From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Fulton Mackay OBE (12 August 1922 - 6 June 1987) was a Scottish actor and playwright, best known for his role as prison officer Mr. Mackay in the 1970s sitcom Porridge. Description above from the Wikipedia article Fulton Mackay, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Seven of One was a British comedy series that aired on BBC2 in 1973. Starring Ronnie Barker, 7 of One is a series of seven separate comedies that would serve as possible pilots for sitcoms. Originally it was to be called Six of One, which Barker planned to follow up with another series called Half Dozen of the Other. This was a BBC version of a similar showcase for LWT called Six Dates with Barker created in 1971....
Introducing the Walmington-On-Sea home guard. During WW2, in a fictional British seaside town, a ragtag group of Home Guard local defense volunteers prepare for an imminent German invasion....
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 Le...
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, wh...
Z-Cars or Z Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978....
A British television anthology of stories, often with sinister and wryly comedic undertones, and a twist at the end. With early episodes written and presented by Roald Dahl, the series featured a plethora of big name guest stars....
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 Fraggles are a fun-loving community of creatures who live in a subterranean fantasy land where they love to play, sing and dance their cares away, sharing their world with the tiny Doozers and the giant Gorgs. The series teaches empathy and tolerance and encourages children to understand people different from themselves....
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 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....
Meet Frank Spencer, an eager young man trying to find his way in the world. He's enthusiastic, well-meaning... and disaster-prone....
Dr Finlay's Casebook is a television series that was broadcast on the BBC from 1962 until 1971. Based on A. J. Cronin's novella ‘Country Doctor’, the storylines centred on a general medical practice in the fictional Scottish town of Tannochbrae during the late 1920s. Cronin was the primary writer for the show between 1962 and 1964....
Special Branch is a British television. A police drama series, the action was centred on members of the Special Branch anti-espionage and anti-terrorist department of the London Metropolitan Police....
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 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...
Play of the Month is a BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays which were usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983; the producer most associated with the Play of the Month was Cedric Messina. Some of the 121 episodes are missing from the archives, having been junked in the 1960s and 1970...
BBC2 Playhouse is a one hour UK anthology television series of one-off contemporary and classic dramas created by Sara Pia Anderson and produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Among its many notable guest stars were Helen Mirren, Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Liam Neeson, Paul Scofield, Deborah Kerr, Ben Kingsley, Donald Pleasence, Brenda Blethyn, and Peggy Ashcroft. It premiered in the UK on March 13, 1974 and ran through May 20, 1983....
It was a time when England was a nation on the cusp of change, an evolving landscape tht lay between Victorian England and the First World War. 'The Edwardians' explores the lives of and events in the lives of many who helped define the era, the "Belle Epoque"....
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....
A British magic show and variety show that aired on BBC1 from 9 June 1979 to 18 June 1994. Daniels' assistant throughout the series was Debbie McGee, whom he married in 1988. At its peak in the 1980s, the show regularly attracted viewing figures of 15 million and was sold to 43 countries....
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....
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 lives of the Pankhurst women and their role in the Suffragette Movement....
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 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....
When Henry Mann inherits The Laurels he also inherits its assorted resident oddballs, who include ill-tempered alcoholic Duncan, blonde temptress Dolly Delights and several Chinese waiters. Then comes the arrival of retired Water Board official Hamish James Ordway, a nosey parker and colossal fusspot with a flair for what he euphemistically calls 'organisation' and Mann offers him free accommodation at The Laurels in return for straightening out the chaos prevailing within......
An American oil company sends a man to Scotland to buy up an entire village where they want to build a refinery. But things don't go as expected....
Britannia Hospital, an esteemed English institution, is marking its gala anniversary with a visit by the Queen Mother herself. But when investigative reporter Mick Travis arrives to cover the celebration, he finds the hospital under siege by striking workers, ruthless unions, violent demonstrators, racist aristocrats, an African cannibal dictator, and sinister human experiments....
A would be private eye gets mixed up in a smuggling case....
When various trustees of the Van Traylen Orphanage begin dying in close order, it's at first written off as a coincidence. But, when a school bus accident very nearly takes out three more of them along with a group of orphans, Col. Bingham and his pathologist friend, Mark, begin looking into the deaths. They come to think the answer lies with one of the girls on the bus, who has vivid memories of things she could not possibly have seen....
A reporter named Mullen 'stumbles' onto a story linking a prominent Member of Parliament to a KGB agent and a near-nuclear disaster involving a teenage runaway and a U.S. Air Force base. Has there been a Government cover-up? Mullen teams up with Vernon Bayliss, an old hack, and Nina Beckam, the MP's assistant, to find out the truth....
The true story of Jimmy Boyle, who was reputed to be Scotland's most violent man....
When his grandfather dies, George Westcott (Patrick Doonan) returns home from India to collect his inheritance -- only to find that the will has mysteriously gone missing. As his greedy relatives try to seize the estate, George gets the help of a movie star (Greta Gynt), a window cleaner (James Hayter and a police inspector (Herbert Ross) to track down the missing will. It seems that justice will prevail -- but is George Wescott really George Wescott?...
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....
A documentary about the portrayal of Adolf Hitler in popular culture....
A documentary about the making of Bill Forsyth's 1983 film "Local Hero."...
A Boy Scout troupe led by their scoutmaster (Sykes) is on a field trip to a seemingly-peaceful English woodland. However, the woods are actually teeming with strange characters, some of whom turn out to be disguised police officers and others criminals. The police are searching for £2,000,000 in stolen banknotes and hope that the criminals will lead them to them. The criminals, on the other hand, are aware that the police are looking for them and doing their best to avoid betraying the location ...
Saxon Logan's extraordinary 49 minute featurette pitches four people into a class war situation with a vicious sting in the tale....
Catch a Tail by the Tiger: Gobo has not received his usual postcard from his Uncle Traveling Matt. He eventually comes to realize that he must venture out into outer space to look for him – a trip that would terrify and Fraggle. Believe It or Not: Red and Wembley discover a creature who is whatever you believe hi is. The trouble starts when Ma Gorg believes him into being a monster in the basement of the castle. All Work and All Play: Cotterpin Doozer decides she’d rather be a Fraggle, like Red,...
When Eric's niece Kathy becomes one of the heirs to a considerable fortune, her life (and those of the other heirs) is placed in jeopardy by the actions of a mysterious inter-loper....
Brand's a bleak and desolate play that challenges the notion of a stern and stoic faith in the will of God. The title character is a pastor who returns to his ancestral home to find the villagers on the verge of starvation. He believes ministering to these poor people to be his calling. Over the course of the play, however, he faces many difficult choices. The decisions he makes, based on his stark and idealistic view of morality, have dire consequences for all the people he touches and, ultimat...
The Brave Don't Cry aspires to the "feel" of a documentary, right down to the deliberate absence of background music. A mine in Scotland falls victim to a cave-in, trapping some one hundred workers. Rescue parties are formed as the tremulous families of the miners wait in agony. As in the actual incident upon which this film is based, the rescue is nip and tuck and times, but eventually successful. The faces of real-life Scottish mining folk are melded with the professional actors in The Brave D...
A criminal gang sets out to pull off the heist of a large army payroll....
An homage to the prison comedy series Porridge, created by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. This documentary examines how Ronnie Barker’s Fletch influenced Slade Prison’s characters. There is also a look at 1978’s Going Straight, Porridge: The Movie, the US remake On the Rocks, and the 2017 reboot starring Kevin Bishop and Ricky Grover....
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....
Fletcher discovers that his fellow inmates are planning to escape....
Eighty-year-old Alice Hargreaves is about to visit Columbia University to attend a reception in honor of author Lewis Carroll. As a child, Alice had a close friendship with the writer, and their relationship was the creative catalyst for Carroll's most beloved work. However, as Alice reflects on her experiences with the author, she realizes the complexity of their bond has had lasting, deeply felt ramifications....
Play about two elderly cancer patients suffering in hospital....
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....
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....
Simon Templar is on holiday in Naples when a small uproar on a lunch table draws his attention. An English tourist attempts to greet an Italian businessman as an old friend, but the Italian refuses to acknowledge the greeting and claims never to have met him....
The Life and Times of David Lloyd George charts the life of the controversial Liberal politician with Philip Madoc in the titular role. The title theme, Chi Mai, was by Ennio Morricone...
Period drama based on a novel. While waiting for a train, a lonely woman is witness to a suicide on the tracks. A sympathetic man strikes up a friendship with her. At first reluctant, she is drawn in by his self-assured good looks, despite an uneasy feeling that he is not what he seems. She eventually discovers that he is hiding a deadly secret....
The story of the last two years the inhabitants of the islands of St Kilda (far off the west coast of Scotland) spent there, before being evacuated at their own request. This film, originally shown at the London Film Festival, marked the screen debut of writer and director Bill Bryden, who made his theatre reputation directing at the Glasgow Citizens' Theatre and the National Theatre. In persuasive style....
Three stories reflecting life in the Orkney Islands, two set in the past, and one in the present....
Robert Wagner plays an American who owns a Lisbon nightclub and Teri Garr is a slightly dippy chanteuse who has stumbled across a Nazi plot to kidnap the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, living at the time (1942) in Portugal....
Are Maggie and Tony using each other as a means of communicating with Dr Leafer? Or are they using Dr Leafer as a means of communicating with each other?...
TV dramatisation of the trilogy by Lewis Grassic Gibbon....
In the dark days of 1914 Willie Rough set out to find work in Greenock. He becomes a shipbuilding shop steward and soon finds himself involved in a bitter political and industrial conflict....