Jim Barclay

Erwin van Haarlem is a man of mystery. Living in London in 1986 and ostensibly a Dutch art dealer, he is in fact spying for Czechoslovakia with a mission to track down supporters of the dissident group, Chapter 77.

Open details →

An investigation into the actions of the Parachute Regiment and the protesters, Lord Widgery's subsequent inquiry.

Open details →

Secret History was a long-running British television documentary series. Shown on Channel 4, the Secret History brandname was used as a banner title in the UK, but many of the individual documentaries can still be found on US cable channels without the branding. It can be seen as Channel 4's answer to the BBC's Timewatch.

Open details →

Jeeves and Wooster is a British comedy-drama series adapted by Clive Exton from P.G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves" stories. It aired on the ITV network from 1990 to 1993, starring Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster, a young gentleman with a "distinctive blend of airy nonchalance and refined gormlessness", and Stephen Fry as Jeeves, his improbably well-informed and talented valet. Wooster is a bachelor, a minor aristocrat and member of the idle rich. He and his friends, who are mainly members of The Drones Club, are extricated from all manner of societal misadventures by the indispensable valet, Jeeves. The stories are set in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1930s.

Open details →

One Foot in the Grave is a BBC television sitcom series. The series features the exploits of Victor Meldrew and his long-suffering wife, Margaret. The programmes invariably deal with Meldrew's battle against the problems he creates for himself. Living in a typical household in an unnamed English suburb, Victor takes involuntary early retirement. His various efforts to keep himself busy, while encountering various misfortunes and misunderstandings are the themes of the sitcom. Despite its traditional production, the series supplants its domestic sitcom setting with elements of black humour and surrealism.

Open details →

Focuses on brothers Frank and Danny Kane. Their mother is the matriarch of a South London criminal gang, assisted by Danny. Frank has become a priest but leaves the church; he inherits The Paradise Club following the death of their mother and returns to London to try and steer Danny away from crime.

Open details →

A harassed secretary at a private golf club steeped in bigotry faces challenges amidst its desperate financial straits. Key events unfold in the club's bar, The Nineteenth Hole. The series was widely condemned as racist, sexist and homophobic. TV producer Paul Stewart Laing, then-controller of programmes for the Plymouth based TSW (Television South West) ITV region, stopped after only three episodes.

Open details →

Jossy's Giants was a children's footballing comedy drama that ran on BBC1 between 1986 and 1987. The show's plot centred on a boys' football team, the Glipton Giants, and their enthusiastic Geordie manager Joswell 'Jossy' Blair. The show was written by darts commentator and television personality Sid Waddell, himself a native of Newcastle upon Tyne. In total, only ten episodes were made. The Producer/Director Edward Pugh became an Executive Producer and ran Children's Programmes Department at BBC Manchester after the series. The distinctive theme music was written by Mike Amatt. Football scenes were shot at a since demolished Oldham Town fc site off Middleton rd Chadderton, exterior scenes were shot in and around Stalybridge, and the studio material was shot at BBC Oxford Road.

Open details →

The everyday lives of working-class residents of Albert Square, a traditional Victorian square of terrace houses surrounding a park in the East End of London's Walford borough.

Open details →

A man who has had a good life in England wants to retire to Jamaica, but the celebration with his daughters doesn't go as expected.

Open details →

Billy and his family are forced to leave their temporary home in Wales and return to London. Billy escapes and starts living rough on the streets. The series follows his misadventures that result from this.

Open details →

The misadventures of four lunatic students who live in a shared student house. There's Rick, the overblown political one addicted to Cliff Richard, Vyvyan the experimental scientific one/part-time anarchist, Neil the worried hippy, and Mike the ladies' man (at least he is in his mind).

Open details →

Follows the eccentric Bagthorpe family – ineffective advice columnist Laura, frustrated and emotionless comedy writer Henry, Scrabble cheating Grandma, 16-year-old electronics whizz and tennis champion William, artistic 14-year-old Tess, and twelve-year-old 'ordinary' Jack, who decides to train their mongrel dog Zero into a super dog.

Open details →

'Can you imagine, just try to imagine the numbers of good men who are going to be slaughtered this summer ...' Using a remarkable blend of dramatic techniques, this study of three English poets - who were also three courageous soldiers - gradually develops towards their historical and crucial meeting.

Open details →

Frank, a young lad from Sheffield, leaves home to seek his fortune in London; he finds the big city not all what he had expected

Open details →

The lives of Bodie and Doyle, top agents for Britain's CI5 (Criminal Intelligence 5), and their controller, George Cowley. The mandate of CI5 was to fight terrorism and similar high-profile crimes. Cowley, a hard ex-MI5 operative, hand-picked each of his men. Bodie is a cynical ex-SAS paratrooper and mercenary whose nature ran to controlled violence, while his partner, Doyle, comes to CI5 from the regular police force, and is more of an open minded liberal. Their relationship is often contentious, but they are the top men in their field, and the ones to whom Cowley always assigned to the toughest cases.

Open details →