Thora Hird

Adapted from a play written by two Monty Python vets, this toothy satire launches with a tragic accident at Chumley's chocolate factory when hapless manager Ian Littleton accidentally knocks several employees into a huge chocolate vat. The tragic mishap at the chocolate factory results in candy lovers getting an unexpected 'extra' in their sweets.

In Victorian era London, the inhabitants of a family home with rented rooms upstairs fear the new lodger is Jack the Ripper.

The first manned spacecraft, fired from an English launchpad, is lost from radar before roaring back to Earth and crashing in a farmer's field. The rocket is found to contain only one of the three men who took off in it; and he is unable to talk but appears to be undergoing a torturous physical and mental metamorphosis.

Prequel to the Henry James classic "Turn of the Screw" about the events leading up to the deaths of Peter Quint and Ms. Jessel, and the slow corruption of the children in their care.

A newlywed suspects her husband of being a Communist spy.

As Vic Brown vacillates between infatuation and disinterest for his co-worker Ingrid Rothwell, she finds out that she is pregnant and Vic has to reconcile how he thought his life would go with what life actually has in store for him.

In the second TV movie outing for Roy Clarke's beloved characters, Wesley and Edie's daughter Glenda is getting married to hapless Barry, and Clegg and Compo make a new friend in Edie's brother Seymour. They are soon roped in to wedding preparations, which go about as well as could be expected...

The quiet village of Bramley End is taken over by German troops posing as Royal Engineers. Their task is to disrupt England's radar network in preparation for a full scale German invasion. Once the villagers discover the true identity of the troops, they do whatever they can to thwart the Nazis plans.

Percy Winthram is a naive young man who still lives at home with his mum. In London for the Cup Final with his friends, he finds himself in a Soho strip club, where he meets blonde hostess Cyrenne. Accepting a bet from friend Ginger, he accompanies Cyrenne back to her flat, and a boast-worthy night of lust seems to be on the cards. However, drained of beer and bravado, Percy's innocence and vulnerability become all too evident.

Because of its high productivity and "almost" 100 per cent employment, the town of Hayhoe, England is expecting a visit from the Prime Minister. The "almost" is because of Dan Dance (Eddie Byrne), an old rogue who would rather drink and philosophize than work. The Village Council are determined to have a perfect record so they connive to have the old man put into the alms-house which has been unoccupied for many years, where he must abide by rules laid down 400 years ago. A new Vicar arrives and discovers that, because of the circumstances created by the Council, Dan Dance is entitled to 6,000 pounds a year at the expense of the village.

There's a big fête approaching at Dream Acres. Compo, Clegg and Seymour happen upon a wiley transient, who persuades them to help him rescue his childhood donkey from a field. Soon, the tramp's plan of fixing the fête 'donkey derby' is revealed.

A classic Ealing comedy in which a young boy steals a magnet and becomes a hero.

Norman is the oldest orphan at Greenwood Children's Home and now acts as their caretaker. All the orphans are very happy and well cared for. The adventures start when a nasty property developer who is also the chairman of the orphanage board wants to close the orphanage and build a factory on the site. The children are sent to Brighton for the day and Norman is very excited because he's "Never seen the Sea". When they get back they discover the plan to close the orphanage and have to decide what to do

BBC Play of the Month adaptation of Shakespeare's tragic love story.

A 5-year-old child is diagnosed with leukaemia and has only days to live. Her only hope is a blood transfusion, but her blood type is extremely rare, so the race is on to find the donors.

On the first night of his London assignment, newsagency reporter John Desmonmd becomes heavily involved with enigmatic Anna Ray. The affair ends when she is shot struggling for a gun she has pulled on him. This is only the start of his troubles, as Anna worked for a criminal organisation who know Desmond has now got her valuable contacts list.

Diana and Deric have an ideal marriage: they thrive in each other's company, they're funny, and they enjoy their two grown children and Deric's dotty mother; the trouble is, Diana can no longer walk and her malady defies medical diagnosis. To care for Diana, Deric is letting his business slide, but at a civic luncheon, he is seated next to Aileen Armitage, a novelist who is blind. They have a nice time, and on the sly, Diana contacts Aileen to made an odd request. Diana's declining health and her resolve bring this triangle of unlikely friends to a surprising place.

Lots of slogans such as "Be like Dad, Keep Mum" and "Keep it under your Hat" are visible on the walls in various scenes to reinforce the plot of this British wartime movie illustrating how gossipy talk can result in unknowingly giving valuable information to Nazi spies.

In postwar London a young graduate and his girlfriend decide to marry. Her well-to-do parents are not convinced, but they agree once he has got a £5.10.0 job and a 30/- a week single-room flat. The newly-weds find money fearfully tight, the flat cramped, the neighbours a trial, and her parents always hovering. Can faith conquer all? Is there some way of getting rid of tea-leaves except down the sink?

An innocent man is released from prison after 12 years and tracks down the witnesses who lied about him in court.

Four people go to great lengths to obtain the fortune left in a will by a very wealthy practical joker.

A professor teaching at a correspondence school discovers that a Nazi agent is trying to prevent a trade treaty being signed between England and South America.

On New Years Eve, 1899, baronet's son Edward Courtney becomes engaged to Kate, his mother's maid, much to the scandal of London society. The film then follows their family through four generations, with separations, joys, tragedies, and service in the Boer War, WWI, and WWII.

A schoolteacher plagued by alcoholism and his refusal to serve in World War II, Graham Weir inspires contempt in almost everyone around him, including his bitter wife, Anna. When the lovely young Shirley Taylor, one of Weir's students, falls for her unfortunate instructor, he is tempted and flattered but turns down her advances. Taylor's subsequent actions make Weir's life even more complicated.

The sequel to 'Up The Creek' sees David Tomlinson return as bumbling navy boffin Lieutenant Humphrey Fairweather. This time he is skipper of the ship Aristotle and, together with his second-in-command, Fairweather wreaks havoc when he is ordered to deliver the Aristotle to its new owners in a mythical Middle-Eastern country.

A factory worker quits his job to become a motorcycle racer.

A man falls in love with a beautiful young woman and begins to suspect that he may have also loved her in a previous life.

Now old, ill, poor, and largely forgotten, William Freise-Greene was once young and handsome William Green. He changed his name to include his first wife's for the photographic portrait work he excelled at. But he was also an inventor and his search for a way to project moving pictures became an obsession that ultimately changed the life of all those he loved.

Unexpected events occur when Pat, a glamorous British-born star of American soaps, returns home to plug her auto-biography on television and meets, for the first time since they were teenagers, Margaret her plain and frumpy younger sister. The meeting is painful for both women highlighting the vast differences in their lives and resurrecting painful memories of their unhappy childhood with an uncaring, errant mother. The tabloid press smell a juicy story and a race ensues to trace the whereabouts of the long lost parent.

Archie Rice, an old-time British vaudeville performer sinking into final defeat, schemes to stay in show business.

Based on the true story of Melbourne Johns, an aircraft factory foreman sent to France to prevent the Nazis getting hold of some vital equipment.

A British army officer becomes fascinated by the portrait of a young woman. He travels to Germany to find her, only to discover that she is suffering from amnesia.

A British housewife does her own battles against the enemy during World War II.

When George discovers that he has won the pools, there is huge excitement in the household. But it turns out that it's his son who has won, in partnership with the son of a woman against whom George has some ill feelings.

A bitter burglar, a prostitute and an elderly shoplifter spend their first day out of jail.

An ill tailor is trying to finish a coat for a wealthy man. He is hindered by his cat and helped by some grateful mice.

After being arrested for assaulting a football referee, desperate train driver Bill (Arthur Askey) raids the railwaymen's holiday fund to cover his £55 fine. He knows he's going to be discovered though, leaving him no choice but to get the money back by hook or by crook! His last chance is to run a book on the United v City football derby. If that wasn't tense enough, Bill's son is also making his debut for United. It looks like it's going to be a day to remember - do you dare look? ...The Love Match.

A schoolgirl disappears for three days after a frank talk with the wife of a Latin teacher she loves.

The story revolves around the Dinky Doos, a provincial musical troupe living from hand to mouth.

A group of men from a London pub are going on a darts team outing to Boulogne. Various members of the party have different reasons for going and get involved in various adventures.

Wartime propaganda piece reporting on the success of the economic blockade of Germany in the early years of the war.

Adapted from the Beatrix Potter story tells the story of the pignap of Little Pig Robinson by Captain Barnabus Butcher who fools Robinson into believing he is being taken on a trip to visit the land of the Bong tree; the truth of the matter is more sinister.

A couple of bickering, married performers agree to star in a "Mr. and Mrs." TV show.

Battle-axe Emma Hornett dominates her hen-pecked husband Henry, his meek sister Edie and daughter Shirley. Shirley is to marry young sailor Albert,raised in an orphanage,and he and best man Carnoustie stay with the Hornetts on the eve of the wedding.

One day in the lives and loves of the staff in a large department store.

The lives of the members of a West Yorkshire cycling club are complicated by romantic entanglements and a series of bike thefts.

Jonathan Dakers' early ambition was to become a great surgeon and to marry Edie Martyn. But, on the death of his father, he is obliged to start work as a partner in a poor general practice in the Black Country. Edie falls in love with Jonathan's brother, Harold, who is killed in the Great War, and Jonathan marries her as planned. It is only afterwards that he realises he now loves another.

A blind Englishwoman weds a French nobleman and moves into his family's chateau, but she quickly realizes someone there wants her out of the way.

Several elderly friends and acquaintances in 1950s London are disturbed to receive mysterious telephone calls predicting their impending deaths...

A syndicate is set up to buy a racehorse, but they end up buying the wrong one by mistake. Unfortunately the horse is useless on the flat, so they try entering him as a jumper.

A stolid British family from Bishops Stortford are adventurous and book a holiday in a villa in Morocco, where things befall them.

When Denis Midgley's father is rushed to hospital, Midgley drops everything to be by his side. They've never really got on, so Midgley wants to be sure he's there if his father ever regains consciousness. As he hates his job as a schoolteacher, and his home-life with his wife, her senile mother and their insolent teenage son, he has no qualms about lingering around the hospital. But as days turn into weeks, his father obstinately refuses to 'slip away', and Denis' motivation for staying by his father's bedside has more and more to do with Valery, a young nurse.

A sergeant returns from war to his contemptible fiancée, intending to reconcile with her against all odds. But he falls in love with a charming new lodger instead.

A repressed night-school teacher, secretly homosexual, struggles to cope with his demanding, eccentric mother.

U.S. Embassy employee Lee Cochrane and his wife, Sue, receive a shock when they discover that their 18-month-old son, Simon, has disappeared in London. He was last seen with their nanny, and the couple seemingly have no leads that might help police Detective Craig in his investigation. The media sensationalizes the incident, causing an unnecessary distraction as the couple prepares to confront the culprit face-to-face.

During the Second World War, three downed English airmen hide out with women's internment camp in France.

Kicked out of Oxford, a junk dealer's son joins a gang of thieves fenced by his father.

Jackie lives in poverty with his widowed mother. In a bid to escape poverty he gets involved in a robbery that sees him sentenced to three years in Borstal where he meets a tough crowd, tougher than anything on the outside.

In love with a man who wants to marry her after he returns from a trip to sea, chorus girl Angela Booth tries to quit her seamy job and become a model citizen. When her employer refuses to dissolve her contract, though, they quarrel and she accidentally hits him. He presses charges, claiming she hit him deliberately, and she is convicted and sent to prison. As her fiance is at sea and out of contact, she is terrified he will think she has jilted him when she does not keep a New Year's date. A kindly old convict, Gran', notorious as a prison-breaker, agrees to engineer an escape for Angela...

Impoverished British bank clerk John Ross is hopelessly in love with drop-dead gorgeous Irene James. Ross will do anything to win Irene's affections - including embezzlement. She ends up marrying him, but she can't give up her true love, slimy counterfeiter Jimmy Smart...

The wealthy chairman of First Division Football Club, Burnville United, makes an unethical approach to a star player of another club, and the ensuing scandal costs him his job.

Two years of deterioration sees John and Barbara Lomax's marriage reduced to bitter sniping and "keeping up appearances" for the sake of the children. When John's old friend Bill professes his love for Barbara, the marriage finally breaks up – causing their three children to react in different ways and their son secretly determined to do Bill harm.

Justice, the poets have it, is a blind goddess. Eric Portman stars as the lawyer defending a lord, Hugh Williams, accused by his secretary Michael Dennison of having diverted public funds for his own use.

Olive Major is determined that her year of office as Mayor will be a happy and successful one. But her appointment of Ex-Warrant Officer Higham as Attendant and Mace-bearer causes the storm-clouds to gather over Medburgh Town Hall.

A series of monologues.

An ex-GI wakes up with blood on his clothes in a strange hotel room. He can't remember the night before but he later finds out that a man he got into a fight with earlier in the night was murdered.

A pseudo-documentary focusing on the daily work and routine of women police officers built around three different storylines.

A bookmaker struggles to cope with his two mothers-in-law.

Penniless man-about-town Michael Gore-Brown is delighted to hear he has been left a high-class Mayfair fashion salon. His intention is to sell it as quickly as possible, but on meeting Ellen, chief designer and manager, he quickly changes his mind and turns his attention to courting her.

A Liverpool gang member wins a singing contest is then called up for National Service where he clashes with another soldier.

Deric Longden and his wife, Aileen, come to terms with the fact that his mother, Annie, is getting too old to live on her own. Annie suffers her first stroke and a nursing home is the obvious solution, but which one and where?

The first in a series of new plays. Arthur and Gwen, a cosy middle-aged couple, remember with nostalgia the pre-Motorway Britain of their youth. When Tom, an old friend, returns from voyaging the world their life takes a strange new turn.

A rich young society girl falls in love with a car mechanic. Her family is appalled and stops her seeing him. The girl attempts to commit suicide and then decides to elope.

Seeking the whereabouts of international gangster Nick Randall, the US State Department contacts Scotland Yard, as his girlfriend, Angela Booth, is currently in a British prison. Angela has refused to give Nick up to the law, so the combined authorities arrange for Angela to escape, aided by stoolie Gran' Ramsey who is at the same prison. The police will then follow Angela to Nick. Gran' stages the getaway, and the two women, accompanied by a third convict, Marguerite, whose prison-born baby is about to be turned over to welfare authorities. It is up to Gran' to keep the police informed of Angela's movements without being detected by the escapees, until Angela contacts Nick. This film is a reworking of principal footage from the UK film WOMEN WITHOUT MEN (1955), q.v., which, with added new footage (including scenes with original star Beverly Michaels), significantly revises the plot and central characters from a story about a wrongly imprisoned waif to one about a gangster's moll.

Lee, a Chinese man, works as a waiter in a hotel in England, despite speaking very little English. Told that a girl called Iris might be interested in him, on his afternoon off work he buys a box of chocolates and sets off to find her.

Friends, colleagues and fans, including Julie Walters, Jonathan Ross, Norman Wisdom, Keith Barron and Victoria Wood, pay tribute to Dame Thora Hird, who died in 2003 at the age of 91.

Howes plays Pamela Dickson, an impulsive young bride-to-be, while Guy Rolfe portrays her long-lost father Paul. Ostensibly a cad and bounder, Paul turns out to be just the opposite when he arrives for Pamela's wedding.

Six monologues tell the stories of six different repressed souls: a man dominated by his mother, a vicar's wife, an inveterate letter writer, a hopeful actress, a recently widowed woman, and an elderly shut-in.

Ministry of Information-sponsored comedy short showing wartime audiences how to deal with the threat of incendiary bombs.

Filmed in rural Sussex in 1982 and re-edited in 2008 with a new sound track, the charm of this period piece does not date. Each month there is a different story, told in rhyming couplets and highlighting changes in the countryside through the year. An interview with Emma twenty-six years on adds a poignant postscript to her adventures as a child. The series will be particularly useful to primary teachers. Six-year-old Emma lives with her mother in the country. Whenever she can, she visits her Grandpa and his dog, Cindy, who live in an old cottage not far away. For a few moments in each story you can eavesdrop on their conversation as they explore the woods and fields near their homes and discover all sorts of things about the countryside as it changes through the twelve months of the year.

A pretty young woman will do anything to escape her deadly dull existence in the backlots of Wales. But when she reaches the bright lights of London is the price too high?

An inexperienced social worker is sent to interview an elderly couple deemed to be “at risk”, but ends up learning just as much about herself.