Will Freeman is a good-looking, smooth-talking bachelor whose primary goal in life is avoiding any kind of responsibility. But when he invents an imaginary son in order to meet attractive single moms, Will gets a hilarious lesson about life from a bright, but hopelessly geeky 12-year-old named Marcus. Now, as Will struggles to teach Marcus the art of being cool, Marcus teaches Will that you're never too old to grow up.
On the eve of World War II, zany heiress Amanda Kelly travels by train to Switzerland. While passing through Germany, she meets a sweet elderly lady, who suddenly vanishes. Distraught, she questions her fellow passengers who claim that the woman was never there. Unsure if it's all in her mind or if there's a more sinister plot afoot, Amanda teams up with photographer Robert Condon to discover the truth.
When a well-loved headmaster decides to retire, his scheming pupils have other ideas. The cunning boys unleash a campaign of practical jokes, armed with gin, itching power, and bombs!
A bittersweet drama about a street party held in a suburban London square to mark the 1981 Royal Wedding. After two years of the Thatcher administration there is recession and unrest, but the economic boom is just around the corner. Meanwhile, there's the fairytale wedding of Charles and Diana to celebrate.
Celebrating twenty years of classic Carry On films, two of the films’ best-loved stars, Kenneth Williams and Barbara Windsor return to Pinewood film studios to unwrap some rib-tickling moments from the series. From the original, military mayhem of Carry On Sergeant, through to the really ancient archaeological gags of Carry On Behind, our saucy hosts get their titters out for this laugh-a-second gallop through the most successful series of British comedy films ever made.
Two sets of identical twins are accidentally switched at birth. One pair, Phillipe and Pierre DeSisi, are aristocratic and haughty, while the other, Charles and Claude Coupé, are poor and dim-witted. On the eve of the French Revolution, both sets find themselves entangled in palace intrigue.
When a law-abiding demolition expert is duped by a gang of criminals into helping them he is caught and jailed. When he is released he goes straight and then notices a leading citizen in his town is cheating his neighbours.
Three young men, a scriptwriter, a producer and a director are called in by Benny U Murdoch, an exotic movie producer. He wants to make a new erotic movie starring a big woman - the "Eskimo Nell" of the title. However problems start from the beginning, the scriptwriter is a virgin, a lover of penguins and hasn't a clue on how to write an erotic movie, each of the three main backers want a different type of movie - a western, an erotic and a kung-fu movie with different people in the main part. However problems really start for the three when Benny runs off with all the money and they have to make three different versions of the same film and try not to let the backers and stars know what has happened. And this is made harder when there is a clean-up-filth society breathing down their necks....
A kindly shop owner whose overwhelming gambling debts allow a greedy landlord to seize his shop of dusty treasures. Evicted and with no way to pay his debts, he and his granddaughter flee.
In Haven Hospital, a certain men's ward is causing more havoc than the whole hospital altogether. The formidable Matron's debut gives everyone a chill every time she walks past, with only Reckitt standing up to her. There's a colonel who's a constant nuisance, a bumbling nurse, a romance between Ted York and Nurse Denton, and Bell wants his bunion removed straight away, so after a couple of pints, the men decide to remove the bunion themselves!
With exclusive interviews and outtakes, this anniversary special celebrates a decade of Robert Popper's iconic comedy, from celebrity fans to Paul Ritter's infamous squirrel-based catchphrase
Michael climbs on to the roof of the block of flats where he lives with his mother, and finds a world of make-believe, duels, and chickens existing over their heads.
The true story of the relationship between Alan Bennett and the singular Miss Shepherd, a woman of uncertain origins who ‘temporarily’ parked her van in Bennett’s London driveway and proceeded to live there for 15 years.
A nervous and unsettling young boy takes a mysterious old suitcase across London... to a twisted and surreal conclusion.
Doctors Burke and Hare leave the confines of St Swithins for the world of general practice, stopping off on the way as patients at the Foulness Anti-cold Unit. Hare then takes up a position as junior in a well-healed G.P.'s surgery while Burke continues to sow his doctorial wild oats.
One of the earliest hits for the newly established RSC, Michael Elliott’s sparkling version of Shakespeare's comedy is still remembered with joy by a generation of theatre-goers. The design was dominated by a huge oak tree, but the production is most memorable for Vanessa Redgrave’s luminous Rosalind, supported by Max Adrian and Ian Bannen.
The girls of St. Trinian's decide they are being asked to do too much work so they go on strike.
Penelope Keeling, a sixty-four-year-old daughter of a famous artist, reflects on her life, and the fate and choices that defined it, when she arrives in the Mediterranean to stay with her headstrong daughter. Shifting through time, and falling into place like the pieces of a jigsaw, the truth of Penelope's rich, heartbreaking and surprising life unfolds.
An educational film about the perils associated with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The drama is interspersed with scenes of a medical adviser directly addressing the camera giving advice and information about STDs.
A tale of cat lovers, the social circle they inhabit and the power struggles between them.
A little boy, obsessed with blindness and violence, slowly gets trapped in his own delusions.
When the young, attractive Joe Orton meets the older, more introverted Kenneth Halliwell at drama school, he befriends the kindred spirit and they start an affair. As Orton becomes more comfortable with his sexuality and starts to find success with his writing, Halliwell becomes increasingly alienated and jealous, ultimately tapping into a dangerous rage.
The idealistic lifestyle of an old West farmer, his Indian wife, and half-breed son is interrupted when the boy's old gunslinger father returns. They are not happy with his return despite the old gunslinger's intention to retire. Things take a turn for the worse when another gunslinger arrives in town, trying to force a battle with the father.
Alan Bleasdale's modern re-telling of Madame Bovary. A tale of passion, greed, revenge, and of course pleasure, set in France. Starring Line of Duty's Adrian Dunbar, Jennifer Ehle and James Larkin. In the French city of Rouen, the beautiful, young but bored Emma seeks to escape her dull married life. Her dreams are answered, and her comfortable, peaceful existence soon tarnished when she answers a lonely-hearts ad. She meets Gustave, a unsuccessful toy salesman, and potential con man. Together they begin a passionate affair, where they indulge in illicit sex and illegal scams. But parallel to their exhilarating affair, the police are on the hunt for a mysterious masked robber known only as Le Terroriste. As the stakes rise, and a betrayal means Emma finding herself alone, her own talents for deception develop into an overwhelming and obsessive desire for her to get her revenge.
Lavinia has been yearning and trying for ten years to conceive, and finally gives birth to a live baby. However, she finds that things are not as she dreamed and envisaged, and she suffers from depression after the birth,beginning to have dangerous feelings of love towards her child.
Katie can read minds. Being desirable, the male minds she reads are all thinking of one thing. She always responds by hitting them and storming off without explanation. Daniel is an expert in body language and interprets this as a sign she wants to be pursued. Since Daniel spends most of his time, when not terrorizing his students, pursuing women, Katie gets ever more exasperated that he is treating her exactly as he treats every presentable female from the motorcycle cop to the squeegee girl. She cannot read minds when her eyes are covered, or when minds are thinking in a foreign language, so she misinterprets Sandip's desire for hunger. She also holds Daniel responsible for his subconscious desire for his friend's wife (Caroline).
An insurance man discovers his ex-girlfriend and her husband's art-forgery/arson scam.
In the business end of a kitchen, a polyglot staff strives to cope with a superhuman task. A microcosm of the world, the kitchen looms around and encloses its workers; they include Peter, the German cook, who is in love with waitress Monica, and constantly asks her to leave her husband. The pressure of the day becomes unendurable, and when Peter realises that Monica does not mean to divorce her husband his grief and pain cause him to run berserk!
With their headmistress under lock and key in her majesty's prison, the St Trinian's girls find themselves under the protection of the army. However, when the sixth form take a fancy to winning a trip to Italy through means fair or foul, the army discover this is one battle they can't win. Let loose in Europe, it is not long before St Trinian's have succeeded in endangering European relations.
The film reconstructs the mysterious story of the 1942 Patagonia World Soccer championship, never acknowledged by the official sports organizations, and which for decades have remained shrouded in legend without the winner ever being known.
TV play by David Mercer. First in a trilogy concerning Marxist novelist Robert Kelvin. The occasion is a dinner party, Kelvin is concerned with a summation of his life, addressed in his head to his lover, Emma.
Tom loves Sophie and Sophie loves Tom. But Tom and Sophie are of differering classes. Can they find a way through the mayhem to be true to love?
Harry Webster (David Lyon) is an apparently normal husband and father who resides in contemporary Nottingham, England, which was once host to a flourishing textile industry. One day, Harry leaves his house and vanishes. A note he left behind alludes to a double life he no longer wishes to lead. His wife Liz (Annette Crosbie) conducts a search for her husband. Her findings raise a disturbing question: Did Harry have anything to do with a series of recent factory bombings?
A day in the life of Mrs Radcliffe , who believes that the advice she so freely gives is done only out of kindness.
Gulley Jimson is a boorish aging artist recently released from prison. A swindler in search of his next art project, he hunkers down in the penthouse of would-be patrons the Beeders while they go on an extended vacation; he paints a mural on their wall, pawns their valuables and, along with the sculptor Abel, inadvertently smashes a large hole in their floor. Jimson's next project is an even larger wall in an abandoned church.
Swinging playboy Grand Duke Nicholas Goduno, a direct descendent of the Romanov family who were overthrown in the Russian Revolution of 1917, learns that his family's crown jewels will be exhibited at a London museum and plots to steal them. To this end, he gathers a crew of beautiful but dangerous women, led by Bridget Rafferty, to assist in his plot against Popov, the Soviet functionary in charge of the exhibit.
Thomas Hardy's classic epic remains one of the most popular novels, this TV adaptation vividly depicts the powerful tale of a peasant girl whose life is torn apart by the love and jealousy of two men. Justine Waddell stars as the hapless Child of Nature who is tossed around by the dark forces of fate. Jason Flemyng is the dark and sinister Alec D'Urberville whose relentless pursuit of Tess triggers the heroine's downfall. Oliver Milburn plays the handsome young Angel Clare, the caring rebel who falls deeply in love with Tess.
Documentary commemorating the 40th anniversary of the 'Carry On' comedy film series. Archive clips and out-takes are mixed with interviews with the cast.
Heironymus Merkin is an internationally successful singer approaching middle age who retells his life story in a series of production numbers on a seashore in front of his two toddlers and aged mother. Merkin's promiscuous relationships with women are explored, particularly Polyester Poontang and the adolescent Mercy Humppe. Merkin is constantly surrounded by a Satan-like procurer, Goodtime Eddie Filth, and an angelic 'Presence' who interrupts Merkin's biography with cryptic Borscht Belt-level jokes to denote births and deaths in Merkin's life. Newley periodically steps out of character to complain about his 'Merkin' role with an unseen director, two screenwriters, the film's producers and a trio of blasé movie critics who are turned off by the story's eroticism and lack of plot.
In 1956, the ultra-respectable seaside resort of Eastbourne was shocked when a local doctor, John Bodkin Adams, was arrested for murdering one of his elderly patients.
Consumed with sadness after the death of his wife and subsequent rejection from his son, a widower, at the urging of his friends, opts to appear on a vulgar, wildly popular game show (for which his wife signed him up) and watches his life start to change for the better.