Penny works at a supermarket and Phil is a gentle taxi-driver. Penny’s love for Phil has run dry and they lead joyless lives with their two children, Rachel, a cleaner, and Rory, who is unemployed and aggressive.
Out of money and out of luck, Danny is determined to turn his life around, but the interventions of his anarchic mum and the reappearance of figures from his past threaten to derail him at every turn.
A working-class family in London's East End is struggling to stay afloat during the recession under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's premiership. Only the mother Mavis is working; father Frank and the couple's two sons Colin, a timid, chronically shy individual and Mark, an outspoken, headstrong young man, are on the dole. This situation is contrasted by the presence of Mavis's sister Barbara, and her husband John, whose financial and social loftiness appears to be a comfortable facade over the unspoken soreness of a lackluster marriage.
Two couples go on a boating holiday together, and run into some strange people and events.
Two bored twentysomethings buy a Vauxhall Cavalier kit it out with a siren and spend their evenings masquerading as police officers in this Screen One TV movie
In Regency-era London, five women waiting for a carriage descend into a frenzy of vicious gossip.
Eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner lives his last 25 years with gusto and secretly becomes involved with a seaside landlady, while his faithful housekeeper bears an unrequited love for him.
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.
Abortionist Vera Drake finds her beliefs and practices clash with the mores of 1950s Britain – a conflict that leads to tragedy for her family.
In 1942, an intelligence officer in North Africa encounters a female French Resistance fighter on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. When they reunite in London, their relationship is tested by the pressures of war.
Mr. and Mrs. Peach's favourite neighbours emigrate to Australia, leaving the grieving couple anxiously twitching the net curtains of their suburban cul-de-sac home waiting to see who will be moving in next door. Unfortunately, far from their ideal, a flash, young couple, Mr. and Mrs. Chapman turn out to be their new neighbours.
A flat in Ladbroke Grove, West London. 1952. When Hester Collyer is found by her neighbours in the aftermath of a failed suicide attempt, the story of her tempestuous affair with a former RAF pilot and the breakdown of her marriage to a High Court judge begins to emerge. With it comes a portrait of need, loneliness and long-repressed passion. Behind the fragile veneer of post-war civility burns a brutal sense of loss and longing.
To end a bitter blood feud and bind two warring families, a mother must accept her son's murderer into her home.
Writer and Director Mike Leigh discusses the techniques used to create his plays.
Living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy, Anne Elliot is an unconforming woman with modern sensibilities. When Frederick Wentworth – the dashing one she once sent away – crashes back into her life, Anne must choose between putting the past behind her or listening to her heart when it comes to second chances.
Young Nigel Slater has big culinary aspirations, even though all his mother knows how to make is toast. When his mother dies, relations grow strained between Nigel and his father, especially when he remarries a woman who wins his heart with a lemon meringue pie. Nigel enters culinary school, starts working in a pub, and finds himself competing with his stepmother - both in the kitchen and for his father's attention.
In a revealing documentary, Mike Leigh, director of Secrets & Lies, Vera Drake and Abigail's Party among many others, talks to Alan Yentob about a unique body of work and a lifelong struggle to make films on his own terms. On day one of a Mike Leigh film, there is no script, no story and the actors do not know if they will even be in the final film. It is a process that has yielded some of cinema's most celebrated performances, and Leigh's new film Mr Turner is already winning critical acclaim. Actors including Jim Broadbent, Eddie Marsan, Sally Hawkins, Lesley Manville and James Corden give fascinating insights into the director and his distinctive method of working.
A drama based on the true story of Angela Cannings, who was wrongly convicted of killing two of her children, on the basis of "expert witness" evidence about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (Cot Death Syndrome) which has since been discredited.
William has failed to kill himself so many times that he outsources his suicide to aging assassin Leslie. But with the contract signed and death assured within a week (or his money back), William suddenly discovers reasons to live... However Leslie is under pressure from his boss to make sure the contract is completed.
An epic portrayal of the events surrounding the infamous 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where a peaceful pro-democracy rally at St Peter’s Field in Manchester turned into one of the bloodiest and most notorious episodes in British history. The massacre saw British government forces charge into a crowd of over 60,000 that had gathered to demand political reforms and protest against rising levels of poverty.
When events at work prove too stressful for Douglas Knott, a diligent and extremely busy office manager, he decides to throw a sickie. Unfortunately, his attempts to enjoy a day off are soon sabotaged by the insidious voice of his conscience. Literally.
A typical day in Brighton; two working-class couples are on a day trip to the beach. But Brighton is changing and the friends can’t keep up. A result is a vengeful act of violence that exposes the gaps and similarities between class, gender, and sexual orientations.
Biography of Russian physicist & dissident Andrei Sakharov focuses on his first acts in his civil rights.
Charlie Alexander is a private detective who gets caught up in sinister trade union machinations when he stumbles across the dying Stan Peace, a shop steward in the Distributive Worker's Union. Peace dies, but Charlie wants to know why his name was in Peace's address book. As Charlie investigates, things get murkier.
'Imagine. The whole sky filled with silent sportsmen.' Henry is a teacher, and a very good one, but his dream of man-powered flight, and his habit of destroying the odd greenhouse on his test runs, threatens his career. Also there's his daughter Ruth, who would dearly love to retrieve her bicycle wheels from his flying machine.
Linda: When are we going? Gary: Next Friday. Linda: Have you booked? Gary: It's called making a reservation. Linda: I feel excited Gal. My stomach feels all funny. Gary: If it feels funny now, wait till next Friday ...