Cold Comfort Farm

Cold Comfort Farm 1995

6.66

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

The Naked Civil Servant

The Naked Civil Servant 1975

6.70

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

Fox

Fox 1980

1.00

The thirteen-part series recounted the lives of the titular Fox family, who lived in Clapham in South London and had gangland connections.

1980

Macbeth

Macbeth 1979

7.40

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

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

Danny the Champion of the World

Danny the Champion of the World 1989

6.20

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

Murphy's Stroke

Murphy's Stroke 1980

6.50

The horse Gay Future is at the centre of an Irish betting syndicate in 1974 which saw trainer Antony Collins present a poor performing horse at his stables. The betting stakes were subsequently raised, before the real horse was entered in the race.

1980

Carry on Christmas

Carry on Christmas 1969

6.20

Ebenezer Scrooge is a misery on Christmas, not allowing people money or doing anything to share Christmas cheer around his employees or acquaintances. While Scrooge is visited by three ghosts we see how his penny pinching has affected those around him.

1969

A Murder of Quality

A Murder of Quality 1991

5.48

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

Selling Hitler

Selling Hitler 1991

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.

1991

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

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

Dracula

Dracula 1968

1

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

Lorna Doone

Lorna Doone 1990

6.00

A feisty 17th-century Scotswoman falls in love with a despised landowner, to the dismay of her father.

1990

The Shadow-Line

The Shadow-Line 1976

6.00

Andrzej Wajda's English-language film of a novella by Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, aka Joseph Conrad, about a young man in his first command as a sea captain. A series of crises prove incredibly difficult for his new authority, for the sea is curiously becalmed and the crew is weakened by feverish malaria. When the first mate's fear convinces many that the ship is haunted and cursed by the malevolent spirit of the previous captain, the young man must cope with their superstition as well as the conspicuous absence of much-needed medicine.

1976

Saigon: Year Of The Cat

Saigon: Year Of The Cat 1983

4.60

The year is 1974, and Barbara Dean (Judi Dench), a British assistant manager in a foreign bank in Saigon, begins a relationship with American Bob Chesneau (Frederic Forrest). She quickly realises that he works for the CIA and he knows that the fall of South Vietnam is very near.

1983

Schindler

Schindler 1983

8.10

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

Chocky

Chocky 1984

1

Matthew Gore is an intelligent boy chosen by a mysterious extraterrestrial visitor to be a source of information about life on Earth. As his schoolwork and artistic talent improve dramatically he arouses the suspicion of powerful groups who wish to tap into the amazing fund of knowledge to which he is now party.

1984

Chocky's Challenge

Chocky's Challenge 1986

5.50

Chocky hopes, with Matthew and Albertine's help, to help the human race discover cosmic power, which unlike Earth's finite natural resources, will sustain them for as long as the universe itself exists. But their knowledge has aroused a great deal of interest from the military, and they are willing to take drastic action if they don't get what they want.

1986