A marital breakdown is brought to life through a mixture of dramatisation, monologue, montage and animation. Through the perspectives of the husband, the lawyer, the couple’s parents and their “home help”, a picture emerges of the transactional nature and economic fall-out of marriage, along with issues of class and gender politics affecting single mothers.
A troubled rock star descends into madness in the midst of his physical and social isolation from everyone.
Emma Woodhouse is a congenial young lady who delights in meddling in other people’s affairs. She is perpetually trying to unite men and women who are utterly wrong for each other. Despite her interest in romance, Emma is clueless about her own feelings, and her relationship with gentle Mr. Knightley.
Tsar Nicholas II, the inept last monarch of Russia, insensitive to the needs of his people, is overthrown and exiled to Siberia with his family.
A year has passed since Matthew said goodbye to his alien friend, and in the summer holidays he meets Albertine, a mathematical prodigy, with whom he discovers he can communicate telepathically. One day Chocky returns to warn Matthew that they are both in danger. When he returns to tell Albertine, he finds she has disappeared.
Chocky hopes, with Matthew and Albertine's help, to help the human race discover cosmic power, which unlike Earth's finite natural resources, will sustain them for as long as the universe itself exists. But their knowledge has aroused a great deal of interest from the military, and they are willing to take drastic action if they don't get what they want.
Matthew Gore is an intelligent boy chosen by a mysterious extraterrestrial visitor to be a source of information about life on Earth. As his schoolwork and artistic talent improve dramatically he arouses the suspicion of powerful groups who wish to tap into the amazing fund of knowledge to which he is now party.
In the emptiness of the Lincolnshire fens, rural teenager Donna feels trapped in a joyless life with a domineering father and a dull job at the food factory. She grasps at the illusion of affection offered by a passing stranger - and must then cope in lonely terror with pregnancy.
At a family funeral, Trevor Orwin meets Jenny, the sister he never knew he had. The relationship that develops between them has a dramatic and violent effect.
In the 18th century were born two siamese brothers on Corsica who paradoxically carry different feelings of hate and reconciliation in their blood.
It's Josie Ingham's first day at Blackwall Firestation but things aren't going so well being the only female firefighter in an all-male team. Not only does she have to prove to them that she can do the job, problems at home complicate her life even further. Outside, in the heart of the city, tensions are rising to the extreme, Blue Watch have a long night ahead.
The first Play for Today is the story of one man's obsession (to win the world long distance piano playing record) and the battle for good (his wife) and evil (his agent) that rages around him.
Three men at three different times in history come to Mow Top hill in search of sanctuary from their troubles. A Roman soldier, a medieval rebel and a 1970s young man. Somehow they seem linked through an energy within the hill and an axe. Is history doomed to repeat itself or can loving another person free them?
A father leaves his grown-up family to move in with his lover in the south, alienating himself from his four children.
James Bolam portrays serial killer Dr. Harold Shipman in this made-for-TV drama. The film follows the story of Shipman, a general practitioner who throughout his career is believed to have killed as many as 250 of his patients. When the high death rate of his practice was investigated, it was discovered that he had given lethal doses of diamorphine to a vast number of his patients. He was put on trial where he was convicted of 15 murders and sentenced to life imprisonment.
After seeing her husband fail in fighting a battle to keep his factory open, a manageress loses her job in a disagreement with the manager over sexual harassment of her staff. She accepts the advice of her father and joins his son, a left-wing organizer, and takes her plight to the union.
Jack Prince, a British renegade, joins a rebellion and becomes one of the most feared pirates in the Caribbean
When the Earl of Gurney dies in a cross-dressing accident, his schizophrenic son, Jack, inherits the Gurney estate. Jack is not the average nobleman; he sings and dances across the estate and thinks he is Jesus reincarnated. Believing that Jack is mentally unfit to own the estate, the Gurney family plots to steal Jack's inheritance. As their outrageous schemes fail, the family strives to cure Jack of his bizarre behavior, with disastrous results.
Sovereign's Company is the story of a boy from an army family with a long tradition of honour and distinction, who goes to a military academy as an officer cadet and finds himself temperamentally unsuited to the life.
An art student encounters a mysterious girl at a psychedelic party. She insists he give her a ride home on his motorbike, when something very strange occurs.
Peter Nichols adapted his own hit play to the screen, based on his experiences in hospitals. A riotous black comedy that's as timely today as ever, it contrasts the appalling conditions in a overcrowded London hospital with a soap opera playing on the televisions there. In an ingenious touch, the same actors appear in the "real" story as well as the "TV" one, thus blurring the distinctions even further. Jack Gould directs such outstanding British actors as Lynn Redgrave, Colin Blakely, Eleanor Bron, Jim Dale, Donald Sinden, Mervyn Johns, and, in only his second film, Bob Hoskins. The renowned Carl Davis composed the score.
A security guard foils an armed robbery and becomes a national hero, but his new-found fame cannot appease his guilty conscience.
Faced with two false confessions and numerous suspects after a despised civil magistrate is found shot in the local vicarage, Detective Inspector Slack reluctantly accepts help from Miss Marple.
The doomed love story between Marguerite Gautier, a French courtesan frequented by high-class gentlemen, who is suffering from tuberculosis, and a young gentleman Armand Duval who's new in town.
Jim MacLaine is now enjoying the nomadic 'gigs and groupies' life on tour with his band. When he achieves all his wildest dreams of international stardom, the sweet taste of success begins to turn sour.
A proud socialist and community activist wrestles with the decision to accept an honour from the Queen
Comedy play about a seaside photographer, Henry Hunter, who goes to Margate every year to work, staying with his friends Frank and Hylda. However, he is getting older, and his trade is dying out as people have their own instamatic cameras.
Macbeth and his wife murder Duncan in order to gain his crown, but the bloodbath doesn't stop there, and things supernatural combine to bring the Macbeths down.
Bess Throckmorton, a farmer's daughter from Devon, encounters an ancient relative who soon reveals himself to be the ghost of Sir Walter Raleigh, determined to escape the Tower of London once and for all and return to Devon. When Sir Raleigh learns that a pair of dastardly brothers have designs on his ancestors' farm, he devises a plan to thwart them.
A French detective in London reconstructs the life of a man lying in hospital with severe injuries with the help of journals and a psychiatrist. He realises that the man had powerful telekinetic abilities.
Patrick and Judith have everything prepared for the arrival of their first child but when he is born, they are quite unprepared for the crisis they must face.
In 1956 Britain staggers through crises in Suez and Cyprus while Leslie Potter pursues and marries Monica Dobbs. Twenty years later the nation has still not recovered. Neither has Leslie.
Fledge needs a job. He'll take anything. And when Dawlish gives him strange errands to run, for cash in hand, strictly 'on the palm', it's a welcome change from the dole. Until he finds himself digging dirt on an old friend....
'The man knew what he wanted. A relationship that was loving, but not possessive. In other words, he wanted to maintain his sanity.'
Tom Foreman kills a policeman after stealing jewellery worth a fortune. He is caught and incarcerated. Prison psychiatrist Ollie Milton and Tom's wife, Val, enlist the help of ex-con "Cat" Devlin in their plot to locate the hidden jewels.
A troubled boy is reluctantly fostered by a hard-working woman (Dobson). Her fears seem well founded when the boy starts a fire. BUt her daughter, who initially resents the intruder, discovers that he may not be to blame for his problems after all. Will the growing sympathy of his foster family be enough to stop the Fireboy from destroying them all?