A Tap on the Shoulder

Documentaries showing faces and places that make up the way we live today.

A six-part BBC drama series following two young men from northern England as they move to London in search of work and opportunity, encountering relationships, social challenges, and the realities of urban life in 1960s Britain.

Exhaustive 13-part survey of the television medium from its hesitant beginnings in the 1920s to the multi-million dollar extravaganzas of today and the cable and satellite technologies of the future [relative to 1985]. Tackling the medium as a worldwide phenomenon, the series examines each of the principal areas of programming - news, drama, documentaries, and light entertainment - and the unique impact of "live" coverage.

A 59-year-old carpenter recovering from a heart attack befriends a single mother and her two kids as they navigate the impersonal, Kafkaesque benefits system. With equal amounts of humour, warmth and despair, the journey is heartfelt and emotional until the end.

Year 1936. As villages across Palestine rise against British colonial rule, Yusuf drifts between his rural home and the restless energy of Jerusalem, longing for a future beyond the growing unrest. But history is relentless. With rising numbers of Jewish immigrants escaping antisemitism in Europe and some arriving with nefarious Zionist-colonial ambitions, and the Palestinian population uniting in the largest and longest uprising against Britain’s 30-year dominion, all sides spiral towards inevitable collision in a decisive moment for the British Empire and the future of the entire region.

Bullied at school and ignored and abused at home by his indifferent mother and older brother, Billy Casper, a 15-year-old working-class Yorkshire boy, tames and trains his pet kestrel falcon whom he names Kes. Helped and encouraged by his English teacher and his fellow students, Billy finally finds a positive purpose to his unhappy existence.

Summer 1936: young unemployed communist David Carr leaves Liverpool to join the fight against fascism in Spain. He joins an international group of Militia-men and women, the POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista). After being wounded, he goes to Barcelona, where he joins another group of fighters.

Hoping that self-employment through gig economy can solve their financial woes, a hard-up delivery driver and his wife struggling to raise a family end up trapped in the vicious circle of modern-day labour exploitation.

In 1920s Ireland young doctor Damien O'Donovan prepares to depart for a new job in a London hospital. As he says his goodbyes at a friend's farm, British Black and Tans arrive, and a young man is killed. Damien joins his brother Teddy in the Irish Republican Army, but political events are soon set in motion that tear the brothers apart.

Z-Cars or Z Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.

A pub landlord in a previously thriving mining community struggles to hold onto his pub. Meanwhile, tensions rise in the town when Syrian refugees are placed in the empty houses in the community.

Two thirtysomethings, unemployed former alcoholic Joe and community health worker Sarah, start a romantic relationship in one of the toughest Glasgow neighbourhoods.

In Ireland, American lawyer Ingrid Jessner and her activist partner, Paul Sullivan, struggle to uncover atrocities committed by the British government against the Northern Irish during the "Troubles." But when Sullivan is assassinated in the streets, Jessner teams up with Peter Kerrigan, a British investigator acting against the will of his own government, and struggles to uncover a conspiracy that may even implicate one of Kerrigan's colleagues.

Anthology series of dramatic works.

A series of four feature-length episodes following the lives of a working-class family from the turmoils of the First World War in 1916 to the General Strike in 1926.

Robbie is a Glasgow boy locked in a family feud who just wants a way out. On community service, he meets Rhino, Albert and Mo. Little did Robbie imagine that turning to drink might change their lives, leading them to the distilleries of the Scottish Highlands and the biggest gamble of his life.