Popstars The Rivals was a British television talent show series that was broadcast on ITV in late 2002. It was the second UK series of the international Popstars franchise. Unlike Popstars, which resulted in the formation of one winning group – Hear'Say – Popstars: The Rivals created two rival groups, Girls Aloud and One True Voice, who competed against each other for the Christmas Number One spot on the UK Singles Chart.
Popstars The Rivals aired on ITV on Saturday nights from 7 September 2002, beginning with three pre-recorded episodes of preliminary audition rounds, before switching to live broadcasts of studio performances. During the rounds of live show, viewers voted for their favourite performers by telephone and the Red Button on digital television remote controls. In the final weeks, five females and five males were chosen by the British public to form the two groups, boy band] One True Voice, and girl group Girls Aloud. The final episode of Popstars: The Rivals aired live on 22 December 2002.
Third incarnation of the Sooty show formula which follows almost directly on from the previous show 'Sooty and Co'. The puppets with Richard Cadell and Liana Bridges decide to leave the 'Sooty and Co.' shop and open a grand seaside hotel.
Help! I'm A Teenage Outlaw is a British television programme filmed in the Czech Republic and first aired on CITV. The show follows three hapless outlaws during the English Civil War, who are trying to bring justice back to the land.
Singles is a British sitcom set in a singles bar produced by Yorkshire Television. It aired for 3 series and 22 episodes on the ITV network between 1988 and 1991. Main character Malcolm, played by Roger Rees, was written out in the final series after Rees relocated to the United States, with Simon Cadell joining the cast in his place as Dennis Duval.
Knights of God was a British science fiction children's television serial, produced by TVS and first broadcast on ITV in 1987. It was written by Richard Cooper, a writer who had previously worked in both children's and adult television drama. Set in the year 2020, it showed a Britain ruled by the Knights of God, a fascist and anti-Christian religious order that came to power during a brutal civil war twenty years previously. It starred George Winter as Gervase Owen Edwards, the Welsh son of a resistance leader, and John Woodvine as the Prior Mordrin, leader of the titular cult. Patrick Troughton played Arthur, the apparent leader of the English resistance, and Julian Fellowes played Mordrin's ambitious and ruthless second-in-command, Brother Hugo.
Set in the 1900s, when the British Secret Service was a new, unofficial arm of military activity, the series features Captain Robert Virgin - an officer and a gentleman who fights as a man of honour. Armed only with intelligence, ingenuity, physical strength and abundant charm, Virgin faces every sort of peril as he defends King and country - from industrial espionage to anarchist bomb plots, assassination attempts to kidnapping.
Two's Company is a British television situation comedy series that ran from 1975-79. Produced by London Weekend Television for the ITV Network, the programme starred Elaine Stritch and Donald Sinden.
Pop Idol is a British television music competition which ran on ITV from 2001 to 2003. The aim of the show was to decide the best new young pop singer in the UK based on viewer voting and participation. Two series were broadcast - one in 2001-2002 and a second in 2003. Pop Idol was subsequently put on an indefinite hiatus after "Idol" judge Simon Cowell announced the launch of the The X Factor in the UK in April 2004.
The show has become an international TV franchise since, spawning multiples of Idol series worldwide. In the mean time a legal dispute arose with the makers of Popstars, which eventually led to the word "Pop" being excluded from the titles of all the spin-offs, such as American Idol, Australian Idol, Indonesian Idol, New Zealand Idol, Latin American Idol and Idols.
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.
Popstar to Operastar is a British television programme singing competition based around the training of current pop stars to be able to sing opera. The show began airing on ITV on 15 January 2010 at 9pm. The show is repeated on TV3 Ireland on Saturday evening. The programme is produced by Renegade Pictures.
With the show being a singing competition, it featured appropriate judges: Rolando Villazón, Katherine Jenkins, Meat Loaf and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen. Villazón and Jenkins also mentor the contestants giving them the songs to sing during the live shows. Meat Loaf and Bowen were critic-judges, who talked about their performances. However, after the first series, it was announced that Meat Loaf and Bowen would not be returning as judges. Their replacements were confirmed to be actor and opera-director, Simon Callow and classical singer/violinist, Vanessa-Mae. The presenters of the show were confirmed to be Alan Titchmarsh and Myleene Klass with the non-operatic "Dies Irae" from Verdi's Requiem as the
A 1971 comedy and variety sketch show co-produced by ATV in the UK and ABC TV in America, filmed at Elstree Studios. It featured opening and closing credits by Terry Gilliam, guest appearances by Spike Milligan, Bob Todd, John Junkin and Frances de la Tour, and also material written by Barry Levinson and Larry Gelbart.
Inspired by the historical events of 1666 and with the decadent backdrop of King Charles II’s court, The Great Fire focuses on the circumstances which led to the catastrophic fire, Thomas Farriner’s family life at the bakery in Pudding Lane, the playboy King’s extravagant lifestyle, and Farriner’s complex relationship with his fictional sister in law, Sarah.
Runaway Bay was a children's adventure television series, which ran from 1992 to 1993. The series followed a group of friends having adventures while living on the island of Martinique in the Caribbean. The show was principally produced by Lifetime Productions International Ltd with Ellipse Productions for the television networks Antenne 2, CBS Television, and Yorkshire Television. In the UK, the show was screened on ITV. The character of Shuku was one of Naomie Harris's first television roles.
The Beiderbecke Affair is a television series produced in the United Kingdom by ITV during 1985, written by the prolific Alan Plater, whose lengthy credits to British Television since the 1960s included the preceding 4 part mini series Get Lost! for ITV in 1981. The Beiderbecke Affair has a similar style to Get Lost!, where Neville Keaton and Judy Threadgold played in an ensemble cast. Although The Beiderbecke Affair was intended as a sequel to Get Lost!, Alun Armstrong proved to be unavailable and the premise was reworked. It is the first part of The Beiderbecke Trilogy with the two sequel series being The Beiderbecke Tapes and The Beiderbecke Connection.
Into the Labyrinth is a British children's television series produced by HTV for the ITV network between 1980 and 1982. Three series, each consisting of seven 25-minute episodes, were produced and directed by Peter Graham Scott. The series was created by Scott along with Bob Baker, who had previously written several stories for Doctor Who.
The show is primarily set on Foxearth Farm, a fictional farm based in the English countryside which is dominated by a variety of animals, particularly the chickens. The Foxbusters are three chickens, Ransome, Sims and Jeffries, who have the unlikely ability to fly. Each has a different personality; Ransome is the best flyer, Sims is the smartest and Jeffries is the comic relief. The Foxbusters also have the ability to spit grit like machine guns, and drop hard-boiled eggs like they were bombs - and these are used to effect among other methods to keep the hungry pack of foxes in Foxearth Forest at bay.
Monkey Trousers was a short-lived comedy series on ITV in 2005, featuring Alistair McGowan, John Thomson, Ronni Ancona, Mackenzie Crook, Griff Rhys Jones, Neil Morrissey, Vic Reeves, Bob Mortimer, Marc Wootton and Steve Coogan. It was directed by David Kerr and produced by Bob Mortimer and Vic Reeves' production company, Pett Productions.
It succeeded The All Star Comedy Show, which was written by Reeves and Mortimer, and produced by Coogan.
Sketches of the show included the moronic, yet fearless 'Croc Botherer', Roy the eerie, lonely toy-shopkeeper, Alistair the hopeless estate agent, who replies to every question with "I don't know", the swearing chef, and the 'Geordie Astronauts'.
A DVD of the series was released on 4 July 2005.
Not On Your Nellie is a British sitcom that ran from 1974-75. It starred veteran actress Hylda Baker as Nellie Pickersgill, a Bolton woman who moves to London to help run her ailing father's Chelsea pub. 17 episodes of the series were produced by London Weekend Television for the ITV network.