Dick Clement

Part travelogue, part buddy comedy and part retrospective, this series follows Joe Wilkinson and David Earl as they explore their love of classic British sitcoms.

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What are the secrets of our favourite TV shows? Famous names from both sides of the camera reflect on making some of the most popular and influential programs of all time.

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Charts the early years of HandMade Films seen through the eyes of the filmmakers, key personnel, and the man who started it all: former Beatle George Harrison.

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This documentary showcases a number of new clips which have recently come to light from sketches which were thought to have been lost forever, some not seen for over 50 years, plus rare footage of routines performed in Australia when Cook and Moore made two episodes of their show, Not Only... But Also..., for the country back in 1971. Rob Brydon narrates this very special programme as Pete and Dud fans, friends and colleagues watch these newly discovered clips in the studio for the very first time. The programme includes contributions from Not Only... But Also... producer Dick Clement, Pete and Dud collaborator Barry Humphries, and long-time fans Richard Ayoade, Josie Lawrence, Will Sharpe and Ronnie Wood as they enjoy the sketches and reflect on the career of one of Britain's best-loved comedy partnerships.

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Documentary celebrating the British sitcom and taking a look at the social and political context from which our favourite sitcoms grew. We enjoy a trip through the comedy archive in the company of the people who made some of the very best British sitcoms. From The Likely Lads to I'm Alan Partridge, we find out the inspiration behind some of the most-loved characters and how they reflect the times they were living in.

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A documentary about the legendary and influential comedian, actor and writer, who went out from the BBC to conquer Hollywood, but sadly the system quickly withdrew its support when they couldn't contain his talents. This portrait is spiked with many comments from people who knew Feldman privately or had dealt with him professionally. His early death sadly rendered him all but forgotten by the public. The compilation consists of interviews, some film clips and photos as well as various audio clips from him.

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The story of the big names that have shaped the musical genres, plus an occasional stopgap for the new rock 'n' roll - comedy.

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Drama Connections is a BBC One documentary series which looks at the stories behind the production of some of Britain's most popular drama television programmes, showing how they tie in with the production of other drama shows. The shows feature interviews with some of the cast and crew of the subject programme, as well as classic footage from the series. The series is a spin-off from Comedy Connections, which began two years earlier and used the same format to look at the history of popular television comedies, and was followed by Movie Connections in 2007.

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Documentary about the 1991 film

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TV documentary tracing the life of the comedian and satirist from his school days, through the Cambridge Footlights, to Beyond the Fringe and his partnership with Dudley Moore. With contributions from Cook's school friends Peter Rabey and Jonathan Harlow; Cook's first wife Wendy Cook; Cambridge University friends Tim Harrold and Roger Law; Adrian Slade (ex-president of Cambridge Footlights); Jonathan Miller; Sir David Frost; Ned Sherrin; John Bassett (creator, Beyond The Fringe); Willie Donaldson (producer, Beyond The Fringe); John Cleese; Eric Idle; Michael Parkinson; Brenda Vaccaro; John Fortune; Nicholas Luard (co-owner with Cook of The Establishment club); actress Gaye Brown; Christopher Booker; Ian Hislop; Victor Lownes and Michael Bawtree (friends of Cook); Joe McGrath; Dick Clement; Mel Smith; Clive Anderson; tv producer and executive Paul Jackson; Harry Enfield, radio presenter Clive Bull, and archival interview footage of both Cook and Dudley Moore.

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Chat show hosted by Terry Wogan, featuring live studio interviews with famous and notable personalities.

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Omnibus was an arts-based BBC television documentary series, broadcast mainly on BBC1 in the United Kingdom. The programme was the successor to the long-running arts-based series 'Monitor'. It ran from 1967 until 2003, usually being transmitted on Sunday evenings. During its 35-year history, the programme won 12 Bafta awards. Among the series' best remembered documentaries are Cracked Actor, a profile of David Bowie, and Rene Magritte, a graduate film by David Wheatley, 'Madonna: Behind the American dream', a film produced by Nadia Hagger, and a profile of the British film director Ridley Scott. For a season in 1982, the series was in a magazine format presented by Barry Norman. The series was replaced by 'Imagine' hosted by Alan Yentob.

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The vivid and inspiring story of British film icon Michael Caine's personal journey through 1960s swinging London.

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Sequel to the classic sitcom set 40 years on from the original series. Nigel Norman Fletcher, grandson of Norman Stanley Fletcher, is sentenced to 5 years in prison for cyber-crimes and gets into more trouble once inside.

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A military attaché at the French embassy is drawn into a world of abduction, betrayal and intrigue in the diplomatic salons and back alleys of Warsaw. A classic tale of spying, intrigue, and romance, based on the novels of Alan Furst and adapted by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais.

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The true story of Neil and Ivan McCormick, two Irish brothers who attempt to become rock stars but can only look on as their high school friends U2 become the biggest band in the world.

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Terry is a small-time car dealer trying to leave his shady past behind and start a family. Martine is a beautiful model from Terry's old neighbourhood who knows that Terry is no angel. When Martine proposes a foolproof plan to rob a bank, Terry recognises the danger but realises this may be the opportunity of a lifetime.

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When young dockworker Jude leaves Liverpool to find his estranged father in the United States, he is swept up by the waves of change that are re-shaping the nation. Jude falls in love with Lucy, who joins the growing anti-war movement. As the body count in Vietnam rises, political tensions at home spiral out of control and the star-crossed lovers find themselves in a psychedelic world gone mad.

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London high-society mouse, Roddy is flushed down the toilet by Sid, a common sewer rat. Hang on for a madcap adventure deep in the sewer bowels of Ratropolis, where Roddy meets the resourceful Rita, the rodent-hating Toad and his faithful thugs, Spike and Whitey.

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Like millions of kids around the world, Santiago harbors the dream of being a professional footballer... However, living in the Barrios section of Los Angeles, he thinks it is only that—a dream. Until one day an extraordinary turn of events has him trying out for Premiership club Newcastle United.

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Fluke Kelso, a dissipated, middle-aged former Oxford historian, who is in Moscow to attend a conference on the newly opened Soviet archives, receives in his hotel a very unexpected visitor.

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Friends Ben Trotter, Doug Anderton and Philip Chase deal with teenage angst, their parents' complex lives, and the political and social turmoil of the 1970s, including a tragic IRA pub bombing that affects Ben's family.

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Sketches and clips from his greatest television comedy performances

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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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In the 1970s, Strange Fruit were it. They lived the rock lifestyle to the max, groupies, drugs, internal tension and an ex front man dead from an overdose. Even their demise was glamorous; when lightning struck the stage during an outdoor festival. Twenty years on, these former rock gods they have now sunk deep into obscurity when the idea of a reunion tour is lodged in the head of Tony, former keyboard player of the Fruits. Tony sets out to find his former bandmates with the help of former manager Karen to see if they can recapture the magic and give themselves a second chance.

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Tracey Takes On... is a sketch comedy series starring actress Tracey Ullman. The show ran for four seasons on HBO and was commissioned after the success of the comedy special Tracey Ullman Takes on New York (1993). Each episode focuses on a specific subject which Ullman and her cast of characters take on through a series of sketches and monologues.

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Jimmy Rabbitte, just a thick-ya out of school, gets a brilliant idea: to put a soul band together in Barrytown, his slum home in north Dublin. First he needs musicians and singers: things slowly start to click when he finds three fine-voiced females virtually in his back yard, a lead singer (Deco) at a wedding, and, responding to his ad, an aging trumpet player, Joey "The Lips" Fagan.

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Maxine Chandler (Anne Bancroft) is a fading Hollywood star who is living in a suite at the Savoy Hotel while she's working in London. She employs a young cockney woman, Freddie Latham (Charlotte Coleman) as her personal assistant. Freddie is an outspoken woman who doesn't hesitate to let Max know about her obvious shortcomings. Max's agent, Malcolm Parkes (Richard Pearson) often echoes Freddie's opinions, though usually much more quietly.

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A mysterious oriental skull transforms a father into his son, and vice versa.

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The adventures of the eponymous Lovejoy, a likeable but roguish antiques dealer based in East Anglia. Within the trade, he has a reputation as a “divvie”, a person with an almost supernatural powers for recognising exceptional items as well as distinguishing genuine antique from clever fakes or forgeries.

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The British governor of a tiny island nation in the Caribbean Commonwealth finds his idyllic existence thrown into chaos when an American drilling company finds a huge source of natural mineral water there.

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Seven British construction workers escape Britain's ever growing dole queues and travel to Germany to work on a site in Dusseldorf. We follow their trials and tribulations of working away from home and away from the women they left behind.

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Alan O'Black is a comic who wants to hit it big. But his endless attempts at stardom have worn down his relationship with his ex-girlfriend, Julie. Thinking she'll give him another chance if he gets a real job, Alan gets a gig as a limo driver, which promptly lands him in a slew of trouble when he meets and gets involved in the hijinks of a crooked entrepreneur, Bradley Coleman.

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Fresh off the Harwich Ferry from the continent, unemployed medieval historian Jim Dixon goes to Swinging London in search of a life and a job.

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Anthony Hope's classic tale gets a decidedly 'un-classic' treatment at the hands of Peter Sellers. Following the story somewhat, friends of the new King Rudolph of Ruritania fear for his life, and switch him with a look-a-like London cabby. Throw in two(!) lovely blondes, treachery, and a battle for life and honour, and enjoy life at its zaniest.

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Times are hard for habitual guest of Her Majesty Norman Stanley Fletcher. The new prison officer, Beale, makes MacKay look soft and what's more, an escape plan is hatching from the cell of prison godfather Grouty and Fletcher wants no part of it.

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Footage of a concert given in Moscow, Russia, by rock singer Elton John.

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Going Straight is a BBC sitcom which was a direct spin-off from Porridge, starring Ronnie Barker as Norman Stanley Fletcher, newly released from the fictional Slade Prison where the earlier series had been set. It sees Fletcher trying to become an honest member of society, having vowed to stay away from crime on his release. The title refers to his attempt, 'straight' being a slang term meaning being honest, in contrast to 'bent', i.e., dishonest. Also re-appearing was Richard Beckinsale as Lennie Godber, who was Fletcher's naïve young cellmate and was now in a relationship with his daughter Ingrid. Her brother Raymond was played by a teenage Nicholas Lyndhurst. Only one series, of six episodes, was made in 1978. It attracted an audience of over 15 million viewers and won a BAFTA award in March 1979, but hopes of a further series had already been dashed by Beckinsale's premature death earlier in the same month.

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Fletcher and Godber are in trouble for brewing liquor in the lead-up to Christmas, but are caught up in a hostage situation in the Governor's office.

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With the destruction of their previous neighbourhood has inevitably come the destruction of the lads’ favoured watering hole The Fat Ox. Again, it’s Bob rather than Terry who is visibly distressed by this. Upset and much the worse for free alcohol, Bob then storms into the library to seek sympathy from Thelma - who is, predictably, unimpressed. So when Thelma finds out that Terry has been getting semi-serious with glamorous Finnish shop assistant Chris, she takes it upon herself to try and pair them off for good via planning first a dinner party and then that mainstay of 70s comedy, a camping expedition. Of course, things don’t go quite according to plan and before you can say ‘I can see the way this is going’ we are set up for japes, larks and embarrassing incidents aplenty, which culminate in the lads getting rather fed up with their partners’ attempts to inflict the rugged outdoor lifestyle upon them and trying to hitch up and drive off with the girls still asleep in the caravan.

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Fletcher discovers that his fellow inmates are planning to escape.

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A minimum-security prison is the setting for gallows humor by wisecracking inmates.

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Porridge is a British situation comedy broadcast on BBC1 from 1974 to 1977, running for three series, two Christmas specials and a feature film also titled Porridge. Written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, it stars Ronnie Barker and Richard Beckinsale as two inmates at the fictional HMP Slade in Cumberland. "Doing porridge" is British slang for serving a prison sentence, porridge once being the traditional breakfast in UK prisons. The series was followed by a 1978 sequel, Going Straight, which established that Fletcher would not be going back to prison again. Porridge was voted number seven in a 2004 BBC poll of the 100 greatest British sitcoms.

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British ITV sitcom starring John Thaw and Bob Hoskins as two friends in a love triangle.

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Seven of One is a 1973 BBC2 comedy anthology starring Ronnie Barker. 7 of 1 is a series of seven separate comedies that would serve as possible pilots for sitcoms, three of which were picked up for a full series run. Originally called Six of One, which Barker planned to follow up with another series called Half Dozen of the Other.

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Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? is a British sitcom which was broadcast between 9 January 1973 and 9 April 1974 on BBC1. It was the colour sequel to the mid-1960s hit The Likely Lads. It was created and written, as was its predecessor, by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. There were 26 television episodes over two series; and a subsequent 45-minute Christmas special was aired on 24 December 1974. The cast were reunited in 1975 for a BBC radio adaptation of series 1, transmitted on Radio 4 from July to October that year. In 1976, a feature film spin-off was made. Around the time of its release, however, Rodney Bewes and James Bolam fell out over a misunderstanding involving the press and have not spoken since. This long-suspected situation was finally confirmed by Bewes while promoting his autobiography in 2005. Unlike Bewes, Bolam is consistently reluctant to talk about the show, and has vetoed any attempt to revive his character.

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While on vacation, a woman's husband is taken by the Russian government. After one attempt fails, she begins looking for a suitable spy to capture and trade in exchange for her husband, but she develops an attraction to the one she thinks is a good candidate.

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