Richard Curson Smith

A star-studded BBC film of Oscar Wilde’s glittering and controversial career before his trial for homosexual crimes and tragic fall from grace. Highlights from Oscar’s brilliant comedies such as The Importance of Being Earnest and stories such as The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Canterville Ghost are adapted and performed by a cast including Freddie Fox, Claire Skinner, Anna Chancellor and James Fleet. Wilde enthusiasts and experts, including Stephen Fry, Wilde’s grandson Merlin Holland and his latest biographers, provide revelatory accounts of how his own life informed his work. His Irish roots, his early career, his marriage and the importance of women as well as men in his life all combine in a complex and compelling characterisation and celebration that adds flesh to the bones of a man who is too often caricatured.

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Exploring the wit, work and world of Joe Orton through his own words, and the testimony of those who knew him and worked with him.

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A shocking serial murder case terrorized New York 40 years ago. Surviving victims, families of the deceased, and the detectives who worked on the case recount their stories.

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In this unique, compelling film, those who knew him speak freely, some for the first time, to reveal the many mysteries of Francis Bacon.

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Lucy Worsley traces the forgotten and fascinating story of the young Mozart's adventures in Georgian London. Arriving in 1764 as an eight-year-old boy, London held the promise of unrivalled musical opportunity. But in telling the telling the tale of Mozart's strange and unexpected encounters, Lucy reveals how life wasn't easy for the little boy in a big bustling city. With the demands of a royal performance, the humiliation of playing keyboard tricks in a London pub, a near fatal illness and finding himself heckled on the streets, it was a lot for a child to take. But London would prove pivotal, for it was here that the young Mozart made his musical breakthrough, blossoming from a precocious performer into a powerful new composer.

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Dance, espionage and passion come together in this powerful and exciting docudrama that tells the extraordinary story of how Soviet ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defected to the West in 1961 and became a living legend.

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Documentary exploring Ted Hughes, one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, focusing on how his life story influenced his work and vision.

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Poor but intelligent Emily Fox Seton accepts a marriage proposal from the older Lord James Walderhurst, a widower pushed into providing an heir by his haughty aunt Maria.

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Playhouse Presents is a series of self-contained TV plays, made by British broadcaster Sky Arts. The series started airing on 12 April 2012, on Sky Arts 1. Each episode is written by a different writer with a different cast.

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Charting the rise of the Milliband brother, from their left-wing upbringing to their University days, using dramatized scenes and interviews with people who knew them.

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Fifty years ago, a Home Office committee chaired by Wolfenden, then vice-chancellor of Reading University, recommended the decriminalization of homosexuality. But behind the scenes of what was to become a turning point in British social history, there was an even more extraordinary story. Jack's son Jeremy, then a brilliant undergraduate at Oxford, was himself gay, something his father could not bring himself to acknowledge.

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When strange anomalies start to appear all over England, Professor Cutter and his team must track down and capture all sorts of dangerous prehistoric creatures from Earth's distant past and near future.

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In 1998 former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet visits Britain for medical treatment. On being tipped off, Amnesty International seize the chance to bring to justice a man they insist is guilty of multiple human rights violations. The newly-elected Labour government is initially amenable, and soon Pinochet is under house arrest (albeit in a detached house in leafy suburbia) and awaiting extradition to Spain. However, Amnesty are up against the complexities of British law, the vacillations of Home Secretary Jack Straw, Pinochet's former ally Margaret Thatcher - and the Senator's own vast reserves of cunning.

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A biopic of Agatha Christie including her 10 day disappearance.

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If... is a series of BBC drama-documentaries broadcast on BBC Two from March to April 2004 and December 2004 to January 2005, each of which considers the potentially catastrophic political or social consequences that might arise from current trends in the United Kingdom. Using a drama with interviews from experts, then a discussion of the programme with a panel of experts from both sides of an argument. During the show a televote of opinion is cast.

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The ostensibly calm and courteous Gerald Ballantyne lives in and embodies modern suburbia. But he is haunted by the memory of a recent car crash and hounded by his estranged wife and her demands for divorce. Slowly, a festering insanity takes over and unwilling to face the outside world he embarks on a lunatic experiment. Confining himself to his middle-class home, he eschews contact with others and survives entirely off 'food' which he can find in his house. Based on JG Ballard's The Enormous Space.

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Clinical psychologist Dr Tony Hill's uncanny ability to see into the minds of murderers means he finds it difficult to distance himself from disturbing cases.

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The Private Lives of Pompeii concentrates on the people that lived and worked in Pompeii at the time of its destruction, as depicted in the archaeology of their houses, their tombs and the surviving documents that relate to them. Emilia Fox introduces us to the themes and ideas that lie behind the structure of the Roman society of Pompeii, themes which are then played out by actors illustrating the private lives of four key characters.

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A comic drama about the weird and wonderful world of Salvador Dali and the Surrealists. This film charts Dali's meteoric rise from obscurity to the world's most publicised artist.

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Gene Roddenberry's Utopian vision of humanity in the 24th century had a profound effect on American viewers. During the height of the Cold War, the tension of the civil rights movement and the jingoism of the Vietnam War, they saw a multicultural crew working together on the bridge of the Enterprise. Leonard Nimoy, Patrick Stewart, Nichelle Nicols, Brent Spiner and others reflect on Star Trek's cultural impact over its 30-year history, and contemplate its future on the small screen.

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Exploring the wit, work and world of Joe Orton through his own words, and the testimony of those who knew him and worked with him.

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A shocking serial murder case terrorized New York 40 years ago. Surviving victims, families of the deceased, and the detectives who worked on the case recount their stories.

Open details →

In this unique, compelling film, those who knew him speak freely, some for the first time, to reveal the many mysteries of Francis Bacon.

Open details →

Dance, espionage and passion come together in this powerful and exciting docudrama that tells the extraordinary story of how Soviet ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defected to the West in 1961 and became a living legend.

Open details →

In 1998 former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet visits Britain for medical treatment. On being tipped off, Amnesty International seize the chance to bring to justice a man they insist is guilty of multiple human rights violations. The newly-elected Labour government is initially amenable, and soon Pinochet is under house arrest (albeit in a detached house in leafy suburbia) and awaiting extradition to Spain. However, Amnesty are up against the complexities of British law, the vacillations of Home Secretary Jack Straw, Pinochet's former ally Margaret Thatcher - and the Senator's own vast reserves of cunning.

Open details →