighbour and political activist Nancy Pierpan seems too good to be true. Johnny is forced to walk out of his job, and then out of his identity to find out the truth.
Drama charting the rise to fame of singer Dame Shirley Bassey. Born in Cardiff's Tiger Bay to a white mother and Nigerian father, Shirley is the youngest of eight children in a family living well below the poverty line. By the time she is a toddler the family have moved to the all white area of Splott. Shirley takes no prisoners when faced with racist taunts and the stares of local kids. By the time she is 12 Shirley has discovered she has an extraordinary voice and can earn money singing in pubs around the docks. By the age of 15 she is already singing and dancing in 'coloured review shows' popular in the 1950s. But it is a chance meeting with struggling agent Mike Sullivan that changes Shirley's life forever. He promises to make her a star, but has no idea of the personal sacrifice that will mean for the teenaged Shirley. Sullivan controls every aspect of Shirley's career, guiding her to success. When she meets and falls in love with young film producer Kenneth Hume, the relationship between Shirley and her mentor is tested to the limit. Oblivious to rumours about Hume's sexuality, the two marry and the power struggle between the two men for control over Shirley's life threatens to destroy her.
In 1979, Monty Python made Life of Brian and the debate about what is an acceptable subject for comedy was blown wide open. This is a fantastical re-imagining of the build-up to the release of the film and the controversy it caused.
Dramatisation of the events surrounding the opening night of British television. August 1936, and the BBC prepares for the world's first high-definition TV service. However, behind the scenes at Alexandra Palace complications arise in more ways than one.
Festive comedy drama. The Lewis family are determined to leave their troubles at home in Birkenhead when they set out to Lapland in search of Santa, huskies, reindeer, and hopefully the mysterious Northern Lights. However, they soon discover that baggage is not so easily left behind, but also that magic can be found in the most unexpected places.
Family adventure based on Mary Norton's classic children's books about a race of tiny people who live under the floorboards, resourcefully surviving by borrowing bits and pieces from the large residents who dwell above. After being discovered by 'human beans', borrower Arrietty and her parents are forced to leave their home while attempting to evade the clutches of obsessive scientist Professor Mildeye.
Winter 1962, and cockney photographer David Bailey and unknown model Jean Shrimpton are sent to New York for a prestigious Vogue photo shoot. This drama tells the story of a wild week, their love affair, terrible fights with their fashion editor - and how two young people with no such intention happened to change the world of fashion forever.
Dramatised account of film-maker Sean Langan's kidnapping in 2008 while on a quest to become the first western journalist to film the Taliban training camps. In a bizarre meeting of East and West, the self-confessed adrenaline junkie strikes up an unlikely friendship with the deeply Islamic family holding him captive. As his captors become his hosts, he begins to question his own motives and discovers a common humanity across the vast cultural divide.
Film version of the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2012 production of Shakespeare's fast-moving thriller. A vivid story about a struggle for democracy, Julius Caesar is also a love story between two men united by an explosive act of political violence. The setting is a modern African state in which the tyrant Caesar is about to seize power. Cassius persuades Brutus to join the conspirators plotting an assassination. Featuring a distinguished cast of black actors, the film is shot on location and in the RSC's theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon.
Thrown together just five weeks before the final of the 1948 London Olympics, Bert Bushnell and Dickie Burnell defied all the odds and achieved gold in the double sculls. This is the story of how they did it - not only by pushing physical and emotional limits, but also by confronting and overcoming their vast professional and personal differences. A boat builder's son from Wargrave, Bert Bushnell might be under six foot and slight, but he knows that he's got what it takes to represent his country in the single sculls. When he does win a place on the British team, however, he's shocked to discover that it's not in the event for which he's trained. Instead the selecting coach, Jack Beresford, has decided that Bert will partner Dickie Burnell in the double sculls. An Eton and Oxford educated "Blue" from a family of rowing royalty, six-foot four Dickie couldn't be more different to Bert. Unable to hide a chip on his shoulder about the upper classes, Bert is openly hostile to Dickie and their first outing on the river is a disaster - as each tries to out-scull the other. As they struggle exhausted from the water, Beresford is forced to face up to the fact that his gamble - just five weeks before the Olympic final - may have been a foolish one. Bert and Dickie's personal battle reflects a much greater struggle as London prepares to host the Olympic Games. In 1948, just three years after the end of WW2, London is half-destroyed and its people are starving. Thus the "Austerity Olympics" were born, and the film portrays just what was achieved with a "make do and mend" post-war mentality. Bert and Dickie also begin to realise that they share more in common than they ever would have expected. Both have the same determination and drive and, on a personal level, both have been shaped by complex relationships with their fathers. As they realise that this is it - their big opportunity - they finally start to work together. Set against the backdrop of a country on it
Entertaining drama about the birth of the Paralympics in 1948. The remarkable Dr Guttmann comes to Stoke Mandeville Hospital and begins to tranform the lives of his patients. They are paralysed soldiers, written off and facing death from neglect. Their big breakthrough comes when Guttmann introduces sport into their rehabilitation.
A woman lies dead in a Nottingham flat, her terrified sister barricaded in the bathroom. At 2.00am a young man in a bloodstained shirt is pulled over for speeding. The three only met that afternoon - what happened in those fatal hours? All there is to go on is what the two survivors say.
A magical, heart-warming story for Christmas, based on David Walliams's best-selling book. Mr Stink stank. He also stunk. He was the stinkiest stinker who ever lived. Daydreaming schoolgirl Chloe is unhappy at home and has no friends at her new school. So she befriends a stinky tramp and his dog in the local park, and in uncovering Mr Stink's sad past she ends up on a journey that takes her to Number 10 Downing Street and eventually brings her dysfunctional family back together again.
After years of frustration and broken dreams, classical pianist Joyce Hatto finally found international fame in her 70s, despite suffering from cancer. Dubbed 'the greatest living pianist no one has ever heard of', she had critics raving about her sublime recordings. Yet six months after her death, many of these recordings were discovered to be by other pianists - the greatest hoax in classical music had been orchestrated from the small town of Royston, Hertfordshire.
Alfred Hitchcock was at the height of his fame and creativity when, in 1962, he chose an unknown fashion model to star in his most ambitious film, The Birds. But as he sculpted Tippi Hedren into the perfect Hitchcock blonde of his imagination, he became obsessed with the impossible dream of winning the real woman's love. His failure destroyed both of their careers. Screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes has interviewed Tippi Hedren and surviving members of Hitchcock's crew. This film tells their full tragic story for the first time. Toby Jones (Harry Potter, Titanic, Hunger Games, Tinker Tailor) and Sienna Miller (The Edge of Love, Factory Girl, Alfie, Layer Cake) star, supported by Imelda Staunton (Harry Potter, Cranford, Vera Drake) and Penelope Wilton (Downton Abbey). Directed by Julian Jarrold (Appropriate Adult).
Told with the help of some of his most famous comic characters including Cupid Stunt and Quentin Pose, the story of pioneering radio DJ and television star Kenny Everett's against-the-odds struggle to achieve both personal and professional fulfilment, as seen through the decade-and-a-half prism of his marriage to Lee Middleton.
After travelling to London to check on their missing children in the wake of the 2005 terror attack on the city, two strangers come to discover their respective children had been living together at the time of the attacks.
A powerful and moving story of two ordinary mothers who won't give up. Written by Richard Curtis and directed by Phillip Noyce, Mary and Martha stars Hilary Swank as Mary and Brenda Blethyn as Martha, an American and an Englishwoman who have little in common apart from a tragedy that unexpectedly brings them together. Empowered by their friendship, they form a partnership that takes them from their meeting in a remote part of Mozambique all the way to Washington. There they find redemption and achieve something they would have never thought possible.
Beautiful and wealthy young socialite Iris Carr is used to being at the heart of her social group, but when her friends' raucous and unsociable behaviour escalates whilst on holiday in the Balkans she resolves to seek out some tranquillity and travel home alone. But her expectations of peace are short-lived when, at the railway station, Iris wavers in the scorching heat and constant jostle of passengers, fainting suddenly on the platform. She wakes in time to be rushed onto the train, but with a pounding head and a feeling of being almost in a dream. Whilst in this malaise she is comforted by an older English lady called Miss Froy, but when Iris falls asleep she awakes to find Miss Froy has gone and her fellow passengers denying she ever existed. With only the friendship of handsome English traveller Max Hare for support, Iris will have to rely on a strength of character she never knew she had to battle doubt and overcome danger as she strives to solve the mystery of why the lady vanished.
When the space shuttle Challenger blew up in 1986, it was the most shocking event in the history of American spaceflight. The deaths of seven astronauts, including the first teacher in space Christa McAuliffe, were watched live on television by millions of viewers. But what was more shocking was that the cause of the disaster might never be uncovered. The Challenger is the story of how Richard Feynman, one of America's most famous scientists, helped to discover the cause of a tragedy that stunned America.
On the evening of her 18th birthday, Molly Dawes finds herself drunk and is sick in the doorway of an army recruitment office. She looks into the window of the office and sees a life-sized photograph of an army girl, everything that Molly isn't but wants to be - respected. The following morning, Molly finds herself back in the locale and steels herself sufficiently to go into the recruitment office. Truculent and full of self doubt, she takes the leaflets and is eventually persuaded to complete an aptitude test. No-one thinks she can stick it out, including herself. But slowly and surely, Molly is maturing and learning to believe in herself. She digs in and finds a strength that she never thought she had
An intimate film featuring an all-star cast about how the author PG Wodehouse came to face a charge of treason during the Second World War and how this quintessential Englishman, creator of Jeeves and Wooster, became an exile from his own country and never set foot on English soil again.
Drama telling the story of Hollywood's most glamorous couple, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, who acted together for the last time in Noel Coward's Private Lives in 1983. When Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton met on the set of Cleopatra, the attraction was immediate. The public were enthralled by their illicit romance, two tempestuous marriages, frequent break-ups and extravagant reunions. They were the original fabulous stars, conspicuous in their consumption of clothes, houses, yachts, diamonds, and, more damagingly, alcohol. In 1976 Richard and Elizabeth divorced for the second time. They both married other people and it seemed that the romance of the century might truly be over. Then, in 1982, they both separated and were free again. In 1983, Richard and Elizabeth had one final reunion on the stage when they spent seven months touring with Noel Coward's Private Lives. During the tour public speculation grew about the possibility of another marriage, but in private old frictions played out once again. Speculation about another reunion ended when Richard Burton married his fiancée Sally Hay halfway through the run. This is the story of the first celebrity 'it' couple. Beyond alcohol, pills and the trappings of fame, was love the ultimate crutch that allowed them to escape the realities of their extraordinary lives? Funny, glamorous, tempestuous and dripping with diamonds, this is the last battle of the Burtons.
Drama-documentary about Winston Churchill's extraordinary experiences during the Great War, with intimate letters to his wife Clementine allowing the story to be told largely in his own words. Just 39 and at the peak of his powers running the Royal Navy, Churchill in 1914 dreamt of Napoleonic glory, but suffered a catastrophic fall into disgrace and humiliation over the Dardanelles disaster. The film follows his road to redemption, beginning in the trenches of Flanders in 1916, revealing how he became the 'godfather' of the tank and his forgotten contribution to final victory in 1918 as Minister of Munitions. Dark political intrigue, a passionate love story and remarkable military adventures on land, sea and air combine to show how the Churchill of 1940 was shaped and forged by his experience of the First World War.
In the bombed-out ruins of the Belgian town of Ypres in 1916, Captain Fred Roberts and Lieutenant Jack Pearson discover a printing press and decide to start a satirical newspaper to raise the spirits of the British troops. It proves hugely popular with the men in the trenches - but their superior officers see it as an act of insubordination and subversion and call for a ban.
A special one-off drama that travels back to 1963 to see how Doctor Who was first brought to the screen. Actor William Hartnell felt trapped by a succession of hard-man roles. Wannabe producer Verity Lambert was frustrated by the TV industry's glass ceiling. Both of them were to find unlikely hope and unexpected challenges in the form of a Saturday tea-time drama. Allied with a team of unusual but brilliant people, they went on to create the longest running science fiction series ever made.
Intense and emotionally charged Cold War thriller set in 1974 based on the novel by Alan Judd. As the three day week, petrol rationing and industrial strife plunge Britain into a state of emergency, MI6 trainee spy Charles Thoroughgood is asked to reconnect with an old university friend, Russian diplomat Viktor Koslov, with a view to 'turning' him. Viktor has his own agenda, though, and reveals a shocking truth about Charles's own family that threatens to derail him, both personally and professionally. He is catapulted into a dangerous personal odyssey to uncover the truth but finds himself drawn into a lethal KGB plot to mount an attack within the UK. His life is further complicated by a relationship with the wife of another agent, which forces him to realise that betrayal can take many forms.
Dramatic retelling of the fateful last voyage of the Nantucket whaleship Essex. When the Essex is attacked and sunk by a sperm whale in November 1820, her crew take to three fragile whalers. Alone in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the men must decide whether to head for the nearest islands - a thousand miles downwind to the west - or set out on an epic journey of almost three thousand miles to reach the South American mainland. Fear of cannibals forces them to choose South America. Almost three months later, the first whaler is rescued by another whaleship. Only three men are still alive. A week later the captain's whaler is also rescued, with just two men aboard. The third whaler is never found. This is a story of human endurance and what men in extremis will do to survive.
The chilling story of Dr Rant, whose wicked streak continues from beyond the grave. When a relative comes to find a particular book at the university library, young student Garrett is drawn into a family feud over a will and its legacy - with terrifying consequences.
It's the General Strike 1926 - only seven years after the slaughter of the trenches, miners unions lead the country against savage austerity cuts handed to the nation by a Liberal-Conservative government. Set in the village of Carhill Scotland, in the heart of the Fife coalfields, we follow the journey of one mining community as they are pushed inevitably towards a labour conflict with the Kingdom Coal Company in a seven-month-long lock-out. 'Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day' is the chant as the coal company demand longer hours for less pay. The intimate portrayal of three families show the human consequences of an impersonal economics. The coal company practically owns the village and is colluding with government forces to keep the 'red threat' under control. Standing up for their rights inspires national support and galvanizes a defiant spirit of the time. Faith forged through suffering grows and though the strike fails, the seed of a political awakening is sown. Inspired by true stories from local families in Fife, the Happy Lands follows the journey of law-abiding citizens who become law-breakers in a heroic battle against the state. It's never a good time to stand up for your rights - but it's always the right time.
Ben hates spending time with his boring granny while his parents are off ballroom dancing. Little does he know that his granny has a secret. Together they go on an adventure and become the best of friends. Magical, heart-warming comedy drama for Christmas, based on David Walliams' best-selling children's book.
Psychological drama adapted by Oscar-winning screenwriter Christopher Hampton from Diane Setterfield's bestselling novel. Biographer Margaret Lea is summoned to the Yorkshire home of dying novelist Vida Winter who has handpicked Margaret to write her biography. Though initially hesitant, as Vida has a reputation for distorting facts in interviews, Margaret becomes fascinated by her previously untold story. As the novelist recounts her dark and disturbing childhood, Margaret is compelled to finally face the trauma of her own past. But as time runs out, Margaret, desperate to hear the end of Vida's story, begins to wonder if she is hearing the confessions of a murderer.
Comedy set in a chaotic Hogmanay party. Beth and Eric Baird's Hogmanay goes horribly wrong as family, friends and neighbours descend on their home. As they count down to the bells in traditional Scottish style, a lively evening is assured as drink flows and Beth's legendary steak pie comes out of the oven. Secrets are revealed, tempers fray, scores are settled and a gazebo is destroyed.
Inspired by Hans Christian Anderson's fairytale, this remarkable Danish film tells the story of a Christmas tree from a most unusual angle - through the 'voice' of the tree itself. The tree has big ambitions, doing everything it can to grow so tall that it reaches the sky. Featuring extraordinary photography, the film follows the adventures of its life from sapling to maturity, culminating in a triumphal Christmas Day. Along the way, viewers experience the natural - and human - world from a strangely moving perspective.
A former wild child is almost ready to settle down after proposing to his girlfriend, but all of a sudden he must face his past when an old one-night stand arrives with a seven-year-old son she claims is his.
A story of Sam, Callum, a skateboard and Asperger's.
Johnny Worricker is hiding out from his work at MI5 on the tax-exile islands, Turks & Caicos. Trouble comes knocking when an encounter with a CIA agent forces him into the company of some dubious American businessmen. Claiming to be on the islands for a conference, Worricker soon learns the extent of their shady activities. When links to prime minister Alec Beasley come to light, Worricker must act quickly if he is to survive.
Follow-up to the spy thrillers Page Eight and Turks & Caicos. Johnny Worricker and Margot Tyrell are now on the run together across Europe. With the net fast closing in, Worricker knows his only chance of resolving his problems is to return home and confront his nemesis - the prime minister, Alec Beasley
Powerful drama based on the true story of Sandra Laing, a black woman who - due to a rare genetic irregularity - was born to white Afrikaner parents in 1950s South Africa and ostracised from white society as a result of the apartheid regime.
In 1953 Dylan Thomas went to New York for the last time, his marriage a wreck, his drinking out of control. He was on his way to meet Stravinsky and to wallow in New York acclaim - but what was he escaping? How did such a triumph become a requiem? The last days of a great poet.
A unique one-off television production of Dylan Thomas's famous 'play for voices' performed by a community of Welsh talent in New York, Los Angeles, London, Cardiff and Laugharne. Michael Sheen opens as First Voice, Sir Tom Jones as Captain Cat and, as each of Dylan's iconic characters joins in, the piece builds up into a collage of famous voices and faces intercut with evocative imagery inspired by the play and created as part of a live event by National Theatre Wales.
Drama telling the true story of what happens to a teenage girl when she falls in love with the wrong man. The everyday story of young love turns dark and sinister when the handsome and charming stranger seeks to dominate every aspect of the young woman's life. A tale of contemporary Britain with a lesson for every young woman.
Multi-award-winning writer Jimmy McGovern's brand new film based on the UK's controversial joint enterprise law. 17-year-old Johnjo gives his cousin Tony and his mates Colin and Kieran a last-minute lift in his brother Patrick's car. They tell him they're going for pizza; Johnjo doesn't know that they're going to 'have a word' with a local loudmouth who needs putting in his place. As Johnjo waits in the car, Kieran takes offence with an innocent bystander, Thomas Ward, who is fatally stabbed. The murder victim is the eldest child of Margaret and Tommy Ward, who has become estranged from his family after a bitter divorce. Struggling to make ends meet on her own, Margaret is nevertheless determined to fight through bureaucracy and the cool indifference of the banks to give Thomas the send-off he deserves. Johnjo makes his own way to the police station and asks for DI Hastings. A career copper used to doing battle with 'no comment', Hastings can't believe his luck as Johnjo lays the blame squarely with Kieran. But Hastings wants everyone possible to be tried for murder, and with the joint enterprise doctrine at his disposal, that includes Johnjo.
The compelling story of a group of teenagers with a cause in a musical drama based on the true story of the Glasgow Girls. What started as a grassroots petition to save their friend from deportation inspired a powerful human rights movement which would eventually change immigration practices in Scotland.
This is the remarkable human drama behind the invention of radar, that was to prove pivotal in the Battle of Britain. It is also the thrilling story of the tenacity and courage of a most unlikely group of British heroes.
Toby Jones takes the lead role in this feature-length fact-based drama from writer Peter Bowker (Occupation, Eric and Ernie), inspired by the life of Neil Baldwin. Although he was diagnosed as having learning difficulties, Neil has constantly confounded people's expectations during a colourful career that has seen him work as a circus clown and a kit man for Stoke City, and recently led to him being awarded an honorary degree by Keele University in recognition of his contributions to campus life. Just as Neil doesn't like to be labelled, the drama also mixes biopic, musical and fantasy elements to tell this unique story. Gemma Jones, Tony Curran and Nicholas Gleaves also star, while Gary Lineker appears as himself
Eccentric inventor Professor Branestawm fights the forces of evil in this comedy adventure film, based on Norman Hunter's iconic children's books. Armed with a multitude of crazy inventions, and alongside his eccentric allies Colonel Dedshott, Mrs Flittersnoop and young apprentice Connie, Branestawm, the original mad professor, takes on scheming businessman Mr Bullimore and officious local councillor Harold Haggerstone, to try and stop their plans to bulldoze his workshop to make way for a giant munitions factory, right in the middle of town.
Family comedy adapted from David Walliams' children's book about 12-year-old Dennis, an ordinary boy who lives in an ordinary town - but somehow feels different from everyone else. A chance sighting in a fashion magazine introduces him to a whole new world of colour and creativity. But can a boy really wear a dress - and what will his headmaster, dad and friends in the football team think if they find out?
That Day We Sang, by Victoria Wood, is a musical rooted in the Manchester of 1929 and 1969. It is the story of two lonely middle-aged people, Tubby and Enid, who are able to grab a second chance at life when they are reconnected to their emotions by the power of music.
Dame Sian Phillips looks back on Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood and her own experiences with the various adaptions that have brought perhaps the world’s most celebrated ‘play for voices’ to cinema and television audiences. She recalls the BBC’s 2014 version that brought together a huge range of Welsh talent, including Tom Jones, Matthew Rhys, Charlotte Church, Michael Sheen and Katherine Jenkins. She also looks further back, sharing the story of her encounters with Dylan Thomas and her part in the 1972 film, which saw her working alongside the great Richard Burton, his wife Elizabeth Taylor and her then-husband Peter O’Toole.
The behind-the-scenes true life story of a groundbreaking producer, Milton Fruchtman, and blacklisted TV director Leo Hurwitz who, overcoming enormous obstacles, set out to capture the testimony of one of the war's most notorious Nazis, Adolf Eichmann. He is accused of executing the 'final solution' and organising the murder of 6 million Jews. This is the extraordinary story of how the trial came to be televised and the team that made it happen. Filming at his trial in Jerusalem in 1961, their production becomes the world's first ever global TV documentary series, the first time the horror of the camps has been heard directly from the mouths of its victims. Edited daily and broadcast in Germany, America, Israel and 34 other countries, people fainted when they saw it on TV. Never before has there been such drama in the use of cameras, their positioning, or the revolutionary effect of operators being able to adjust frame and position to match subject and content.
Retired bachelor Mr Hoppy is hopelessly in love with his neighbour Mrs Silver, but she is only interested in her pet tortoise Alfie, until Mr Hoppy hatches an audacious plan to win her love.
Epic one-off drama telling the human story of Noah: a man who risks everything to save the people he loves. An ambitious retelling of the classic tale, fusing elements from the Bible and the Qur'an to tell a universal story of faith and love.
The C Word is an adaptation of Lisa Lynch's candid book about her experience of cancer, based on her popular blog which was launched shortly after her diagnosis. This film is a defiant, ballsy and surprisingly funny story of life, love and cancer.
One-off drama which tells the true story of Julie Nicholson's response to her daughter Jenny's death in the 7 July bombing at Edgware Road tube station. A moving film that explores the impact of violence on one woman and her family.
Factual drama which tells the story of a disabled couple's agonising struggle to keep their newborn baby. Based on real-life testimony, this emotional tale will call viewers' prejudices and beliefs about the disabled community and society as a whole into question, as we learn about a situation many disabled couples find themselves in as new parents. Can 21-year-old wheelchair user Anna and partially-sighted Tom provide the care and attention their daughter needs, or will social worker Belinda have to consider alternative care?
In 1781, wealthy heiress Seymour, Lady Worsley, caused outrage when she cuckolded her husband, respectable MP Sir Richard Worsley, and ran away with her lover Captain George Bisset. Furious, Sir Richard responded by suing Bisset for criminal conversation and demanding a record £20,000 for the damage done to his property - Lady Worsley. While Seymour and Bisset hid out in a London hotel, Sir Richard and his lawyers set about proving his wife's infidelity through a series of devious schemes. When the case came to court, Sir Richard lied about his relationship with Seymour, painting a perfect picture of their marriage and persuading others to do the same. Bisset looked sure to be facing penury and prison until Seymour devised a bold plan. To save her lover from ruin, she disclosed a shocking secret - one that astounded the court, put her reputation in jeopardy and turned the trial into the greatest sex scandal of the eighteenth century.
Lenny Henry writes and stars in a drama based on his own life as a teenager in 1970s Dudley. When Danny Fearon (Kascion Franklin) wins a local talent competition he soon finds himself working on the comedy circuit, where audiences can't get enough of his impressions of Muhammad Ali, Tommy Cooper and Frank Spencer. He eventually hits the big time after an appearance on TV, but an unscrupulous agent takes advantage and forces him to star in a minstrel show, leaving Danny at rock bottom
Adaptation of DH Lawrence's classic novel about an aristocratic woman enjoying a happy marriage to her husband, until he is severely wounded while fighting in the First World War. Confined to a wheelchair, Sir Clifford Chatterley becomes more distant from Lady Constance, who embarks on a passionate affair with the estate's gamekeeper Mellors. Knowing their affair would scandalise society and ostracise them both, they strive to evade the growing suspicions of her jealous and vengeful husband.
Set in 1912, the film revolves around the Birling family, who, following the suicide of a young woman from the local town, is called upon by a police inspector (Thewlis) investigating the death. As their world unravels, each member of the family is revealed to have unwittingly played a part in her demise.
This 90-minute factual drama goes behind the scenes of the hit video game Grand Theft Auto, arguably the greatest British coding success since Bletchley Park. This drama is for an adult audience and has not been authorised by the producers of Grand Theft Auto. Rather, it is based on court documents and interviews with many of those involved in the real events behind this compelling story.
One of the most influential British novels of the 20th century, The Go-Between is a story of forbidden love, Edwardian strictures, betrayal and tragic naivety. Told from the perspective of Leo Colston, a callow 12-year-old middle-class boy, the story starts when he is invited by upper-class school friend Marcus Maudsley to stay at his elegant family home for the blazing hot summer of 1900. Leo is instantly enthralled by Marcus's family, and most especially his beautiful and wilful older sister Marian. When Marcus is taken ill, Leo is left to his own devices, but finds himself alone and adrift in a world of alien social mores and adult concerns. Gauche and anxious to please, Leo is slowly and unwittingly drawn into a web of deceit as Marian pursues an illicit and passionate affair with tenant farmer Ted Burgess, a man of much inferior social position whom she can never marry. Marian and Ted befriend the lonely and easily influenced Leo and use him to carry secret messages between them. Leo quickly grows friendly with Ted and worships Marian with a mixture of innocent love and incipient sexuality he barely understands. Only when he meets Hugh Trimingham, the kind, war-wounded aristocrat to whom Marian is promised, does Leo start to question his role as intermediary. As Leo's 13th birthday approaches, Marian's moods fluctuate and the summer heat becomes more oppressive. Wholly unable to comprehend the true implications of the adult emotions seething around him, Leo sets in motion a chain of events that ultimately prove the catalyst for a shocking tragedy that will haunt him forever.
A vivid memoir of Laurie Lee’s childhood, Cider With Rosie is an evocative coming-of-age story, set in an idyllic Cotswold village, during and immediately after the Great War. Marking the journey of young Lol as he grows from boy to man, the story chronicles first love, loss and family upheaval. Lol’s boyhood escapades take place in a rural world as yet untouched by electricity and cars - a place suspended between history and modernity.
Drama based on Ronald Harwood's successful play, about the working relationship between an ageing actor and head of a touring Shakespearean theatre company, and his personal assistant. Set against the backdrop of a production of Lear and the Fool during the Blitz, the leading light's work and reputation begin to deteriorate as the situation reaches crisis point.
60-minute scripted comedy drama about how the legendary creators of Dad's Army - Jimmy Perry and David Croft - overcame BBC management scepticism, focus groups and cast constipation to get the much-loved legend onto air. Running from Perry's initial idea in 1967 until the transmission of the first episode in 1968, this affectionate and witty film shows the beginnings of Perry and Croft's writing partnership and the casting woes, personal clashes and production difficulties that put the show's very existence in jeopardy. It reveals to fans and newcomers alike what went on behind the scenes in the making of the classic sitcom Dad's Army and is a true love letter to British creativity.
When Lady Pagwell dies, leaving a substantial sum to fund local inventing, it could mean the end of Professor Branestawm's money troubles. But scheming local councillor Harold Haggerstone will stop at nothing to thwart Branestawm and insists that Pagwell holds an inventing competition to decide who gets the money. Haggerstone tries to hire his own rival inventor. Professor Mary Oxford, from Cambridge, fails to impress with a nuclear powered paperweight. The Invisibaliser presented by Professor Awfulshirt causes havoc (and much invisibleness). But when Professor Algebrain, from an unspecified European country, turns up, Haggerstone thinks he's onto a winner. Branestawm, meanwhile, is having problems of his own. Not only is he struggling to come up with an invention that will really knocks the judges' socks off, he's upset his faithful young assistant, Connie. He's so wrapped up in his work that he's been neglecting her, and she's torn between helping him and working with the seemingly cha
Cameras exclusively capture the Oscar-winning French actress Juliette Binoche playing the title role in Sophocles's tale of family loyalty, courage and tragedy. The Barbican's visionary new English language translation by TS Eliot Prize-winning poet and classicist Anne Carson is directed by renowned Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove.
One-off family comedy. Father and son Len and Joe Spud have very little, but they become overnight billionaires when Len invents a new toilet roll. Joe now has everything he ever wanted - except a friend. Len starts dating Sapphire Diamond - a 40-something-year-old hand model who claims to be 21 - who is only with him for his money, and he neglects Joe. The butler helps Joe to transfer to the local comprehensive, where Joe is sure he will make some friends. Joe meets Bob and they become good friends, but Joe hides the fact that he's so wealthy. When Len turns up at the school with Joe's forgotten homework, the cat is out of the bag.
It is nearly 80 years since the Abdication Crisis, and this drama documentary, inspired by real events and based on letters, memoirs, biographies and interviews, examines the friction that characterised the relationship between two women: Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and American socialite Wallis Simpson. After Edward VIII’s abdication in 1936, public confidence in the monarchy had been severely eroded. A popular and charismatic king was suddenly gone, having chosen his twice-divorced mistress over his Crown and country, and instead, the responsibilities of monarchy now rested on the nervous shoulders of his younger brother, King George VI, a man very different from his confident and gregarious brother. This would have been challenging at any time, but with Hitler driving Europe to the brink of war, the pressure would test the new King to the very limits of physical endurance. Royal Wives At War returns to the some of the original words and opinions of the two women at the heart of that battle and unravels the story of a frosty relationship between the Queen Mother and Wallis that lasted for decades.
Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins - mercurial, explosive, a natural showman. Steve ‘The Nugget’ Davis - clinical, ruthless, ‘boring’. This comedy drama transports you back to the glory days of snooker and charts the rivalry of its two giants which spanned a decade, dividing the critics and delighting the fans. Higgins, the bad boy of the sport, lives on the edge and plays to the crowd – desperate for approval and love. Davis has an aura of invincibility, methodically and clinically playing his way to the top, helped by legendary manager Barry Hearn. Higgins’ chaotic life away from the table saw him battling not just his sporting rivals, but his inner demons and loving wife.
Of all the dangers Elizabeth I had to survive - the Spanish Armada, a Catholic continent plotting against her incessantly, restless nobles uneasy at serving a queen who refused to marry - none was so personally intense as her rivalry with another woman - her cousin and fellow queen, Mary, Queen of Scots. This was her longest, most gruelling battle - lasting over two decades, it threatened to tear apart both Elizabeth and her kingdom. In the end, it would force her to make the hardest decision of her life. The two queens stared across the ultimate divides of their time: Protestant and Catholic, Tudor and Stuart, English and Scottish. Their fascination with one another grew into the greatest queenly face-off in our entire history. And yet, in 26 years of mutual obsession, they never actually met. Their confrontation was carried out through letters - a war of words so heartfelt and revealing that the two queens' passions can still be felt. For the first time on television, this chronicle of love turned to hatred, of trust betrayed by plot and bloodshed, is dramatised purely from the original words of the two queens and their courtiers. Expert historians examine, interpret and argue over the monarchs' motives for their 'duel to the death' - for in the end only one queen could survive such emotional combat.
Classic Shakespeare play adapted for television by Russell T Davies. In the tyrannical court of Athens, pitiless dictator Theseus plans his wedding to Hippolyta, a prisoner of war, and young Hermia is sentenced to death by her own father. Meanwhile, in the town below, amateur theatre group the Mechanicals rehearse, with all their comic rivalries. And beyond Athens, in the wild woods, dark forces are stirring...
Drama by Jimmy McGovern based on the true story of Reg Keys, the father of a royal military policeman, who took on the British prime minister over Britain's participation in the Iraq War. When Reg and his wife Sally return home to discover that their son, Lance Corporal Tom Keys, has been killed four days short of his 21st birthday in the volatile Shia city of al Majarr al Kabir, they are plunged into grief and despair. Learning that the army had ordered a scale-down in weapons and comms three weeks prior to his son's death, and angered by his belief that the war with Iraq was based on a lie, Reg forms a pressure group called Families Against the War. Certain that his son died as part of an army blunder, Reg tries several times to talk to Tony Blair, to no avail. He then makes a radical decision: to stand for election against Tony Blair in his home constituency of Sedgefield. As the campaign takes up more of Reg's time, Sally continues to struggle with her grief at home. When election night draws in, and the world's press gathers in Sedgefield, tensions run high as the final count begins to emerge.
Every parent wants the best for their kids, and Shahzad is no exception. Ever since his wife died he's been trying to keep his two kids Salma and Hassan on track. Salma is growing up quickly, and Shahzad wants to make sure she's set up with the right guy to settle down with. It's a promise he made his wife, and part of what he considers his duty as a dad. But what does Salma want? Unbeknown to Shahzad, she's caught up in a whirlwind romance with charismatic charmer Imi. Salma knows Imi is not what her dad is expecting, but can she find a way to make everyone happy? A hard-hitting drama with a devastating finale, this is a story about the power and the limits of love in communities where 'honour' means everything.
A group of city dwellers have arrived on the island of Skerra to view the local lighthouse, which is up for sale. What they don't know, is that all who set foot in this lighthouse are cursed, and before the night is out, they will have swapped their superficial city problems for an altogether bigger dilemma - how to escape from the malevolent presence that is stalking them.
The shocking death of ten-year-old Damilola Taylor in 2000 saw an innocent schoolboy lose his life on the streets of London. In front of the world's media, his parents embarked on a gruelling path to find justice - but behind closed doors, how could their love survive such private grief? This feature-length drama reveals the personal story behind the headlines, immersing us in Damilola's world, exploring his journey from Lagos to London and looking his family's quest for justice. Told primarily from the point of view of Damilola's father, Richard Taylor OBE, this is a surprising, intimate and deeply moving story of fatherhood, family and hope. We meet Richard and Gloria Taylor with their three children in their home in Nigeria. Eldest daughter Gbemi suffers from severe epilepsy, but having been born in London, she's entitled to life-saving treatment on the NHS. When Richard is refused leave from work to accompany Gbemi, he reluctantly agrees that Gloria should travel to the UK with their two eldest children. Ten-year-old Damilola, the only member of the family who has never been to the UK, appeals to his father to be allowed to go with them. Out of love for his youngest boy, Richard relents. Damilola is overjoyed. When Gbemi is taken ill and admitted to hospital during a family visit to Peckham, Gloria and her children relocate to their auntie's small council flat. Gbemi receives treatment, Tunde gets a job, and Damilola begins school. He loves his new life in London. Everything changes one November night when Gloria discovers Damilola has not returned home. Tunde rushes to his mother's side and makes a fateful call to his father back in Lagos. Richard learns from his eldest son that their beloved boy, Damilola, is dead. Richard's journey to London, the emotional repercussions of his son's death and the family's quest for justice unfold against a backdrop of national interest and private grief. Can a father find purpose again when the world denies him justice? C
A group of young men brought together by the indiscriminate brutality of war struggle to maintain their humanity in an unending cycle of combat and death. A potent combination of music and choreography, this film without words is an immersive emotional journey into the reality facing young men at the extremes of human experience. These young men succumb to the terror of their situation in a myriad of ways. The ruthless, indiscriminate brutality of war takes its mental and bodily toll on these comrades, as they struggle to survive one day's destruction, only to wake to another's mortal threats. Based on the hugely successful stage production of the same name that premiered at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, in 2015, it is choreographed by Iván Pérez with a commissioned score by composer Keaton Henson.
Friends Natalie and Leah grew up together in north-west London, but their adult lives have taken them in different directions. Natalie's wealth and ambition have set her apart from old friends and family and she finds herself asking not only who she really is, but where she belongs. Life is fragile In an area where wealth and poverty are only streets apart - as Natalie and Leah are about to find out.
Lily O’Connor (Agyness Deyn) – brash, sexy, witty – lives on the North East coast away from the world and her past. But when her mother dies, the past draws Lily back in. When she discovers that her younger brother Mikey (Christian Cooke), the only one who looked after her when they were kids, disappeared to London years ago, she resolves to try and find him. But the search could kill her. Lily’s epilepsy brings vivid visual distortions, strange auras and terrifying visions that we experience through her eyes.
Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte face a bleak future, with their father half-blind and troubled brother Branwell in decline. As their situation worsens, Charlotte sees that writing could offer a way out. This is the story of the sisters' great novels and their extraordinary battle for recognition.
A stage-to-screen film of the epic sell-out production of King Lear starring Don Warrington. This Talawa-Royal Exchange Theatre co-production was filmed in the round in Manchester, in front of an audience. The original theatrical stage production played to sell-out crowds during its run, winning 4- and 5-star reviews across the board and was described by the Guardian as 'as close to definitive as can be'. King Lear is a brutal portrait of a man unravelling - pitted against his daughters, against nature and against the universe itself. In an ancient Britain bound by loyalty to the clan and the power of the sword, King Lear decides to give up his crown. As he divides the kingdom between his daughters, family ties disintegrate, order disappears and the land slides into chaos. Award-winning actor Don Warrington has been highly praised for his brutal and powerful portrayal of King Lear, which resonates particularly as the UK's awareness of the impact of dementia on family bonds and decision-making grows. Meanwhile, the casting of King Lear's family as black reminds us that the presence and influence of black people is potentially undocumented in our ancient history. The 'in the round' recording commissioned by The Space brings the audience even closer to the family feuds, elemental attacks and epic battles of King Lear, and serves to extend the audience of an already dynamic and widely attended production.
Based on the award-winning book by acclaimed British author and illustrator Raymond Briggs, this beautifully hand-drawn animated feature film tells the true story of Raymond's own parents Ethel and Ernest - two ordinary Londoners living through a period of extraordinary events and immense social change. Heartwarming, humorous and bittersweet, the film follows the lives of lady's maid Ethel and milkman Ernest from their first chance meeting in 1928, through the birth of their son Raymond in 1934 to their deaths, within months of each other, in 1971. From the socially stratified 1920s to the moon landing of 1969, the film depicts, through Ethel and Ernest's eyes, the most defining moments of the 20th century - the darkness of the Great Depression, the build-up to World War II, the trials of the war years, the euphoria of VE Day and the emergence of a generation from postwar austerity to the cultural enlightenment of the 1960s. Echoing the lives and concerns of the London working classes through momentous social and political change, Ethel & Ernest is a heartfelt and affectionate tribute to an ordinary couple and an extraordinary generation. Featuring the voices of Brenda Blethyn (Ethel Briggs), Jim Broadbent (Ernest Briggs), Luke Treadway (Raymond Briggs), Macready Massey (Teenage Raymond Briggs), Harry Collett (Young Raymond Briggs), Roger Allam (1930s Doctor), June Brown (Ernest's Stepmother), Karyn Claydon (Jean), Simon Day (Alf), Pam Ferris (Mrs Benet, Aunty Betty), Gillian Hannah (Midwife, Aunty Flo), Alex Jordan (1970s Doctor, Fireman), Virginia McKenna (Lady of the House), Peter Wight (Detective Sergeant Burnley) and Duncan Wisbey (Tailor, additional voices).
Frankie Boyle is Harvey Higgins in a comedy about how conquering your demons might not always produce the desired results. Harvey is given an ultimatum by his wife - refrain from drinking alcohol on a business trip or return to an empty house. Will Harvey be able to save his marriage?
1947. On the eve of his return from his studies in London to Bechuanaland where he is to become king, Prince Seretse Khama falls in love and marries Ruth Williams, a white woman from south London. Bringing Ruth home causes a major international outcry, not least with the British Protectorate, who are concerned not to upset the neighbouring country of South Africa, who are about to implement apartheid, but with his uncle - the regent who is horrified by the break in his country's tradition. Facing obstacles from all sides, the couple find comfort in the love they share for each other. Based on a true story.
With a mass-casualty terror attack in the UK seen as almost inevitable, this drama documentary dramatises what terrorism experts fear is the most likely scenario for Britain's next major terror attack. Counterterrorism police believe that the greatest threat to our security comes from Marauding Terrorist Firearms Attacks (MTFA), which can result in dozens of fatalities even if armed police respond within minutes. There are more than a thousand high-priority terrorism suspects in the UK, but there are only enough surveillance officers to monitor a fraction of these at any time.
Written by Tony Jordan, this is the heartwarming story of Dame Barbara Windsor, the Cockney kid with a dazzling smile and talent to match. Preparing to perform in the theatre one cold evening in 1993, the cheeky, chirpy blonde Babs recounts the people and events that have shaped her life and career over fifty years from 1943 to 1993. She contemplates her lonely childhood and WWII evacuation, her decision to go from Barbara Ann Deeks to Barbara Windsor - inspired by the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, her complicated relationship with her father, her doomed marriage to Ronnie Knight, capturing the attention of Joan Littlewood and becoming the blonde bombshell in the Carry On films. Babs, ever the consummate professional, never lets her fans down whatever her personal anguish and steps on the stage to rapturous applause.
King Charles III, adapted by Mike Bartlett from his Tony-nominated stage play, is part political thriller, part family drama, and a timely examination of contemporary Britain. Prince Charles has waited his entire life to ascend to the British throne. But after the Queen's death, he immediately finds himself wrestling his conscience over a bill to sign into law. His hesitation detonates a constitutional and political crisis, and his family start to worry, with William and Kate becoming aware his actions may threaten their future. Meanwhile, an unhappy and frustrated Prince Harry starts a relationship with a 'commoner', just at the moment that the press is looking for a way to attack. With the future of the monarchy under threat, protests on the streets and his family in disarray, Charles must grapple with his own identity and purpose to decide whether, in the 21st century, the British crown still has any real power. This adaptation retains the daring verse of the original text while fully realising on screen the ambitious scale and spectacle suggested by the play - from Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace to the restless streets of London. Tim Pigott-Smith (Downton Abbey, The Hour) reprises the role of Charles from the acclaimed West End and Broadway production, while Charlotte Riley (Close to the Enemy, Peaky Blinders) stars as Kate Middleton. Olivier award-winner Rupert Goold (The Hollow Crown, True Story) directs. It is produced by Drama Republic, the company behind Golden Globe, Bafta and RTS Award-winning dramas The Honourable Woman, Doctor Foster and An Inspector Calls.
Story of notorious Victorian poisoner Mary Ann Cotton, convicted in 1873 as Britain's 1st serial killer.
Real-life drama about the murder of 20-year-old Sophie Lancaster who in 2007 was kicked to death in a park by a gang. Her boyfriend, Robert Maltby, was also severely beaten and ended up in a coma. The two of them were attacked because they were dressed as goths.
This drama documentary tells the story of the Conservative Party's 2016 leadership campaign - how Boris Johnson, having won the referendum and in pole position to be the next PM, handed victory to Theresa May. Based on extensive research and first-person testimonies, this dramatized narrative goes beyond the headlines to lay bare the politicking and positioning, betrayals and blunders of this extraordinary political time. The programme also features key interviews with people who were intimately involved in the campaigns of the main contenders.
2017 sees the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act which decriminalised homosexual acts in England and Wales between adult males, in private. While it would take several decades before homosexuals would reach anything like full equality in this country, this legislation marks the beginning of this journey. But the dramatic events that led to this Act took place over ten years before and are at the heart of Against the Law, a powerful factual drama starring Daniel Mays and Mark Gatiss. Mays plays Peter Wildeblood, a thoughtful and private gay journalist whose lover, under pressure from the authorities, turned Queen's evidence against him in one of the most explosive court cases of the 1950s - the infamous Montagu Trial. Wildeblood, and his friends Lord Montagu and Michael Pitt-Rivers, were found guilty of homosexual offences and jailed. But the public thought the trial unfair and forced a reluctant government to set up a committee to investigate whether homosexuality should be legalised. The committee was led by Sir John Wolfenden. With his career in tatters and his private life painfully exposed, Peter Wildeblood began his sentence a broken man, but he emerged from Wormwood Scrubs a year later determined to do all he could to change the way these draconian laws against homosexuality impacted on the lives of men like him. He was the only openly gay man to testify before the Wolfenden committee about the brutal reality of being gay in this country at that time. In 1957 the committee recommended that the laws be changed. It would take a further 10 years before these recommendations would become law. Woven through this powerful drama is testimony from a chorus of men who lived through those dark days, when homosexuals were routinely imprisoned or forced to undergo chemical aversion therapy in an attempt to cure them of their 'condition'. There is also testimony from a retired police officer whose job it was to enforce these laws and a former psychiatri
Flood is the story of what happens when the world is destroyed and how those who survive try to make it new again. One day, it starts to rain and no one knows why. And it doesn't stop. Far out on the North Sea, a fisherman raises a girl in his net, miraculously alive, from the deep sea. Is she one of the migrants now washing up on English shores? Or someone sent for some higher purpose? Set in the aftermath of an apocalyptic event, which has seen England engulfed by water, this play asks a simple question: what if the fleeing masses from our TV screens and Twitter feeds, in their boats and their orange lifejackets, had English accents? A reimagining of the flood myth, it is the story of how the nation is destroyed by a global flood and tsunami wave. Presented on a floating stage in Hull's Victoria Dock, those left fight for survival.
Adapted by Stephen Butchard from Ian McEwan's Whitbread Prize-winning novel, The Child in Time is a lyrical and heartbreaking exploration of love, loss and the power of things unseen. Stephen Lewis, a successful writer of children's books, is confronted with the unthinkable: he loses his only child, four-year-old Kate, in a supermarket. In one horrifying moment that replays itself over the years that follow, Stephen realises his daughter is gone. With tenderness and insight, the film explores a marriage devastated by the loss of a child. Kate's absence sets Stephen and his wife, Julie, on diverging paths as both struggle with an all-consuming grief. With the passage of time, a balance of sorts returns, until hope surfaces and triumphs unexpectedly.
In the week that follows Princess Diana's tragic death on 31 August 1997, four separate stories unfold as four ordinary lives are all affected in different ways. Jack is a shy 19-year-old, the only child of an adored mother who dies the same night as Princess Diana. He struggles to come to terms with her death while computing the loss of an icon who meant so much to both of them. Estranged from his father, he seeks help from a young neighbour, Russell. Yasmin is unhappily married to Hassan, an unsuccessful businessman who can't admit his failure. Affected deeply by news of Diana's death, Yasmin's patience snaps when their television is re-possessed while she is watching the coverage. Making a pilgrimage to London with their only daughter Aalia, she arrives unannounced on the doorstep of her Uncle Zaheer. Inspired by the public outpouring of emotion at Diana's death, Yasmin goes on a journey of self-discovery. Michael is a junior reporter on his honeymoon in Paris with his new wife Sophie when news of Diana's death breaks. A fluent French speaker, Michael teams up with the charismatic Laura, a star reporter flown in to cover the story. Spending more and more time on the story at the expense of his honeymoon, Michael struggles to balance his career with his fledgling marriage. Mary is a Glaswegian florist. Living alone with her mother who is battling Alzheimer's, she struggles for money. Mary hatches a plan to drive to London and sell flowers before Saturday's funeral. With the help of her adoring friend Gordon, she travels to the capital in an old coach filled with flowers. Unexpectedly caught up in the public expression of love for Diana, Mary discovers emotions she thought were long lost.
'They catch Mancunia's infectious yawn, and this great city holds them in its palm.' This drama by poet Michael Symmons Roberts follows three men in Manchester during one night in September. Written in verse, the film tells the poignant stories of Marley, Antonio and McCulloch. It is also a love song to a city - to Manchester, the backdrop to the film, whose familiar streets are difficult to leave for the departing Sarah. Marley, Antonio and McCulloch are men whose lives have turned upside down for very different reasons. They sleep on the streets of Manchester in their vehicles, having lost all their economic and social power. They hide away in disused car parks or in industrial estates, trying to snatch sleep, listening to the radio for company. The commentary from England's first World Cup qualifying fixture, where some of the richest, most powerful men in the world of sport compete on the world stage is a stark contrast to their own situations. As the film continues, it becomes clear how these three came to spend the night in their cars, and how their lives interconnect.
Two men battle against the establishment to tell the truth. This is the story of the struggle of James Ellis and Sam Thompson to stage the play 'Over the Bridge' in Belfast in 1959. A play that tackled the build-up of sectarianism and religious division in the Belfast shipyards. Despite artistic director James Ellis agreeing to stage the play at the Group Theatre, the pair ran into censorship from the theatre's chairman, Ritchie McKee, who believed the play could cause civil unrest. Ellis resigned from the Group and the pair were denied access to venues, in no small part because of the influence of McKee, who was regional governor of BBC Northern Ireland, chairman of the arts council, brother of the Lord Mayor and owner of half of the theatres in Belfast. This short film documents their battle to stage the play against the odds and their eventual success in doing so, with 42,000 people coming to see the play and Laurence Olivier asking them to bring it to London's West End.
Born to traditional Punjabi parents and growing up in Wolverhampton, Sathnam Sanghera moves to London after graduating from Cambridge University and builds a career as a journalist. He tries to gather the courage to introduce his English girlfriend Laura to his mother and father and reveal he will not be entering an arranged marriage - but instead learns a painful family secret.
A period drama adapted from the unfinished novel by Charles Dickens. This feature-length version combines the two episodes of the 2012 mini-series. Opium addict and choirmaster John Jasper has vivid dreams of killing his beloved nephew Edwin Drood and stealing his fiancée Rosa. When two exotic strangers arrive in town, Jasper's dark desires take shape and his life will never be the same again.
An animated family film based on the much-loved children's book written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. The Highway Rat tells the tale of a ravenous rat who craves buns, biscuits and all sweet things. Tearing along the highway, he searches for sugary treats to steal, until his sweet tooth leads him to a sticky end. Featuring the voices of David Tennant (Highway Rat), Rob Brydon (Narrator), Frances de la Tour (Rabbit), Tom Hollander (Squirrel), Nina Sosanya (Duck) and Husaam Kiani (Kittan).
For over a decade, the Liverpudlian ex-market stall trader Eddie Braben penned Morecambe and Wise's material, reshaping the double act into the Eric and Ernie that the nation took to its heart. But it wasn't all sunshine. This comedy-drama follows the story of how The Golden Triangle was formed and celebrates the man behind Morecambe and Wise's greatest successes. In 1969 Eddie Braben was persuaded by the BBC's then Head of Light Entertainment Bill Cotton to make the journey to London to meet Eric and Ernie and their producer John Ammonds. It wasn't a meeting of the minds. But there was a spark, something different and special that Braben saw in the music hall double act who had yet to crack their on-screen presence. He set out to uncover the essence of what would transform them into television's most beloved entertainers. What followed was years of dedication, determination and hard graft - comedy comes at a price. With the help and support of his wife Deidree, Eddie dug deep, taking on a huge scripting workload that saw Eric and Ernie take over the living rooms and hearts of the UK population. Year on year a new series, a new Christmas special, incredible celebrity guests and the never-ending commute from home in Liverpool to work in London saw Eddie work himself to the point of exhaustion. A man desperate for a break, but driven by perfection and the need to make people laugh. The film culminates in a journey to the iconic 1977 Christmas Show, celebrates a decade of enormous success for both Braben and Morecambe & Wise whilst not shying away from the pressure and pain Eddie went through to help create the screen work of Britain's most beloved double act.
Many years ago, Grandpa was a World War II flying ace, but sadly he is now suffering from Alzheimer's disease. When his family can no longer look after him, he is moved to Twilight Towers, an old people's home. It soon becomes clear that Miss Dandy is running Twilight Towers for her own ulterior motives, and it is up to Grandpa and grandson Jack to make a daring escape. Failure could have the direst of consequences, but success will give Grandpa a final chance to relive his past and take to the sky once again in his beloved Spitfire.
Filmed in homage to his original TV series, this fictionalised account follows Dave Allen from childhood to becoming one of the UK and Ireland's comedy greats, with just a whiskey, a cigarette and nine-and-a-half fingers.
Hamlet captures the Almeida Theatre's 2017 acclaimed production of William Shakespeare's great play, recorded as-live in its West End transfer on the stage of London's Harold Pinter Theatre. Robert Icke's innovative modern-dress production, featuring Andrew Scott, Juliet Stevenson, Angus Wright and Jessica Brown Findlay, has been widely acclaimed as a dazzlingly intelligent, forcefully contemporary staging. The Evening Standard hailed Andrew Scott's 'career-defining performance... he makes the most famous speeches feel fresh and unpredictable.' The recording features the original cast, and is directed for the screen by Rhodri Huw, working in close collaboration with Robert Icke. Hamlet has design by Hildegard Bechtler, with lighting by Natasha Chivers, sound by Tom Gibbons, and video design by Tal Yarden. The stage production has been nominated for Best Revival, Andrew Scott as Best Actor and Tom Gibbons has been nominated for Best Sound Design in the forthcoming Olivier Awards. The production recently won Best Stage Revival in the WhatsOnStage Awards, and Juliet Stevenson won Best Supporting Actress in a Play whilst Andrew Scott won the Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Shakespearean Performance. Hamlet is is an Illuminations/Almeida Theatre production presented by BBC, The Almeida Theatre, The Ambassador Theatre Group, Sonia Friedman Productions.
Long Night at Blackstone is Greg Hemphill's second outing as a director, and is the follow-up to his hilarious and terrifying West Skerra Light. Faye Bowers is the host of a low-rent paranormal activity show, a master of trickery and pretence, but she is desperate to be taken seriously as a journalist. When she learns that the show is to be axed, she is determined to go out with a bang. The venue for the final show is the mysterious Blackstone Manor, a huge dilapidated pile inhabited by the Laird of Blackstone and full of stories of past horrors. Though the filming day starts normally enough, it soon becomes apparent that all is not right, and for the very first time in the show's history, the ghosts may in fact be real and very dangerous. Battling backstabbing colleagues as well as the terrors in the house, Faye finds herself making a show that could catapult her career into the big league - if she can survive the night. Starring Lorraine McIntosh as Faye Bowers the presenter, John Gordon Sinclair as Pat Tomorrow the psychic sidekick, Julie Wilson Nimmo as Dom the Producer, John Michie as the Laird, and introducing a very special mystery guest.
Genevieve is a bright, musically talented 17-year-old student from a respectable family. Her teenage years seem to be panning out just fine, until her mental state starts to spiral out of control as she experiences the first manic episode of her Bipolar Disorder.
The 80-year-old King Lear divides his kingdom among his daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, according to their affection for him. Cordelia refuses to flatter him, so he banishes her. Having acquired power, Goneril and Regan expel their father from their homes. At the same time, Lear's prime minister, Gloucester, is betrayed by his son Edmund and his other son, Edgar, is forced to go into hiding. Lear becomes mad, Gloucester is blinded: both the kingdom and the family collapse into chaos and warfare. Lear and Cordelia are reunited - for a brief moment love reigns, then tragedy descends.
A short film by Bonnie Wright (who played Ginny Weasley in the Harry Potter films), starring Kerry Fox and Jason Isaacs, which addresses the shifts in power and the visibility of women in middle age. Medusa's Ankles is an adaptation of AS Byatt's story which explores the relationship of a middle-aged university lecturer and a salon owner.
Phyllida Lloyd directs an all-female production of Shakespeare's great political drama, set in a present-day women's prison. The Donmar Shakespeare Trilogy began in 2012 with an all-female production of Julius Caesar led by Dame Harriet Walter. Set in a women’s prison, the production asked the question, "Who owns Shakespeare?" Two further productions followed: Henry IV in 2014 and The Tempest in 2016, all featuring a diverse company of women.
Recorded with a live audience, this bold contemporary production is presented as if played by inmates of a women's prison. The Donmar Shakespeare Trilogy began in 2012 with an all-female production of Julius Caesar led by Dame Harriet Walter. Set in a women’s prison, the production asked the question, "Who owns Shakespeare?" Two further productions followed: Henry IV in 2014 and The Tempest in 2016, all featuring a diverse company of women.
The Donmar Shakespeare Trilogy began in 2012 with an all-female production of Julius Caesar led by Dame Harriet Walter. Set in a women’s prison, the production asked the question, "Who owns Shakespeare?" Two further productions followed: Henry IV in 2014 and The Tempest in 2016, all featuring a diverse company of women.
On the day before Mother's Day 1993, Colin and Wendy Parry's lives are torn apart when their youngest son Tim is killed in a terrorist attack by the IRA in Warrington's town centre. The attack shocks ordinary people on both sides of the Irish Sea. Sue McHugh, an unassuming and normally shy Dublin housewife, is deeply affected by the tragedy. Spurred into action by the events in Warrington and the hope that she can make a difference, Sue urges people across Ireland to demonstrate that the killings on all sides must stop. But has Sue underestimated the challenge of brokering peace in a community that has known only conflict? As the grieving Parrys search desperately for answers to their son's senseless killing, they form an alliance with Sue, her husband Arthur, and her Peace '93 movement, travelling to Dublin in a bid to bring about peace and ensure Tim's enduring legacy is one of hope and tolerance. Based on real events.
Coming-of-age story of 16-year-old Bethan, who we follow as she deals with the comical but painfully real anxieties and insecurities of teenage life, along with the stark reality of a home life that is far removed from what she projects to her friends.
Drama telling a shocking true story about sex trafficking and modern slavery in Britain. A young Romanian woman is snatched in broad daylight from a London street, trafficked to Ireland and used as a sex slave in a series of pop-up brothels. Her shocking true story offers a tense and thought-provoking thriller exposing how, in modern Britain, slavery can hide in plain sight.
The danger lies not in machine becoming more like man but in man becoming more like machine. Like a giant graphic novel burst into life, Golem is theatre company 1927's multi-award-winning dystopian fable about our over-reliance on machines. A dark and fantastical tale of an extraordinary ordinary man, it is a vivid mix of handmade animation, sly wit, live music, storytelling and performance. Dissecting the present and looking to the future, Golem is a parable for our times that cleverly and satirically explores one of the great questions of the modern world - who or what is in control of our technologies? Created by Margate- and London-based theatre company 1927, Golem had its world premiere at the Salzburg Festival, Austria, in August 2014. Written and directed by Suzanne Andrade, it is a synchronised fusion of handcrafted animation by Paul Barritt entwined with live performance from 1927's ensemble of performers, alongside a live and recorded score composed by Lillian Henley. Acclaimed by audiences and critics alike since its UK premiere at London's Young Vic Theatre in December 2014, Golem has, over three and half years, been performed over 315 times, touring across the UK and internationally to 16 countries across five continents, including seasons in Taiwan, France, Russia, China, Switzerland, Spain, Australia, Italy, USA, Denmark, Portugal, South Korea, Luxembourg, Columbia and Kazakhstan. Golem was created as a 1927, Salzburg Festival, Theatre de la Ville Paris & Young Vic co-production with development support from Harrogate Theatre, Stratford Circus and The Old Market. 1927 was supported by The Space to film Golem in 2018 at artsdepot, London.
Jenny Northwood is a single mother struggling to raise her two girls, Sophie and Lauren since feckless husband Dave left her for another woman. Jenny's widowed mother, Mary, is her lifeline, helping out with the kids and allowing Jenny to hold down a full-time job at a supermarket. But when Mary suffers a devastating stroke that results in vascular dementia, Jenny's world comes crashing down. She and her sister, Claire, assume that their mother will be cared for in hospital, but they're horrified to discover that, once she's recovered from the stroke, the hospital want their bed back and Mary will have to go into a nursing home. But none of the local authority homes are even remotely equipped to cater for Mary's comprehensive needs. Unable to afford private healthcare, and with Claire living 80 miles away, Jenny is forced to give up her job and look after her mother at home, but the stress of caring for Mary takes its toll as Jenny and the kids reach breaking point. As well as facing the day-to-day realities of being a full-time carer, Jenny also has to face her own insecurities as a new romance appears on the horizon in the shape of builder Nick. Jenny and Claire then discover that their mother should qualify for NHS Continuing Healthcare, which means all Mary's health costs would be paid for by the NHS. This fact is withheld from them by the cash-strapped health authority, sending the sisters into battle against a broken system, determined to secure the level of care their mother deserves.
Simon Callow enacts the story of Ebeneezer Scrooge, the miserly owner of an old counting house, who is visited by the ghost of his dead business partner, Jacob Marley, on Christmas Eve. Marley warns Scrooge he is doomed in the afterlife unless he pays heed and learns from three ghosts who will visit him during the night. The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come show Scrooge how his mean, uncaring behavior has oppressed those around him as they visit episodes from his past, his present and his future life. By the end Scrooge is humbled and redeemed and transforms into a generous, kind-hearted man.
Mark Gatiss brings the Christmas ghost story tradition back to life with The Dead Room, a chilling new tale for BBC Four. Written and directed by Gatiss, the 30-minute film tells the tale of a long-running radio horror series of the same name. Simon Callow (Victoria & Abdul, Shakespeare in Love, Four Weddings and a Funeral) plays Aubrey Judd, the radio series’ veteran presenter and national treasure, who finds that he must adapt to changing times and tastes. But whatever happened to the classic ghost stories? The good old days? Aubrey soon discovers that all is not quiet in the eerie radio studio – and that elements of his own past are not as dead and buried as he perhaps hoped. Mark Gatiss says, ‘The Christmas ghost story is a wonderful and vital TV tradition and one which has found its natural place on BBC Four. A Merry Christmas to all of you at home. Pleasant dreams!’
The Midnight Gang is an adaptation of the book by David Walliams. When Tom gets hit on the head by a cricket ball, he finds himself on the miserable children's ward of St Hugo's Hospital, where he is greeted by a terrifying-looking porter and wicked matron. But things aren't as bad as they seem and Tom is soon to embark on the most thrilling journey of a lifetime! The Midnight Gang tells the extraordinarily heartwarming and funny story of five children on their quest for adventure! It is a story of friendship, magic and most importantly... making dreams and wishes come true.
Two friends, one naughty one nice, hide in in a department store for a laugh. What they think will the Best Night Ever quickly takes a very chilling turn when a Santa Claus robot blows its fuse and turns into the much more sinister Splinta Claws. This scary rewired Santa declares he rewards the NAUGHTY children, not the NICE ones and so begins a chilling chase around the dark and empty store.
Award-winning director and screenwriter Sir Richard Eyre looks back on his 2018 production of King Lear, which garnered huge critical acclaim upon its release and drew together a stellar cast that included Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Emily Watson, Jim Broadbent and the then up-and-coming talent of Florence Pugh. Eyre looks back on the challenges he faced when directing such a multitude of star names and the pressures that a screenwriter takes on when choosing to adapt one of the greatest stage plays of all time to the big screen.
A barrister has to balance representing a new young client with supporting her high-profile husband amid a job promotion and an impending scandal. A legal drama, starring Valene Kane, Declan Conlon, Adam Gillian, Joanne Crawford, Chris Robinson, Ruby Campbell, Niall Cusack, Patrick Fitzsymons and Mark Asante.
A star-studded documentary drama, providing an account of Oscar Wilde's glittering career before his trial for homosexual crimes and his tragic fall from grace. Wilde enthusiasts and experts such Stephen Fry and Wilde's grandson Merlin Holland provide revelatory accounts of how the writer's own life informed his work, intercut with adaptations of his comedies and books performed by a cast including Freddie Fox, Claire Skinner, Anna Chancellor and James Fleet.
Conal is a 22 year old with Down's Syndrome. Full of heavy metal attitude, he wants to be a rock star. Mum, Fionnuala lost her husband five years ago and places a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of her daughter Gemma, 18. She is mum number two. Conal wants to be treated as an adult and Gemma wants her own life, but Fionnuala is too stressed to take this on board. While Gemma looks forward to university in Scotland, Conal can only see his life getting worse. But he has a plan. He hoodwinks Gemma into taking a trip to Antrim, agreed by their mum, for a job. After missing the train, they get onto a tour bus, then things get a bit out of hand. Mum is mad with Gemma, blaming her during a phone call, for taking Conal to Antrim. Conal then reveals his plan - he has bought tickets for an Ash gig in Belfast that night. Meanwhile, Fionnuala enlists the help of family friend Fergus to chase them down. What happens next involves vodka, crisps, a tractor crash, losing the tickets, a sports car, separating and getting lost in Belfast, selling everything, but still having no way of getting to the gig together. Meanwhile Fionnuala is learning to chill. So how will it end? Will they all get together somewhere? And most importantly, will they get to the gig?
Support for the far right is growing in Britain’s post-industrial towns and cities. This factual drama from the BAFTA-winning team behind Killed By My Debt and the Murdered by… films tells the story of a young man with no secure job, housing or future as he is drawn into a devastating hate crime. A steel-tipped state of the nation drama based on deep research into the realities of life in ‘forgotten Britain.’
David Ireland’s Cyprus Avenue is a multi-award-winning play and production starring Stephen Rea and directed by Vicky Featherstone. Originally co-produced at the Royal Court Theatre and Abbey Theatre, the critically acclaimed production went on tour to Belfast and New York. This adaptation mixes live capture of the performance from the stage of the Royal Court with location shooting in Belfast. Eric Miller is a Belfast loyalist. He experiences a psychotic episode and mistakes his five-week-old granddaughter for Gerry Adams. Generations of sectarian trauma convince him that his cultural heritage is under siege. He must act. A hard-hitting but in parts hilarious black comedy, Cyprus Avenue tells the story of a man struggling with the past and terrified of the future. It was awarded Best New Play at the Irish Times Theatre Awards and the James Tait Black Prize for Drama in 2017. Stephen Rea won Best Actor for his portrayal of Eric at the Irish Times Theatre Awards 2017. This recording, commissioned by The Space, creates a completely original adaptation.
When 80-year-old Maud's best friend Elizabeth fails to turn up for a shopping trip, she is certain that something terrible has happened. Despite living with dementia, she decides to turn detective and sets about trying to solve the mystery, but with her condition it's not always easy to hold on to the clues.
Factual drama following the story of Ray, a young boy on the cusp of adolescence who finds himself standing trial for murder.
1684. John Martin is on trial for his life. Facing him, the infamous 'hanging judge' George Jeffreys. However, this is not a cut-and-dried murder case.
Animated adaptation of the children's book by Michael Morpurgo. A shy little girl named Mimi finds a baby dragon and undertakes a perilous journey to return it to its mother.
Lighthearted short drama inspired by Burns’ classic poem Address to a Haggis which follows the lives of the MacNeep family in their ill-fated plans to get together for Burns Night 2020. Jimmy and Isobel MacNeep are planning a family reunion for Burns Night 2020, eager to brag about their latest award for their outstanding Haggis recipe. However, their grown-up children have their own problems to deal with, all forcing them to find their own way of marking the evening, exploring their relationships with each other, Scottish culture, and the national dish itself.
August, 1945. A coachload of children arrive at the Calgarth Estate by Lake Windermere. They are child survivors of the Nazi Holocaust that has devastated Europe’s Jewish population. Carrying only the clothes they wear and a few meagre possessions, they bear the emotional and physical scars of all they have suffered. Charged with looking after them is Oscar Friedmann, a German-born child psychologist. He and his team of counsellors have just four months to help the children reclaim their lives. By the lake, in sunshine and rain the children eat, learn English, play football and ride bikes. They yearn for news of their loved ones every day, and meanwhile they are invited to express their trauma through painting. Some locals taunt them but they are embraced by others. A number of the older children steal and they are haunted by nightmares. Nevertheless, it is in this environment that they begin to heal. Eventually, letters from The Red Cross arrive with the terrible confirmation that for nearly all the children their siblings and parents have been murdered. One child, however, is convinced that his brother survived. The Windermere Children is the stark, moving and ultimately redemptive story of the bonds they make with one another, and of how the friendships forged at Windermere become a lifeline to a fruitful future. In the absence of relatives, they find family in each other.
Breach Theatre's acclaimed play, based on the original court transcripts, about the shocking 1612 trial of Agostino Tassi for the rape of painter Artemisia Gentileschi.
Welsh acting legend Dame Siân Phillips stars alongside Brigit Forsyth in this award-winning drama written and directed by Cardiff-based film-maker Rachel Dax. Having been screened internationally at film festivals, this is the television premiere. Time and Again is a heart-wrenching and uplifting tale of two young women separated by society.
A documentary inspired by the book of the same name that records the circumstances of the deaths of every man, woman and child killed during the Troubles. With extracts read by stars of stage and screen including Roma Downey, Liam Neeson, Adrian Dunbar, Michelle Fairley, Ciaran Hinds, Bronagh Gallagher, Brendan Gleeson, Susan Lynch, Stephen Rea and Kenneth Branagh.
Professor Philip Goodman, famous for debunking hoaxes and ghost sightings, is given a dossier of three terrifying, unsolvable cases by his hero and role model Charles Cameron, who has been missing, presumed dead, for years. Can Goodman explain what even Cameron could not? Horror anthology, starring Andy Nyman, Martin Freeman and Paul Whitehouse
A performance of Emma Rice's ebullient theatrical production of Angela Carter's deliciously dark final novel, a story of twins from a dysfunctional family who pursue a career performing as showgirls.
A shocking drama inspired by the Windrush scandal. After 50 years in the UK, Anthony Bryan is wrongfully detained by the Home Office and threatened with deportation. There is also a bowdlerized pre-watershed version (production code m000jz0g) with some swearing removed, which was broadcast on 8 June 2020 on BBC One.
Drama by Reggie Yates exploring the impact of fame on reality TV participants and those close to them. A year after stardom, can Billy escape the reputation that now precedes him.
In July 2005, black teenager Anthony Walker was murdered by two white men in an unprovoked racist attack in a Liverpool park. He was just 18 years old. This film tells the story of how this talented young man's life might have turned out. Written by BAFTA-winning screenwriter Jimmy McGovern, Anthony's imagined life is told in reverse chronology as we see him realise his dreams and enjoy the life he had a right to live before fate -- and hate -- take it all away.
Mike Bartlett's play Albion, directed for the stage by Rupert Goold, is a tragicomic drama about national identity, family, passion and the disappointment of personal dreams. Filmed at London’s Almeida Theatre, the play is set in the garden of an English country house. The house has been bought by successful businesswoman Audrey Walters, who intends to restore the ruined garden to its former glory and create a memorial to the son she recently lost in a foreign war.
In BAC Beatbox Academy’s hit show, six talented performers interpret Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein from their own perspective as young people growing up in 21st-century Britain. Two hundred years after the 18-year-old Mary Shelley wrote the text, these young artists explore how modern monsters are created in today’s society. This musical film is part performance, part documentary, with the cast’s voices as the only instruments. Bringing their own interpretation of the Frankenstein story to life with a dazzling array of vocal talents including rap, beatboxing and song, the cast create a breathtaking musical soundscape filled with memorable original tracks. Originally devised for the stage, the live show Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster was a huge hit at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Sonya and her Uncle Vanya throw their lives into maintaining the crumbling family estate, only visited occasionally by the radical and inspiring local doctor Astrov. However, when Sonya’s father, Professor Serebryakov, suddenly returns with his restless, alluring, new wife Yelena, long-hidden truths start to emerge. As the fractured family are forced to confront their longing, loneliness and each other, can the beauty of life help them find new hope? Following its critically acclaimed opening in London in early 2020, Sonia Friedman Productions’ stunning, five-star Uncle Vanya, Anton Chekhov's masterpiece, was abruptly halted as the world went into lockdown. Now, as the majority of theatres across the world remain in darkness, Uncle Vanya’s ensemble cast overcome the considerable challenges of working in a global pandemic, returning to the Harold Pinter Theatre to film an exciting new hybrid of film and theatre - far more than simply a capture of the play. Full of tumultuous frustration and hidden passions, but brimming with hope and optimism for the future, Uncle Vanya is a must-see event for our times.
Inspired by the life of Adam Kashmiry, Adam tells the remarkable story of a young trans man and his struggle across genders and borders to be himself. Originally a multi-award-winning stage play, Adam has been reinvented as a compelling, theatrical on-screen drama, presented by the National Theatre of Scotland and Hopscotch Films. Born in Egypt, Adam was assigned female at birth but always knew he was a boy. Trapped in a deeply conservative society where falling in love with the wrong person can get you killed, he knew that he had to escape. With a borrowed laptop he typed in a question: ‘Can the soul of a man be trapped in the body of a woman?’ What followed was a catalyst to begin the epic journey for the right to change his body, to the boy he knew himself to be.
Kwabena has been stuck in his dead-end recruitment job for way longer than he initially planned. He spends the majority of his time in reveries of accomplishing his dream: to be a filmmaker. When he bumps into Amy, an old friend from film school who is now working at a production company, he gets the chance that he’s been waiting for. Unfortunately, the once-in-a-lifetime pitching opportunity clashes with an important presentation Kwabena has to deliver for one of the recruitment company directors. Already on a warning for his slack performance, Kwabs knows that if he bails on the presentation, he is likely to lose his job. But this pitch could also be the first step towards following his dream.
The true story of a young soldier’s journey from hero to alleged war criminal, the determined lawyer on his tail and their search for truth in the fog of war. Brian Wood is among several British soldiers accused of committing war crimes after a specific engagement in Iraq, the so-called Battle of Danny Boy. The allegations call into question Brian’s memories, his actions and the example he wants to set to his wife Lucy, sons Bailey and Charlie, and his former soldier dad Gavin. With tenacious human rights lawyer Phil Shiner investigating the actions of British personnel, Brian is forced to re-examine everything he remembers about that day and everything he has experienced as a soldier. Memory, evidence and trauma collide on the fine line between war and unlawful killing in a legal and moral conflict that stretches from the battlefield at Checkpoint Danny Boy to one of Britain’s largest ever public inquiries, the Al-Sweady Inquiry. Will Brian be able to look his family in the eye and be the husband, father and son they need him to be?
Conspiracy / fact based thriller on the events of the 'Climategate' scandal in 2009. Professor Phil Jones and his team of climatologists at the University of East Anglia find that their work has been hacked by climate change deniers and turned into the first big fake-news story. The deniers and corporations with vested interests skillfully create the image of climate change as a conspiracy being perpetrated by academic scientists. Although an inquiry concludes that there was no case for Jones and his team to answer, it has taken a decade for the public perception of the veracity of climate change to recover.
1923. Edward Williams, gentleman and amateur golfer, lives an untroubled life as the curator of a small university museum. His speciality is the topography of the British Isles. So when an art dealer sends him details of an interesting engraving – a mezzotint – of an old country house, he’s intrigued. When the picture arrives, however, it seems perfectly ordinary – until Williams notices a figure in the picture where there was none before. A cloaked figure, with a skull-like head and legs that are horribly thin. Soon, within the mezzotint, the figure seems to be on the move across the moonlit lawn towards the house with murderous intent. Long-forgotten secrets rise to the surface as Williams and his friends summon all the rational forces at their command to confront the impossible.
After London's Globe Theatre burns to the ground in 1613, William Shakespeare stops writing and returns to his home town of Stratford-upon-Avon, much to the surprise of his family members, who he has neglected for two decades. Here, Shakespeare faces new challenges as he grapples with the story of his own life and sets out to resolve its final chapter.
With his crown under threat from enemies both foreign and domestic, Henry IV prepares for war. Having deposed the previous king, he is only too aware how tenuous his position is and the price to be paid if he falters. As the king prepares to defend his crown, his son Prince Hal is languishing in the taverns and brothels of London, revelling in the company of his friend, the notorious Sir John Falstaff. With the onset of the war, Hal and Falstaff are thrust into the brutal reality of the battlefield, where Hal must confront his responsibilities to family and throne. This 2014 RSC production of Shakespeare’s history play was directed by the company’s artistic director, Gregory Doran, and features Sir Antony Sher in the role of Falstaff.
Drama about a bullied young woman miscarrying at work. Trainee warehouse manager Megan is desperate to keep her new job and bullies her pregnant friend Alys to get her 'pick rate' up.
A new Royal Shakespeare Company production for 2022 of one of Shakespeare's best-loved romantic comedies, filmed in Stratford-upon-Avon. In a colourful world where anything feels possible, two very different couples fall in love. With dastardly plots, hilarious slapstick and some of Shakespeare’s wittiest dialogue, Roy Alexander Weise directs this classic tale of matchmaking and manipulation.
In 1895, in cell 3, floor 3, in Reading Gaol, we find Prisoner C33. Starved, thin, and with his hair crudely hacked short, he is confined alone in this dark cell, denied water to wash himself with and refused access to a toilet. Prisoner C33 – real name Oscar Wilde – is a dramatist of genius, poet, wit, novelist, husband, father of two children and, until recently, the darling of London society. He has been imprisoned for the crime of having participated in a homosexual relationship. He is struggling to reconcile his identity as a creative genius with the trauma of his treatment as a despised criminal. In despair, and fearing the onset of insanity, he fantasises about being in conversation with his former self – the elegant, debonair, famous, popular, long-haired, flamboyant Oscar Wilde before this nightmare began. Their talk, Oscar with Oscar, is full of Wildean wit, mischievous humour, nostalgia, philosophical insight, and sardonic wisdom. But as he contemplates his fall from grace
Floodlights shows how, in November 2016, former professional footballer Andy Woodward, who once played for Bury FC and Sheffield Utd, found the courage to go public about the horrific sexual abuse he was subjected to by his youth coach, paedophile Barry Bennell. His testimony encouraged hundreds more men who had suffered abuse in similar circumstances, many at the hands of Bennell himself, to come forward, exposing a deeply hidden scandal at the heart of our national game. The drama follows Andy’s life, from his childhood as a passionate footballer with the world at his feet, to the man who could no longer bury the truth. It also examines how Bennell was able to groom young players and their families as he held the power to make their dreams come true.
Leon, a mixed-race boy, and Jake, his white baby brother, are separated after their mother has a breakdown. Leon is determined to find him and gets unexpected support along the way.
Soon there will be more voice-activated digital assistants than people. All are female-gendered. Roger needs company, and he doesn’t want a dog. When his daughter Erin buys him the latest Isla digital assistant, an unexpected relationship between man and technology emerges. But who's really in control? This thought-provoking, and at times troubling, dark comedy written by playwright Tim Price, has been adapted for television following its world premiere at Theatr Clwyd in North Wales. It was helmed by the theatre’s artistic director Tamara Harvey and stars Mark Lambert as retired teacher Roger, who is struggling with lockdown following the death of his wife. Lisa Zahra plays his concerned-but-busy daughter, who thinks a smart speaker is the perfect home help for her lonely dad, but never imagined it would lead to a visit from the police as well as surprising and sometimes upsetting revelations from his past. Expect laughs, technology-induced frustration and some strong language.
Lucy Kirkwood’s Maryland takes us to the dark heart of male violence against women but manages to do so with humour and wit. An outstanding cast explores an urgent issue.
Inspired by a childhood memory of an old vinyl recording in the family home, Ralph Fiennes revisited TS Eliot’s Four Quartets during the 2020 lockdown, wondering if it could be given a theatrical treatment rather than merely recited. Theatre producers James Dacre of the Royal and Derngate theatres, and Danny Moar of the Theatre Royal Bath, got behind Fiennes’s idea. Hildegard Bechtler, Chris Shutt and Tim Lutkin created the set and costume design, sound and stage lighting, with Fiennes directing the production, which toured UK regional theatres and ran at the Pinter Theatre, London, in December 2021. This film, directed by Ralph’s sister Sophie, known for her work with Michael Clark, Grace Jones and les ballets C de la B, was made immediately after the live performances. The set and lighting were transported overnight from the West End and re-rigged in English National Ballet’s production studio.
Sweden, 1863. A country not much visited by Englishmen. An exception is the inquisitive Mr Wraxhall, whose innocent rummaging through the archives of the noble de la Gardie family takes a sinister turn. Wraxhall becomes fascinated by the long-dead founder of the dynasty, the fearsome Count Magnus, a tyrannical ruler who dabbled in alchemy and who once made a strange journey to the Holy Land on most unholy business. Despite the warnings of his hosts, Wraxhall is drawn ever deeper into the Count’s dark world and discovers that the dreaded aristocrat may not lie easy in his tomb...
Mark Gatiss stars as Jacob Marley in his own theatrical retelling of Dickens’s classic winter ghost story, with Nicholas Farrell as Scrooge. Directed for the stage by Adam Penford, this powerful tale of life, love, loss and redemption is as relevant today as when it was first published in 1843. Filled with Dickensian, spine-tingling special effects, prepare to be frightened and delighted in equal measure as you enter the supernatural Victorian world of A Christmas Carol. It’s a cold Christmas Eve and mean-spirited miser Ebenezer Scrooge has an unexpected visit from the spirit of his former business partner Jacob Marley. Bound in chains as punishment for a lifetime of greed, the unearthly figure explains it isn’t too late for Scrooge to change his miserly ways in order to escape the same fate, but first he’ll have to face three more eerie encounters…
Shakespeare’s comedy of mistaken identity and the madness of love finds new life in this production from London’s Globe Theatre. Illyria is a society in limbo, held captive by loss until a sea-drenched stranger arrives and unexpectedly unleashes the chaotic and transformative power of love. Wild, surprising, fierce and funny, this 2021 production of Shakespeare’s comedy is directed by Globe associate artistic director Sean Holmes and is infused with mesmeric nostalgia and soulful music from the world of Americana.
Kirsty MacLeod dreams of a better life away from the isolation of small village life on an island in the Outer Hebrides. Suppressing these aspirations, she sees her lover, Murdo, conscripted for service in the First World War and soon to set off and fight alongside the other young men from the village. A road dance is held in their honour the evening before they depart, and it’s on this fateful evening that Kirsty’s life takes a dramatic and tragic turn.
Yaël Farber directs James McArdle as Macbeth and Saoirse Ronan as Lady Macbeth in the Almeida’s Olivier Award-nominated production about a couple’s spine-chilling quest for power.
Shakespeare's riotous tale of love and magic, filmed live at the Globe Theatre in 2016.
Recovering teenage drug addict Ben Burns unexpectedly returns to the family home on Christmas Eve. Though wary, mother Holly agrees to let him stay for 24 hours, but these hours turn out to be incredibly challenging for all the family. Is Ben to be trusted?
Billy Howle stars in a bold adaptation of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy. This star-studded production also features Niamh Cusack as Gertrude and Mirren Mack as Ophelia, captured on stage at the Bristol Old Vic.
Swansea, 1994. Five ordinary Welshmen face up to their secrets and lies when they embark on one of the world’s first medical trials for the drug that would become Viagra.
