Actor William Hartnell felt trapped by a succession of hard-man roles while 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.
A young, gifted soccer player who gets into trouble for a petty crime is brought to the attention of former Manchester United coach Matt Busby, who comes out of retirement to help the boy and his teammates.
Bill Nighy and Miranda Richardson star in a story of grief and celebrity, set in the intense spring and summer of New Labour's election victory and Diana's death. Nighy is a PR guru who has to stop and re-evaluate his world when his daughter threatens to leave his life, perhaps as revenge for his serial infidelities. Richardson plays a mother trying to bury her grief in an unconventional way after the loss of her young son.
Eccentric aliens give a man the power to do anything he wants to determine if Earth is worth saving.
The heads of Wall Street's biggest investment banks were summoned to an evening meeting by the US Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, to discuss the plight of another - Lehman Brothers. After six months' turmoil in the world's financial markets, Lehman Brothers was on life support and the government was about to pull the plug. Lehman CEO, Dick Fuld, recently sidelined in a boardroom coup, spends the weekend desperately trying to resuscitate his beloved company through a merger with Bank of America or UK-based Barclays. But without the financial support of Paulson and Lehman's fiercest competitors, Fuld's empire - and with it, the stability of the world economy - teeters on the verge of extinction.
Quan is a humble London businessman whose long-buried past erupts in a revenge-fueled vendetta when the only person left for him to love – his teenage daughter – dies in an Irish Republican Army car bombing. His relentless search to find the terrorists leads to a cat-and-mouse conflict with a British government official whose own past may hold the clues to the identities of the elusive killers.
A profile of John Lennon in the late 1960s as the Beatles are set to fall apart.
Political drama about the rise of Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats during the 2010 election. After the election failed to produce an outright winner, Clegg was catapulted into an unaccustomed position of influence and was the recipient of political courtship from both Labour's Gordon Brown and David Cameron of the Conservative Party.
The Almeida Theatre makes its live screening debut with an explosive new adaptation of Richard III, directed by Almeida Artistic Director Rupert Goold with Ralph Fiennes as Shakespeare’s most notorious villain and Vanessa Redgrave as Queen Margaret. War-torn England is reeling after years of bitter conflict. King Edward is ailing, and as political unrest begins to stir once more, Edward’s brother Richard – vicious in war, despised in peacetime – awaits the opportunity to seize his brother’s crown. Through the malevolent Richard, Shakespeare examines the all-consuming nature of the desire for power amid a society riddled by conflict. Olivier-winning director Rupert Goold’s (Macbeth, King Charles III) searing new production hones a microscopic focus on the mythology surrounding a monarch whose machinations are inextricably woven into the fabric of British history.
The innovative interweaving of romance and math was conceived. The 2008 Olivier Award winner for Best New Play, it has toured the world and was recently performed in New York as part of the Lincoln Center Festival.
The story of Scottish psychiatrist RD Laing and his unique community at Kingsley Hall, East London in the 1960s.
London, 1947. Summoned by the Prime Minister from the Court where he is presiding judge, Cyril Radcliffe is given an unlikely mission. He is to travel to India, a country he has never visited, and, with limited survey information, no expert support and no knowledge of cartography, he is to draw the border which will divide the Indian sub-continent into two new Sovereign Dominions. To make matters even more challenging, he has only six weeks to complete the task. Wholly unsuited to his role, Radcliffe is unprepared for the dangerous whirlpool of political intrigue and passion into which he is plunged – untold consequences may even result from the illicit liaison between the Leader of the Congress Party and the Viceroy’s wife… As he begins to break under the pressure he comes to realise that he holds in his hands the fate of millions of people.
Performing from within the walls of a deconsecrated Manchester church, Kenneth Branagh takes the lead role in this ambitious production of William Shakespeare's tragic tale of ambition and treachery.
Genius Belgian detective Hercule Poirot investigates the murder of an American tycoon aboard the Orient Express train.
The Taking of Prince Harry is a 2010 British TV docufiction which shows the fictional capture of Prince Harry in Afghanistan. It shows the Cabinet Office Briefing Room committee going into action, and his eventual escape during a US drone attack. The film stars Sam Reid as Prince Harry. It was shown on 21 October on Channel 4. The show has been the subject of controversy, with the British military saying that it could be distressing for the families of the soldiers serving in Afghanistan.
Relationships rule our lives, whether we're in one and trying to get out, out of one and trying to get in, or in one and just trying to hang on. Commitment may be the hardest thing to pledge, but a one-night-stand can no longer be just harmless fun. Are love and fidelity out of fashion? See what happens when a group of friends have a weekend away in the country. The West Wittering affair is the moment of truth for 4 uptight 30 something London professionals, which propels their chaotic love lives on an emotional roller-coaster in this romantic sex-comedy of errors.
The trial, under The Obscene Publications Act, of the publishers of D.H. Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'in 1960 was a sensation that consumed the nation. The movie follows two fictional jurors, Helena and Keith, who become passionate lovers during the course of the trial and whose affair mirrors the themes of the novel.
The public struggle to keep in step with politicians during the fallout of the financial crisis. David Annen, Cyril Nri, and Eileen Walsh star in PPE, a 'microplay' about the power of physical gestures. PPE was written by Tim Price, directed by Hamish Pirie and choreographed by Ann Yee, after a conversation with Aditya Chakrabortty. It is the latest in a series of collaborations between the Royal Court and the Guardian.