The first of a four part series based on the book by William Allison and John Fairley about the true-life figure of Percy Toplis, who led a British army mutiny during the First World War. In the first episode, we learn the background to Percy Toplis joining the British Army during the First World War.
Percy Toplis arrives at the Etaples training camp in northern France, where the soldiers are put through a brutal training regime, under the command of Brigadier General Thomson. There is a mutiny of the troops.
Percy Toplis takes charge of negotiations between the mutineers and Brigadier Thomson. When the mutiny is over, Toplis and the other leaders become marked men. Toplis escapes to England using his talents for disguise, and meets and falls in love with Dorothy.
The war is over and Toplis decides to rejoin the Army under a false name. He is recognized by a fellow mutineer and joins a black market racket. A shooting incident is blamed on Toplis and the police are back on his trail.
South Africa in the early 60s provides the background for Hilda Bernstein's award-winning political thriller. Screenplay by Alan Plater.
In Episode 2, the campaign of sabotage is halted and the arrests continue. The Special Branch obviously have inside Information.
In 1956, the ultra-respectable seaside resort of Eastbourne was shocked when a local doctor, John Bodkin Adams, was arrested for murdering one of his elderly patients.
Grinding, gruelling and unceasing, Dennis Barker’s training sessions push his young swimmers to the limits of their endurance. Outstanding among them is 14-year-old Rachel Southern. Destined for stardom perhaps, but also destined to realise that winning doesn’t always mean coming first.
When Leon and Freak, the best computer hackers in the country, team up with Fast Eddie , hotshot of the video arcades, they are playing for high stakes. Their target is Lawrence MacNiece, computer security expert and the only obstacle between them and the millions of pounds that pass through the City's central clearing computer every day. Leon, a hacker convicted for a crime he did not commit, escapes from detention centre following the death of his father, to take revenge on the man who really did it.
67 year-old Victor is forced to move into an old people’s home but he prefers to grow old disgracefully.
Rehana is studying for her A-levels. She is a Muslim and her father thinks it’s time he arranged a marriage for her. But Rehana has other ideas…
In 1940 Kenya as their country prepares for war, the local aristocratic social set lives a decadent, self-indulgent lifestyle, that leads to murder. The same events were also dramatised in the feature film White Mischief, which was released seven months after the first transmission of The Happy Valley.
‘My word is my bond. And I thought only schmucks do business like that.’ Gino, a Russian gangster, is playing for higher stakes than most when he invests in the British stock exchange. Any drop in share prices could put his life in immediate danger.
Miles Henderson has a few problems. His job, his marriage and his car are all falling apart at the same time. The last thing he needs is to be followed by a beautiful woman and a pair of private detectives - in that order.
It’s the most important night of the year for the dynamic salesmen of King Double Glazing - the company prize-giving. It’s all smiles for the winning salesmen and their ladies, but this is the world of Harry King , where you’re only as good as your last double patio. One mistake and you’re on Harry’s chop list.
A tale of cat lovers, the social circle they inhabit and the power struggles between them.
April 1982. The British task force sails for the South Atlantic. Among their number is 22-year-old Robert Lawrence , an officer in the elite regiment of Scots Guards. On the bleak hills of the Falkland Islands, they fight and win a series of bloody battles. For many of the soldiers it is a violent initiation into active combat, but for Robert, wounded hours before the Argentine surrender, the real battle begins when he returns home. Having been shot in the head by an Argentine sniper in the Battle of Mount Tumbledown, and left paralyzed on his left side, he must now learn to adjust to his new disability.
Starring Anthony Hopkins as speed king Donald Campbell. Set in 1967, Campbell broke the 300mph water speed barrier in his beloved Bluebird K7.
In a small (fictional) emirate of the Persian Gulf a world-weary journalist (Granville Jones , one of the forgotten 'greats' of old-time Fleet Street) is caught up in a coup where the Emir’s son, under the influence of a political renegade, attempts to depose his father - the ruling monarch. Flashbacks of the journalist’s life show us how his relationships with the Emir and a beautiful young woman (archaeologist Romy Burton) develop and flourish. Can events also recall the journalistic skills that could save his old friend, the Emir, and save the peace of the whole region?
In May 1981 a young Turk, Mehmet Ali Ağca, shot Pope John Paul II. Who was Ağca? Why did he do it? What made him want to be a killer?
Deep-sea diving is well paid and glamorous. But the strain is huge, living in a tiny compression chamber for four weeks at a time. And if anything goes wrong, you’re a dead man.No wonder Joe can’t sleep easy at nights. His nightmares might become reality.
To Robert, Graham seems a rather peculiar sort of copper. It is only when Robert joins forces with him that he realises just how extraordinary. Two bored twentysomethings buy a Vauxhall Cavalier kit it out with a siren and spend their evenings masquerading as police officers.
Television play by Michael Palin. Ninety-year-old Miss Barwick has lived peacefully in the same house all her life, that is until a young property developer arrives at her front door to make her an offer.
For two brilliant young athletes - Roger Bannister of England and John Landy of Australia - the 1952 Helsinki Olympics present an exciting challenge. But events help set them on the path to something even more memorable than an Olympic gold medal - the race to break the four-minute mile…