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Just Like That!

Just Like That! is a celebration of the comic genius of Tommy Cooper - just like that! But nobody could do it just like that apart from the unique Mr Cooper himself, and despite his claim never to have used those words. Was Tommy really Henry Coper's brother? Can Tommy's performance as Hamlet, clown prince, compare with the greats? Was Tommy a ventriloquist at heart? Rare and classic routines and contributions from famous fans help solve the mystery. The friends and fans who take part (many of them confirming that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery) include Adrian Edmondson, Lenny Henry, Henry Cooper, former Goons Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan, writer Dick Hills, Tommy's brother David Cooper (who has himself sadly since died), alternative comedian Steve Murray, The Wow Show and magician Paul Scott. A title montage sequence features further impersonations of the great man from Alexei Sayle, Bob Todd, Patricia Hayes, and Jess Conrad.

Just Like That!

NR 1989
The Falklands War: The Untold Story

Five years after the war in the Falklands between Britain and Argentina, many facts were still wrapped in red tape. Many of the key figures had remained silent. No-one had been to Argentina to tell the other side of the story. For the majority of the British people, the war was another glorious chapter in their history. With flags waving and bands playing, British troops had sailed away to repel the invaders. Patriotic emotions were stirred as they returned victorious. Government MPs tried to get the film banned, but Yorkshire TV's telephones were jammed with messages of support from wives and mothers of those who died in the conflict. Called 'the documentary to end all documentaries about the Falklands War' in the British press, it was also described as 'more poem than polemic - a hymn against war'.

The Falklands War: The Untold Story

8.7 1987
The Man Who Married a French Wife and Other Stories

Tom Beauchurch , a successful New England lawyer, takes his wife Ginette to Paris for a second honeymoon. It is a Paris in the throes of the Algerian crisis; a crisis which soon threatens the very foundations of their marriage. A New York bartender refuses to lower his standards even when his boss threatens to sack him. Michael Loomis runs into trouble when he confesses to his beautiful young wife that he can't help eyeing the girls in their summer dresses ...

The Man Who Married a French Wife and Other Stories

NR 1982
The Debt

The drama tells the story of an Argentine elementary-school teacher sent by the government to a rural hamlet located in the northwestern province of Jujuy. It shows how he touches the lives of the villagers, especially the young and impressionable boy Verónico, whose mother died and father left to seek work when he was an infant. The film is based on a non-fiction book written by Fortunato Ramos, a rural teacher in northwest Argentina, that discusses his teaching experiences.

The Debt

7.5 1988
The Spirit of Lorca

In a brief life filled with prodigious artistic achievements, Federico García Lorca’s greatest legacy may well be his complex and compelling personality. Filmed on location in Spain, this BBC Arena documentary profiles the immortalized poet/dramatist, capturing the potent essence of Spanish culture in the process. Extracts from his poems, plays, and letters demonstrate his duende—burning passion—for the arts, while the details of his life and violent death, as told by his biographer Ian Gibson, contemporaries Rafael Alberti and Luis Rosales, and others, present a thoughtful perspective on Spain’s revered literary icon.

The Spirit of Lorca

NR 1986
Chelsea Hotel

This TV documentary shows some of the colourful residents of and people connected with the New York Chelsea Hotel. Some highlights include Andy Warhol and William Burroughs having dinner; Quentin Crisp pontificating in a blue rinse hairdo on his balcony and Nico forgetting what she is talking about halfway through a dour rendition of "Chelsea Girls". A number of lesser-known characters also appear, linked together by a tour guide walking around the building and some sub-Shining sequences of a child cycling round the landings on a rickety tricycle.

Chelsea Hotel

8.0 1981
Plum: A Portrait of of the life of P.G. Wodehouse

P.G. Wodehouse , perhaps best known and best loved of English comic novelists, is still something of a mystery. Affable and accessible to journalists, he was cripplingly shy and remained inscrutable about his private life. This film traces his career, from an Edwardian middle class family to his experiences in a German internment camp, with the help of Tom Sharpe , Barrie Pitt , Lady Frances Donaldson , Sir Edward Cazalet and Lt Col Norman Murphy , a Wodehouse scholar who claims to have discovered the origins of Blandings Castle.

Plum: A Portrait of of the life of P.G. Wodehouse

NR 1989
Dead Lucky

Martin Urban, a young accountant, is gay but unwilling to own up to this fact because he desperately wants to be the ideal son for his parents. When he wins a fortune on the football pools, he decides to give half of it away to deserving people. But he neglects to include his friend Tim Sage, who filled in the coupon for him and really needs the money. Perhaps Martin doesn't acknowledge Tim because Martin is strongly sexually attracted to him. Tim's revenge upon Martin succeeds beyond his wildest dreams, setting in motion a chain of events leading to a tragic climax.

Dead Lucky

4.0 1988
The Shepherds of Berneray

In 1980, Jack Shae and Allen Moore, two ethnographic filmmakers from Harvard University, moved their families to the island of Berneray in the Outer Hebrides. Over the course of 18 months they documented the everyday lives and struggles of the crofters they lived among, whom were even then a vanishing breed. The film is in English and Gaelic. This carefully observed documentary by filmmakers Jack Shae and Allen Moore is a poetic ethnographic film in the style of their mentor, Robert Gardner (“Dead Birds”). It follows the rhythm of life on a wind-swept island in the Outer Hebrides through the four seasons and in the filmmakers’ observation of the day-to-day struggles of a vanishing society we see the deep-time legacy of their kind. The film is in English and Gaelic.

The Shepherds of Berneray

7.0 1981
A Swarm in May

John Owen returns to the Choir School at the start of term to find that he is the youngest Singing Boy in the school. This means he must also be Beekeeper - a traditional role. One of the traditional duties of the Beekeeper is to sing a solo in the Cathedral. Owen hates and dreads the prospect, so he persuades the smallest boy in the school, Iddingley, to take his place. Then, while exploring one of the Cathedral towers without permission, Owen finds something which makes him change his mind, and solves a mystery which has been baffling people for hundreds of years...

A Swarm in May

6.5 1983
General Studies: An Everyday Miracle

In this BBC documentary directed by Andrew Neal and narrated by David Attenborough, modern medical imaging allows scientists and doctors to observe human development in the womb as never before. Following the stages of pregnancy from conception to birth, the film reveals the complex biological processes that shape the earliest months of human life. (Note: Standalone BBC2 documentary (1981) broadcast within the "General Studies" strand but produced and credited as an independent titled program.)

General Studies: An Everyday Miracle

NR 1981
The Blood of Hussain

A dramatic depiction of the life of Hussain, with allegorical references to the history of the Prophet Muhammad and his descendants. It is prophesied that Young Hussain will one day lead the impoverished masses to a better life. It is his brother, Hasan, however who gains in prominence and when the government is overthrown in a military coup, he tries to adapt. Hussain in the meanwhile gets married and leads a small band of rebels in an attempt to fight the military dictatorship.

The Blood of Hussain

6.7 1980
The Orchard End Murder

Charthurst Green, Kent, 1966. Pauline Cox accompanies Mike Robins to a village cricket match in which he is playing, but becomes bored and wanders away. She fetches up at the local railway station, where she is first entertained to tea by the garrulous, hunchbacked station master, then upset by the intrusion of the latter's assistant Ewen, who proceeds to kill a rabbit in her presence. Making her way back to the match, Pauline is waylaid by the simple-minded Ewen as she crosses an apple orchard; when his advances become violent, she tries to fight him off and he strangles her. The station master helps in covering up the murder, burying the corpse in the orchard.

The Orchard End Murder

5.8 1981