Paul Rider

Lion vs The Little People is a documentary comedy about the greatest internet hoax of all time. In 2005, a hoax news post masquerading as a bonafide BBC news website article, announced a fight had taken place between a lion and an army of 42 fighting dwarfs. The hoax spread like wild fire across the internet before eventually being accepted to be fake. While the article’s veracity has been diminished, the myth lives on in this outrageous deadpan comedy.

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During World War I, a group of British miners are recruited to tunnel underneath no man's land and set bombs from below the German front in hopes of breaking the deadly stalemate of the Battle of Messines.

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Three stories of strangers meeting on the edge of war. A conscientious objector and a roaming artist find tenderness as the carnage of the Second World War unfolds across the English Channel. A bereaved mother struggles with bitterness and love in recollecting her estranged son, lost in the Falklands. Deep in the Black Forest of Germany, an ageing holocaust survivor seeks to bring peace to disturbed young boy and his equally wild stepfather.

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A group of young friends and neighbours come together for a fishing expedition after rumours spread of a giant carp in the area. In a world of broken families, cassette tapes and rumbling political fever, these friends, each with their own struggles to bear, share a moment of harmony.

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A young man, Stevie, awakes on a wasteland overlooking Bradford, still bleeding from a brutal attack that has left him with severe memory loss. Recent events are a total blank; his more distant memories are a blur. He slowly begins to piece together his identity: his name, his home, his family. At first it appears he returns to his former self but through a series of painful flashbacks and encounters, he comes to learn of the dark and disturbing events that led to his beating. Ashamed to learn of the person he has become – and the dangerous world he became mixed up in – Stevie realises he will have to pay. But at what price?

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Olivier award-winner Eve Best (A Moon for the Misbegotten and Hedda Gabler) and BAFTA-nominated actress Anne Reid (Last Tango in Halifax) star in this new classically staged production of Oscar Wilde’s comedy directed by Dominic Dromgoole, former Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe. The first play from the Classic Spring Theatre Company’s Oscar Wilde Season, A Woman of No Importance will be captured live for cinemas from the Vaudeville Theatre in London’s West End. An earnest young American woman, a louche English lord, and an innocent young chap join a house party of fin de siècle fools and grotesques. Nearby a woman lives, cradling a long-buried secret. First performed in 1893, Oscar Wilde’s marriage of glittering wit and Ibsenite drama satirised the socially conservative world of the Victorian upper-class, creating a vivid new theatrical voice which still resonates today.

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Vincentio, Duke of Vienna, disgusted by the immorality in his city, announces his withdrawal from public life and leaves his deputy, the puritanical Angelo, in charge. Angelo, in his zeal for observing the letter of the law, begins a ruthless programme to stamp out sexual licence, in the course of which he condemns one Claudio to death. Surely Claudio’s virginal sister Isabella, a novice nun seeking mercy for her brother, could not awake the lust of this cold, censorious man?

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The widowed Duchess of Malfi longs to marry her lover, the steward Antonio. But her rancorous brothers, Ferdinand and the Cardinal, are implacably opposed to the match. When their spy, Bosola, discovers that the Duchess has secretly married and carries Antonio’s child, they exact a terrible and horrific revenge.

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Hotspur is dead and Prince Hal has proved his mettle on the battlefield, but King Henry IV lies dying and the rebels show no sign of surrendering. Even Sir John Falstaff is forced out of the taverns to raise a militia, but will his attachment to Hal be rewarded with promotion and the life of ease he feels sure he deserves? Henry IV Part 2 includes some of the greatest moments in Shakespeare: the deathbed scene of the old King, when Hal contemplates the crown; and Hal's devastating rejection of Falstaff himself. Roger Allam ('a Falstaff to treasure' - The Times) won the 2011 Best Actor Olivier Award for his performance in Henry IV Parts 1 and 2. 'Jamie Parker (Prince Hal) is 'terrific to watch' (London Evening Standard); he appeared in As You Like It at the Globe in 2009, and was also in The History Boys at the National Theatre, on Broadway and on film.

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Prince Hal, son of King Henry IV, seems to be squandering his life away with the fat knight Sir John Falstaff and the whores, boozers and petty rogues of Eastcheap. But beside these scenes of glorious misrule gathers a nationwide rebellion led by the Duke of Northumberland and his charismatic son, Hotspur. The first installment of Shakespeare's gripping account of the rise of Hal from idle barfly to monarch-in-waiting combines compelling power politics with the hilarious antics of Falstaff, Shakespeare's greatest comic creation.

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Steve Coogan, an arrogant actor with low self-esteem and a complicated love life, is playing the eponymous role in an adaptation of "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" being filmed at a stately home. He constantly spars with actor Rob Brydon, who is playing Uncle Toby and believes his role to be of equal importance to Coogan's.

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The comedienne stars in this festive sketch show, alongside a host of celebrity guests.

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In 1960s London, sisters Gerry, Mandy and Jo don male disguises and rob jewelry stores. Gerry also takes a job at a hip magazine in order to scope out a potential target. Sparks fly, however, between Gerry and American journalist Daniel Wheaton, and their budding romance threatens to expose the sisters' latest operation.

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For nearly a decade, Gilbert and Sullivan’s collaborations have delighted the English people. But in 1884, as a London heat wave cuts into the theater trade, their latest work, "Princess Ida", receives lukewarm press. In an effort to reconcile their creative differences and drawing inspiration from Japanese culture, they went on to create the hit opera "The Mikado", one of the duo's greatest successes.

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Dinnerladies is a BBC sitcom written by and starring Victoria Wood that chronicles the antics of a group of workers in a canteen in the north of England. Bren tries to maintain a semblance of order in amongst the chaos, while dealing with the canteen supervisor, slightly sex-obsessed cancer sufferer Tony. Dolly and Jean are the bickering menopausal older women, always at odds but best friends beneath it all. Then there's thick-as-two-short-planks Anita, and the terminally uninterested Twinkle, more concerned with having a good time than anything else. Making up the motley crew are military man handyman Stan, all rules and regulations, and ditzy Philippa, who never seems to get anything right.

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Soon to be married lawyer Kate Beckenham has landed the case of a lifetime. Her courtroom opponent turns out to be the charming Jack Sullivan, who has never lost a single case.

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A self-organized group of unemployed miners from the industrial wasteland of northern England make it their profession to tour the country by bus, and perform in Chippendales-style, both individually and together in a grand finale.

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Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.

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Comedienne Dawn French tackles dark, tongue-in-cheek thrillers as her various characters embark on a different mystery every episode. In one way or another, she is involved with murder — either committing the crime or even getting bumped off herself!

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The Ritz was a six-part BBC Television series that aired in 1987. It was a Comedy/Drama set in a night club, where three bouncers—Chike played by Paul Rider, Skodge played by Andrew Dunn and Kenny played by Andrew Livingstone—helped to protect the newly formed Ritz night club from a rival club owner, Mad Mick, played by Richard Ridings.

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Drama series about the staff and patients at Holby City Hospital's emergency department, charting the ups and downs in their personal and professional lives.

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