Leonard Rossiter

2001: A Space Odyssey

Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world's most advanced super computer.

Barry Lyndon

An Irish rogue uses his cunning and wit to work his way up the social classes of 18th century England, transforming himself from the humble Redmond Barry into the noble Barry Lyndon.

Voyage of the Damned

A luxury liner carries Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany in a desperate fight for survival.

Oliver!

Musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, a classic tale of an orphan who runs away from the workhouse and joins up with a group of boys headed by the Artful Dodger and trained to be pickpockets by master thief Fagin.

Rising Damp

Stingy landlord Rigsby manages to scam his lodgers John, an art student, and Philip, an African medical student, making both pay for a room they must share. However Rigsby's favorite lodger, Miss Jones, flirts with Philip rather than him, despite his pitiful attempts at seduction.

The Pink Panther Strikes Again

Charles Dreyfus, who has finally cracked over inspector Clouseau's antics, escapes from a mental institution and launches an elaborate plan to get rid of Clouseau once and for all.

Trail of the Pink Panther

The Pink Panther diamond is stolen once again from Lugash and the authorities call in Chief Inspector Clouseau from France. His plane disappears en-route. This time, famous French TV reporter Marie Jouvet sets out to solve the mystery and starts to interview everybody connected to Clouseau.

King Rat

When Singapore surrendered to the Japanese in 1942, the Allied POWs, mostly British but including a few Americans, were incarcerated in Changi prison. Among the American prisoners is Cpl. King, a wheeler-dealer who has managed to establish a pretty good life for himself in the camp. King soon forms a friendship with an upper-class British officer who is fascinated with King's enthusiastic approach to life.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world's most advanced super computer.

Barry Lyndon

An Irish rogue uses his cunning and wit to work his way up the social classes of 18th century England, transforming himself from the humble Redmond Barry into the noble Barry Lyndon.

Voyage of the Damned

A luxury liner carries Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany in a desperate fight for survival.

Oliver!

Musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, a classic tale of an orphan who runs away from the workhouse and joins up with a group of boys headed by the Artful Dodger and trained to be pickpockets by master thief Fagin.

Rising Damp

Stingy landlord Rigsby manages to scam his lodgers John, an art student, and Philip, an African medical student, making both pay for a room they must share. However Rigsby's favorite lodger, Miss Jones, flirts with Philip rather than him, despite his pitiful attempts at seduction.

The Pink Panther Strikes Again

Charles Dreyfus, who has finally cracked over inspector Clouseau's antics, escapes from a mental institution and launches an elaborate plan to get rid of Clouseau once and for all.

Trail of the Pink Panther

The Pink Panther diamond is stolen once again from Lugash and the authorities call in Chief Inspector Clouseau from France. His plane disappears en-route. This time, famous French TV reporter Marie Jouvet sets out to solve the mystery and starts to interview everybody connected to Clouseau.

King Rat

When Singapore surrendered to the Japanese in 1942, the Allied POWs, mostly British but including a few Americans, were incarcerated in Changi prison. Among the American prisoners is Cpl. King, a wheeler-dealer who has managed to establish a pretty good life for himself in the camp. King soon forms a friendship with an upper-class British officer who is fascinated with King's enthusiastic approach to life.

The Wrong Box

In Victorian England, a fortune now depends on which of two brothers outlives the other—or can be made to have seemed to do so.

Britannia Hospital

Britannia Hospital, an esteemed English institution, is marking its gala anniversary with a visit by the Queen Mother herself. But when investigative reporter Mick Travis arrives to cover the celebration, he finds the hospital under siege by striking workers, ruthless unions, violent demonstrators, racist aristocrats, an African cannibal dictator, and sinister human experiments.

The Long Ships

Moorish ruler El Mansuh is determined to locate a massive bell made of gold known as the "Mother of Voices." Viking explorer Rolfe also becomes intent on finding the mythical treasure, and sails with his crew from Scandinavia to Africa to track it down. Reluctantly working together, El Mansuh and Rolfe, along with their men, embark on a quest for the prized object, but only one leader will be able to claim the bell as his own — if it even exists at all.

This Sporting Life

In early 1960s Northern England, Frank Machin is mean, tough and ambitious enough to become an immediate star in the rugby league team run by local employer Weaver.

Machinegunner

A 'machinegunner' (West Country slang for a debt-collector) turns amateur sleuth, but finds himself in hot water with local criminals.

Alice in Wonderland

Anglia Television's 5 episode TV miniseries adaption of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland was inspired and based upon an early production put on by the famous Da Silva Puppets group at the Norwich Puppet Theatre.

The Year of the Sex Olympics

Influenced by concerns about overpopulation, the counterculture of the 1960s and the societal effects of television, the play depicts a world of the future where a small elite control the media, keeping the lower classes docile by serving them an endless diet of lowest common denominator programmes and pornography. The play concentrates on an idea the programme controllers have for a new programme which will follow the trials and tribulations of a group of people left to fend for themselves on a remote island. In this respect, the play is often cited as having anticipated the craze for reality television.

Billy Liar

A young Englishman dreams of escaping from his working class family and dead-end job as an undertaker's assistant. A number of indiscretions cause him to lie in order to avoid the penalties. His life turns into a mess and he has an opportunity to run away and leave it all behind.

Hotel Paradiso

Monsieur Feydeau has writer's block and he needs a new play, so he takes an opportunity to observe his upper class neighbors of 1900 Paris. There is Monsieur Boniface with hard domineering wife Angelique; also, Monsieur Cotte with beautiful but neglected wife Marcelle. Henri Cotte traces architectural anomalies (mostly "ghost" sounds in the drain pipes) and plans a night at the Hotel Paradiso, which happens to be the chosen romantic rendezvous spot of Marcelle and Monsieur Boniface. One wife, two husbands, a nephew, and the perky Boniface maid, all at this 'by the hour' hotel and consummation of the affair is, to say the least, severely compromised (not the least by a police raid). All of this is under Feydeau's eye, and his play is the 'success fou' of the next season.

Deadlier Than the Male

British agent Bulldog Drummond is assigned to stop a master criminal who uses beautiful women to do his killings.

The Witches

Following a nervous breakdown, Gwen takes up the job of head teacher in the small village of Haddaby. There she can benefit from the tranquillity and peace, enabling her to recover fully. But under the facade of idyllic country life she slowly unearths the frightening reality of village life in which the inhabitants are followers of a menacing satanic cult with the power to inflict indiscriminate evil and death if crossed.

After the Solo

"The voice will make its effect. And it will, undoubtedly, be very touching. But, tell me: after his voice has broken, can you make anything of him then?" After the solo, after the chorus, after the applause?

The Whisperers

Margaret Ross is an impoverished old woman who lives alone in a seedy apartment and enjoys a rich fantasy life as an heiress. One day she discovers stolen money hidden by her son and believes her fantasy has come true.

Water

The British governor of a tiny island nation in the Caribbean Commonwealth finds his idyllic existence thrown into chaos when an American drilling company finds a huge source of natural mineral water there.

Deadfall

Cat burglar Henry Clarke and his accomplices the Moreaus attempt to steal diamonds from the chateau of millionaire Salinas.

Diamonds for Breakfast

Swinging playboy Grand Duke Nicholas Goduno, a direct descendent of the Romanov family who were overthrown in the Russian Revolution of 1917, learns that his family's crown jewels will be exhibited at a London museum and plots to steal them. To this end, he gathers a crew of beautiful but dangerous women, led by Bridget Rafferty, to assist in his plot against Popov, the Soviet functionary in charge of the exhibit.

Play for Today

Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.

BBC Play of the Month

A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983.

Theatre 625

Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.

Z-Cars

Z-Cars or Z Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.

ITV Playhouse

ITV Playhouse is a British comedy-drama TV series that ran from 1967 to 1983, which featured contributions from playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Rhys Adrian and Alan Sharp. The series began in black and white, but was later shot in colour and was produced by various companies for the ITV network, a format that would inspire Dramarama. Actors appearing in the series included Leslie Anderson, Gwen Nelson, Ricky Alleyne, Pat Heywood, Michael Elphick, Ian Hendry, Edward Woodward, Margaret Lockwood, Jessie Matthews and Lloyd Peters.

ITV Saturday Night Theatre

Anthology series of dramatic works.

The Wednesday Play

An anthology series of television plays which aired on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured.

Thirty-Minute Theatre

An anthology of short plays shown on BBC Television between 1965 and 1973, used in part at least as a training ground for new writers, on account of its short length, and which therefore attracted many writers who later became well known.

BBC2 Play of the Week

An anthology of plays and novels adapted into feature length TV movies, broadcast on BBC2 from September 1977 to April 1979.

The BBC Television Shakespeare

The BBC Television Shakespeare is a series of British television adaptations of the plays of William Shakespeare, created by Cedric Messina and produced by BBC Television. It was transmitted in the UK from 3 December 1978 to 27 April 1985 and spanned seven series. Development of the series began in 1975 when Messina saw that Glamis Castle would make a perfect location for an adaptation of Shakespeare's play As You Like It. On returning to London, he envisioned an entire series devoted exclusively to the dramatic works of Shakespeare. After encountering numerous problems trying to produce the series, Messina eventually pitched the idea to the BBC’s departmental heads and the series was greenlighted. The series as a whole received generally negative reviews from critics.

Rising Damp

Set in a seedy bedsit, the cowardly landlord Rigsby has his conceits debunked by his long suffering tenants.

Half Hour Story

18 short plays written especially for TV, an opportunity for up-and-coming directors such as floor manager Alan Clarke, who ended up doing 10 of the episodes. Some top ranking performers were attracted to the series.

Redcap

Redcap is a British television series produced by ABC Weekend Television for ITV. John Thaw stars as Sergeant John Mann, a member of the Special Investigation Branch of the Royal Military Police. It ran for 26 episodes over two series between 1964 and 1966, being about 50 minutes in a 60 minute time slot. Surprisingly for a 1960s ABC Weekend Television programme, 23 of the 26 episodes still exist.

Steptoe and Son

Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about a father and son played by Wilfred Brambell and Harry H. Corbett who deal in selling used items. They live on Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974. Its theme tune, "Old Ned", was composed by Ron Grainer. The series was voted 15th in a 2004 BBC poll to find Britain's Best Sitcom. It was remade in the US as Sanford and Son, in Sweden as Albert & Herbert and in the Netherlands as Stiefbeen en zoon. In 1972 a movie adaptation of the series, Steptoe and Son, was released in cinemas, with a second Steptoe and Son Ride Again in 1973.

The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin

Disillusioned after a long career at Sunshine Desserts, Reginald Iolanthe Perrin endures a midlife crisis and fakes his own death. Returning in disguise after various attempts at finding a 'new life', Perrin gets his old job back and finds nothing has changed. He is eventually found out, and later finds success with a chain of junk shops. However, it becomes so successful that he feels he has created a monster and decides to destroy it.

Tripper's Day

Tripper's Day is a British sitcom produced by Thames Television for ITV, starring Leonard Rossiter as a small London supermarket manager whose best intentions are constantly thwarted by the lazy, useless bunch of bums he employs. The programme is largely remembered for the negative reception, and primarily for the fact that it was Rossiter's final television work, the actor dying between the broadcast of the second and third episodes. The series was revived two years later with Bruce Forsyth in the lead role, under the new title Slinger's Day. In Canada and United States, it was remade as Check it Out!, whilst in Sweden, comical duo Stefan & Krister starred in Full Frys, a TV series largely based on both prior iterations.

The Perishers

Follows the adventures of a group of four children, Wellington, Marlon, Maisie and Baby Grumpling. Plus their intellectual dog, Boot. The series is based on Maurice Dodd's long-running comic strip, The Perishers.

The Galton & Simpson Playhouse

A series of seven individual sitcom pilots from writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.

The Carnforth Practice

A six-part BBC2 drama about the Honourable Greville Carnforth, an aristocratic solicitor based in a small village community in the Lake District.

You Can't Win

You Can't Win was a 1966 British television series made by ITV as an adaptation of the novels Scenes from Provincial Life and Scenes from Married Life by William Cooper. It stars Ian McShane as protagonist Joe Lunn, an English provincial grammar school physics teacher in 1939 who later moves to London and into the English establishment.

Alice in Wonderland

Anglia Television's 5 episode adaption of Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland was inspired and based upon an early production put on by the famous Da Silva Puppets group at the Norwich Puppet Theatre.

The Losers

The Losers is a British sitcom that aired on ITV in 1978. Written by Alan Coren, it stars Leonard Rossiter and Alfred Molina. The Losers was made for ITV by ATV and was produced and directed by Joe McGrath. In The Losers, Rossiter plays Sydney Foskett, a wrestling promoter who discovers a young new wrestler called "The Butcher", played by Molina, who Foskett ensures loses to get the public's love.