Torchy the Battery Boy was the second television series produced by AP Films and Gerry Anderson, running from 1960 to 1961. It was another collaboration with author Roberta Leigh and was directed by Anderson, with music scored by Barry Gray, art direction from Reg Hill and special effects by Derek Meddings. The second series of 26 episodes was produced by Associated British-Pathé without the involvement of Anderson and AP Films. Both series have been released on DVD.
The series followed adventures of the eponymous boy doll with a battery inside him and a lamp in his head, and his master Mr Bumbledrop, voiced by Kenneth Connor, who also voiced a number of other characters.
Brought together by professional and personal heartache, two plucky ladies plant the seeds for a brighter future. Rosemary Boxer, with a doctorate in plant pathology, and Laura Thyme, a former police constable and avid gardener, discover their shared love of green-thumbness and start a gardening business. As they restore various English gardens back to their lavish states, the inquisitive pair also find themselves uncovering an assortment of mysteries.
London police officer DC Hana Li is escorting Dr Matthew Nolan back to Beijing where he has been accused of a crime. However, on board flight 357, she finds herself embroiled in an escalating conspiracy and a growing number of murders.
That's My Boy is a British sitcom that aired on ITV from 1981 to 1986. Starring Mollie Sugden, it was written by Pam Valentine and Michael Ashton, who later wrote My Husband and I, which also starred Mollie Sugden. It was produced by Yorkshire Television for the ITV network.
Doctor in Charge is a British television comedy series based on a set of books by Richard Gordon about the misadventures of a group of doctors. The series follows directly from its predecessor Doctor at Large, and was produced by London Weekend Television in 1972-73.
Writers for the Doctor in Charge episodes were David Askey, Graham Chapman, Graeme Garden, George Layton, Jonathan Lynn, Bernard McKenna, Bill Oddie, Phil Redmond and Gail Renard.
At Home with the Braithwaites is a British comedy-drama television series, created and written by Sally Wainwright. The storyline follows a suburban family from Leeds, whose life is turned upside down when the mother of the family wins 38 million pounds on the lottery. It was broadcast on ITV, for 26 episodes, from 20 January 2000 to 9 April 2003.
At the beginning of the first series, each member of the Braithwaite family has an issue. Alison has to decide what to do with the winnings, and when to tell her family. David is having an affair with Elaine, his secretary at work. Virginia is on the verge of flunking out of university. Sarah has a crush on her drama teacher. Charlotte suspects that her mother may be the mystery lottery winner.
Bless Me Father is a British sitcom starring Arthur Lowe, Daniel Abineri, Gabrielle Daye, Patrick McAlinney, David Ryall, Derek Francis and Sheila Keith. It was aired on ITV from 1978 until 1981 and described the adventures of an Irish Catholic priest, Father Charles Duddleswell and his young curate in the fictional parish of St. Jude's in suburban London. 21 episodes, written by Peter De Rosa, were aired. De Rosa wrote the books on which the series was based using the pseudonym of Neil Boyd which was also the name of the young curate character; Boyd also served as the narrator in the series of novels upon which the series was based. It was made for the ITV network by London Weekend Television.
The series was set in 1950 and 1951 and marked a departure from the middle class 'bank manager' roles associated with Lowe such as that in Dad's Army. The other regular characters included Mrs Pring, the housekeeper, the hard-drinking Dr Daley, the non-religious neighbour Billy Buzzle, and abbess Reverend Mother Stephen.
Every question is an opportunity to climb the endless money ladder and reach the big money, but only a correct answer banks the cash. Push their luck too far and they’ll crash out of the game and lose it all.
3–2–1 was a popular British game show that was made by Yorkshire Television for ITV. It ran for ten years, between 29 July 1978 and 24 December 1988, with former Butlins Redcoat Ted Rogers as the host. It was based on a Spanish gameshow called Un, dos, tres... responda otra vez and was three shows in one, a quiz show, a variety show and a game show.
The show was a huge success consistently pulling in large ratings. The first series, though, intended as a summer filler, attracted up to 16.5 million viewers and subsequent years never failed to peak below 12 million. The show occupied a Saturday early evening slot for most of its run.
The final Christmas special attracted 12.5 million viewers, so, it is to this day unclear why an eleventh series was not commissioned in 1989. Ted Rogers claimed in a 1996 interview that "The Oxbridge lot got control of TV and they didn't really want it. It was too downmarket for them. We were still getting 12 million viewers when they took it off after ten years. These day
Reilly, Ace of Spies is a 1983 television miniseries dramatizing the life of Sidney Reilly, a Russian Jew who became one of the greatest spies ever to work for the British. Among his exploits, in the early 20th century, were the infiltration of the German General Staff in 1917 and a near-overthrow of the Bolsheviks in 1918. His reputation with women was as legendary as his genius for espionage.
Trinny & Susannah Undress... is a British reality makeover and fashion-themed television programme on ITV featuring fashion advisors Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine.
The series sees Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine going to different households where couples experience difficulties in their relationship, and explore how clothing and style impacts marriage and relationships. Woodall and Constantine give advice and improve the appearance and style of the couples in an effort to rekindle the marriages and relationships that have become troubled.
Captain Mack is based in Sky Rocket Control, with his trusty monkey engineer Samson. They keep an eye on the residents of Sunshine City, particularly the naughty ones.
A thrilling drama based on the novels by Peter Robinson. Stephen Tompkinson and Andrea Lowe star as the tenacious and stubborn Chief Inspector Alan Banks and the feisty and headstrong Detective Sergeant Annie Cabbot.
Tales from Fat Tulip's Garden was a children's TV program in the mid-1980s, starring Tony Robinson. It was produced by Debbie Gates for Central Independent Television and aired on British TV network ITV from 1985 to 1987, in a 4:00pm timeslot, with each episode lasting about 10 minutes.
Robinson would tell children's stories directly to camera in an English garden setting, and would put on all the voices himself. The show was written by Debbie Gates and Robinson and carried by Robinson's unique and engaging storytelling style, which was semi-improvised. Robinson hoped to provoke the imagination and produce a sense of immediacy in contrast to the shortcomings he saw in children's television at the time.
The majority of the programme was filmed in the house and garden of Little Monkhams, a property in Woodford in the Redbridge Borough of London. Further scenes were filmed in the part of Epping Forest facing the house
The New Avengers is a British secret agent fantasy adventure television series broadcast during 1976 and 1977. It is a sequel to the 1960s series The Avengers and was developed by Albert Fennell and Brian Clemens.
A joint United Kingdom-France-Canada production, the show picks up the adventures of John Steed and his team of Avengers fighting evil plots and world domination. Whereas in the original series Steed had almost always been partnered with a woman, in the new series he had two partners: Mike Gambit, a top agent, crack marksman and trained martial artist, and Purdey, a former trainee with The Royal Ballet who was an amalgam of many of the best talents from Steed's previous female partners.
Fat Friends was an ITV drama, following a group of overweight people, their laughter and pain and addresses the absurdities of dieting in our modern age. The drama looks at people and how they relate to one another and use body weight as an excuse for all sorts of failings in their relationships, or not living their lives to the full. Four of the cast, Ruth Jones, James Corden, Sheridan Smith and Alison Steadman, went on to appear in Gavin & Stacey.
Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense was a short-lived anthology television series from Hammer Studios. Though similar in format to the 1980 series Hammer House of Horror, the Mystery and Suspense series had feature-length episodes, usually running around 70 minutes without commercials.
The series was a co-production by Hammer Studios with 20th Century Fox Television, and is known in the United States as Fox Mystery Theater. Unlike 1980's Hammer House of Horror, all the episodes had American actors as either the leads or in key roles. It was first aired in the UK by ITV in 1984, though was not simulcast and was shown in different timeslots throughout the various ITV regions.