Boasting an amazing selection of the most watched, most influential and most highly acclaimed programmes ever made, The 50 Greatest Television Dramas presents a long overdue assessment of the rich heritage television drama has to offer. Channel 4 invited over 200 of Britain's top television drama professionals – writers, directors, producers and commissioners – to take part in an exclusive poll to discover what they consider the finest dramas ever produced.
When the S.S. American heads out to sea, etiquette and convention head out the portholes as two unlikely pairs set off on the course to true love... proving that sometimes destiny needs a little help from a crew of singing sailors, a comical disguise and some good old-fashioned blackmail. This hilarious musical romp across the Atlantic, directed by the multi-award-winning Broadway director and choreographer Kathleen Marshall, features Cole Porter’s joyful score, including "I Get A Kick Out of You," "You’re the Top" and the show-stopping "Anything Goes."
The annual Tony Award broadcast provides the only filmed record of Broadway's best for audiences to experience as if they were front-row-center on opening night. This second compilation of great musical moments from the Tonys features another dazzling array of stars and performances. Hosts Lauren Bacall, Bebe Neuwirth, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Jerry Orbach introduce these one-of-a-kind performances and share their personal Broadway and Tony memories.
Every Rembrandt exhibition is eagerly anticipated but this major show hosted by London’s National Gallery and Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum was an event like no other. Given privileged access to both galleries the film documents this landmark exhibition, whilst interweaving Rembrandt’s life story, with behind-the-scenes preparations at these world famous institutions. Exploring many of the exhibition’s key works, through contributions from specially invited guests including curators and leading art historians, this EXHIBITION ON SCREEN favourite makes a welcome return to the big screen marking the 350th anniversary of Rembrandt's death. For many, Rembrandt is the greatest artist that ever lived and this deeply moving film seeks to explore the truth about the man behind the legend.
Ex-policeman Rollo Lee is sent to run Marwood Zoo, the newly acquired business of a New Zealand tycoon. In order to meet high profit targets and keep the zoo open, Rollo enforces a new 'fierce creatures' policy, whereby only the most impressive and dangerous animals are allowed to remain in the zoo. However, the keepers are less enthusiastic about complying with these demands.
Acting Lieutenant Hornblower attempts to study for his promotion examination, but becomes distracted by the serious supply problems that face his crew.
With loans from across the world, this major retrospective will bring together Vermeer’s most famous masterpieces including Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Geographer, The Milkmaid, The Little Street, Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid, and Woman Holding a Balance. This film invites audiences to a private view of the exhibition, accompanied by the director of the Rijksmuseum and the curator of the show.
Acting Lieutenant Hornblower and his crew are captured by the enemy while escorting a Duchess who has secrets of her own.
Lieutenant Hornblower and his shipmates are sent to accompany a doomed royalist invasion of revolutionary France.
Hornblower and his comrades come under the command of a revered but mentally unstable captain and are forced to mutiny in order to save their ship, the HMS Renown.
Biting political satire starring Robert Lindsay as a beleaguered Tony Blair, who stubbornly refuses to see the danger he faces from a Special Tribunal on Iraq that has been set up to investigate war crimes
He's Irish, he's ageing, he drinks, is a touch cynical and when he has time writes a newspaper column. On the eve of the country's first election as an independent state, Dan Starkey's life is about to change after he finds the young woman he has just made love to dead and his only ally is a nun
Hornblower must deliver a French nobleman to a secret rendezvous near Brest, all while coping with enemy agents in his own ranks.
Admiral Pellew interrupts Hornblower's wedding reception and tasks him to locate a British ship which has disappeared off the French coast, where Napoleon's troops are engaged in covert activities.
Hawkins was an original film for BBC Television about a man who lives a double life, as a Nietzschean Philosophy Lecturer and as a Detective who is fascinated by lowlife and criminal mentalities.
Portsmouth, 1794. Under thundery skies and in lashing rain, 17-year-old midshipman Horatio Hornblower takes the first tentative steps of his naval career, but a feud with a shipmate causes complications.
Hornblower and the other officers of the Renown must return to Jamaica to face a court-martial and possible execution for their actions in relieving their unstable captain.
A London accountant on his honeymoon gets swept away by gambling fever.
A musical about a miner who wants to break into show business.
Paul Reynolds is a Gatsby-like figure: owner of a magnificent house, the host of great parties, and a collector of interesting people. He persuades Lizzie Thomas, a secretary at a local estate agent's, to come and work for him as his assistant, to bring some order to his chaos. He inspires her with his enthusiasm and imagination, and frustrates her with his apparent carelessness and destructiveness, which culminates in her calling the police as one of his parties is attacked by local troublemakers, seemingly with his tacit approval. But their paths are destined to cross again and again as Lizzie, with the help of some of the people that she met at Paul's house, rises through the changing landscape of corporate Britain. This is the tale of a meaningful and powerful relationship that isn't a love story; it's about those rare people who profoundly influence and shape our lives.
The story of former Hollywood star Grace Kelly's crisis of marriage and identity, during a political dispute between Monaco's Prince Rainier III and France's Charles De Gaulle, and a looming French invasion of Monaco in the early 1960s.
World In Action documentary filmed in 1992 sees Manchester City Council has advertised for road sweepers and 1,460 people from a variety of backgrounds have applied for twenty jobs. This documentary follows the applicants through to the interview.
A pop band and their girlfriends have fun in Spain
Viola and Sebastian are lookalike twins, separated by a shipwreck. Viola lands in Illyria, where she disguises herself like her brother and goes into the service of the Duke Orsino. Orsino sends her to help him woo the Lady Olivia, who doesn't want the Duke, but finds that she likes the new messenger the Duke's sending. Then, of course, Viola's brother shows up, and merry hell breaks loose. Meanwhile, Olivia's uncle and his cohorts are trying to find some way to get back at Olivia's officious majordomo, Malvolio.
A domestic farce exposes the eccentricities of a "typical" middle class, suburban family who find their lives thrown into a crisis with the unexpected arrival of one of the wife's old flames.
Joe North is a London taxi driver who manages to get himself into any number of sexual situations with various women.
Bernard Hill and Victoria Hamilton star in Alistair Beaton's wickedly funny feature-length drama inspired by David Blunkett's private affair held up for very public scrutiny.
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.
In the midst of World War II, Nazi officer Otto Schatz declares the execution of Jewish music-hall comedian Genghis Cohn. Many years later, Otto is comfortably retired into the life of a highly respected police commissioner, and is investigating a series of murders when he encounters the ghost of Genghis Cohn. The haunting turns into a taunting, and before he knows it, Schatz is slowly driven mad as he is lured into a trap.
A kind-hearted deed for an old friend leads Dodger to break into 10 Downing Street.
Mickey and Mo head to Liverpool for the chance of a big score
Young lovers living under an oppressive state-rule flee their home-city to change their lives, and end up changing the world. After all, love changes everything.
Monet, Cezanne, Degas, Renoir: some of the world’s most popular artists. Their works, and that of their contemporaries, fetch tens of millions of dollars around the globe. But who were they really? Why & how exactly did they paint? What lies behind their enduring appeal? To help answer these questions, this unique film secured unparalleled access to a major exhibition focussing on the man credited with inventing impressionism as we know it: 19th-century Parisian art collector Paul Durand-Ruel. This eagerly anticipated international exhibition is possibly the most comprehensive exploration of the Impressionists in history.
An aging King invites disaster when he abdicates to his corrupt, toadying daughters and rejects his one loving, but honest one.
The comedienne stars in this festive sketch show, alongside a host of celebrity guests.
Fighter pilot, inventor, spy - the life of Roald Dahl is often stranger than fiction. Through a vast collection of his letters, writings and archive, the story is told largely in his own words with contributions from his last wife Liccy, daughter Lucy and biographer Donald Sturrock.
Four stories featuring the mice of Brambly Hedge. In 'The Secret Staircase' Primrose and Wilfred set off looking for costumes for the Midwinter celebrations. Wilfred is determined to follow in the pawprints of his exploring hero in 'The High Hills'. In 'Sea Story' the mice run out of salt. And, living in the mill with three little babies is not easy for Poppy in 'Poppy's Babies'.
After meeting her old school friend Sandra Delaney, who now works as a stripper, pub owner Maureen Hardcastle decides to spice up her flagging business by turning it into a male stripper club, with the help of untrustworthy businessman Billy Bowman.
Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park, where he discovers a world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called rock & roll.
A new look into the mysterious serial killer: Jack the Ripper.
Maleficent and her goddaughter Aurora begin to question the complex family ties that bind them as they are pulled in different directions by impending nuptials, unexpected allies, and dark new forces at play.
Four Athenians run away to the forest only to have Puck the fairy make both of the boys fall in love with the same girl. The four run through the forest pursuing each other while Puck helps his master play a trick on the fairy queen. In the end, Puck reverses the magic, and the two couples reconcile and marry.
Britain’s Peter Colt has never quite lived up to his dreams of tennis stardom. Once ranked as high as number 11 in the world, the journeyman veteran has watched his number slip to 119 as his confidence on the court slowly ebbs away. Now, on the eve of his leaving the world of professional tennis, he’s granted a wild card, allowing him to play his final Wimbledon tournament…make that his final tournament ever.
The Greatest Showman star Hugh Jackman joins Alex Zane to discuss his career on stage and screen, as well as his favourite movie musicals of all time.
Cymbeline, the King of Britain, is angry that his daughter Imogen has chosen a poor (but worthy) man for her husband. So he banishes Posthumus, who goes to fight for Rome. Imogen (dressed as a boy) goes in search of her husband, who meanwhile has boasted to his pal Iachimo that Imogen would never betray him. And Iachimo's determined to prove him wrong.
Benedick and Beatrice fight their merry war of words. But when Beatrice's friend, Hero, is humiliatingly jilted by Benedick's best friend, Claudio, Benedick has to choose which side he's on. But unknown to all, Claudio's been tricked by the bastard Don John, and (unfortunately), it's up to Dogberry and Verges to solve the case.
Helena loves Bertram, but he's of noble birth, while she's just a doctor's daughter. But Bertram is at the court of the King of France, who is ill, and Helena has a remedy that might cure him and win her the right to marry Bertram. But does Bertram want to marry her?
A feature-length compilation of the funniest and naughtiest bits from the legendary 1970s’ Adventures of series!
A doctor and his wife are held hostage in their country home by an escaped convict and his sidekick, but a journalist's arrival complicates matters.
The year Janet Street-Porter spent at Live TV, where her task was to make 24-hour live television at a fraction of normal costs. As the station nears its launch, new technology fails to work and the pressures on staff mount as tensions rise - BBC2, 1995
Trouble at the Top was a business-based BBC television fly-on-the wall documentary broadcast series, produced for BBC2. A spin off four-part series, Trouble at the Big Top. followed developments at the Millennium Dome in a similar style.
A documentary about the launch of Century 105 radio station in the English North West. (BBC 2)
In this revealing one-hour special, we look at the lives of older mums and women desperate to become mothers - at any age. Medical experts say that it is now possible for a woman of 80 to have a baby but is it morally and ethically correct? This heart-rending program looks at the difficult choices facing women who want to become mothers late in life and explores the desperate measures they take in order to fulfill their dream.
During the harvest season, Lord Woodmouse and Primrose go picking blackberries, while Wilfred looks for adventure by trying to find a creature called "The Weasel". Primrose and Wilfred get lost as they explore the wilderness, so all the other mice send out a search party.
John Cleese training video about bosses.
John Cleese training video.
John Cleese training video about employees.
Former National Service Conscript - actor, Richard Wilson - takes a light hearted look at this taste of the army, experienced by so many young men after the war. 'Both Feet in the Army!' illustrates the trials and tribulations, the laughs and lunacies, of post-war National Service, through excerpts from sitcoms such as 'Get Some In' and from films such as 'Carry On Sergeant' and 'Privates Progress', to name just a few. During the peak years of the 1950s, over a quarter of a million youngsters were serving at home or abroad in any one year - and for the millions who spent two years of their youth in the Army, Navy or Air Force in peace time, the experience was unforgettable 'Both Feet in the Army!' captures those years for you.
In the presence of HM Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother accompanied by Their Royal Highnesses The Prince and Princess of Wales. From the stage of the Victoria Palace Theatre stars from the world of entertainment bring you comedy and music.
Middle manager Norman is preparing an address to senior management. When an interview with his new boss leads to an awful misunderstanding, Norman finds himself naked in the wrong office with minutes to go until his presentation.