Liz Smith

A young boy wins a tour through the most magnificent chocolate factory in the world, led by the world's most unusual candy maker.

Cheese-loving eccentric Wallace and his cunning canine pal Gromit run a business ridding the town of garden pests. Using only humane methods, which turns their home into a halfway house for evicted vermin, the pair stumble upon a mystery involving a voracious vegetarian monster that threatens to ruin the annual veggie-growing contest.

For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights. But Ember's once powerful generator is failing and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker. Now, two teenagers, in a race against time, must search Ember for clues that will unlock the ancient mystery of the city's existence, before the the lights go out forever.

When churlish mobster Albert Spica acquires an upscale French restaurant in London, he dines there nightly, effectively scaring off the clientele with his bad manners. His wife, Georgina, is especially disgusted by him, and soon begins an affair with regular guest Michael. Despite their best efforts to keep it secret, Spica learns about their trysts, and he plots a terrible revenge.

Nine short stories based on the true experiences of London Underground passengers: "Mr. Cool" (Amy Jenkins, dir.); "Horny" (Stephen Hopkins); "Grasshopper" (Menhaj Huda); "My Father the Liar" (Bob Hoskins); "Bone" (Ewan McGregor); "Mouth" (Armando Iannucci); "A Bird in the Hand" (Jude Law); "Rosebud" (Gaby Dellal); "Steal Away" (Charles McDougall)

A pastor preoccupied with writing the perfect sermon fails to realize that his wife is having an affair and his children are up to no good.

Inspector Clouseau disappears, and the Surete wants the world's second best detective to look for him. However, Clouseau's enemy, Dreyfus, rigs the Surete's computer to select, instead, the world's WORST detective, NYPD Sgt. Clifton Sleigh. Sleigh obtusely bungles his way past assassins and corrupt officials as though he were Clouseau's American cousin.

An orphan endures a harsh life in a workhouse before fleeing to London, where he falls in with a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the criminal Fagin, and eventually finds a better life, exposing the cruelties of poverty and child labor in Victorian England.

Alice follows a white rabbit down a rabbit-hole into a whimsical Wonderland, where she meets characters like the delightful Cheshire Cat, the clumsy White Knight, a rude caterpillar, and the hot-tempered Queen of Hearts and can grow ten feet tall or shrink to three inches. But will she ever be able to return home?

The Pink Panther diamond is stolen once again from Lugash and the authorities call in Chief Inspector Clouseau from France. His plane disappears en-route. This time, famous French TV reporter Marie Jouvet sets out to solve the mystery and starts to interview everybody connected to Clouseau.

In this story-within-a-story, Anna is an actress starring opposite Mike in a period piece about the forbidden love between their respective characters, Sarah and Charles. Both actors are involved in serious relationships, but the passionate nature of the script leads to an off-camera love affair as well. While attempting to maintain their composure and professionalism, Anna and Mike struggle to come to terms with their infidelity.

Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.

The illegitimate son of Inspector Clouseau is on the case of the kidnapped Princess Yasmin.

In 1800, as Napoleon Bonaparte rises to power in France, a rivalry erupts between Armand and Gabriel, two lieutenants in the French Army, over a perceived insult. For over a decade, they engage in a series of duels amidst larger conflicts, including the failed French invasion of Russia in 1812, and shifts in the political and social systems of Europe.

After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.

During World War I, in an unnamed country, a soldier named Tamino is sent by the Queen of the Night to rescue her daughter Pamina from the clutches of the supposedly evil Sarastro. But all is not as it seems.

Professor David Ash exposes false spiritulists and mediums. He is invited to Edbrook to resolve the fears and torments within its secretive family. Soon after arriving Ash begins to doubt his own senses, and watching the strange behaviour of its residents does not make his task any easier. In time, he finds there's more to Edbrook than even he can debunk.

When a hotelier attempts to fill the chronic vacancies at his castle by launching an advertising campaign that falsely portrays the property as haunted, two actual ghosts show up and end up falling for two guests.

A vampire attacks a horror author on the street and then invites him to a nearby club as a gesture of gratitude, which turns out to be a meeting place for assorted creatures of the night. The vampire then regales him with three stories, each interspersed with musical performances at the club.

Gordon Comstock is a copywriter at an ad agency, and his girlfriend Rosemary is a designer. Gordon believes he is a genius, a marvelous poet and quits the ad agency, trying to live on his poems, but poverty soon comes to him.

Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.

Anna Spud is the grumpiest little girl in the world. The prospect of long car journey trapped with her parents sounds 'rubbish'. But along the way, she finds an unlikely ally in her equally grumpy Gran.

In the summer of 1947, Britain prepares to commemorate the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. To get around food-rationing laws, Dr. Charles Swaby, accountant Henry Allardyce and solicitor Frank Lockwood are fattening a black-market pig for the big day. Egged on by his wife, meek Gilbert Chilvers steals the swine, but the couple must conceal it from inspector Morris Wormold.

The making of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

A young British woman is kidnapped by an Arabian sheikh and held captive in his harem. At first she frantically tries to escape, but as they slowly get to know and appreciate each other the difference between captor and captive dissolves.

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.

England, 1926. An American journalist looks for mystery writer Agatha Christie when she suddenly disappears without explanation, leaving no trace.

A celebrity benefit for The Actors' Fund of America, featuring music, songs, dance and comedy.

When Tom's brother Peter gets measles, he is sent to stay with his Uncle Alan and Aunt Gwen in a flat with no garden and an elderly landlady, Mrs Bartholomew, living upstairs. Because he may be infectious, he is not allowed to play outside and feels lonely. Without exercise he is less sleepy at night and when he hears the communal grandfather clock strangely strike 13, he investigates and finds the small back yard is now a large sunlit garden.

As a young boy, future emperor Nero witnesses the mad Emperor Caligula kill his father and exile his mother. While in exile in the pontine islands, Agrippina, his mother, sees a vision telling her that her son can become emperor, but she will have to die first. She accepts the proposal. Back in Rome, Nero, now being raised by emperor Claudius after Caligula's death, Agrippina returns. She poisons Claudius' food and Nero becomes emperor. At first, Nero cuts taxes and introduces successful programs and invades Brittania. Soon he meets a beautiful slave named Claudia Acte, and marries her, throwing off his engagement with Claudius' daughter, Claudia Octavia, telling her she can marry someone she will be happy with. Heartbroken, she arrives at an island and kills herself. Nero enjoys being married to Claudia Acte, but soon he gradually goes mad with power and sets fire to Rome.

Happily engaged to her handsome fiance, Charles, Fanny is soon hit with one misfortune after another until she is forced to become a prostitute to survive. This is the story, with many erotic asides, of her struggle to regain her pride in herself and find happiness in life once again.

When the best chocolate maker in the world distributes five cards, invite him to enter his factory, which no one has entered in a while, who will get the cards and what will happen there?

An aimless young man, Johnny, is sent prison. He entrusts his beloved dog, Evie, to the care of his former lover and best friend, Frank. When he gets out of prison, he has to face difficulties at home. Added to this, is the fact that he may have to give up Evie to Frank.

Three married couples discover that, through a legal technicality, they are, in fact, not actually married in the eyes of the law. This was the fifth television film version of this play by J.B. Priestley made by the BBC.

Two one-act plays explore love and loneliness. In "Table by the Window" an aging fashion model contrives a reunion with her ex-husband, a politician ruined by scandal, and their passion is rekindled. In "Table Number Seven" a meek woman harbors a secret love for a man accused of fraud and sex offenses, forcing her to take a stand for the first time in her life.

After saving each other from jumping off a bridge, Henry Bell and Karen Knightly plot to avenge the people who drove them to suicide. Henry will ruin the life of the woman who married Karen's boyfriend, while Karen will work as a secretary for the man who took Henry's job. Whether revenge will be sweet – or bittersweet – is anyone's guess.

Amy Dorrit spends her days earning money for the family and looking after her proud father who is a long term inmate of Marshalsea debtors' prison in London. Amy and her family's world is transformed when her employer's son, Arthur Clennam, returns from overseas to solve his family's mysterious legacy and discovers that their lives are interlinked.

A television special broadcast in honor of composer, songwriter, pianist, television writer and lyricist Joe Raposo following his death in early 1989.

Prince Leo, last in the line of rulers of a long-deposed monarchy on continental Europe and jaded with the frenetic search for kicks with the European jet-set, returns to his father's London town house for rest.

In a rundown area of Buenos Aires, at the dawn of the 1980s, Adrian LeDuc owns both a struggling movie theater and a shabby apartment building filled with eccentric, squabbling tenants. To make ends meet, Adrian takes in a roommate, Jack Carney, but soon begins to suspect that the quiet American is responsible for a series of political assassinations that are rocking the city.

Writer and Director Mike Leigh discusses the techniques used to create his plays.

A musical about a miner who wants to break into show business.

Enjoy the outrageous and flamboyant First Lady of British Comedy, Lily Savage, as she performs her incredibly hysterical live show before a star-studded audience.

A normal teenager is transported to a Monty Pythonesque medieval fantasy land where an odd, adamant knight takes him on a quest.

A young, compassionate man struggles to save his family and friends from the abusive exploitation of his cold-hearted, grasping uncle.

Mike comes home on leave from Ulster. After six years in the Army he has to decide whether to sign up again or not. His parents want him to leave the army and come home, but the family flare-ups and bickerings are not conducive to helping him choose.

Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash discuss the creation of The Royle Family, with a look behind the scenes at the production of the show and interviews with the cast.

Sir Henry Rawlinson attempts to exorcise the ghost of his brother Humbert, who was accidentally killed in a drunken duck-shooting incident.

Posing as a dancer for the Ballets Russes in Barcelona, Indy meets old friend Pablo Picasso, and narrowly outwits inept German spies. Dashing off to Prague, he then arranges for a telephone installation to await an important call, which becomes a bureaucratic nightmare until Franz Kafka intervenes.

Nell tries hard to cope with her husband, family and friends - but her asthma creates problems. Everyone seems to be helpful - but are they? Is there something sinister about Mrs Pritchett , the new housekeeper, or is it Nell's imagination? Who knows where reality ends and fantasy begins?

Pubs, pigeons, weight-lifting – that's Terry's life, and his wife Glenda feels neglected. But now Terry's best mate, Albert, is on leave from the Merchant Navy, and Albert knows how to treat a lady. 'Fireworks assured,' says the wrestling poster.

Eric Olthwaite is so boring that his family all leave home to escape him. Then one day he is accidentally caught up in a bank robbery and discovers that the robber shares his interests in shovels, black pudding and rainfall so they team up to make daring raids to steal rainfall records. As a result Eric becomes famous and is considered interesting again, so much so that he is made the mayor of Denley Moor.

A recreation of a World War II incident which occurred in London's Bethnal Green underground station in 1943, in which 173 people died when a panicked crowd stampeded as they were hurrying down the steps to take refuge from an air raid.

Based on Geoffrey Chaucer’s classic poetry. For attacking a young woman, an arrogant knight of King Arthur’s court is sentenced to death if he cannot answer the question “what do women most desire?” He travels far and wide with no success until he meets an old woman who promises him the answer, but at a price.

Based on James Herriot's books about life as a 1930s veterinarian in Yorkshire, John Alderson plays the kindly doctor who ministers to animals in this enjoyable family film. Sequel to the 1975 film All Creatures Great and Small.

Fledge needs a job. He'll take anything. And when Dawlish gives him strange errands to run, for cash in hand, strictly 'on the palm', it's a welcome change from the dole. Until he finds himself digging dirt on an old friend....

A princess from a Nordic European country is obligated to marry the boy her family chose. She escapes and discovers love in the arms of a beautiful swimming teacher.

Nothing seems to go right for Colin, no matter how he tries. No one is offering him writing work, and his marriage is disintegrating. Why can't he be smooth and confident as he imagines other men to be?

Moments from the uncompromisingly bleak existence of a secretary, her intellectually disabled sister, aloof and uneasy teacher boyfriend, bizarre neighbor and irritating workmate.

A story about modern family relationships, as seen through the eyes of 15 year-old David. Six years after his dad dies in a car crash, David's mum moves in with the new man in her life. As the two families come together - complete with teenage step brothers and sisters, a crushingly acerbic granny and one feisty, American self-help guru ex-wife - David has fantasies of his father's ghost returning to disrupt the new step-family and test its survival.

The past catches up with an ageing American jazz pianist when he returns to the clubs of Lancashire and Yorkshire that he last visited 10 years previously.

Memphis cop Lieutenant McKenzie is called in to investigate a series of strange deaths and wierd sightings following the resurrection of a murder victim from the 1950s(a local boy) who is brought back to life in modern times and tries to find his teenage sweetheart who is now aged 62 and also to seek revenge for his death.

TV-movie version of the Victor Hugo novel.

2 February 1959. The Winter Dance party, Clear Lake, Iowa - another date on Buddy Holly's whistle-stop tour. Across the Atlantic, a schoolboy models his life on the rock 'n' roll star whose music and untimely death affected the lives of a generation.

Loan shark Eddie Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.

Rivalry at a local Gilbert and Sullivan Society over who will play Jack Point in the Silver Jubilee production. Rowland Matthews has always been the main star, but he is getting on, and the young Clive Bates is a strong rival.

Based on the book "Spend, Spend, Spend" by Vivian Nicholson and Stephen Smith. Story of pools winner, Vivian Nicholson.

A quiet and put-upon house cleaner breaks her silence.

Quirky stranger Donovan (Colin Firth) blows into the Scottish village of Port Clyde. There, he rents a room with the Pannick family and ingratiates himself into their lives. Lucy (Katy Murphy) is the long-suffering matriarch of the clan, caring for her senile grandmother (Liz Smith) and mentally disabled brother, Sandy (David Brown). When the town cancels Sandy's train route to school, Donovan suggests starting their own bus line. They do, much to the consternation of local officials.

Wally, a caretaker in a block of flats, loses his job when the flats are used to rehouse Bhengali families.

Duke Turnbeau (David Soul) has come to England, in the 1930s, as a way to improve his fortunes. For some reason, he believes that his larcenous ways will bring him prosperity in the country which at one time or another has had rulership over a large portion of the globe. While there, he meets Rosie McCratchit (Pamela McMyler), a lovely Irish gal who could do with some improvement in her fortunes as well. Together, they have a series of legal, quasi-legal and definitely illegal adventures, including Duke's cow-roping and Rosie's response to the mud-wrestling challenge of the Amazon Lady, as well as an attempted armored-car robbery.

Experimental drama set in London during the Thatcher administration involving four characters: Neil, a science-fiction illustrator; Kim, a woman rock musician; Vermilion, an analyst of satellite photography; and Julian, an old friend of the illustrator who has just finished his Ph.D thesis on the fairy-tales of Charles Perrault. Their four lives are closely interlinked as events happen to each of them.