James Ottaway

Pie in the Sky is a British offbeat police comedy drama programme starring Richard Griffiths and Maggie Steed, created by Andrew Payne and first broadcast in five series on BBC1 between 13 March 1994 and 17 August 1997 as well as being syndicated on other channels in other countries, including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The series departs slightly from other police dramas in that the protagonist, Henry Crabbe, while still being an on-duty policeman, is also the head chef of the title restaurant set in the fictional town of Middleton and county of Westershire.

Open details →

The absurd adventures of two defective detectives, who - despite unbelievable incompetence - somehow manage to solve their cases (or be nearby when the cases are solved) and retain their jobs.

Open details →

Jack Frost is a gritty, dogged and unconventional detective with sympathy for the underdog and an instinct for moral justice who attracts trouble like a magnet. Despite some animosity with his superintendent, Norman “Horn-rimmed Harry” Mullett, Frost and his ever-changing roster of assistants manage to solve cases via his clever mind, good heart, and cool touch.

Open details →

Two lovers are reunited after decades apart following a mutual misunderstanding.

Open details →

The Widowmaker is a 1990 made for television film starring Annabelle Apsion, Alun Armstrong, David Morrissey and Kenneth Welsh. The film deals with a woman whose husband has been arrested after going on a killing rampage and the reaction of her local community. It was produced In the United Kingdom by Central Independent Television for the ITV Network and aired on 29 December 1990. It received a nomination for Best Single Drama at the 1991 BAFTA Awards.

Open details →

Hyacinth Bucket (whose name, she insists, is pronounced "Bouquet") is a suburban housewife in the West Midlands. She would be the first to tell you that she is a gracious hostess, a respected citizen, and a well-connected member of high society. If you don't believe that, just ask her best friend Elizabeth, held captive in Hyacinth's kitchen; or the postmen and neighbours who bristle at the sound of her voice; or Richard, her weary and compliant husband. In fact, Hyacinth's reputation could be as perfect as her new lounge set, if not for her senile father's love of running wild in the nip. Oh, and she would prefer it if her brother-in-law was a sharper dresser. And that her husband was more ambitious. And that her sisters were more presentable. And do take your shoes off before you come in the house, dear. Mind that you don't brush against the wallpaper.

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 →

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 →

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 →

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.

Open details →

The ups and downs of small time London gambler Robby Box, and the effect that his poker addiction has on his long suffering girlfriend Jan Oliver and family.

Open details →

Shine on Harvey Moon! is a British comedy-drama series made by Central Television for ITV from 8 January 1982 to 23 August 1985 and briefly revived in 1995 by Meridian. This generally light-hearted series was created by comedy writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran. The series is set in the East End of London shortly after the Second World War. Upon being demobbed RAF serviceman Harvey Moon, played by Kenneth Cranham, returns home and finds his family involved in various troubles. His wife Rita, played by Maggie Steed, is not interested in resuming their relationship, and works in a seedy nightclub frequented by American servicemen. He becomes involved with the Labour Party and the union movement. The name of the series is a wordplay on the title of the popular 1908 song 'Shine On, Harvest Moon'. The first series was commissioned and recorded by ATV at their Elstree studios with the remaining series filmed at newly constructed facilities in Nottingham.

Open details →

In the late 1970s, Cockney crime boss Harold Shand, a gangster trying to become a legitimate property mogul, has big plans to get the American Mafia to bankroll his transformation of a derelict area of London into the possible venue for a future Olympic Games. However, a series of bombings targets his empire on the very weekend the Americans are in town. Shand is convinced there is a traitor in his organization, and sets out to eliminate the rat in typically ruthless fashion.

Open details →

Play which examines the conflict between the generations of a Greek-Cypriot family. Dimitri and Trulla are to be married. All seems well for the newly-weds, but there is a mystery surrounding Trulla's cousin Janni. An element of the play concerns the genetically-inherited disease thalassaemia. One effect of the disease is that survivors continue to have the appearance of 14-year-olds, even in their 20s. Due to the impossibility of simulating this, thalassaemic patients take part in the play.

Open details →

Notable as the first British series to feature a female police officer (predating Juliet Bravo by four months), Detective Inspector Maggie Forbes raises her teenage son while navigating a male-dominated police force following the murder of her police commissioner husband.

Open details →

Roguish comedy drama following the misadventures of small-time crook Arthur Daley.

Open details →

In the near future, a now-elderly Bernard Quatermass investigates the disappearance of his granddaughter and a mysterious cult.

Open details →

George and Betty, a middle-class English couple, have just moved into a big Edwardian house in London and are throwing a party to celebrate. Unfortunately, after ten days none of their furniture has arrived, having been sent to Carlisle by mistake, three of the four toilets don't work and cracks are starting to appear in the ceiling. However, nothing can dent their determination to have a good time.

Open details →

A car mechanic faces prejudice at work because of his ethnicity.

Open details →

At a Catholic boys' school, domineering disciplinarian Father Goddard rules over his pupils with an iron hand. When one of his teenage charges confesses to murder, the dogmatic but deeply repressed Goddard finds his faith challenged and his life spiralling dangerously out of control.

Open details →

The trials and misadventures of the staff at a country veterinary office in Yorkshire. James Herriot, a young animal surgeon, moves to a small Yorkshire town to begin his first job.

Open details →

World War II drama about covert organisation Lifeline helping allied airmen escape after being shot down in occupied Europe, working with the Resistance and hiding from the Gestapo.

Open details →

Anthology of self-contained dramas that aired from 1977 to 1978.

Open details →

A grumpy Scottish soccer boss meets a young fan in a TB sanatorium.

Open details →

Shadows is a British Supernatural television anthology series produced by Thames Television for ITV between 1975 and 1978. Extending over three seasons, it featured ghost and horror dramas for children. Guest actors included John Nettleton, Gareth Thomas, Jenny Agutter, Pauline Quirke, Brian Glover, June Brown, Rachel Herbert, Jacqueline Pearce and Gwyneth Strong. The series was also notable for reviving the character of Mr. Stabs. Notable writers for the series included J. B. Priestley, Fay Weldon and PJ Hammond.

Open details →

Jack Regan, an unethical officer of the Flying Squad, uses unorthodox methods to pursue criminals with the help of his partner, George Carter.

Open details →

The prisoner Nemov is an honest man serving ten years for violations of Article 58. Nemov falls in love with Lyuba, who is having sex with the camp doctor Mereshchun, in exchange for better food and living conditions.

Open details →

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park, where he discovers a world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called rock & roll.

Open details →

Crown Court is an afternoon television courtroom drama produced by Granada Television for the ITV network that ran from 1972, when the Crown Court system replaced Assize courts and Quarter sessions in the legal system of England and Wales, to 1984.

Open details →

The Protectors is a British television series, an action thriller created by Gerry Anderson. It was Anderson's second TV series using live actors as opposed to electronic marionettes, and also his second to be firmly set in contemporary times. It was also the only Gerry Anderson produced television series that was not of the fantasy or science fiction genres. It was produced by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment production company. Despite not featuring marionettes or any real science fiction elements, The Protectors became one of Anderson's most popular productions, easily winning a renewal for a second season. A third season was in the planning stages when the show's major sponsor pulled out, forcing its cancellation. The Protectors first aired in 1972 and 1973, and ran to 52 episodes over two series, each 25 minutes long - making it one of the last series of this type to be produced in a half-hour format. It starred Robert Vaughn as Harry Rule, Nyree Dawn Porter as the Contessa Caroline di Contini, and Tony Anholt as Paul Buchet. Episodes often featured prominent guest actors.

Open details →

Tommy Adams has become quite the grown man. Now 19 years old, he is the man of the house, working full-time and supporting his widowed mother. He has also taken quite a fancy to Rachel Sullens, a 26 year old woman who lives with her 19 year old sister, Lindy.

Open details →

An anthology series adapted from plays and short stories by A.E Coppard and H.E. Bates, depicting English country life and rural romance at the turn of the 20th-century. It presents unsentimental stories of human relationships and raw emotions – heartfelt passions, crippling frustrations, unspoken love and destructive jealousy.

Open details →

Justice is a British drama television series which originally aired on ITV in 39 hour-long episodes between 8 August 1971 and 16 October 1974. Margaret Lockwood stars as Harriet Peterson a female barrister in the North of England. It was made by Yorkshire Television and was based loosely on Justice Is a Woman, an episode of ITV Playhouse broadcast in 1969 in which Lockwood had previously also played a barrister. The theme music was Crown Imperial by William Walton.

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 →

An art student encounters a mysterious girl at a psychedelic party. She insists he give her a ride home on his motorbike, when something very strange occurs.

Open details →

Up Pompeii! is a British television comedy series broadcast between 1969 and 1970, starring Frankie Howerd. The first series was written by Talbot Rothwell, a scriptwriter for the Carry On films, and the second series by Rothwell and Sid Colin. Two further specials were transmitted in 1975 and 1991. In ancient Pompeii, much-put-upon slave Lurcio navigates the chaotic lives of his owner's family

Open details →