Nigel Betts

Maurice Flitcroft, a dreamer and unrelenting optimist, managed to gain entry to The British Open Golf Championship qualifying in 1976 and subsequently shot the worst round in Open history, becoming a folk hero in the process.

A fresh and distinctive take on Charles Dickens’ semi-autobiographical masterpiece, The Personal History of David Copperfield, set in the 1840s, chronicles the life of its iconic title character as he navigates a chaotic world to find his elusive place within it. From his unhappy childhood to the discovery of his gift as a storyteller and writer, David’s journey is by turns hilarious and tragic, but always full of life, colour and humanity.

The autobiography of a Somalian nomad who was sold in marriage at 13, fled from Africa a while later to become finally an American supermodel and is now at the age of 38, the UN spokeswoman against female genital mutilation.

In the late 19th century, a brutal land baron slaughters a Roma clan, unleashing a curse on his family and village. In the days that follow, the townspeople are plagued by nightmares, the baron's son goes missing, and a boy is found murdered. The locals suspect a wild animal, but a visiting pathologist warns of a more sinister presence lurking in the woods.

Long time British game show host, Jonathan Robbins, finds himself questioning his mortality and legacy after the recent death of a close friend. When he comes across an unexpected letter from a young fan, he heads into the backwoods of America in search of deeper meaning for his life.

An 11-year-old boy's amazing ability to break wind leads him first to fame and then to death row, before it helps him to fulfill his ambition of becoming an astronaut.

Unable to sleep and haunted by a troubled past, a man seeks help and begins confiding his most private fears. But he never stops to wonder what might happen to everything he shares.

Based on a true story, Mrs. Ratcliffe's Revolution is the tale of a family from Bingley in Yorkshire, who defect to East Germany. Here they find a nightmare of rationing, censorship and the most spied upon people in history rather than the Marxist utopia they were expecting. But if they thought getting in was difficult wait until they try to get out.

Deep in the heart of the English countryside lies the enchanting village of Gladbury. Legend has it every 25 years an angel visits the village candlemaker and touches a single candle. Whoever lights this candle receives a miracle on Christmas Eve. But in 1890, at the dawn of the electric age, this centuries old legend may come to an end.

Henry Jekyll is a troubled man. His wife died of pneumonia. He wants his sister-in-law, but her father forbids any contact. And his experiments into the dual nature of man have yielded a personality-splitting drug that he has tested on himself, changing him into an uninhibited brute who seeks violent and undignified pleasures. Jekyll quickly becomes addicted to the sordid freedom induced by the drug. He can commit the most enjoyably revolting deeds, then return to his laboratory and use an antidote to change back to his original form, so that his lofty persona remains untarnished.

In this epic two-part finale, the Doctor comes face to face with the mysterious Missy, and an impossible choice is looming. With Cybermen on the streets of London, old friends unite against old enemies, and the Doctor takes to the air in a startling new role.

Intertwined story of the lives of two women; an Englishwoman suffering abuse from her violent husband, and a Russian poet serving hard labour because of her subversive work.

A bored little prince makes a poor rat hunter his whipping boy but after his pranks at the royal court almost causes a war with the neighbor king he runs away with the whipping boy to escape from his first spanking. After being in the real world his life will change making him a prince fit to rule.

France, 1813. Wellington orders Sharpe to join the dashing colonel Brand on a hazardous journey behind French enemy lines with the aim of blowing up an ammunition store. Sharpe's wife Jane becomes disillusioned with Sharpe's frequent absences. Left behind in the camp, she warms to the attentions of another admirer. Meanwhile, Sharpe is out in the mountains and is dangerously outnumbered, with with the French ranks closing in. He must risk his own life, however, to confront a far deadlier enemy on his own side.

Consumed with sadness after the death of his wife and subsequent rejection from his son, a widower, at the urging of his friends, opts to appear on a vulgar, wildly popular game show (for which his wife signed him up) and watches his life start to change for the better.

Lara is Palestinian and lives in London. She has everything she wants in her life: a husband, a son and a beautiful house in one of the best areas of the city. Nevertheless, her everyday life appears cold and grey, only brightened up by surreptitious sips of vodka. But one day, Inam, a sensual, resolute girl, knocks on her door. Lara seems to be transported back to her adolescence when she and Inam were close friends, and studied together in Ramallah. In Lara's astonished eyes we see a mixture of fear and desire towards the woman whom she had lost sight of. A deceptive tangle of memories which a trauma, a love affair and an experience with two Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem an re-surface. From a gripping, well structured emotional thriller that traces back their memories through recurrent flashbacks that take us to the West Bank in 1994, during the Intifada.

The Midlands, 1984. Two young lads are about to learn what it is to be a miner, to be accepted into the close camaraderie and initiated into a unique workplace where sweat, toil, collapsing roofs and explosions are all to be met with bawdy humour. London, 1984. A conflicted Tory MP, a brash American CEO and an eccentric maverick are the face of a radical Conservative government preparing to do battle with the most powerful workforce, the miners. As the two sides clash, the miners fight for their livelihoods and families, and the government for its vision of a free Britain. Together they change the fabric of the nation forever.

A young man, Stevie, awakes on a wasteland overlooking Bradford, still bleeding from a brutal attack that has left him with severe memory loss. Recent events are a total blank; his more distant memories are a blur. He slowly begins to piece together his identity: his name, his home, his family. At first it appears he returns to his former self but through a series of painful flashbacks and encounters, he comes to learn of the dark and disturbing events that led to his beating. Ashamed to learn of the person he has become – and the dangerous world he became mixed up in – Stevie realises he will have to pay. But at what price?

Cheery kids-TV characters of Pib and Pog lose their cool with one another, sparking a manic cartoon showdown between the two.

Mike Bartlett's play Albion, directed for the stage by Rupert Goold, is a tragicomic drama about national identity, family, passion and the disappointment of personal dreams. Filmed at London’s Almeida Theatre, the play is set in the garden of an English country house. The house has been bought by successful businesswoman Audrey Walters, who intends to restore the ruined garden to its former glory and create a memorial to the son she recently lost in a foreign war.

A coming of age story for a young grieving boy, who, upon finding letters from World War II, begins an adventure to track down the author, believing him to be a pirate.

A psychological thriller that follows a man's close encounter with the dark entity that haunts him.

The Doctor is a Time Lord: a 900 year old alien with 2 hearts, part of a gifted civilization who mastered time travel. The Doctor saves planets for a living—more of a hobby actually, and the Doctor's very, very good at it.

The peacefulness of the Midsomer community is shattered by violent crimes, suspects are placed under suspicion, and it is up to a veteran DCI and his young sergeant to calmly and diligently eliminate the innocent and ruthlessly pursue the guilty.

The story of Claire Randall, a married combat nurse from 1945 who is mysteriously swept back in time to 1743, where she is immediately thrown into an unknown world where her life is threatened. When she is forced to marry Jamie, a chivalrous and romantic young Scottish warrior, a passionate affair is ignited that tears Claire's heart between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

A brilliant but idiosyncratic British detective and his resourceful local team solve baffling murder mysteries on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie.

Father Brown is based on G. K. Chesterton's detective stories about a Catholic priest who doubles as an amateur detective in order to try and solve mysteries.

A sharp detective with a messy life, DCI Vera Stanhope patrols her “patch” of northeast England, pursuing the truth in cases of murder, kidnapping, and blackmail. Vera is obsessive about her work and faces the world with caustic wit, guile and courage.

Waterloo Road is a British television drama series set in a comprehensive school of the same name, first broadcast on BBC One on 9 March 2006, and concluding its original run on 9 March 2015. It was recommissioned in 2021, and resumed starting 9 January 2023. At the failing comprehensive school, and later academy of the same name, the professional and personal lives of the students and staff are examined. Affairs, scandals, blackmail and many, many headteachers. Who said education was easy?

Jack Frost is a gritty, dogged and unconventional detective with sympathy for the underdog and an instinct for moral justice who attracts trouble like a magnet. Despite some animosity with his superintendent, Norman “Horn-rimmed Harry” Mullett, Frost and his ever-changing roster of assistants manage to solve cases via his clever mind, good heart, and cool touch.

A security consultant hunts for a ruthless assassin. Equally obsessed with each other, they go head to head in an epic game of cat-and-mouse.

The heartwarming and humorous adventures of a young country vet in the Yorkshire Dales in the 1930s. A remake of the 1978 series.

Pie in the Sky is a British offbeat police comedy drama programme starring Richard Griffiths and Maggie Steed, created by Andrew Payne and first broadcast in five series on BBC1 between 13 March 1994 and 17 August 1997 as well as being syndicated on other channels in other countries, including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The series departs slightly from other police dramas in that the protagonist, Henry Crabbe, while still being an on-duty policeman, is also the head chef of the title restaurant set in the fictional town of Middleton and county of Westershire.

Two lovers are reunited after decades apart following a mutual misunderstanding.

Instead of spending her golden years lying down, the indomitable Hetty Wainthropp found her calling late in life. Combining common sense, her husband, and her pocketbook, this senior sleuth takes on all the cases the police deem too minor.

Six friends in their thirties navigate dating, sexual adventures, and mishaps on their quest to find love.

High-flying solicitor Jane Kennedy returns to the seaside town she left as a teenager to take up the post of coroner, becoming an advocate for the dead as she investigates sudden, violent or unexplained deaths.

Former police detective Jack Grayling, pursuing his dream of becoming a cabaret singer on a luxury Mediterranean cruise ship, investigates a series of murders on board with the help of the ship's first officer, Kate Woods.

The Afternoon Play is a British television anthology series of standalone contemporary dramas aired during the afternoons of 2003–07 on BBC One, featuring well-known actors in one-off stories. A daytime drama strand showcasing a variety of genres, from comedy to mystery, it was part of a long tradition of afternoon plays on BBC Radio 4, which would go on to influence the television version.

Grease Monkeys is a BBC comedy-drama created by Harwant Bains, broadcast for two 10-episode series from 2003 to 2004. Grand Trunk Garage is owned by patriarch Mo, who spends most of his time worrying about daughter Rita, an ace mechanic more obsessed with auto than fashion, makeup or finding a nice boy to settle down with. Mo's son Dave—a sexually irrepressible, irresponsible minor criminal—runs the sales side of the business... mostly into the ground. Mo also has to contend with the ghost of his dead wife and a talking dog. And this is only the family — wait til you meet the friends!

Dramatizing one of the most infamously notorious and shocking serial killer cases in the world, the hunt for Peter Sutcliffe, commonly dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper, between October 1975 and January 1981, South Yorkshire police undertook the biggest manhunt in British criminal history. The search for Sutcliffe lasted five years, involved over a thousand officers and changed the way the British police worked forever.

Tortured thespian Steven Toast relocates to the ultimate actor's playground - Hollywood. Surely this time he will get the adulation he so richly deserves.

Coal Hill School has been a feature of Doctor Who since the first episode, but now we get to see the day-to-day adventures of the students coping with intrusions from space and time.

Two hard-up strangers stumble across a haul of cocaine on a shipwrecked boat. After agreeing to sell it and split the cash, they become entangled with police, masked hitmen, and a sharp-suited gangster known as 'The Tailor'.

Ann Ming is distraught when her 22-year-old daughter Julie goes missing. The police suggest that Julie must have fled to London to reunite with Julie's estranged husband, but Ann knows that Julie would never leave 5-year-old Kevin behind.

A chilling and bloody legal thriller that explores the line between law and justice. Will Burton, a talented junior barrister of peerless intellect and winning charm, specialises in spiriting people out of tight legal corners. He is in high demand as he has never lost a case. But when his talents acquit the notorious prime suspect in an horrific murder trial, that brilliance comes back to bite him with unexpected and chilling results, not to mention a shocking twist.