The Mikado

The Mikado 1987

7.00

Jonathan Miller set his well-known production of The Mikado, staged for the English National Opera, in a British seaside resort of the 1920s. The result, complete with a chorus of gentlemen of Japan as cartoon-like British peers, emphatically underscores the Englishness of the satire. The occasional non sequiturs, like a bunch of gentry dressed for Ascot and singing in Japanese, are loonily fun, and no more absurd than the fantasyland Japan that Gilbert and Sullivan invented. The time frame, though, seems little more than an excuse for a smart black-and-white production design.

1987

A Murder of Quality

A Murder of Quality 1991

5.54

At the request of his old war time colleague Ailsa Brimley, George Smiley agrees to look into the murder of Stella Rode. Brimley had only just received a letter from her saying she feared for her life at her husband's hand. The husband, Stanley Rode teaches at Carne School, but Smiley is doubtful that he had anything to do with his wife's death. As Smiley investigates, he learns that Stella was a nosy busybody who loved to learn other's little secrets and then gossip about them - or possibly blackmail them. When a student is killed and Smiley unearths a secret, he has the evidence to name the killer.Based on John Le Carré's 1962 thriller (his first) in which George Smiley is brought out of spy retirement to solve a murder in a British public school. The setting is based on Le Carre"s own schooldays in Sherborne and his brief experience teaching at Eton.

1991

The Prison

The Prison 1974

1

A successful Paris magazine proprietor embarks on a destructive voyage of self-discovery after his wife shoots dead her own sister, with whom he has had an affair for several years.

1974

Mr. H Is Late

Mr. H Is Late 1988

7.00

A team of inept undertakers attempt to get a coffin to a funeral on time. An undertaker is in charge of moving a coffin from a home to the church. The home is on the 26th floor of a skyscraper; the stairs are narrow; the lift is small and prone to stop working. Chaos ensues.

1988

The Treaty

The Treaty 1991

6.00

How the Anglo-Irish Treaty between the unrecognised Irish Republic, represented by Michael Collins, and the British government was concluded after high-stakes negotiations in 1921.

1991

The Naked Civil Servant

The Naked Civil Servant 1975

6.76

Story of the life of Quentin Crisp, an Englishman who was brave enough to live his life according to his own style even in the hostile days of WW2.

1975

Danny the Champion of the World

Danny the Champion of the World 1989

6.15

Somewhere in England, in the Autumn of 1955, a widowed father and his son live an idyllic life together. Only their gas station happens to sit on a piece of land that a local developer wants to buy. And when he won't take no for an answer, and sets government inspectors and social works onto Danny and his father, Danny and his father decide to get even with Hazell and his pheasant- shooting friends in a manner in keeping with their own family tradition.

1989

A Bit of a Lift

A Bit of a Lift 1973

8.00

A man meets a woman at a wedding and manages to sweet talk her, only to end up inadvertently helping out another male.

1973

Macbeth

Macbeth 1979

7.30

Macbeth is a 1978 videotaped version of Trevor Nunn's Royal Shakespeare Company production of the play by William Shakespeare. Produced by Thames Television, it features Ian McKellen as Macbeth and Judi Dench as Lady Macbeth. The TV version was directed by Philip Casson. The original stage production was performed at The Other Place, the RSC's small studio theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. It had been performed in the round before small audiences, with a bare stage and simple costuming. The recording preserves this style: the actors perform on a circular set and with a mostly black background changes of setting are indicated only by lighting changes.

1979

Cold Comfort Farm

Cold Comfort Farm 1995

6.78

In this adaptation of the satirical British novel, Flora Poste, a plucky London society girl orphaned at age 19, finds a new home with some rough relatives, the Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm. With a take-charge attitude and some encouragement from her mischievous friend, Mary, Flora changes the Starkadders' lives forever when she settles into their rustic estate, bringing the backward clan up to date and finding inspiration for her novel in the process.

1995

Woodentop

Woodentop 1983

1

It's the first day on the job at Sun Hill police station for probationary P.C. Jim Carver, but by no means an uneventful one…

1983

Gawain and the Green Knight

Gawain and the Green Knight 1991

6.00

One Christmas, a knight garbed all in green appears in King Arthur's Court and challenges any knight to hew off his head on the proviso that he be allowed to return the axe stroke afterwards. All of King Arthur's other knights being frightened, Sir Gawain takes up the challenge and hacks off the green knight's head. The green knight then gives Gawain a year to find his home and live a little before the cut is returned.

1991

A Touch of the Victorians

A Touch of the Victorians 1972

1

An Amateur Drama Troupe putting on a show at an old people's home, start to improvise the script with their own personal problems.

1972

The Wind in the Willows

The Wind in the Willows 1983

7.00

One spring, Mole decides that he can ignore the spring cleaning for a little longer, and begins a series of adventures with his new friend Rat. They go for a picnic on the riverbank, on a caravan expedition with Toad, until Toad switches allegiance to his new car and his reckless driving makes Mole and Rat search out Badger for help in curbing Toad's profligate habits. But Toad gets away from them and gets a 20-year sentence from the magistrate for theft, reckless driving, and Gross Impertinence. While Toad works his wiles on the jailer's daughter and escapes jail dressed as a washer woman, Badger tries to guard Toad Hall from the machinations of the Weasels and is badly beaten. And it requires a plan of attack and all four comrades to regain Toad Hall.

1983

Dracula

Dracula 1968

10.00

A asylum patient intrudes upon a house party referring to the guest of honor—Count Dracula—as "Master." Moments later he insists he does not know the Count and is led back to his cell. Dr. Van Helsing is called to consult on the case. Hypnotized, the patient recounts events in Transylvania, including an attack by Dracula's brides…

1968

Selling Hitler

Selling Hitler 1993

7.00

In 1981, Gerd Heidemann, a war correspondent and reporter with the German magazine Stern, makes what he believes is the literary and historical scoop of the century: the personal diaries of Adolf Hitler. Over the next two years, Heidemann and the senior management figures at Stern secretly pay 10 million German marks to a mysterious 'Dr Fischer' for the sixty volumes of 'Hitler's diaries'. However, to the dismay of all, it is discovered after the publication of first extract that the diaries are crude forgeries, faked by Stuttgart criminal Konrad Kujau.

1993

It's Only Rock 'n' Roll

It's Only Rock 'n' Roll 1977

1

A rock star is kidnapped at the end of a concert.The record company ask the question is he worth more dead than alive?

1977

Monsignor Quixote

Monsignor Quixote 1985

8.50

Sir Alec Guiness stars with Leo McKern in the story of a friendship between a Catholic priest and a Communist Mayor. Together they travel from their remote village to Madrid and back exploring their friendship, the demands of belief and constancy of faith. This lavish production filmed entirely on location captures the wit, warmth, and vitality that make the original novel by Graham Greene a unique work of literature.

1985

Schindler

Schindler 1983

8.00

The true story of German-Czech businessman Oskar Schindler (1908-74) as told by some of the Jews — more than a thousand people — whose lives he saved from extermination during World War II.

1983

A Better Class of Person

A Better Class of Person 1985

1

Adaptation of John Osborne's autobiography about his early life, showing his much-loved but frail father and combative relationship with his mother.

1985