Yorkshire Television's Celebrity Playhouse anthology series.
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Edward Forester is a genetic researcher, intent on breeding primate hybrids. But his experiments take a strange turn when he succeeds in breeding a human/gorilla hybrid. He hides the results of the experiment, adopting the child, and helps Gor to speak and blend into society. But Gor can't help being what he is, and tragedy and revelations are the ultimate result.
First Born
Philip Marlowe, Private Eye is a British mystery series that aired on ITV in the United Kingdom under the shorter title 'Marlowe, Private Eye' and on HBO in the United States from April 16, 1983 through June 3, 1986. The series features Powers Boothe as Raymond Chandler's titular character, and was the first drama produced for HBO.
Philip Marlowe, Private Eye
TUGS is a British children's television series first broadcast in 1988. It was created by the producers of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, Robert D. Cardona and David Mitton. The series dealt with the adventures of two anthropomorphized tugboat fleets, the Star Fleet and the Z-Stacks, who compete against each other in the fictional Bigg City Port. The series was set in the Roaring Twenties, and was produced by TUGS Ltd., for TVS and Clearwater Features Ltd. Music was composed by Junior Campbell and Mike O'Donnell, who also wrote the music for Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends. Due to the bankruptcy of production company TVS, the series did not continue production past 13 episodes. Following the initial airing of the series throughout 1988, television rights were sold to an unknown party, while all models and sets from the series sold to Britt Allcroft. Modified set props and tugboat models were used in Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends from 1991 onwards.
TUGS
The Fear is a five-part television drama produced by Thames Television subsidiary Euston Films for ITV. Broadcast from 17 February to 16 March 1988, the serial follows Carl Galton, the enterprising leader of a criminal gang running a protection racket in North London. Young and ambitious, Galton represents a new breed of criminal who seeks to expand his underworld empire and takes on the old East End firms. 1980s materialism clashes with old school London villainy as Galton rises to power, yet his ruthlessness carries a personal cost, especially on his wife Linda and best friend Marty.
The Fear
Damon and Debbie is a three-part 'soap bubble' from Brookside, broadcast across three November 1987 Wednesday evenings on Channel 4. Produced by Mersey Television, the three-part series is written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce and directed by Bob Carlton. Teen sweethearts Damon Grant and Debbie McGrath flee their disapproving parents in Liverpool, only to end up on the lam and culminating in tragedy.
Damon and Debbie
A secret organisation called The Outfit recruits and trains civilians, sending them undercover to aid in the war effort, or placing them in administrative tasks to aid the group. Each person arrives at The Outfit by a different route: Mathilde ('Matty') escaped to London from France and wants desperately to contribute to the war effort; Liz, whose husband is serving overseas and whose brother has just died in the war, stumbles into the group almost by accident. Former actor Colin Beale also trains for undercover work. Vivien's husband was executed when his work with The Outfit was uncovered. But they all come together against the common enemy.
Wish Me Luck
Shadow of the Noose is a 1989 BBC One legal drama miniseries starring Jonathan Hyde as real-life English barrister Sir Edward Marshall Hall. The eight-episode serial depicts Marshall Hall's high-profile, controversial cases, earning him the nickname 'The Great Defender', while also exploring his personal struggles, particularly those related to his unhappy first marriage.
Shadow of the Noose
The Barchester Chronicles is a 1982 BBC television serial produced by Jonathan Powell and dramatised by Alan Plater, based on Anthony Trollope's first two Chronicles of Barsetshire, The Warden (1855) and Barchester Towers (1857). Against the sumptuous background of Peterborough Cathedral and its environs, one is carried into Trollope's world of the intriguing machinations of the clerical establishment of Barchester. Backed by the authenticity of the period detail, the portrayal of all the characters accurately conveys the whole range of human emotions within the stories.
The Barchester Chronicles
Hot metal is a London Weekend Television sitcom about the British Newspaper industry broadcast between 1986 and 1988. The daily crucible, the dullest newspaper in Fleet Street, is suddenly taken over by media magnate Terence "Twiggy" Rathbone. Its editor Harry Stringer is 'promoted' to managing editor, and is replaced in his old job by Russell Spam. Spam then takes the paper shooting downmarket and turns the crucible into a sensation seeking scandal rag, very much in the style of the British tabloids of the 1980s. He is helped along by his ace gutter journalist, Greg Kettle, who intimidates his tabloid victims by claiming to be "a representative of Her Majesty's press" and produces stories such as accusing a vicar of being a werewolf. Throughout the first series, a running plot involved cub reporter Bill Tytla gradually uncovering an actual newsworthy story that went to the very heart of government. Written by David Renwick and Andrew Marshall, it is very much a continuation in style from their previous sitcom Whoops Apocalypse!. It was produced by Humphrey Barclay.
Hot Metal
A 1980 documentary series exploring the establishment and development of the Hollywood studios and its impact on 1920s culture.
Hollywood
A series of six plays centred on a house in Glasgow, from 1878 to the 1980s.
House on the Hill
Personal reflections on the best of 20th Century architecture.
Building Sights
Absolutely is a popular UK television comedy sketch show shown on Channel 4 between 1989 and 1993. The cast and crew were mainly Scottish; the principal writers and performers were Moray Hunter, Jack Docherty, Peter Baikie, Gordon Kennedy, Morwenna Banks and John Sparkes. It was directed by Phil Chilvers, Alan Nixon, Alistair Clark, and Graham C Williams. The show's producers were Alan Nixon, and David Tyler
Absolutely
Albion Market is a short-lived British soap opera, intended as a companion to Coronation Street on ITV.
Albion Market
Home to Roost is a British television sitcom produced by Yorkshire Television in the 1980s. Written by Eric Chappell, it starred John Thaw as Henry Willows and Reece Dinsdale as his 18-year-old son Matthew. The premise is that Henry Willows is forty-something, who has been divorced from his wife for seven years and is perfectly happy living alone in London. That is, until his youngest child, Matthew arrives to live with him, after being thrown out by his mother. The plots generally revolved around Henry's annoyance at having his solitude disturbed, and the age gap clash. Henry employed two cleaners throughout the show's life; first Enid Thompson, and, in the third season, Fiona Fennell.
Home to Roost
Ladies in Charge is a 1986 British television drama, an expansion from a 1985 pilot in the Storyboard anthology programme. Produced by Thames Television for ITV, the six-episode programme stars Carol Royle, Julia Hills, and Julia Swift. After serving as World War I ambulance drivers, three women start a private agency in London to solve problems for clients, blending mystery and drama with a lighthearted tone. They take on various cases, from finding lost items to uncovering secrets, often challenging societal expectations for women of the era.
Ladies in Charge
Shillingbury Tales is a 1980–81 British sitcom produced by Associated Television for ITV. Comprising a single feature length pilot and six one-hour episodes, the series deals with life in an idealised fictional English village and stars Robin Nedwell, Diane Keen, Nigel Lambert, Jack Douglas, John Le Mesurier, Bernard Cribbins and Trevor Howard. The series was written by Francis Essex and directed by Val Guest. Unusual for the time, it was shot entirely on location in the village of Aldbury in Hertfordshire on 16mm and consequently there was no laugh track. The show ended when ATV lost their licence to broadcast and their replacement Central declined to continue production.
Shillingbury Tales
A sketch comedy show featuring some of Britain's great comedic talents of the 1980s and 1990s in one of their earliest TV appearances.
Alfresco
No Strings is a British sitcom produced by Yorkshire Television for ITV, broadcast from 12 April to 31 May 1989. It stars Edward Petherbridge and Joan Marsh. Sam comes home to find that his wife has run off with another man. He contacts Rosie, the other man's wife, and finds that they have a lot in common. Gradually, a relationship develops between them.
No Strings
A British television series based on the book of the same name written by Sue Townsend.
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾
Equinox was a long-running Channel 4 popular science and documentary programme. The series ran from 1986 to 2001, originally aired on a weekly basis. The number of films per series fell over the years, from eighteen one-hour films a year originally to twelve by the late 1990s. The last regular series was shown in 2001, with six films. One-off films have occasionally been aired under the title "Equinox Special".
Equinox
Maid Marian and her Merry Men is a British children's sitcom created and written by Tony Robinson and directed by David Bell. It began in 1989 on BBC One and ran for four series, with the last episode shown in 1994. The show was a partially musical comic retelling of the legend of Robin Hood, placing Maid Marian in the role of leader of the Merry Men, and reducing Robin to an incompetent ex-tailor. The programme was much appreciated by children and adults alike, and has been likened to Blackadder, not only for its historical setting and the presence of Tony Robinson, but also for its comic style. It is more surreal than Blackadder, however, and drops even more anachronisms. Many of the show's cast such as Howard Lew Lewis, Forbes Collins, Ramsay Gilderdale and Patsy Byrne had previously appeared in various episodes of Blackadder alongside Robinson. Like many British children's programmes, there is a lot of social commentary sneakily inserted, as well as witty asides about the Royal family, buses running on time, etc. Many of the plots spoofed or referenced film and television shows including other incarnations of Robin Hood in those mediums.
Maid Marian and Her Merry Men
A situation comedy about divorcee James Shepherd, a charismatic vet, who struggles to run both a successful surgery and a home for his two teenage children.
Close to Home
A new Earl, Michael Anstey, returns to England from Hong Kong to restore his family's estate.
Chelworth
When a young bride moves into a country manor, long repressed childhood memories of witnessing a murder come to the surface.
Miss Marple: Sleeping Murder
Busman's Holiday is a British television game show produced by Granada for the ITV network from 26 February 1985 to 28 June 1993. Its hosts over the years were Julian Pettifer, Sarah Kennedy and Elton Welsby. Charles Foster was the announcer.
Busman's Holiday
Comedy about a Pinner solictor who falls for a woman half his age.
May to December
Stalky & Co. is a faithful adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's book of the same name (less one chapter and the afterstory chapter). Kipling was telling tales based on his own public school experiences as a boy (he is 'Beetle' in the book), and he did an excellent job of capturing the tenor of life in 'the Coll,' a school that catered to boys who would go on to govern and defend the British Empire in the Civil Service, Foreign Service and the military.
Stalky & Co
Marmalade Atkins is the naughtiest girl in the world. In fact, she's so wicked that her parents and social worker decide that the only thing to do with her is to blast her into space. But, knowing Marmalade, it's not going to be that easy!
Educating Marmalade
Duty Free is a British sitcom written by Eric Chappell and Jean Warr that aired on ITV from 1984 to 1986. It was made by Yorkshire Television.
Duty Free
Tricky Business was a British children's sitcom which ran for three series from 1989 to 1991. It featured Anthony Davis, Sally Ann Marsh and Una Stubbs in the first series, David Wood, Anthony Davis, Patsy Palmer, a puppet rabbit called Crabtree in the second and Bernie Clifton and Leslie Schofield in the third. Paul Zenon was the longest-surviving cast member, playing Tricky Micky in series two and himself in series three, as well as being the magic consultant for both those series.
Tricky Business
Jack Vincent, an aristocrat forced by circumstances to become a smuggler, is caught and transported on the IIMS Success to a penal colony on Norfolk Island, off the New Zealand coast. Unhappily for Vincent, the ship's captain is none other than his brother-in-law, Lt.Harry Anderson. The two men have quarreled violently in the past over Anderson's treatment of Vincent's sister, and now Anderson subjects him to particularly harsh and humiliating treatment. Vincent stages a successful mutiny, casting Anderson and those loyal to him adrift, and plans to sail to America. When the Success is shipwrecked, Vincent is one of three survivors; but Anderson also survives the storm, and vows to pursue Vincent until he sees him hanged at Execution Dock. So begins a fight for survival for Vincent and his crew, complete with hostile natives, unscrupulous sea-traders, crazed prophets and buried treasure.
Adventurer
Detective Inspector Sam Harvey investigates intricate murder cases while contemplating retirement to pursue his passion for writing children's books.
Breakaway
Hapless bank clerk Willie Melvin dreams of being a successful writer but is held back by his own incompetence, the dodgy dealings of his best friend Chancer, and lack of support from his mother, the bank's manager Adam McLelland and his obsequious fellow teller, Brian.
City Lights
A divorced woman decides to train as a Nanny in 1930s England.
Nanny
Pete, an eighteen year old Isle of Wight deck chair attendant, meets fifteen gear old Swedish exchange student Annika. After a holiday romance, he follows her back to Sweden.
Annika
Anthology show based off Playhouse
Weekend Playhouse
This classic period drama series follows the fortunes of the aristocratic Lacey family, living peacefully in Arnescote Castle until the onset of the English Civil War in 1640. Sir Martin Lacey, the head of the family, is steadfastly loyal to the King. However the family is torn apart when his eldest daughter Anne weds John Fletcher - son of a merchant family who support the forces of Cromwell.
By the Sword Divided
A six-part drama series set in an advertising agency. It focuses on Sarah Copeland, a rising copywriter who is pitching for a prestigious account. This series is one of a number documenting the unique social and economic conditions in south-east England during the 1980s economic boom.
Campaign
A bored British barrister's affair with a rich American, discovered by his wife, ends in murder.
A Married Man
The Max Headroom Show started life in the UK in 1985. The show featured actor Matt Frewer playing the role as computer-generated talk-show host Max Headroom.
The Max Headroom Show
'This Week Next Week' was a series of weekly news programmes in which David Dimbleby looked behind the headlines in conversation with distinguished guests.
This Week Next Week
The rise and fall of Italy's fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Recounting his life with his wife, children and mistress, this biography (based on the recollections of Mussolini's eldest son, Vittorio) chronicles Il Duce's tyranny as he plunges Italy into the dark days of World War II.
Mussolini: The Untold Story
During the Cold War, a secret operative is dispatched to ferret out a suspected double agent within the KGB.
Codename: Kyril
Let's Pretend was a 1980s children's television series aimed at preschool ages. It was shown across the ITV Network at 12.10 on Tuesdays, then later Mondays, replacing the popular Pipkins which had been cancelled at the end of 1981. Like its predecessor, each edition was fifteen minutes long, and the programme was produced using many of Pipkins' personnel such as puppeteer Nigel Plaskitt and producer Michael Jeans. Each week the presenters would find a number of ordinary household items and contrive to produce a short story featuring them all. The first programme, "The Story Of The Broken Puppet", was shown on Tuesday 5 January 1982 by Central Television. The show aired weekly until 1988. The show's original opening titles featured items moving along a conveyor belt into the mouth of a large plastic whale, and later a puppet caterpillar moving along the screen.
Let's Pretend
Ten years after the events of 'Treasure Island', an adult Jim Hawkins once again encounters his old adversary Long John Silver and the pirate Joseph Savage.
John Silver's Return to Treasure Island
Bleak House is BBC television drama first broadcast in 1985. The serial was adapted by Arthur Hopcraft from Charles Dickens' novel Bleak House and it was the second adaptation by the BBC.
Bleak House
A bored and frustrated suburban housewife follows her dream of becoming a racing driver.
Driving Ambition
A diaper-wearing toddler with a mohawk named Maxwell "Fantastic Max" Young has adventures in outer space with two of his toys: FX, a pull string alien doll from a planet called Twinkle-Twinkle, and A.B. Sitter, a C-3PO-like android made of blocks.
Fantastic Max
Victor is a big white bear who wears a hat and tie, and Maria is the girl who plays with him. And that's it. Together, these two share a lot of fun and games, just like friends do. On occasion, they are joined by Victor's cousin Otto, who is a brown bear, and Matilda, who is Maria's human friend.
Victor & Maria
Great Railway Journeys, originally titled Great Railway Journeys of the World, is a recurring series of travel documentaries produced by BBC Television. The premise of each programme is that the presenter, typically a well-known figure from the arts or media, would make a journey by train, usually through a country or to a destination to which they had a personal connection. There were four series broadcast on BBC Two between 1980 and 1999, with the shorter series title being used for all but the first. In 2010 a similar series also aired on BBC Two, Great British Railway Journeys.
Great Railway Journeys
John Barton holds a master class in how to play Shakespeare, using members of the RSC doing scenes, sonnets, and commentary as prime examples.
Playing Shakespeare
A British television quiz programme hosted by Mike Read that originally aired on BBC1 from 4 July 1981 to 28 December 1984, with a Top of the Pops special on 4 January 1994. It was then revived from 21 May to 9 July 1994 on the same channel but this time with Chris Tarrant in charge.
Pop Quiz
Orphan Pip discovers through lawyer Mr. Jaggers that a mysterious benefactor wishes to ensure that he becomes a gentleman. Reunited with his childhood patron, Miss Havisham, and his first love, the beautiful but emotionally cold Estella, he discovers that the elderly spinster has gone mad from having been left at the altar as a young woman, and has made her charge into a warped, unfeeling heartbreaker.
Great Expectations
Beadle's About was a British television programme hosted by Jeremy Beadle, where members of the public became victims of practical jokes behind hidden cameras. It was produced by LWT for ITV and ran on Saturday nights from 22 November 1986 to 14 September 1996.
Beadle's About
The Charmer was a 1987 British television serial set in the 1930s, and starring Nigel Havers as Ralph Ernest Gorse, a seducing conman and murderer, Rosemary Leach as Joan Plumleigh-Bruce, the smitten victim widow and Bernard Hepton as Donald Stimpson, Plumleigh-Bruce's would-be beau, who vengefully pursues Gorse after he has conned her. It was made by London Weekend Television for ITV, and based on the 1953 novel Mr. Stimpson and Mr. Gorse by Patrick Hamilton, the second work in the Gorse Trilogy. The series was repeated in February and March 1990. ITV3 also repeated the series in full at 01:45am from 5 September 2009. Narrative repeats were on Mondays from 7 September 2009 at 10:05am.
The Charmer
Jim London (Jim Davidson) is a working class cockney lad who lands a job as a chauffeur for businessman Robert Palmer (George Sewell) who has had his driving licence withdrawn. Palmer's butler (Harry Towb) doesn't approve of Jim but gradually accepts him.
Home James!
Behind The Screen
A series of documentaries focusing on the world of psychotronic movies; focusing on the lives of filmakers such as Hershell Gordon Lewis, Saim Raimi, Doris Wishman, Ed Wood Jr, and Tsui Hark. Covers weird movie genres, like Mexican wrestling movies and Hong Kong horror films.