Nicholas Selby

Stiff Upper Lips is a broad parody of British period films, especially the lavish Merchant-Ivory productions of the 'eighties and early 'nineties. Although it specifically targets A Room with a View, Chariots of Fire, Maurice, A Passage to India, and many other films, in a more general way Stiff Upper Lips satirises popular perceptions of certain Edwardian traits: propriety, sexual repression, xenophobia, and class snobbery.

Open details →

A journalist becomes an independent MP. Loosely based on the election of Martin Bell to the constituency of Tatton between 1997 and 2001.

Open details →

Jessie Fielding is a young MP who is trying to get an anti-hunting bill through the two Houses of Parliament, which is a little surprising as she hunted as a teenager with friend Barb Gale. Matters are complicated when she rekindles her friendship with Barb, who still works for a hunt. The plot thickens further when it becomes aparent that the House of Lords is likely break with convention and block the bill, an event which the Prime Minister hopes to use for his own ends.

Open details →

In the fictional Yorkshire town of Wetherton, the unlikely duo of politically incorrect elephant-in-a-China-shop-copper DS Andrew Dalziel (pronounced Dee-ell) and his more sensitive and university educated sidekick DS, later DI, Peter Pascoe is always on hand to solve the classic murder mystery, while maintaining down-to-Earth wit and humour.

Open details →

An epic tale of a changing Britain over four decades, seen through the eyes of four friends.

Open details →

A black soldier in World War II England begins an affair with a white woman whose husband is a soldier currently overseas in battle and in doubts of her relationship with him as she discovered he had been having an affair with his secretary.

Open details →

Aging King George III of England is exhibiting signs of madness, a problem little understood in 1788. As the monarch alternates between bouts of confusion and near-violent outbursts of temper, his hapless doctors attempt the ineffectual cures of the day. Meanwhile, Queen Charlotte and Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger attempt to prevent the king's political enemies, led by the Prince of Wales, from usurping the throne.

Open details →

A version of Dennis Potter's play for television, remade shortly before his death as the original 1960s version had been wiped.

Open details →

An anthology series of various plays and dramatic performances.

Open details →

Frustrated at a new moderate Conservative government and deprived of a promotion to a senior position, chief whip Francis Urquhart prepares a meticulous plot to bring down the Prime Minister then to take his place.

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 →

An hour-long anthology series hosted by Jim Henson and generally included two segments. The first, MuppeTelevision, features comedy skits starring the Muppets, as well as frequent guest appearances by popular entertainers. The second often rebroadcasts original productions, primarily The StoryTeller.

Open details →

From England to Egypt, accompanied by his elegant and trustworthy sidekicks, the intelligent yet eccentrically-refined Belgian detective Hercule Poirot pits his wits against a collection of first class deceptions.

Open details →

On the whole, giants are benign creatures, harmless to none, unless of course the giant hasn't a heart. A curious prince is fooled into freeing one such heartless giant from the king's dungeon.

Open details →

The Storyteller, aided by his cynical dog, narrates classic folk tales, fables, and legends.

Open details →

Based loosely on the real-life story of the World War I spy. The exotic dancer uses her contacts in European high society, along with her seductive charm, to collect military secrets during the war. She successfully plays both sides against each other until at last her deceptions catch up with her.

Open details →

In Imperial Russia, Anna, wife of the officer Karenin, goes to Moscow to visit her brother. On the way, she meets charming cavalry officer Vronsky, to whom she's immediately attracted. But in St. Petersburg’s high society, a relationship like this could destroy a woman’s reputation.

Open details →

A Government Department with data on us all in its computers is not functioning quite as its ex-Head intended. Frank Strange sets out to clear his own name and finds he is investigating a murder.

Open details →

A thwarted Lady Maud runs off to her solicitor to start divorce proceedings and that gives Sir Giles his bright idea-why not run the proposed bypass for the area through their very own Cleene Gorge, thereby wrecking Lady Maud's ancestral home and copping rather a lot of compensation from the government to boot? Witness the frolics of the bumbling dundridge - the Y-front clad man from the ministry, Sir Giles' versatile Mrs Forthby - Mediterranean harlot and naughty schoolgirl extraordinaire, not forgetting Blott himself, gardener and mystery man, casting his enigmatic eye over the eccentricities of the great British aristocracy... Starring, George Cole, Geraldine James, David Suchet, Simon Cadell and Julia McKenzie

Open details →

Poldark is a television drama based on Winston Graham's novels of the same title. It was first transmitted on BBC Two across two seasons between 1975 and 1977. The adaptation covered all seven novels (of the eventual twelve) published up to the time. In late 18th-century Cornwall, Ross Poldark loses his fiancée, well-bred beauty Elizabeth, to his cousin Francis. He ends up marrying his servant, Demelza Carne, but his passion for Elizabeth simmers on for years. Meanwhile, he strives to make his derelict copper mines a success. Life is hard, smuggling is rife, and Ross finds himself taking the side of the underclass against the ruthless behaviour of his enemies, the greedy Warleggan clan.

Open details →

Scotland, 11th century. Driven by the twisted prophecy of three witches and the ruthless ambition of his wife, warlord Macbeth, bold and brave, but also weak and hesitant, betrays his good king and his brothers in arms and sinks into the bloody mud of a path with no return, sown with crime and suspicion.

Open details →

An anthology series produced by Thames Television, comprised of short mystery, suspense or crime adaptations featuring, as the title suggests, detectives who were literary contemporaries of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.

Open details →

This historical mini-series documents the reign of Elizabeth I with each episode focusing on one dramatic period in the lengthy reign of the Virgin Queen, including her ascension to the throne, her various marital intrigues, her problems with her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, and the threatened invasion of the Spanish Armada.

Open details →

ITV Playhouse is a British comedy-drama TV series that ran from 1967 to 1983, which featured contributions from playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Rhys Adrian and Alan Sharp. The series began in black and white, but was later shot in colour and was produced by various companies for the ITV network, a format that would inspire Dramarama. Actors appearing in the series included Leslie Anderson, Gwen Nelson, Ricky Alleyne, Pat Heywood, Michael Elphick, Ian Hendry, Edward Woodward, Margaret Lockwood, Jessie Matthews and Lloyd Peters.

Open details →

Anthology series of love stories.

Open details →

Callan is the title of a British television series set in the murky world of espionage. Originally produced by ABC Weekend Television and later Thames Television, it was aired on the ITV network over four seasons spread out between 1967 and 1972. The series starred Edward Woodward as David Callan, a reluctant professional killer for a shadowy branch of the British Government's intelligence services known as 'the Section'.

Open details →

A lonely spinster has her cottage in a seaside village requisitioned by the local council for a building scheme, with tragic consequences.

Open details →

An epic chronicle of the dysfunctional Plantagenet family from the accession of the young Henry to the death of Richard, last of the Plantagenets. The vacillations of the priestly Henry lead to ungentlemanly behaviour, civil war, treason, murder, regicide, fratricide, and the relentless pursuit of power so characteristic of the Renaissance.

Open details →

A 1965 BBC adaptation of William Shakespeare's first historical tetralogy (1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI and Richard III), which deals with the conflict between the House of Lancaster and the House of York over the throne of England, a conflict known as the Wars of the Roses. It was based on the 1963 theatre adaptation by John Barton, and directed by Peter Hall for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Open details →

Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.

Open details →

Simon Templar is The Saint, a handsome, sophisticated, debonair, modern-day Robin Hood who recovers ill-gotten wealth and redistributes it to those in need.

Open details →

Holidaying in Algeria, French minister Corrazzi is fighting for his life in hospital after a botched assassination attempt. Algerian doctor Dr. Kabil is reluctantly trusted to save his life but discovers his daughter was involved.

Open details →

Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series of single plays that ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation, and later by Thames Television from mid-1968.

Open details →

A television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock featuring dramas, thrillers, and mysteries.

Open details →