Eric Porter

An international assassin known as ‘The Jackal’ is employed by disgruntled French generals to kill President Charles de Gaulle, with a dedicated gendarme on the assassin’s trail.

Set in German-occupied Norway, resistance fighter Knut Straud enlists the reluctant physicist Rolf Pedersen in an effort to destroy the German heavy water production plant in rural Telemark.

In the year 180 A.D. Germanic tribes are about to invade the Roman empire from the north. In the midst of this crisis ailing emperor Marcus Aurelius has to make a decision about his successor between his son Commodus, who is obsessed by power, and the loyal general Gaius Livius.

Tsar Nicholas II, the inept last monarch of Russia, insensitive to the needs of his people, is overthrown and exiled to Siberia with his family.

Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American. But after the death of the Earl's remaining son, he decides to accept Cedric as his heir.

The year is 1914 and Richard Hannay, Mining Engineer who is visiting Britain for a short time before returning to South Africa, is shocked when one of his neighbours, Colonel Scudder, bursts into his rooms one night and tells him a story that Prussian 'sleeper' agents are planning to pre-start World War I by murdering a visiting foreign minister. However, Scudder is murdered and Hannay is framed for the death by the 'sleepers'. Fleeing to Scotland Hannay attempts to clear his name and to stop the agents with the aid of Alex Mackenzie but not only is he is chased by Chief Supt Lomas for Scudder's death but by the agents who are headed by Appleton who has managed to hide himself in a high-placed position in the British Government...

Hitler: The Last Ten Days takes us into the depths of der Furher’s Berlin bunker during his final days. Based on the book by Gerhard Boldt, it provides a bleak look at the goings-on within, and without.

Adaptation of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, a historical drama that attempts to bring an epic visual style to the Bard's original stage play. The story concerns Marc Antony's attempts to rule Rome while maintaining a relationship with the queen of Egypt (Hildegarde Neil), which began while Antony was still married. Now he is being forced to marry the sister of his Roman co-leader, and soon the conflict leads to war.

A series of murders occur that mirror those committed by the Whitechapel Ripper. Through his experiments with psychoanalysis Dr Pritchard discovers a deadly violence in one of his young female patients. As he delves into the recesses of her mind he uncovers that Anna is possessed by her dead father's spirit, willing her to commit acts of gruesome savagery over which she has no control. But the most chilling revelation of all is the identity of her father: Jack the Ripper himself.

Barney Lincoln is a rambling gambling man who scores sensational wins at poker and chemin de fer because he has succeeded in marking the original plates for the backs of all the playing cards manufactured in a plant in Geneva and used in all the gambling joints in Europe. In his gambling depredation, Barney is spotted by Angel McGinnis, the daughter of a Scotland Yard Inspector 'Manny' McGinnis on the lookout for a man to do a job. The inspector enlists Barney's help in playing poker with a shady London character whom Scotland Yard wants to force to financial ruin.

This intriguing story is set in the 1930s at a country house, where two amateur sleuths, Bobby Jones and Lady Frankie Derwent, try to unravel the mystery behind a tale of murder, suspense and false identities. And the only clues the two have to go on are the puzzling last words of a dying man. Featuring characters created by Agatha Christie, Why Didn't They Ask Evans is a classic crime thriller sure to please murder-mystery fans.

A 1965 BBC adaptation of William Shakespeare's first historical tetralogy (1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI and Richard III), which deals with the conflict between the House of Lancaster and the House of York over the throne of England, a conflict known as the Wars of the Roses. It was based on the 1963 theatre adaptation by John Barton, and directed by Peter Hall for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

An eclectic group of characters set sail on Captain Lansen’s leaky cargo ship in an attempt to escape their various troubles. When a violent storm strikes, the ship is swept into the Sargasso Sea and the passengers find themselves trapped on an island populated by man-eating seaweed, giant crabs and Spanish conquistadors who believe it’s still the 16th century.

Running from 1969 until 1977, the BBC Christmas shows were usually on Christmas Day. These classic sketches revolved around famous guest stars, such as Eric Porter, Fenella Fielding, Ann Hamilton, Peter Gushing, Glenda Jackson, Andre Previn and Des O'Connor, being made fun of by Eric and Ernie.

The complicated relationship between Winston Churchill and the leaders of the British army during World War II.

Hamlet comes home from university to find his uncle married to his mother, and his father's ghost haunting the battlements and scaring the watch. Then his father's ghost directs him to seek revenge.

Former Irish Republican Army member Niall Hennessy lives in Belfast, Ireland, with his wife and daughter amid the ongoing Irish-British conflict. Though he still knows people in the IRA, including fugitive leader Tobin, Niall has given up his violent ways. One day his family is caught in a chaotic street shootout and killed by British forces. Overwhelmed with rage and hunted by a Scotland Yard inspector, Niall heads to London to exact his deadly revenge.

TV play set in an experimental self-rehabilitations unit at a British Prison, where six lifers participate in group therapy.

The term at Osborne Naval College is not yet over. Why, therefore, has cadet Ronnie Winslow returned home? And why, moreover, is he hiding in the garden in the rain?

A play by Terence Rattigan about the stories of several people staying at a seaside hotel in Bournemouth which features dining at "Separate Tables."

The environmental measures taken by the oil industry at the Sullom Voe terminal in the Shetlands.

A version of Dennis Potter's play for television, remade shortly before his death as the original 1960s version had been wiped.

Over one hour of black-and-white location footage and interviews with the stars and director, all staged outdoors in manifestly frigid conditions. Mann talks about his filmmaking philosophy and the challenges of shooting in such rugged locations, and shares his insights on the Douglas-Harris feud.

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.

A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983.

Sherlock Holmes uses his abilities to take on cases by private clients and those that the Scotland Yard are unable to solve, along with his friend Dr. Watson.

Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.

A one-hour anthology television series of one-off contemporary and classic dramas produced by the BBC.

An anthology series of various plays and dramatic performances.

The Forsyte Saga is a 1967 BBC television adaptation of John Galsworthy's series of The Forsyte Saga novels, and its sequel trilogy A Modern Comedy. The series follows the fortunes of the upper middle class Forsyte family, and stars Eric Porter as Soames, Kenneth More as Young Jolyon and Nyree Dawn Porter as Irene. It was adapted for television and produced by Donald Wilson and was originally shown in twenty-six episodes on Saturday evenings between 7 January and 1 July 1967 on BBC2, at a time when only a small proportion of the population had television sets able to receive this channel. It was therefore the repeat on Sunday evenings on BBC1 starting on 8 September 1968 that secured the programme's success with 18 million tuning in for the final episode in 1969. It was shown in the United States on public television and broadcast all over the world, and became the first BBC television series to be sold to the Soviet Union.

In India, during the final years of British rule in World War II, an unjust arrest for rape sets off questions of identity and personal responsibility being explored against a background of war and personal intrigue.

A BBC television series of forty-five-minute excerpts from stage plays running in London.

Anna Karenina was a 1977 BBC television adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novel & tragic story of the love affair between Vronsky, a Russian Count and Anna Karenina, a married upper class woman. Nicola Pagett takes the role of Anna, a young woman who is married to a man twenty years her senior (Eric Porter), and who begins a passionate affair with the handsome Count Vronsky (Stuart Wilson). When she falls pregnant, Anna decides to dissolve her marriage and wed Vronsky, but true happiness proves elusive.

In Victorian London, consulting detective Sherlock Holmes wields not only powers of observation and deduction but also vast knowledge on anything relevant to solve mysteries, including crimes. Cases that would stump most detectives are merely short work for Holmes, who is ably assisted by his friend and colleague Dr John H. Watson.

An orphan endures a harsh life in a workhouse before fleeing to London, where he falls in with a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the criminal Fagin, and eventually finds a better life, exposing the cruelties of poverty and child labor in Victorian England.

In the second series of the widely celebrated ITV detective programme, Dr John Watson finds a mystery in an empty house, while Holmes and he later solve the mysteries of an abbey grange, the Musgrave ritual, a second stain, a man with a twisted lip, the priory school, and a half-dozen plaster busts of Bonaparte.

Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years is an 8-part 1981 drama serial based on the life of Winston Churchill, and particularly his years in enforced exile from political position during the 1920s and 30s. It was written and directed by Ferdinand Fairfax and Churchill was played by Robert Hardy. Hardy's brilliant performance as Churchill won critical acclaim and a BAFTA award in 1982. He reprised the role in The Sittaford Mystery, Bomber Harris and War and Remembrance and at the 50th anniversary celebrations of the end of World War II in 1995 when he quoted a number of Churchill's wartime speeches in character.

Sir Kenneth Clark guides us through the ages exploring the glorious rise of civilisation in western man. Beginning with the bleakness of the dark ages to the present day, we consider civilisation's articulations and expressions in some of man's finest works of art.