Laurence Payne

Ben-Hur

In ancient Judea, a Jewish aristocrat opposing Roman occupation of his homeland reunites with his childhood friend, now a Roman commander — setting in motion a saga of betrayal, adventure, tragedy, revenge, and faith.

A Matter of Life and Death

A British wartime aviator who cheats death must argue for his life before a celestial court, hoping to prolong his fledgling romance with an American girl.

Train of Events

A train disaster is told in four short stories to give character studies of the people involved, how it will affect them and how they deal with it.

Ill Met by Moonlight

Led by British officers, partisans on Crete plan to kidnap the island's German commander and smuggle him to Cairo to embarrass the occupiers.

Barabbas

Epic account of the thief Barabbas, who was pardoned for his crimes and spared crucifixion when Pilate offered the Israelites a choice to pardon Barabbas or Jesus. Struggling with his spirituality, Barabbas goes through many ordeals leading him to the gladiatorial arena, where he tries to win his freedom and confront his inner demons, ultimately becoming a follower of the man who was crucified in his place.

Girl in the Headlines

Called in to investigate the murder of a model, Chief Inspector Birkett and Sergeant Saunders soon discover that the victim had been leading somewhat of an immoral life.

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo falls in love with the beautiful young Juliet, but their warring families spell tragedy for the lovers.

The Singer Not the Song

A Roman Catholic priest defies a Mexican bandit whose gang kills villagers in alphabetical order.

The Queen's Guards

Captains John Fellows and Henry Wynne-Walton finish their Army training at Sandhurst Military Academy and are sent to the Middle-East. John is to lead a parachute battalion while Henry is put in charge of a platoon of armoured cars of the Household Cavalry. John is constantly being told by his father, an ex-Guards officer that he is not as good as his brother who was killed during the war.

Doctor Who: The Two Doctors

Suddenly gripped by a memory of being executed in his second incarnation, the Sixth Doctor travels to Seville to save his past self and ensure his own existence in his present.

The Third Alibi

A composer (Laurence Payne) is stuck in a middle-class marriage and finds that his affair with his wife's half-sister (Jane Griffiths) has resulted in a pregnancy. When his wife refuses to give him a divorce he hatches a murder scheme that is too clever by half.

The Crawling Eye

A United Nations investigator crosses paths with a pair of psychic sisters on his way to Trollenberg observatory in the Swiss Alps, which has been plagued by a series of mountaineer disappearances that may be related to a radioactive cloud at the mountain's south face.

Doctor Who: The Gunfighters

Arriving in the town of Tombstone, the First Doctor finds himself involved with gunmen out to kill Doc Holliday...

Vampire Circus

After a spate of murders, the villagers of Schtettel kill the depraved perpetrator, Count Mitterhouse. Fifteen years later the Circus of Nights appeared in the plague-ridden village and its performers include Mitterhouse's mistress, children and cousins. They have come to Schtettel to fulfil the Count's last words, an evil, vicious curse of death and destruction on those who participated in his impaling. The children of Schtettel become the targets for a brutal and devastating revenge as the Vampire Circus rehearses for its most deadly performance.

Mystery Submarine

A British convoy is trying to elude a group of German U-Boats.

Dangerous Exile

Dangerous Exile is a 1957 British historical drama film directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and starring Louis Jourdan, Belinda Lee, Anne Heywood and Richard O'Sullivan. It concerns the fate of Louis XVII, who died in 1795 as a boy, yet was popularly believed to have escaped from his French revolutionary captors.

Doctor Who: The Leisure Hive

Romana fancies a proper holiday and convinces the Doctor to visit the leisure planet Argolis, where a takeover by the Argolins' historic enemy is underway.

The Tell-Tale Heart

A man's sanity is a point of contention as he confesses to murdering an elderly man, driven by the victim's pale blue 'vulture eye', culminating in guilt-induced auditory hallucinations of the victim's beating heart.

Psy-Warriors

Three British soldiers are caught and interrogated by terrorists, unaware that they're in fact being put through mind-unhinging training as part of a new phase of military research modelling itself on the US example.

Crosstrap

In this thriller, two gangs of jewel thieves battle it out in a deserted cottage. Murder ensues when the owners of the cabin show up.

Romeo and Juliet

Premiering on BBC as a part of their Sunday-Night Theatre program, this 1955 adaptation of Shakespeare's classic play closely follows the original text. The Montagues and Capulets, two families of Renaissance Italy, have hated each other for years, but the son of one family and the daughter of the other fall desperately in love and secretly marry.

The Court Martial of Major Keller

Lawrence Payne stars as Major Kellor, a well respected and decorated officer who is being court-martialled for the murder of his commanding officer Colonel Winch. The facts of the case are shrouded by the mayhem of war and the effects that fear, pressure and duty have upon a soldier. Did the Major covet the Colonel's wife? Was the Major ambitious and kill Winch to secure a promotion? Or had the Colonel cracked under the pressure of an illustrious battle career? To prove his innocence Major Keller must rely on the evidence and testimonies given in court, however when he himself is the only witness, his word may not be good enough to win his freedom.

One Deadly Owner

A fashion model buys a Rolls-Royce. What she doesn't know is that it's haunted.

Doctor Who

The adventures of The Doctor, a time-traveling humanoid alien known as a Time Lord. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, The Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right many wrongs.

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.

The Saint

Simon Templar is The Saint, a handsome, sophisticated, debonair, modern-day Robin Hood who recovers ill-gotten wealth and redistributes it to those in need.

Tales of the Unexpected

A British television anthology of stories, often with sinister and wryly comedic undertones, and a twist at the end. With early episodes written and presented by Roald Dahl, the series featured a plethora of big name guest stars.

Maigret

BBC series based on the novels by Georges Simenon which starred Rupert Davies as Inspector Maigret, a French police detective who preferred to watch and listen in order to solve crimes. The series ran from 1960-63 on British television.

Thriller

Thriller is a British television series, originally broadcast in the UK from 1973 to 1976. It is an anthology series: each episode has a self-contained story and its own cast. As the title suggests, each story is a thriller of some variety, from tales of the supernatural to down-to-earth whodunits.

The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes

An anthology series produced by Thames Television, comprised of short mystery, suspense or crime adaptations featuring, as the title suggests, detectives who were literary contemporaries of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.

Interpol Calling

The adventures of Interpol policemen Duval and Mornay as they fought against international drug-running, homicide, robbery and forgery.

The Main Chance

The Main Chance was a British television series which first aired on ITV between 1969,1970,1972 and 1975. A drama, it depicts the sudden transformation in the life of solicitor David Main who relocates from London to Leeds.

Lady Killers

Compelling crime anthology looks at some of Britain's most notorious murder trials, in which both male and female defendants stood accused of the murder of women. Presented by Robert Morley, seven hour-long dramas reconstruct sensational trials which shocked Britain, offering in-depth analyses of individuals' motives and methods.

Shakespeare: The Animated Tales

An animated adaptation of twelve of Shakespeare's best-known plays. The series was produced by S4C for the BBC, but animated by some of the foremost artists of Soyuzmultfilm, the former Soviet Union's main animation studio. Each 26-minute play is directed by a different animator, in a wide variety of styles: cel animation for Macbeth, stop-motion puppets in Twelfth Night, and paint on glass for Hamlet.

Cribb

Victorian England, the late 1800s: Detective Sergeant Daniel Cribb of the newly formed Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is determined to remove crime from the streets of London using the latest detection methods.

Colonel March of Scotland Yard

Colonel March of The Department of Queer Complaints investigates unusual cases, locked-room murders, and mysteries concerning the supernatural.

The Sandbaggers

The Sandbaggers is a British television drama series about men and women on the front lines of the Cold War. Set contemporaneously with its original broadcast on ITV in 1978 and 1980, The Sandbaggers examines the effect of the espionage game on the personal and professional lives of British and American intelligence specialists.

On Trial

A series of real trials from British history, famous and notorious, dramatised from the court records.

Tender Touches

A very relatable soap opera wherein a love triangle leads to the ultimate discovery of self.