Johnny Speight

Double Bill

In the first part, The Compartment, an insane man boards a quiet railway coach and starts to annoy a patient man trying to read a paper with incessant small talk in an increasingly menacing manner until he finally pulls out a gun and screaming class hatred bile, humiliates the man until his stop is reached. In part two, Playmates, he breaks into a lonely house and proceeds to terrorise a spinster woman who lives there.

Top Class People

1960s working-class stars reveal their thoughts and feelings upon meeting royalty and how accents are now less of a hindrance in establishing credentials.

Mr. Topaze

Mr. Topaze is an unassuming school teacher in an unassuming small French town, who is honest to a fault. He is fired when he refuses to give a passing grade to a bad student, the grandson of a wealthy baroness. Castel Benac, a government official who runs a crooked financial business on the side, is persuaded by his mistress, Suzy, a musical comedy actress, to hire Mr. Topaze as the front man for his business. Gradually, Topaze becomes a rapacious financier who sacrifices his honesty for success and, in a final stroke of business bravado, fires Benac and acquires Suzy in the deal. An old friend and colleague, Tamise questions him and tells Topaze that what he now says and practices indicates there are no more honest men.

French Dressing

A deck-chair attendant at a British resort promotes a film festival featuring a French sexpot.

The Alf Garnett Saga

Alf and his family have been moved from their East End home into a high-rise council estate. Alf is not only having trouble coping with his new 'home', but also with the long commute to work, the long walk to the corner pub, his long-suffering wife Else, rebellious daughter Rita, and her philandering, constantly unemployed husband Mike.

The Plank

A slapstick comedy about two workmen delivering planks to a building site. This is done with music and a sort of "wordless dialogue" which consists of a few mumbled sounds to convey the appropriate emotion.

Privilege

Britain's biggest pop singer, Steven Shorter, receives unwavering adulation and possesses total control over his rabid fans, which includes nearly the entire population. Yet Shorter is not an autonomous performer -- he is little more than a puppet for the government, promoting whatever agenda they see fit. When a beautiful artist, Vanessa Ritchie, is commissioned to paint his portrait, she pushes Shorter to question his obedience to his manipulative handlers.

Rhubarb

A Police Inspector and a vicar play a round of golf. The Inspector has a Constable help him to cheat, while the vicar has other ideas...

Double Bill

In the first part, The Compartment, an insane man boards a quiet railway coach and starts to annoy a patient man trying to read a paper with incessant small talk in an increasingly menacing manner until he finally pulls out a gun and screaming class hatred bile, humiliates the man until his stop is reached. In part two, Playmates, he breaks into a lonely house and proceeds to terrorise a spinster woman who lives there.

Top Class People

1960s working-class stars reveal their thoughts and feelings upon meeting royalty and how accents are now less of a hindrance in establishing credentials.

Mr. Topaze

Mr. Topaze is an unassuming school teacher in an unassuming small French town, who is honest to a fault. He is fired when he refuses to give a passing grade to a bad student, the grandson of a wealthy baroness. Castel Benac, a government official who runs a crooked financial business on the side, is persuaded by his mistress, Suzy, a musical comedy actress, to hire Mr. Topaze as the front man for his business. Gradually, Topaze becomes a rapacious financier who sacrifices his honesty for success and, in a final stroke of business bravado, fires Benac and acquires Suzy in the deal. An old friend and colleague, Tamise questions him and tells Topaze that what he now says and practices indicates there are no more honest men.

French Dressing

A deck-chair attendant at a British resort promotes a film festival featuring a French sexpot.

The Alf Garnett Saga

Alf and his family have been moved from their East End home into a high-rise council estate. Alf is not only having trouble coping with his new 'home', but also with the long commute to work, the long walk to the corner pub, his long-suffering wife Else, rebellious daughter Rita, and her philandering, constantly unemployed husband Mike.

The Plank

A slapstick comedy about two workmen delivering planks to a building site. This is done with music and a sort of "wordless dialogue" which consists of a few mumbled sounds to convey the appropriate emotion.

Privilege

Britain's biggest pop singer, Steven Shorter, receives unwavering adulation and possesses total control over his rabid fans, which includes nearly the entire population. Yet Shorter is not an autonomous performer -- he is little more than a puppet for the government, promoting whatever agenda they see fit. When a beautiful artist, Vanessa Ritchie, is commissioned to paint his portrait, she pushes Shorter to question his obedience to his manipulative handlers.

Rhubarb

A Police Inspector and a vicar play a round of golf. The Inspector has a Constable help him to cheat, while the vicar has other ideas...

Till Death Us Do Part

Based on the hit sitcom of the same name; racist, anti-Socialist Tory Alf Garnett and his long-suffering wife Else raise their daughter Rita during the Blitz.

If There Weren't Any Blacks You'd Have to Invent Them

Set in a cemetery, the film tells the story of a young man whom a blind man wrongly imagines to be black, and explores the nature of human prejudice.

One Pair of Eyes - No, But Seriously

Marty Feldman, for many years a successful comedy writer before turning to performing, explores humour through the people who create it, comparing their traditions, motivations and anxieties with his own. Among the people Marty talks to are Peter Sellers, Eric Morecambe, Peter Brough and Archie Andrews, Dudley Moore and Barry Took.

Black and White in Colour

A two part documentary that details the contribution of black and Asian people to television history from the birth of television in 1936 to 1992. Interviewees include: Pearl Connor, Thomas Baptiste, Lenny Henry, Norman Beaton, Horace Ové, Carmen Munroe, and Stuart Hall.

Oooh Er Missus! The Frankie Howerd Story

Documentary about the life of Frankie Howerd, with help from friends and colleagues and including highlights from his TV and film career.

An Audience with Alf Garnett

In front of a celebrity audience Johnny Speight's bigoted comic creation Alf Garnett (played by Warren Mitchell) vents his spleen on all manner of sensitive subjects. He makes political correctness take a back seat as he gives his opinions on race relations, football, life, the government, sex, drugs and much more.

All in the Family

Archie Bunker, a working class bigot, constantly squabbles with his family over the important issues of the day.

The Wednesday Play

An anthology series of television plays which aired on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured.

Archie Bunker's Place

Archie Bunker's Place is an American sitcom originally broadcast on the CBS network, conceived in 1979 as a spin-off and continuation of All in the Family. While not as popular as its predecessor, the show maintained a large enough audience to last for four seasons, until its cancellation in 1983. In its first season, the show performed so well that it knocked Mork & Mindy out of its new Sunday night time slot.

Comedy Playhouse

Comedy Playhouse is a long-running British anthology series of one-off unrelated sitcoms that aired for 120 episodes from 1961 to 1975. Many episodes later graduated to their own series, including Steptoe and Son, Till Death Us Do Part, All Gas and Gaiters, The Liver Birds, Are You Being Served? and Last of the Summer Wine, which is the world's longest running sitcom, having run from January 1973 to August 2010.

Till Death Us Do Part

This English follows the East End working-class Garnett family, headed by patriarch Alf, a reactionary working-class man who wields racist and anti-Socialist views. His long-suffering wife Else manages to keep things in control... for the most part. Their progressive daughter Rita lives with them, as does her Irish husband Mike, who, with an array of liberal worldviews, often quarrels with his father-in-law. It inspired the American show "All In The Family" and several other international variations on the same theme.

Till Death...

This first follow-up to 'Till Death Do Us Part' follows Alf and Else Garnett retiring to Eastbourne, and their daughter Rita and grandson Michael Jr. trying to keep the racist, anti-Socialist Alf out of trouble.

In Sickness and in Health

This final follow-up to 'Till Death Us Do Part' follows an aged Alf Garnett, now dealing with his wife Else's declining health and mobility, as well as the challenges of navigating the social security system and other everyday situations.

One Pair of Eyes

A monthly series of highly personal documentary films in which individuals are given a platform to discuss issues close to their heart.

Spooner's Patch

Follows the daily antics of Woodley police station, where officers are more interested in taking bribes and doing little work than catching criminals. Inspector Spooner lives alone in a flat above the station and often had to deal with the messes created by his junior staff.

That Was The Week That Was

That Was the Week That Was, informally TWTWTW or TW3, is a satirical television comedy programme on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised, produced and directed by Ned Sherrin and presented by David Frost. An American version by the same name aired on NBC from 1964 to 1965, also featuring Frost. The programme is considered a significant element of the satire boom in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s. It broke ground in comedy through lampooning the establishment and political figures. Its broadcast coincided with coverage of the politically charged Profumo affair and John Profumo, the politician at the centre of the affair, became a target for derision. TW3 was first broadcast on Saturday 24 November 1962.

Curry and Chips

Curry and Chips is a British sitcom broadcast in 1969 which was produced by London Weekend Television for the ITV network. Set on a factory floor of 'Lillicrap Ltd', it starred a blacked up Spike Milligan as an Asian immigrant who went by the name of Kevin O'Grady. It also featured Eric Sykes as the foreman, Norman Rossington as the shop steward, and other regulars were Kenny Lynch, and Sam Kydd. The series was written by Till Death Us Do Part writer Johnny Speight, but based on idea by Milligan. It was the first LWT sitcom to be made in colour, and all episodes still exist.

Lost Sitcoms

British classic Lost Sitcoms, recreated by the BBC, from shows: Hancock’s Half Hour, Steptoe And Son and Till Death Us Do Part - each with a brand new stellar cast

The Thoughts of Chairman Alf

Produced in the late 1990s, this series saw Alf Garnett Johnny Speight's legendary sitcom creation who remained an acerbic barometer of contemporary mores and morals for four decades wrestling with the pressing issues of the day in typically controversial fashion! Featuring wickedly funny scripts from Speight who delighted in attacking all kinds of prejudice with razor-sharp satire The Thoughts of Chairman Alf stars Warren Mitchell as the infamously bigoted East Ender first introduced in the BBC's Till Death Us Do Part, who over six mock-Q&A-style shows is given another chance to air his dubious philosophy only partially curtailed by late '90s political correctness...