Ray Brooks was a British actor famous for his role as the narrator in the classic children's cartoon series Mr Benn, for the films The Knack...And How To Get It, Daleks - Invasion Earth: 2150AD and Cathy Come Home, and for the TV series Big Deal and Growing Pains. In later years he played Joe Macer, the husband and murderer of Albert Square stalwart Pauline Fowler, in the BBC's long running soap opera EastEnders and has wrote several books, including his autobiography. He died at the age of 86 on 9th August 2025 following a short illness. He had been living with dementia in his final years.
The everyday lives of working-class residents of Albert Square, a traditional Victorian square of terrace houses surrounding a park in the East End of London's Walford borough....
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...
A quirky spy show of the adventures of eccentrically suave British Agent John Steed and his predominantly female partners. Jonathan Steed - an urbane, proper gentleman spy - teams with various assistants throughout the series' run, including Dr. David Keel, Cathy Gale, Emma Peel and Tara King, to repeatedly save the world from diabolical schemes plotted by equally diabolical evil-doers (among them robots and man-eating monsters)....
Rumpole of the Bailey is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer. It stars Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, an aging London barrister who defends any and all clients, and has been spun off into a series of short stories, novels, and radio programmes....
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....
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....
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...
Animated 1980s TV from the Beeb, about a playful medieval king and his entourage....
Family drama series about a middle aged couple (Ray Brooks and Sharon Duce) who, with their own three children in their teenage years, decide to become foster parents....
An anthology of short plays shown on BBC Television between 1965 and 1973, used in part at least as a training ground for new writers, on account of its short length, and which therefore attracted many writers who later became well known....
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....
Popular British children's animation series. Mr Benn is the ordinary, bowler-hatted office worker who lives in the ordinary suburban street of Festive Road. However, when he tries on a costume in a mysterious shop, he steps out of the changing room into a different time and place, appropriate to his apparel. His adventures include him being a spaceman, a pirate and a cowboy....
Mr Pickwick, Tupman, Winkle, Snodgrass and Sam Weller begin their travels through the England of stage-coaches and coaching inns....
Chat show hosted by Terry Wogan, featuring live studio interviews with famous and notable personalities....
Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) is a British private detective television series. In the initial episode Hopkirk is murdered during an investigation, but returns as a ghost. Randall is the only main character able to see or hear him, although certain minor characters are also able to do so in various circumstances throughout the series....
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....
An anthology series of television plays which aired on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured....
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....
When Dr. Edwin Lorrimer, a forensic scientist working at a private laboratory is found killed, Detective Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh is sent to investigate. Dalgliesh had been in the area a few months previously investigating the murder of a young woman found in an abandoned car. There are several suspects: Lorrimer's subordinate, Clifford Bradley, who despises him; the new head of the laboratory, Maxim Howarth, who is jealous of his sister's relationship with him; a colleague, Paul Middlemass...
A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays 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....
Taxi! is a BBC television comedy-drama series transmitted in 1963 and 1964. Created by Ted Willis, who had developed Dixon of Dock Green, he was well aware of taxicab drivers inclination to provide stories, and intended twelve individual plays for what became the first series. The series stars Sid James as Cab firm owner and driver Sid Stone. Similar to his role in the near contemporary film Carry On Cabby, this was more a drama with humour, Jack Rosenthal scripted a few episodes and Bill Owen a...
Actors rehearsing a show at a mysterious seaside theater are being killed off by an unknown maniac....
A nebbish schoolteacher begs his smooth (and misogynistic) pal to teach him 'the knack' – how to score with women. Serendipitously, the men meet up with a new girl in town, as well as a friendly lunatic who can’t help but paint things white....
Doctor Who and his companions are hurled into the future and make a horrifying discovery: the Daleks have conquered Earth! The metal fiends have devastated entire continents and turned the survivors into Robomen....
A group of holidaymakers head for the Spanish resort of Elsbels for a 4-day visit. When they get there, they find the Hotel still hasn't been finished being built, and the weather is awful. And there is something strange about the staff—they all look very similar. To top it all off, the weather seems to be having an adverse affect on the Hotel's foundations....
Two ruthless mercenaries break their friendship when one of them changes sides....
Somewhere in the middle of the English countryside a former judge and a group of former prison warders, including his lover, run their own prison for young women who have not been held properly to account for their crimes. Here they mete out their own form of justice and ensure that the girls never return to their old ways....
Angela is insecure and gawky, overawed by her new job at an advertising agency. Her boss, Pam, is poised and sophisticated - the epitome of a successful career woman. Together both women share an emotional vulnerability. For while Angela falls prey to the office Romeo, Pam continues an unsatisfying affair with a married colleague. Office Romances is an engaging look at the many secrets of love and relationships that lead to tormented love. It's an honest, sensitive view of romance and human natu...
Madame Ranevskaya is a spoiled, aging aristocratic lady who returns from a trip to Paris to face the loss of her magnificent Cherry Orchard estate after a default on the mortgage. In denial, she continues living in the past, deluding herself and her family, while the beautiful cherry trees are being axed down by the re-possessor Lopakhin, her former serf, who has his own agenda....
An educational film about proper hygiene....
Light-hearted and occasionally unclothed adaptation of a British comic strip in the over-the-top, on-beyond-Bond spy fantasy vein. Based on the Daily Mail comic strip....
Four teen-aged Teds are persuaded to form a rock group and undertake the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme to keep them out of trouble....
Directed by cult British director John Krish, the film was sponsored by the Army Kinematograph Corporation. This tightly plotted drama shows British POWs enduring brainwashing and torture during the Korean War, thereby revealing what a soldier could expect if he was ever captured by enemy forces....
Cathy and Reg are a couple with three young children, who find their life spiralling into poverty when Reg loses his well-paid job. Gripping and emotional, Cathy Come Home remains a truly ground-breaking piece of dramatic fiction, engaging viewers with social issues, such as homelessness, unemployment and the rights of mothers to keep their own children....
A film tycoon hires the wrong writer. Instead of getting the writer of Lawrence of Arabia, he gets someone whose only credits are two episodes of Coronation Street....
Defiant's crew is part of a fleet-wide movement to present a petition of grievances to the Admiralty. Violence must be no part of it. The continual sadism of Defiant's first officer makes this difficult, and when the captain is disabled, the chance for violence increases....
When the British government orders the assassination of an Air Ministry official suspected of leaking top secret intel, their top assassin assigned to the job discovers there may be more to the hit than meets the eye....
Tom Kovack is a hard-nosed race car driver until a sudden supernatural vision causes a near-fatal crash while he's hurtling down the backstretch at 140 miles per hour. Michele Brent is the woman who convinces Kovack that his visions are significant. She leads him to the manor house that appeared in his vision, which in turn leads him into a world of revenge and murder from beyond the grave. Kovack must tap into his newfound power to conquer the evil forces at work....
An all-star cast highlights this vibrant musical adaptation of Lewis Carroll's immortal tale. One day, plucky young Alice follows a white rabbit down a hole and discovers a world of bizarre characters....
Three a.m. A crash of breaking glass ... the slow creak of a door opening ... is it a burglar? Raymond Collis finds out the hard way....
A struggling singer and his band befriend an heiress who, against the wishes of her father, is searching for the lover who she has been forbidden to see and with whom she is hoping to elope....
Men behave in a beastly, chauvinistic manner at an office party, turning what should be a fun break from work into an exercise in bad taste....