Willy Russell

Rita, a witty 26-year-old hairdresser, wants to 'discover' herself, so she joins the Open University where she meets the disillusioned professor of literature, Dr. Frank Bryant. His marriage has failed, his new girlfriend is having an affair with his best friend and he can't get through the day without downing a bottle or two of whisky. What Frank needs is a challenge... and along comes Rita.

Wondering what has happened to herself, now feeling stagnant and in a rut, Shirley Valentine finds herself regularly talking to the wall while preparing her husband's chips and egg. When her best friend wins a trip-for-two to Greece Shirley begins to see the world, and herself, in a different light.

Julie Walters stars in new sketches by four accomplished writers who helped make her famous.

Linda is out on her hen night while her fiance Dave is out on his stag night. Linda is having major doubts about getting married. Both groups end up at the same club, only to discover that its band is fronted by her ex-boyfriend - and the love of her life - Peter. Linda has to decide: does she stay and settle down with Dave, like her friends want her to, or does she chuck it all in and run away with Peter?

A World War II vet sets out in 1948 to avenge the death of his wife at the hands of Nazis. His targets are four Germans, a Sicilian, and a Hungarian who committed the atrocities. He is aided by a CIA operative, who has another agenda. One of the targeted men is being groomed by the US to become the West German chancellor and is to be protected. Along the way, a third person joins the team.

Trouble flares in a Liverpool terraced street when one man refuses to join in and paint his house in the local football teams colours. A tale of victimization and mob rule.

Fraternal twins, Mickey and Eddie, were separated at birth, with one raised in a wealthy family, the other in a poor family. The different environments take the twins to opposite ends of the social spectrum.

Billy gets a job on a farm while suspended from school. The fields offer an escape from his tower block, but his friends think he's daft. Billy can see a different kind of life ahead, doing a job he could really enjoy-but events conspire against him.

Written by Willy Russell, Lies tells the story of a young lad, blessed with enterprise and a dream of living in Cornwall, trying to make something of himself. But, finding himself constantly let down by adults, can he realise that dream?

When a teacher takes a group of troubled school children on a school trip to Conwy in Wales, the children understand life outside of Liverpool.

Written by Willy Russell, Break In tells the story of three boys who break in to their school during the holidays to retrieve a confiscated football.

Terry is leaving school with few prospects in his native Liverpool. His father finds him a job in a local warehouse but Terry has other ideas. Living in a dream world promulgated by a radio DJ to whom he listens constantly. Terry is convinced there is something better and he makes an angry escape bid.

Three biscuit factory girls mix with students at a party.. Boozing, smoking, jaunty cross-talk and invitations to come to bed follow.

Dennis feels he's had enough of the cozy middle-class life in the suburbia. Before the middle-age (and John Denver's records) puts him down he wants to break away from everything. Unfortunately his wife Pauline and their friends William and Jane don't make it easy for him. To make matters worse, there seems to be some young punks vandalizing the neighborhood, but it's definitely not the ones everyone seem to believe it is.

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 South Bank Show is a television arts magazine show produced by ITV between 1978 and 2010. A new series began on Sky Arts from 27 May 2012. Presented by Melvyn Bragg, the show aims to bring both high art and popular culture to a mass audience.

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.

One Summer is a 1983 British television drama serial written by Willy Russell and directed by Gordon Flemyng. It stars David Morrissey and Spencer Leigh as two 16 year old Liverpool boys from broken homes who escape from their lives by running away to Wales one summer. It also starred James Hazeldine and Ian Hart. The series was shown in five 50-minute episodes on Channel 4 from 7 August to 4 September 1983. It was later repeated on ITV in April 1985.