Pauline Quirke

A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man being mistreated by his "owner" as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of great intelligence and sensitivity. Based on the true story of Joseph Merrick (called John Merrick in the film), a severely deformed man in 19th century London.

Amy Dorrit spends her days earning money for the family and looking after her proud father who is a long term inmate of Marshalsea debtors' prison in London. Amy and her family's world is transformed when her employer's son, Arthur Clennam, returns from overseas to solve his family's mysterious legacy and discovers that their lives are interlinked.

A misfit teenage checkout operator has an unrequited crush on her supermarket manager. At the same shop's cuddly cartoon mascot seems to have come alive and is causing havoc. Created as an episode of Nigel Kneale’s “Beasts” horror anthology miniseries.

Siblings Maisie and Tony, along with their mother, gather for their sister Eileen's wedding. It is a joyous occasion, but through flashbacks, it becomes clear that the family was not always happy. Their father was physically abusive to his wife and left the children emotionally traumatized. As a result, the children have grown into unhappy adults, looking for love they didn't receive when they were young.

The horrors of World War I have robbed returning veteran Chris Baldry of his memory. The traumatized soldier doesn't even recognize his own wife, Kitty, or remember their years together. While Baldry attempts to cope with the unfamiliar surroundings of his own home, he seeks out the company of an old flame from his childhood, Margaret Grey. His amnesia also makes him a ready target for the affections of his older cousin, Jenny.

Science-fiction comedy: Junket, a schoolboy, borrows an apparatus invented by the absent-minded science master for transporting matter - and, by accident, makes it work...

A tough young girl lives with her aging grandfather near a cove on the coast of Cornwall. She supports herself and him by gathering seaweed to sell as fertilizer. A cocky young neighboring boy decides to help her with the work.

A young boy's dream of finding his dead father comes true when his father visits him as an angel. But things turn sour when he discovers that his father was not the hero he imagined him to be.

Gavin is 31 years old and still lives with his parents. He is awfully shy but before he knows it there are three women interested in him. Lady Minerva Munday has a casual way of life and lives in a basement, Joan is an over-sexed millionairess, married to a Greek architect. But Gavin prefers the ugly assistant in the barbershop.

A Headmistress steals from her own school. As a young girl Colleen McCabe asks a priest in confessional "What is sin?" Thirty years later she is found out for practising it. An ex-nun,she leaves the convent because she becomes disillusioned with spiritual matters and goes into teaching, being appointed headmistress of the John Rigby School in London. Along with a small coterie of chosen staff members to act as her spies,she misappropriates half a million pounds from school funds which she spends on luxury goods and a trip on the Orient Express. Meanwhile the school suffers,having to use ancient text books and pupils as cleaners. She is tried,although admitted to hospital for depression on the trial day, and sentenced to five years in jail, later reduced to four. The film alternates dramatized scenes of Colleen's misbehaviour with interviews with those who knew her.

A parent's grief has no bounds. Our Boy tells the moving and tragic story of one couple’s struggle to come to terms with the disappearance and death of their only son. Woody, Sonia and their son, Lee, live contentedly in West Ham, London. When Lee is killed in a hit-and-run everyone grieves but Woody’s grief has no limit. His best friend, Phil, counsels revenge, while in the view of the ambitious Detective Constable Spence, Woody himself is the prime suspect. Woody searches for a way to react with extraordinary and touching results. Features award-winning performances by Ray Winstone and Pauline Quirke.

Twenty years ago, three men set out on the longest walk of their lives. They vowed to repeat the walk, but this time they are joined by a forty year old wife and mother who is in the midst of a mid-life crisis.

Carrie's War is an adaptation of a 1973 children's novel by Nina Bawden, set during the Second World War and following two evacuees, Carrie and her younger brother Nick.

The late, great comedian Bob Monkhouse entertains a celebrity audience that includes Stephen Fry, Mandy Smith and Eamonn Holmes in this 1994 special. Watch him answer questions, tell funny tales and crack jokes.

'The Canterville Ghost' is one of the most popular choice for making a film in Oscar Wilde's works, and the original short story deserves the popularity. It is a witty spoof about a ghost and the 'haunted' mansion where a rich American family start to live. In this story, the family are not annoyed by the presence of the ghost; no, it is the ghost who is annoyed by the family who just refuse to be terrified. After all, why should we be scared by an old man wearing rusty coat of mail, whose best trick is to walk in the middle of night making big noises?

Eleanor seems normal enough to her parents and teachers. Why then has she disappeared?

Sixteen-year-old Otis loathes school. He wants to be a professional footballer, but is good at drawing, so his mother wants him to be a draughtsman. Then, a new sports teacher appears at his South London comprehensive school, and life starts to look a little more hopeful...

Clive decides he will go mad. Stark raving mad. His wife doesn't take him seriously, until Clive does something that makes her realise he means it.

"We were so close, we loved each other, we made a whole together. I feel cut in half." Meg struggles with the sudden death of her husband.

Jenny is an autistic teenager. Her father is concerned about her being withdrawn and hopes that employing her in his own business will bring her out of her shell. He also employs a new young assistant called Brian.

It's such a simple, natural thing to have a baby, thinks Mary. But she and husband Paul are preoccupied with their careers. Can their young neighbour Tessa help, or are the emotions around a new baby more complex than anyone had expected?

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.

Drama series about the staff and patients at Holby City Hospital's emergency department, charting the ups and downs in their personal and professional lives.

The lives of several families in the Yorkshire Dales revolve around a farm and the nearby village. With murders, affairs, lies, deceit, laughter and tears, it's all there in the village.

Irreverent comedy drama which follows the messy lives, loves, delirious highs and inevitable lows of a group of raucous teenage friends in Bristol.

The murder of a young boy in a small coastal town brings a media frenzy, which threatens to tear the community apart.

Celebrities scramble to compete in the kitchen. What culinary triumphs will they whisk up?

Birds of a Feather is a British sitcom that was broadcast on BBC One from 1989 until 1998 and on ITV from 2013. Starring Pauline Quirke, Linda Robson and Lesley Joseph, it was created by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, who also wrote some of the episodes along with many other writers. The first episode sees sisters Tracey Stubbs and Sharon Theodopolopodos brought together when their husbands are sent to prison for armed robbery. Sharon, who lived in an Edmonton council flat, moves into Tracey's expensive house in Chigwell, Essex. Their next-door neighbour, and later friend, Dorien Green is a middle-aged married woman who is constantly having affairs with younger men. In the later series the location is changed to Hainault. The series ended on Christmas Eve 1998 after a 9-year-run.

Angels is a BBC medical soap-opera which launched on 1st September 1975 and was the blue print for such medical soaps as Casualty, Holby City, plus daytime soap, Doctors. The medical soap focuses on different departments within Heath Green Hospital and was a highly successful continuing drama.

Softly, Softly is a British television drama series, produced by the BBC and screened on BBC 1 from January 1966. It centred around the work of regional crime squads, plain-clothes CID officers based in the fictional region of Wyvern, supposedly in the Bristol area of England.

Margaret Hale is a southerner from a country vicarage newly settled in the industrial northern town of Milton. In the shock of her move, she misjudges charismatic cotton mill-owner John Thornton, whose strength of purpose and passion are a match for her own pride and willfulness. When the workers of Milton call a strike, Margaret takes their side, and the two are brought into deeper conflict. As events spiral out of control, Margaret - to her surprise - begins to fall in love with Thornton...

In Victorian London, Louisa Leyton works her way up from servant to renowned cook to proprietress of the upper-class Bentinck Hotel in Duke Street, St James's.

A series of self-contained stories, each recounting a murder scene as seen from the chilling viewpoint of the killer. Explore the inner workings of a criminal's brain, revealing humanity at its darkest.

Shine on Harvey Moon! is a British comedy-drama series made by Central Television for ITV from 8 January 1982 to 23 August 1985 and briefly revived in 1995 by Meridian. This generally light-hearted series was created by comedy writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran. The series is set in the East End of London shortly after the Second World War. Upon being demobbed RAF serviceman Harvey Moon, played by Kenneth Cranham, returns home and finds his family involved in various troubles. His wife Rita, played by Maggie Steed, is not interested in resuming their relationship, and works in a seedy nightclub frequented by American servicemen. He becomes involved with the Labour Party and the union movement. The name of the series is a wordplay on the title of the popular 1908 song 'Shine On, Harvest Moon'. The first series was commissioned and recorded by ATV at their Elstree studios with the remaining series filmed at newly constructed facilities in Nottingham.

An anthology series of six contemporary plays from writers at relatively early stages in their careers.

A young man journeys from a difficult childhood to maturity, exploring social injustice, personal development, and the complexities of human relationships.

When the news is announced that a comet is on an unavoidable collision course with Earth, the most hilarious and unexpected chain of events imaginable is set in motion.

Maisie Raine was a drama series originally broadcast on BBC1 for 2 series from 28 July 1998 – 9 July 1999. Pauline Quirke took the lead role as DI Maisie Raine, an unorthodox detective whose hands on and down to earth approach was not always appreciated by her superiors. When she took on a case, she did it her way, regardless of whose toes she stepped on and who she offended. Each episode would see the team investigating a crime and often uncovering more about the perpetrators and the victims histories with DI Raine often becoming personally involved or bending the rules to get the results she wanted. Also starring alongside Quirke were Ian McElhinney, Steve John Shepherd, Rakie Ayola and Richard Graham.

Three kids. Three dads. One mum. April is a 39-year-old single mother living in Leicester, who has had three children by three different fathers. Richard, her husband since she was 18, is a plumber who still adores her. They separated years ago but never got round to a divorce. Eddie is a barman, with whom she had a fling nine years ago until, a week after moving in with him, she discovered they were both looking for Mr Right. Sunil followed, sexy, young and rich.

Shadows is a British Supernatural television anthology series produced by Thames Television for ITV between 1975 and 1978. Extending over three seasons, it featured ghost and horror dramas for children. Guest actors included John Nettleton, Gareth Thomas, Jenny Agutter, Pauline Quirke, Brian Glover, June Brown, Rachel Herbert, Jacqueline Pearce and Gwyneth Strong. The series was also notable for reviving the character of Mr. Stabs. Notable writers for the series included J. B. Priestley, Fay Weldon and PJ Hammond.

Rockliffe's Babies is a British television police procedural devised by Richard O'Keefe, and starring Ian Hogg as maverick Detective Sergeant Alan Rockliffe, who is assigned to train seven young recruits to the CID, all fresh out of uniform. Under his irascible guidance, it is hoped that they will blossom into full-blown detectives. But Rockliffe is human – so human that he makes more mistakes than the 'Babies' he's supposed to be training. A follow-up series, Rockliffe's Folly, follows Rockliffe through his relocation to Wessex, dealing with rural crimes as part of a new team of investigators. The seven episode third series proved to be the last, with many citing a change in the programme's formula for the heavy ratings decline. Many viewers stated that the success of the two Babies series came not from Rockliffe himself, but from the popular ensemble cast.

Beasts is a series of six television plays by Manx writer Nigel Kneale, unconnected save for a bestial horror theme, made by ATV for ITV in the United Kingdom and broadcast in 1976. The series avoids typical monster horror clichès, moreso focusing on psychological and supernatural themes.

Four girls share a flat together in London. Having nothing in common aside from their gender, they barely manage to co-exist.

Q.E.D. is a 1982 short-lived adventure series set in Edwardian England, starring Sam Waterston as Professor Quentin Everett Deverill. The Professor was a scientific detective in the mold of Sherlock Holmes, and the series had a smattering of what would later be called steampunk. In the show, the lead character was known primarily by his initials, Q.E.D; the reference here is that Q.E.D. usually stands for quod erat demonstrandum, a statement signalling the end of a proof. The show aired on the CBS network in the United States, and on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom.

DS Mary Jane Croft runs the under-resourced Missing Persons Unit.