Michael Williams

Angel Voices

It is the summer of 1963: the year of the Beatles and wild dances like the Hully Gully. Tommy Bray's choirboys set off on their annual trip to Blackpool, but Tommy Bray fears that his beloved choir may not survive the temptations of the time.

Tea with Mussolini

In 1930s fascist Italy, adolescent Luca just lost his mother. His father, a callous businessman, sends him to be taken care of by British expatriate Mary Wallace. Mary and her cultured friends - including artist Arabella, young widow Elsa, and archaeologist Georgie - keep a watchful eye over the boy. But the women's cultivated lives take a dramatic turn when Allied forces declare war on Mussolini.

The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade

In Charenton Asylum, the Marquis de Sade directs a play about Jean Paul Marat's death, using the patients as actors. Based on 'The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade', a 1963 play by Peter Weiss.

Henry V

In 1415, in the midst of the Hundred Years' War, the young King Henry V of England embarks on the conquest of France.

Nothing Like a Dame

BBC Arena's documentary on the Dames of British Theatre and film featuring Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench and Joan Plowright on screen together for the first time as they reminisce over a long summer weekend in a house Joan once shared with Sir Laurence Olivier.

Educating Rita

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.

Enigma

Five highly-trained KGB agents are sent to the west to assassinate several Soviet dissidents. In order to stop the diabolical plot, an American agent must infiltrate Soviet intelligence and obtain information from a Russian computer.

Happy Christmas, I Love You

It is Christmas Eve. Bruce and Renee speak to us from the appropriate corners of their home and we discover that, after 23 years of marriage, they know absolutely nothing about each other.

Angel Voices

It is the summer of 1963: the year of the Beatles and wild dances like the Hully Gully. Tommy Bray's choirboys set off on their annual trip to Blackpool, but Tommy Bray fears that his beloved choir may not survive the temptations of the time.

Tea with Mussolini

In 1930s fascist Italy, adolescent Luca just lost his mother. His father, a callous businessman, sends him to be taken care of by British expatriate Mary Wallace. Mary and her cultured friends - including artist Arabella, young widow Elsa, and archaeologist Georgie - keep a watchful eye over the boy. But the women's cultivated lives take a dramatic turn when Allied forces declare war on Mussolini.

The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade

In Charenton Asylum, the Marquis de Sade directs a play about Jean Paul Marat's death, using the patients as actors. Based on 'The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade', a 1963 play by Peter Weiss.

Henry V

In 1415, in the midst of the Hundred Years' War, the young King Henry V of England embarks on the conquest of France.

Nothing Like a Dame

BBC Arena's documentary on the Dames of British Theatre and film featuring Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench and Joan Plowright on screen together for the first time as they reminisce over a long summer weekend in a house Joan once shared with Sir Laurence Olivier.

Educating Rita

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.

Enigma

Five highly-trained KGB agents are sent to the west to assassinate several Soviet dissidents. In order to stop the diabolical plot, an American agent must infiltrate Soviet intelligence and obtain information from a Russian computer.

Happy Christmas, I Love You

It is Christmas Eve. Bruce and Renee speak to us from the appropriate corners of their home and we discover that, after 23 years of marriage, they know absolutely nothing about each other.

The Comedy of Errors

The Royal Shakespeare Company act (and sing and dance!) Shakespeare's play about two sets of identical twins, separated at birth and brought together by circumstance.

Tell Me Lies

Adapted and directed by Peter Brook from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s ‘production-in-progress US’, this long-unseen agitprop drama-doc – shot in London in 1967 and released only briefly in the UK and New York at the height of the Vietnam War – remains both thought-provoking and disturbing. A theatrical and cinematic social comment on US intervention in Vietnam, Brook’s film also reveals a 1960s London where art, theatre and political protest actively collude and where a young Glenda Jackson and RSC icons such as Peggy Ashcroft and Paul Scofield feature prominently on the front line. Multi-layered scenarios staged by Brook combine with newsreel footage, demonstrations, satirical songs and skits to illustrate the intensity of anti-war opinion within London’s artistic and intellectual community.

Dead Cert

As a surprise, two horse owners decide to ride their animals themselves in a steeplechase. But Bill Davidson's horse "Admiral" behaves weirdly, and falls hard after an obstacle. Bill dies from his injuries. His friend Alan York suspects the animal was doped by unscrupulous bookies and starts to investigate. He doesn't know how serious his opponents are, and that he's in danger to suffer the exact same fate as his friend.

Ice Age

' You should have thrown the hand-grenade.' ' I've still got it!' An unexpected stranger arrives at the old people's home in Norway where a famous writer is kept in confinement after the war. Should he be brought to trial for collaborating with the Nazis? Or will the young partisan carry through his original plan to kill him?

The Search for Alexander the Great

Friends, contemporaries and even enemies of Alexander the Great gather in a tent to tell his tale through their eyes.

Can You Hear Me Thinking?

Real life husband and wife Judi Dench and Michael Williams star in this Screen One film as the parents of teenage boy diagnosed with schizophrenia

Blunt

Anthony Blunt is an eminent Cambridge-educated art historian who is also working as a spy for the Soviet Union. In love with double agent Guy Burgess, he helps Burgess get yet another treasonous British agent to safety in Moscow. When Burgess unexpectedly defects as well, the government becomes suspicious of Blunt, but investigators have trouble believing such a refined and aristocratic gentleman would ever betray his nation and his class.

Brambly Hedge: Classic Collection

Four stories featuring the mice of Brambly Hedge. In 'The Secret Staircase' Primrose and Wilfred set off looking for costumes for the Midwinter celebrations. Wilfred is determined to follow in the pawprints of his exploring hero in 'The High Hills'. In 'Sea Story' the mice run out of salt. And, living in the mill with three little babies is not easy for Poppy in 'Poppy's Babies'.

Brambly Hedge: The High Hills

Wilfred's Rafting Expedition: Wilfred joins Mr Apple and the Weavers to the High Hills. Mr Apple and Wilfred do some exploring, getting lost and stuck up ridges. Primrose and the Weavers search for them.

Screen Two

Series of single made-for-television dramas.

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.

Screen One

Anthology drama series.

Elizabeth R

This historical mini-series documents the reign of Elizabeth I with each episode focusing on one dramatic period in the lengthy reign of the Virgin Queen, including her ascension to the throne, her various marital intrigues, her problems with her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, and the threatened invasion of the Spanish Armada.

The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns

In a land of myth and magic, a forbidden love affair ignites an ancient war between the leprechauns and the trooping fairies. Jack Woods is appointed to restore harmony...but will peace prevail before the unthinkable happens?

A Dance to the Music of Time

A Dance to the Music of Time is a four-part adaptation of Anthony Powell's 12-volume novel sequence that aired on Channel 4 in 1997. The series is a sharp, comic portrait of upper-class and bohemian England, spanning almost a century, from the early 1920s to modern times.

Playing Shakespeare

John Barton holds a master class in how to play Shakespeare, using members of the RSC doing scenes, sonnets, and commentary as prime examples.

A Fine Romance

A Fine Romance is a British situation comedy starring husband-and-wife team Judi Dench and Michael Williams. Dench's sister was played by Susan Penhaligon. It was produced by London Weekend Television and written by Bob Larbey. It was first broadcast on 8 November 1981. It lasted for 26 episodes over four series; the final episode being broadcast on 17 February 1984. The series takes its name from a song in the 1936 film Swing Time, starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, which Dench recorded as the theme music. The series was nominated for nine BAFTA British Academy Television Awards and a winner of two, both for Dench's performance in 1982 and 1985.

Charlie Chalk

Charlie Chalk is a stop motion animation series produced in 1987 in the United Kingdom by Woodland Animations, from the creators of Postman Pat and the two other children's television programmes that are Gran and Bertha.

Love in a Cold Climate

The unconventional lives and loves of the family of Lord Alconleigh, dominated by the eccentric, irascible Uncle Matthew. The story encompasses the economic and political crises of the Thirties and the upheavals of the Second World War.

September Song

When his wife dies, Ted Fenwick joins his friend Billy Balsam, a comedian, in Blackpool, where he meets Roxy.

Armchair Theatre

Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series of single plays that ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation, and later by Thames Television from mid-1968.

The Search for Alexander the Great

Friends, contemporaries and even enemies of Alexander the Great gather in a tent to tell his tale through their eyes.

The Enchanted World of Brambly Hedge

The Enchanted World of Brambly Hedge is a stop-motion animated series based on the Brambly Hedge books by Jill Barklem. The show was produced by Reader's Digest Video and Hit Entertainment; in the United States, episodes began airing on the Starz premium channel in 1997.