Geoffrey Palmer
Birthday: Born in 1927-06-04 in London, England, UK
Deathday: 2020-11-05
Geoffrey Dyson Palmer, OBE (4 June 1927 - 5 November 2020) was an English actor known for his roles in British television sitcoms playing Jimmy Anderson in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976–79), Ben Parkinson in Butterflies (1978–1983) and Lionel Hardcastle in As Time Goes By (1992–2005). His film appearances include A Fish Called Wanda (1988), The Madness of King George (1994), Mrs. Brown (1997), and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). Description above from the Wikipedia article Geoffrey Palmer , licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
TV Credits
As Time Goes By
Character: Lionel Hardcastle
Two lovers are reunited after decades apart following a mutual misunderstanding....
The Sweeney
Character: Commander Watson
Jack Regan, an unethical officer of the Flying Squad, uses unorthodox methods to pursue criminals with the help of his partner, George Carter....
Out of the Unknown
Character: Chief Officer
Out of the Unknown is a British television science fiction anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and broadcast on BBC2 in four series between 1965 and 1971. Each episode was a dramatisation of a science fiction short story. Some were written directly for the series, but most were adaptations of already published stories. The first three years were exclusively science fiction, but that genre was abandoned in the final year in favour of horror/fantasy stories. A number of episodes were wipe...
Colditz
Character: Doc
Colditz is a British television series co-produced by the BBC and Universal Studios and screened between 1972 and 1974. The series deals with Allied prisoners of war imprisoned at the supposedly escape-proof Colditz Castle when designated Oflag IV-C during World War II, and their many attempts to escape captivity, as well as the relationships formed between the various nationalities and their German captors....
The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin
Character: Jimmy Anderson
Disillusioned after a long career at Sunshine Desserts, Perrin goes through a mid-life crisis and fakes his own death. Returning in disguise after various attempts at finding a 'new life', he gets his old job back and finds nothing has changed. He is eventually found out, and in the second series has success with a chain of shops selling useless junk. That becomes so successful that he feels he has created a monster and decides to destroy it. In the third and final series he has a dream of formi...
Executive Stress
Character:
Executive Stress is a British sitcom that aired on ITV from 1986 to 1988. Produced by Thames Television, it first aired on 20 October 1986. After three series, the last episode aired on 27 December 1988. Written by George Layton, Executive Stress stars Penelope Keith as Caroline Fairchild, a middle-aged woman who decides to go back to work. Her husband, Donald, is played by Geoffrey Palmer in the first series. However, Palmer was unable to return for the second series, so Peter Bowles played Do...
Ashes to Ashes
Character: Lord Scarman
Crime drama series featuring Life On Mars' DCI Gene Hunt. After being shot in 2008, DI Alex Drake lands in 1981, where she finds herself in familiar company....
The One Show
Character: Self
A topical magazine-style daily television programme broadcast live on BBC One....
The Savages
Character: Donald
The chaotic world of Adam and Jessica Savage and their two small children as they face of the pressures of modern life....
Absolute Power
Character:
Stephen Fry and John Bird star as spin doctors Charles Prentiss and Martin McCabe as they bring the popular and satirical Radio 4 comedy Absolute Power to BBC Two. Stephen as Prentiss and John as McCabe are an unscrupulous pair who run the blue chip PR agency Prentiss McCabe. Dealing with commercial as well as personal PR, their remit covers everything from political communications to celebrity media relations. Their manipulation skills are tested to the full as they frequently find that their w...
Butterflies
Character: Ben Parkinson
Ria Parkinson is a bored housewife and mother. She spends her time daydreaming, and meets regularly with wealthy businessman Leonard to relieve the monotony. Husband Ben, a dentist and avid butterfly collector is oblivious to it all, and her unemployed grown up sons, who both live at home also have other things on their minds, especially girlfriends....
Softly, Softly
Character:
Softly, Softly is a British television drama series, produced by the BBC and screened on BBC 1 from January 1966. It centred around the work of regional crime squads, plain-clothes CID officers based in the fictional region of Wyvern, supposedly in the Bristol area of England....
Fawlty Towers
Character: Dr. Price
Owner Basil Fawlty, his wife Sybil, a chambermaid Polly, and Spanish waiter Manuel attempt to run their hotel amidst farcical situations and an array of demanding guests....
The Avengers
Character:
The Avengers is a British television series created in the 1960s. It initially focused on Dr. David Keel and his assistant John Steed. Hendry left after the first series and Steed became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants. His most famous assistants were intelligent, stylish and assertive women: Cathy Gale, Emma Peel and Tara King. Later episodes increasingly incorporated elements of science fiction and fantasy, parody and British eccentricity....
The Professionals
Character: Avery
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 contenti...
Whoops Apocalypse
Character:
Whoops Apocalypse is a six-part 1982 British sitcom by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, made by London Weekend Television for ITV. Marshall and Renwick later reworked the concept as a 1986 film of the same name from ITC Entertainment, with almost completely different characters and plot, although one or two of the original actors returned in different roles. The series has a big cult audience, and copies of videos are heavily sought after. The British budget label Channel 5 Video released a c...
Inspector Morse
Character: Matthew Copley-Barnes
Inspector Morse is a detective drama based on Colin Dexter's series of Chief Inspector Morse novels. The series starred John Thaw as Chief Inspector Morse and Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis, as well as a large cast of notable actors and actresses....
The Goodies
Character:
A British television comedy series of the 1970s and early 1980s, combining surreal sketches and situation comedy....
The Saint
Character: Pete Ferguson
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....
The Army Game
Character:
The Army Game is a British sitcom that aired on ITV from 1957 to 1961. Made in black-and-white, it is about National Service conscription to the post-war British Army. It was created by Sid Colin. Many stars, like Charles Hawtrey, William Hartnell, Bernard Bresslaw, Alfie Bass and Dick Emery became household names, and appeared in the Carry On films, which began with Carry On Sergeant, virtually a spin-off. It was made for the ITV network by Granada Television....
Doomwatch
Character: Major Sims
Doomwatch is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC, which ran on BBC 1 between 1970 and 1972. The series was set in the then present-day, and dealt with a scientific government agency led by Doctor Spencer Quist, responsible for investigating and combating various ecological and technological dangers. The series was followed by a film adaptation produced by Tigon British Film Productions and released in 1972, and a revival TV film was broadcast on Channel 5 in 1999....
He Knew He Was Right
Character: Sir Marmaduke Rowley
He Knew He Was Right was a 2004 BBC TV adaptation of the Anthony Trollope novel He Knew He Was Right. It was directed by Tom Vaughan....
Van der Valk
Character: Head of Faculty
Van der Valk is a British television series that was produced by Thames Television for the ITV network. It starred Barry Foster in the title role as Dutch detective Commissaris "Piet" van der Valk. Based on the characters and atmosphere of the novels of Nicolas Freeling, the first series was shown in 1972....
Mr. Men and Little Miss
Character:
Mr Men and Little Miss aired in both the United Kingdom and the United States. In the United Kingdom, the program was fully animated, and the characters were voiced by British voice actors Geoffrey Palmer, Gordon Peters, and Jill Shilling. The show was narrated by Geoffrey Palmer. In the United States, the voices were dubbed into North American English by Canadian voice actors and the program had live-action segments between animated segments....
Angels
Character:
Angels is a BBC medical soap-opera which launched on 1st September 1975 and was the blue print for such medical soaps as Casualty, Holby City, plus daytime soap, Doctors. The medical soap focuses on different departments within Heath Green Hospital and was a highly successful continuing drama....
No Hiding Place
Character:
No Hiding Place is a British television series that was produced at Wembley Studios by Associated-Rediffusion for the ITV network between 16 September 1959 and 22 June 1967. It was the sequel to the series Murder Bag and Crime Sheet, all starring Raymond Francis as Detective Superintendent, later Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Lockhart....
Play for Today
Character:
Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration....
The Expert
Character: Asst. Chief Constable Rogers
The Expert is a British television series produced by the BBC between 1968 and 1976. The series starred Marius Goring as Dr. John Hardy, a pathologist working for the Home Office and was essentially a police procedural drama, with Hardy bringing his forensic knowledge to solve various cases. The Expert was created and produced by Gerard Glaister. The series was also one of the first BBC dramas to be made in colour, and throughout its four series had numerous high quality guest appearances by a...
Mystery and Imagination
Character:
Mystery and Imagination is a British television anthology series of classic horror and supernatural dramas. Five series were broadcast from 1966 to 1970 by the ITV network and produced by ABC and Thames Television....
Hot Metal
Character:
Hot metal is a London Weekend Television sitcom about the British Newspaper industry broadcast between 1986 and 1988. The daily crucible, the dullest newspaper in Fleet Street, is suddenly taken over by media magnate Terence "Twiggy" Rathbone. Its editor Harry Stringer is 'promoted' to managing editor, and is replaced in his old job by Russell Spam. Spam then takes the paper shooting downmarket and turns the crucible into a sensation seeking scandal rag, very much in the style of the British ta...
Natural World
Character: Narrator
Natural World is a nature documentary television series broadcast annually on BBC Two and regarded by the BBC as its flagship natural history brand. It is currently the longest-running series in its genre on British television, with more than 400 episodes broadcast since its inception in 1983. Natural World is produced by the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol, but individual programmes can be in-house productions, collaborative productions with other broadcasters or films made and distributed...
The Last Song
Character:
...
The BBC Television Shakespeare
Character:
The BBC Television Shakespeare is a series of British television adaptations of the plays of William Shakespeare, created by Cedric Messina and produced by BBC Television. It was transmitted in the UK from 3 December 1978 to 27 April 1985 and spanned seven series. Development of the series began in 1975 when Messina saw that Glamis Castle would make a perfect location for an adaptation of Shakespeare's play As You Like It. On returning to London, he envisioned an entire series devoted exclusivel...
Best Of Enemies
Character:
A documentary about the legendary series of nationally televised debates in 1968 between two great public intellectuals, the liberal Gore Vidal and the conservative William F. Buckley Jr. Intended as commentary on the issues of their day, these vitriolic and explosive encounters came to define the modern era of public discourse in the media, marking the big bang moment of our contemporary media landscape when spectacle trumped content and argument replaced substance. Best of Enemies delves into ...
The Avengers
Character: Paul Manning
The Avengers is a British television series created in the 1960s. It initially focused on Dr. David Keel and his assistant John Steed. Hendry left after the first series and Steed became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants. His most famous assistants were intelligent, stylish and assertive women: Cathy Gale, Emma Peel and Tara King. Later episodes increasingly incorporated elements of science fiction and fantasy, parody and British eccentricity....
The Kenny Everett Television Show
Character: Various
Sketch comedy show starring Kenny Everett....
The Legacy of Reginald Perrin
Character:
Reginald Perrin has passed on, bequeathing a fortune to his family and friends. There is one condition though; they must each do something bizarre to qualify for their inheritance....
Dalgliesh
Character: Edwin Lorrimer
Centred on the cases of P. D. James' gentleman detective Adam Dalgliesh. In addition to his career as a policeman, Dalgliesh is also a published poet and an intensely private man....
The Human Jungle
Character: Williams
The Human Jungle is a British TV series about a psychiatrist, made for ABC Television by the small production company Independent Artists for transmission on ITV. Starring Herbert Lom, it ran for two series which were first transmitted during 1963 and 1965....
Doctor Who
Character: Administrator
The adventures of The Doctor, a time-traveling humanoid alien known as a Time Lord. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, The Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right many wrongs....
Doctor Who
Character: Masters
The adventures of The Doctor, a time-traveling humanoid alien known as a Time Lord. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, The Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right many wrongs....
Oxbridge Blues
Character: Fred
An anthology series of seven linked plays about the lives of people connected with the universities of Oxford and Cambridge....
Play for Today
Character: Detetective Chief Inspector Harris
Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration....
The Kenny Everett Television Show
Character: Self
Sketch comedy show starring Kenny Everett....
Edward the Seventh
Character: Sir Edward Clarke
Edward the Seventh is a 1975 television drama series, made by ATV in 13 episodes. Based on the biography of Edward VII by Philip Magnus, it starred Timothy West as the elder Edward VII and Simon Gipps-Kent and Charles Sturridge as Edward in his youth, Annette Crosbie as Queen Victoria, Deborah Grant and Helen Ryan as Queen Alexandra, Robert Hardy as the Prince Consort, Alison Leggatt as the Duchess of Kent, and Felicity Kendal as Princess Vicky. It was directed by John Gorrie, who wrote episode...
Blackadder
Character: Field Marshal Haig
Black Adder traces the deeply cynical and self-serving lineage of various Edmund Blackadders throughout British history, from the muck of the Middle Ages to the frontline of the First World War....
Bergerac
Character: Nigel Carter
Bergerac is a British television show set on Jersey. Produced by the BBC in association with the Seven Network, and first screened on BBC1, it stars John Nettles as the title character Detective Sergeant Jim Bergerac, a detective in Le Bureau des Étrangers, part of the States of Jersey Police....
Dickens
Character:
Dickens was a 2002 BBC docudrama on the life of the author Charles Dickens. It was presented by Peter Ackroyd, on whose biography of Dickens it was based, and Dickens was played by Anton Lesser. It was broadcast in three hour-long episodes....
An Audience with...
Character: Self
An Audience with... is a British entertainment television show produced by London Weekend Television, in which a host, usually a singer or comedian, performs for an invited audience of celebrity guests, interspersed with questions from the audience, in a light hearted revue/tribute style....
Bill Brand
Character: Malcolm Frear
Following the death of the sitting Labour Party Member of Parliament, Bill Brand is selected as Labour candidate for a Lancashire textile constituency....
Gideon's Way
Character: Jeff Grant
Gideon's Way is a British television crime series made by ITC Entertainment in 1964/65, based on the novels by John Creasey. The series was made at Elstree in twin production with The Saint TV series. It starred Liverpudlian John Gregson in the title role as Commander George Gideon of Scotland Yard, with Alexander Davion as his assistant, Detective Chief Inspector David Keen, Reginald Jessup as Det. Superintendent LeMaitre, Ian Rossiter as Detective Chief Superintendent Joe Bell and Basil Dignam...
The Troubleshooters
Character: Jeremy Martin
The Troubleshooters is a British television series made by the BBC between 1965 and 1972, created by John Elliot. During its run, the series made the transition from black and white to colour transmissions. The series was based around an international oil company – the "Mogul" of the title. The first series was mostly concerned with the internal politics within the Mogul organisation, with episodes revolving around industrial espionage, internal fraud and negligence almost leading to an acciden...
The Man In Room 17
Character: Ian McWatt
The Man in Room 17 is a British television series which ran for two seasons in the mid-1960s, produced by the Northern ITV franchise, Granada Television. Key to the series' success was the involvement of writer/producer Robin Chapman. The show was set in Room 17 of the Department of Social Research, where former wartime agent-turned-criminologist Edwin Oldenshaw solved difficult police cases through theory and discussions with his assistants. The novelty of the series was that Oldenshaw and hi...
Grumpy Old Men
Character: Narrator
Series giving a voice to 35- to 54-year-old men, very probably the grumpiest sector of our society....
Stig of the Dump
Character: Robert
...
The Hollow Crown
Character: Lord Chief Justice
A series of British television films featuring William Shakespeare's History Plays....
The Wednesday Play
Character: Property Agent
The Wednesday Play is an anthology series of British television plays which ran on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured. The series gained a reputation for presenting contemporary social dramas, and for bringing issues to the attention of a mass audience that would not otherwise have been discussed on screen....
The Goodies
Character: School Headmaster
A British television comedy series of the 1970s and early 1980s, combining surreal sketches and situation comedy....
Doctor Who
Character: Captain Hardaker
The Doctor is a Time Lord: a 900 year old alien with 2 hearts, part of a gifted civilization who mastered time travel. The Doctor saves planets for a living—more of a hobby actually, and the Doctor's very, very good at it....
Crown Court
Character: Kenneth Eden
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....
Play for Today
Character: Jack Buckett
Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration....
The 1940's House
Character: Narrator (voice)
The 1940s House is a British historical reality television programme made by Wall to Wall/Channel 4 in 2001 about a modern family that tries to the live as a typical middle-class family in London during The Blitz of World War II. It was shown on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom in 2001, and in 2002 on PBS in the United States and ABC Television in Australia. It also aired on TVNZ in New Zealand. The series was narrated in the UK by Geoffrey Palmer....
The Professionals
Character: Simon Sinclair
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 contenti...
Agatha Christie's Poirot
Character: Vice Admiral Hamling
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....
The Avengers
Character: Martin Smythe
The Avengers is a British television series created in the 1960s. It initially focused on Dr. David Keel and his assistant John Steed. Hendry left after the first series and Steed became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants. His most famous assistants were intelligent, stylish and assertive women: Cathy Gale, Emma Peel and Tara King. Later episodes increasingly incorporated elements of science fiction and fantasy, parody and British eccentricity....
Movie Credits
Anna and the King
Character: Lord John Bradley
The story of the romance between the King of Siam (now Thailand) and the widowed British school teacher Anna Leonowens during the 1860s. Anna teaches the children and becomes romanced by the King. She convinces him that a man can be loved by just one woman....
A Fish Called Wanda
Character: Judge
While a diamond advocate attempts to steal a collection of diamonds, troubles arise when he realises he’s not the only one after the collection....
Tomorrow Never Dies
Character: Admiral Roebuck
A deranged media mogul is staging international incidents to pit the world's superpowers against each other. Now James Bond must take on this evil mastermind in an adrenaline-charged battle to end his reign of terror and prevent global pandemonium....
The Madness of King George
Character: Warren
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....
Doctor Who and the Silurians
Character: Masters
Investigating mysterious power failures and a death at an underground research centre, The Doctor discovers a colony of Silurians - prehistoric, intelligent reptiles who went into hibernation before man evolved. But now they have woken up, and they are prepared to wipe out mankind with a killer plague to get their planet back....
A Zed & Two Noughts
Character: Fallast
Twin zoologists lose their wives in a car accident and become obsessed with decomposing animals....
To Olivia
Character:
In 1962, Patricia Neal and Roald Dahl retreat to the English countryside to bring up their young family. The seemingly unlikely pair find their relationship put to the test by a tragic loss....
The Pink Panther 2
Character: Joubert
When legendary treasures from around the world are stolen, including the priceless Pink Panther Diamond, Chief Inspector Dreyfus is forced to assign Inspector Clouseau to a team of international detectives and experts charged with catching the thief and retrieving the stolen artifacts....
Alice Through the Looking Glass
Character: White King
A modern adaptation of the classic children's story 'Alice through the Looking Glass', which continued on from the popular 'Alice in Wonderland' story. This time Alice is played by the mother, who falls asleep while reading the the bedtime story to her daughter. Walking through the Looking Glass, Alice finds herself in Chessland, a magical and fun world. There she meets the Red and White Queens, as well as many other amusing friends on her journey across the chessboard countryside onto become a ...
Mrs Brown
Character: Henry Ponsonby
When Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert dies, she finds solace in her trusted servant, Mr. John Brown. But their relationship also brings scandal and turmoil to the monarchy....
Lost Christmas
Character: Dr. Clarence
An Urban Fairy Tale set in Manchester. A story of how a series of tragic events, that blight a young boy's life on Christmas Eve, take him on a journey where a chance meeting with a mysterious stranger may have the key to help and give him a perfect Christmas....
Inside Rooms: 26 Bathrooms, London & Oxfordshire
Character: Narrator
Greenaway's short documentary shows 26 bathrooms, each representing a letter of the alphabet....
W.E.
Character: Stanley Baldwin
In 1998, an auction of the estate of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor causes great excitement. For one woman, Wally Winthrop, it has much more meaning. Wally becomes obsessed by their historic love story. As she learns more about the sacrifices involved, Wally gains her own courage to find happiness....
The Young Visiters
Character: Minnit
The Young Visiters, written in twelve days by nine-year-old Daisy Ashford in 1890, is a surreal blend of naiveté, precocious perception and inadvertent social satire....
Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley
Character: Sir John Crowder
A light hearted look at future Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's rise from research chemist in 1949 to becoming MP for Finchley in 1959, encompassing her early relationship and marriage to oil millionaire Denis Thatcher....
A Question of Attribution
Character: Donleavy
Sir Anthony Blunt, who was a Soviet agent for 25 years, is routinely questioned and gives no answers, but is knighted and works as Director of the Courtauld Institute, and presents his interrogator with a puzzle in the shape of a doubtful Titian painting. He also does art restoration work in Buckingham Palace, where he gets into an interesting conversation with HMQ....
Bert & Dickie
Character: Charles Burnell
Thrown together just five weeks before the final of the 1948 London Olympics, Bert Bushnell (Doctor Who's Matt Smith) and Dickie Burnell (Sam Hoare) defied all the odds and made history in the double sculls. This is the story of how they did it - not only by pushing physical and emotional limits, but also by overcoming their vast professional and personal differences....
Doctor Who: The Mutants
Character: Administrator
The Time Lords send the Doctor and Jo on a mission to deliver a sealed message pod to an unknown party aboard a Skybase orbiting the planet Solos in the 30th century. They are caught quickly in a power struggle between the cruel Marshal of Solos and the young Solonian Ky over the future of Solos - a future that hinges on the contents of the message....
Season's Greetings
Character: Bernard
Eight people attend a Christmas party in hope of having a pleasant celebration, however it takes various awkward turns and ends with one of the guests leaving sooner than they thought. Alan Ayckbourn's stage play adapted for BBC TV, 1986...
Stalag Luft
Character: The Kommandant
Few wartime prisoners have attempted escape quite as many times as bumbling RAF Officer James Forrester. Though Officer Forrester has twenty-three escape attempts to his name, each successive attempt he makes to break free somehow seems to go worse than the last. But this time there's a difference, because Officer Forrester isn't just plotting his own escape, but the escape of all 327 of his fellow prisoners as well - and all at once. In fact even the Germans want to escape!...
Smack and Thistle
Character: Sir Horace Wimbol
With a drug-addled lifestyle and a prison sentence firmly behind him, Abel is determined to go straight and stay clean... as soon as he's seen to one final heist. In the house that he burgles he comes across Elizabeth - rich, desperate, hopelessly addicted to a heroin and unconscious. Saving her from the clutched of an overdose, Abel stays out of compassion which eventually evolves into attraction. But when Abel takes on Elizabeth he also takes on her family. His resolution to go straight has to...
The Honorary Consul
Character: British Ambassador
Set in a small politically unstable Latin American country, the story follows the half English and half Latino Dr. Eduardo Plarr, who left his home to find a better life. Along the way he meets an array of people, including British Consul Charley Fortnum, a representative in Latin America who is trying to keep Revolution from occurring. He is also a remorseful alcoholic. Another person the doctor meets is Clara, whom he immediately falls in love with, but there is a problem: Clara is Charley's w...
Run For Your Wife
Character: Man on Toilet
John Smith has been happily involved in a bigamous marriage for five years. He lives with Stephanie in Finsbury and Michelle in Stockwell. Fortunately, for John, he's a taxi driver which involves varying shift work! Simple? Well, when John unwittingly becomes a have-a-go hero and the Finsbury and Stockwell police forces discover something suspicious in their paperwork, John's happy bubble is about to be burst. The action of the movie takes place during the next hectic 24 hours as John, with the ...
Fawlty Towers: Re-Opened
Character: Self / Dr Price
30 years after Fawlty Towers (1975) ended, Stephen Fry narrates a documentary about the making of this classic sitcom....
Safe at Work?
Character: Narrator
Made for senior and middle British Rail management and supervisory staff, to stimulate discussion and provoke action, by alerting them to their responsibilities for staff safety, and the pressing need to reduce accident figures....
The Insurance Man
Character: The Angry Doctor
Franz, a young man, works in a dye factory in Prague. One day he notices a skin-rash, like eczema, growing on his hands. All attempts to treat it with ointment fail, and the rash gradually spreads over his body. After complaining to the management he is laid off work; his relationship with his fiancee is affected. In an attempt to get compensation from his former employers he goes to insurance firm Assicurazion Generali, where he encounters an enigmatic clerk called Kafka....
Rat
Character: The Doctor
After a night of drinking Guiness at the local watering hole, an ordinary, working-class, family man in Dublin's life is turned upside-down when he wakes up as a rat....
A Prize of Arms
Character: Cpl. Myers
A criminal gang sets out to pull off the heist of a large army payroll....
Paddington
Character: Head Geographer
A young Peruvian bear travels to London in search of a new home. Finding himself lost and alone at Paddington Station, he meets the kindly Brown family....
Mr. Men: The Christmas Letter
Character: Santa
Jack can't sent out his letter to Father Christmas...will the Mr. Happy help him ??...
Clockwise
Character: Headmaster
School headmaster Brian Stimpson is obsessed with timeliness, order, and discipline. Brian misses his train after meticulously preparing a speech for an education conference. With no one else to turn to, he asks young former student Laura Wisely for a ride. Laura, upset over a break-up, agrees to drive him in her parents' car - which alarms her mother and father, who worry that she has run away with a married man and subsequently alert the police....
Hawks
Character: SAAB Salesman
Two terminally ill patients in a hospital yearn for relief from their predicament. With little or no friends, they form an uneasy alliance and plot an escape for one last wild time....
Cathy Come Home
Character: Property Agent
A British woman faces a downward social climb thanks to her country's rigid and problem-ridden welfare system....
The Battle of Billy's Pond
Character: First Policeman
A huge chemical company pays illegal dumpers for disposal of chemical waste dangerous to the environment....
Stiff Upper Lips
Character: His Butler's Voice
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....
Queen Victoria's Last Love: Abdul Karim
Character: Narrator
In 1897 Queen Victoria antagonized family and court with her relationship with Indian servant Abdul Karim. Originally a waiter the devious and arrogant young man won over the queen by playing on her love of Indian cuisine and romantic view of the country,teaching her Hindistani,whilst she signed letters to him 'Mother',bestowing houses and gifts on him and his family. Already shocked that a Muslim should be at the heart of the court the Royal family stepped in when Victoria announced her desire ...
Piccadilly Jim
Character: Bayliss
Set in the 1930s, an American with a scandalous reputation on both sides of the Atlantic must do an about-face in order to win back the woman of his dreams....
Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned
Character: Captain Hardaker
When disaster hits the Titanic, the Doctor uncovers a threat to the whole human race. Battling alongside aliens, saboteurs, robot Angels and a new friend called Astrid, can he stop the Christmas inferno?...
Peter Pan
Character: Sir Edward Quiller Couch
In stifling Edwardian London, Wendy Darling mesmerizes her brothers every night with bedtime tales of swordplay, swashbuckling and the fearsome Captain Hook. But the children become the heroes of an even greater story, when Peter Pan flies into their nursery one night and leads them over moonlit rooftops through a galaxy of stars and to the lush jungles of Neverland....
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Character: Quince
Four Athenians run away to the forest only to have Puck the fairy make both of the boys fall in love with the same girl. The four run through the forest pursuing each other while Puck helps his master play a trick on the fairy queen. In the end, Puck reverses the magic, and the two couples reconcile and marry....
A Story to Frighten the Children
Character: Det. Chief Insp. Harris
The story of a brutal crime in a high-rise estate; a girl walking home at night is raped and murdered, and the attitude of some is not always sympathetic....
Only Make Believe
Character: Richard Nicholls
Playwright Christopher Hudson finds his medical problem hinders his writing. He employs secretary Sandra George and dictates his new play to her, but tensions soon develop between the two. As Hudson creates, scenes from his play are dramatized and interpolated. The play being created is Dennis Potter's Angels Are So Few, seen with a totally different cast from the 1970 BBC production....
Michael Regan
Character: Chief Superintendent
Under stress, Irish tenant farmer Michael Regan, suddenly snaps one day and locks himself in his home, threatening the lives of his wife and child....
The Outsider
Character: Col. Wyndham
Michael Flaherty (Craig Wasson), an American Vietnam veteran of Irish descent, returns to Belfast to join the cause of his grandfather, Seamus (Sterling Hayden). Soon he finds that he is not as welcomed in his home country as he imagined he would be. Even worse, he's the target of an IRA assassination plot designed to make the British forces look bad in order to elicit financial support from wealthy Americans....
Ring of Spies
Character: Police Officer (uncredited)
The film is based on the actual events of the Portland Spy Ring trial in the U.K. A disgruntled Navy Clerk is transferred to a secret research establishment and is subsequently black-mailed/paid by Czech intelligence to procure secrets for them. He seduces the secretary who controls the most secret documents, and they enjoy the fruits of their treachery until the British authorities begin to close in on them....
O Lucky Man!
Character: Examination Doctor/Basil Keyes
An ambitious coffee salesman has a series of improbable and ironic adventures seemingly designed to challenge his naive idealism....
Goodbye
Character: Jack
"All I said was the gramophone's too loud." Tony and Zoe Lyle 's silly row starts like any other, but Tony finds that Zoe means it this time. She's walking out and he's got a week to save a marriage that he hasn't looked at in 18 years, and with it all the trappings of a good life in Maida Vale....
Absurd Person Singular
Character: Ronald Brewster-Wright
A movie in three acts following three couples who, over three years, each host a Christmas party. The camera stays in the kitchen and we are treated to Ayckbourn's beautifully detailed look at middle class life....