Bill Paterson

When Joan’s husband dies, she is shocked to discover he had invented an elixir which makes the drinker look young again. Sharing it with her two friends, the three women paint the town red but soon discover that they are no longer equipped to be young in the modern world.

A pioneering ceramic artist Clarice Cliff roares to prominence in the 1920s while working in Britain’s Stoke-on-Trent pottery industry.

After a whirlwind romance with a wealthy widower, a naïve bride moves to his family estate but can't escape the haunting shadow of his late wife.

A therapist loses her grip on reality when a ten-year-old boy claims he can control her future.

A young woman wishes to fulfill her mother's dream of opening her own bakery in Notting Hill, London. To do this, she enlists the help of an old friend and her grandma.

On 27 August 1979, Lord Mountbatten, great uncle to Prince Charles, was blown up at sea by the IRA off the west coast of the Republic of Ireland. Three others were killed on the boat that day, including two teenage boys. Later that afternoon, in a second strike, the IRA killed 18 British soldiers, across the border in Northern Ireland. Forty years on, this is the story of that remarkable Bank Holiday Monday – movingly told by those directly affected by it.

Colin has rented a stately country home for his extended family’s New Year celebrations. He’s the centre of attention until his estranged brother David unexpectedly arrives, throwing the family dynamic far off orbit.

A man dazzles a girl on the perfect first date but why won't she text back? He retraces his steps, reexamining the date.

In 1843, despite the fact that Dickens is a successful writer, the failure of his latest book puts his career at a crossroads, until the moment when, struggling with inspiration and confronting reality with his childhood memories, a new character is born in the depths of his troubled mind; an old, lonely, embittered man, so vivid, so human, that a whole world grows around him, a story so inspiring that changed the meaning of Christmas forever.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill suffers from a stroke in the summer of 1953 that's kept a secret from the rest of the world.

A cinema remake of the classic sitcom Dad's Army (1968). The Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard platoon deal with a visiting female journalist and a German spy as World War II draws to its conclusion.

Life for the residents of a tower block begins to run out of control.

On 7 May, churches, school halls, and back rooms of community centres will be turned into polling stations, staffed by council workers and volunteers. A church polling station is the backdrop for a real-time play for theatre and TV, called The Vote, staged at the exact moment in which the action is set - the last 90 minutes before polls close.

Christopher Cowin is in his mid 30s, a family man who owns a small advertising agency. A court case he had recently lost has shown him the rich and powerful always win! That is why Christopher creates the website THE LIST. On this site, users can label corrupt individuals in public life and award them points as to how much of a menace they are. The result is a list of politicians, CEOs and bankers. The website quickly becomes a worldwide success but suddenly, whoever is number one on THE LIST appears murdered and public opinion starts to turn against Christopher.

Fast Freddie, The Widow and Me is a 2011 one-off Christmas special, made by STV Productions and broadcast by ITV on Tuesday 27 December 2011. The special centres around a wealthy car dealer Jonathan Donald who befriends a terminally ill teenager Freddie Copeland and makes his Christmas wish come true.

In the summer of 1931, with Germany on the brink of economic collapse, and the city of Berlin turning into a paramilitary war-zone, audacious young prosecutor Hans Litten (Stoppard) chose to summon a star witness to a trial of Nazi thugs. In spite of the risk to his own safety and against the advice of those who love him, Litten forced rising political star Adolf Hitler (Hart) to make a sensational appearance in the witness stand of Berlin's central criminal court. Litten aimed to expose the true character of Hitler and his politics to the German public, to reveal his hypocrisy and his violent ambitions, and in doing so, halt the electoral success of the Nazi Party. In a humiliating and hostile cross-examination, Hitler was forced to account for his political beliefs, his contempt for the law and his desire to destroy German democracy. For a brief moment, Hitler's political future was genuinely in the balance.

Documentary charting the history of the supernatural on British TV, revisiting classic ghost stories and controversial shows. Contributors include Derren Brown and Yvette Fielding.

A psychological, heart-wrenching love story that provides a unique and inside look at Charles Darwin. Torn between faith and science, he struggles to finish his legendary book "On the Origin of the Species," which goes on to become the foundation for evolutionary biology.

Spanish Flu: The Forgotten Fallen is a 2009 television drama. It deals with Dr James Niven's attempts to deal with the 1918 flu pandemic in Manchester. Its screenplay was written by Peter Harness and it starred Bill Paterson as Niven, along with Mark Gatiss, Kenneth Cranham and Charlotte Riley. It was first broadcast on BBC Four on 5 August 2009.

This powerful follow-up to “The Gathering Storm” follows Churchill from 1940 to 1945 as he guided his beleaguered nation through the crucible of the war years--even as his marriage was encountering its own struggles.

Sidney Young is a down-on-his-luck journalist. Thanks to a stint involving a pig and a glitzy awards ceremony, Sidney turns his fortunes around, attracting the attention of Clayton Harding, editor of New York-based glossy magazine 'Sharps', and landing the holy grail of journalism jobs. The Brit jets off to the Big Apple and moves from one blunder to the next.

This is an all new feature length documentary, with interviews from almost everyone involved with the production of the film. Gilliam never shies away from the truth, even when it comes to himself, and so this documentary is self-effacing and refreshingly frank. The documentary details not only the battles Gilliam had with Columbia in getting the film finished and released, but also the imagination and innovation that went into the production.

A gang of sharp witted street kids save Sherlock Holmes from an accusation of murder and to help foil an audacious robbery.

Boasting an amazing selection of the most watched, most influential and most highly acclaimed programmes ever made, The 50 Greatest Television Dramas presents a long overdue assessment of the rich heritage television drama has to offer. Channel 4 invited over 200 of Britain's top television drama professionals – writers, directors, producers and commissioners – to take part in an exclusive poll to discover what they consider the finest dramas ever produced.

Beatrix Potter, the author of the beloved children's book "The Tale of Peter Rabbit", struggles for love, happiness and success.

The true story of William Wilberforce and his courageous quest to end the British slave trade. Along the way, Wilberforce meets intense opposition, but his minister urges him to see the cause through.

When Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution nearly 150 years ago, he shattered the dominant belief of his day – that humans were the product of divine creation. Through his observations of nature, Darwin proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection. This caused uproar. After all, if the story of creation could be doubted, so too could the existence of the creator. Ever since its proposal, this cornerstone of biology has sustained wave after wave of attack. Now some scientists fear it is facing the most formidable challenge yet: a controversial new theory called intelligent design.

After the World War I, Mussolini's perspective on life is severely altered; once a willful socialist reformer, now obsessed with the idea of power, he founds the National Fascist Party in 1921 and assumes political power in 1922, becoming the Duce, dictator of Italy. His success encourages Hitler to take power in Germany in 1933, opening the dark road to World War II. (Originally released as a two-part miniseries. Includes colorized archival footage.)

A romance that plays out in the splashy, sensational world of British tabloids.

After his wife dies, a blacksmith named Balian is thrust into royalty, political intrigue and bloody holy wars during the Crusades.

In the 1930s, a social set known to the press – who follow their every move – as the “Bright Young Things” are Adam and his friends who are eccentric, wild and entirely shocking to the older generation. Amidst the madness, Adam, who is well connected but totally broke, is desperately trying to get enough money to marry the beautiful Nina. While his attempts to raise cash are constantly thwarted, their friends seem to self-destruct, one-by-one, in an endless search for newer and faster sensations. Finally, when world events out of their control come crashing around them, they are forced to reassess their lives and what they value most.

Dramatisation of the real-life road-rage killing in 1996 of Stephen Cameron by Kenneth Noye, who was also implicated in the Brinks Mat bullion robbery and the murder of a policeman. The only witness to the killing of Stephen Cameron was his fiancée, Danielle Cable, who was forced to change her identity after giving the evidence which convicted Noye.

A sweet reminiscence about a family of four children and their RAF-veteran dad, who knows the timetable of every bus in London, but realizes his large family needs a car. He buys a Peugeot station wagon - license plate GFP831E, and the family sets off for annual holidays exploring every corner of Europe - "adopting local customs but never forgetting who won the war." The narrator is one of the children who, as he ages, sees things he missed as a lad - the car no rocket, dad no speedster. As the years wear on, and the car sits in the driveway, dad keeps it ready for the next great summer holiday.

The Entity is a documentary into the phenomenon of sleep paralysis, the state in which a person cannot move as they pass from sleep to a woken state.

With freshly rechristened characters and brand-new dialogue, this British TV production of Othello is a "rethinking" of Shakespeare's play, albeit still retaining the original's power and potency. The story is set in the London of the near future, a crime-ridden metropolis virtually torn apart by racial hostilities. By order of the Prime Minister, black police officer John Othello (Eamonn Walker) is promoted to Commissioner, a post dearly coveted by Othello's friend, mentor and fellow officer Ben Jago (Christopher Eccleston). Seething with jealousy, Jago contrives to discredit Othello in the eyes of the public, and to destroy John's interracial marriage to the lily-white Dessie (Keeley Hawes). Among those used as unwitting dupes to gain Jago's ends are Othello's trusted lieutenant, Michael Cass (Richard Coyle), scrupulously honest police constable Alan Roderick (Del Synnott), and Jago's own wife, Lulu (Rachael Stirling).

Three 40-something women in a small English town meet weekly for a ritual of gin, cigarettes, and sweets -- and swapped stories arguing which of them has the most pathetic love life. Kate is headmistress at the local school; her best friends are the town's police chief and a cynical, thrice-divorced doctor.

A bank employee, Laura Tracey, places herself and her family in mortal danger after reporting irregularities in the firm's overseas accounts to the National Criminal Intelligence Service. She learns that the money belongs to South American drug cartels, and her family are immediately taken into the Witness Protection Program and relocated.

Documentary about the 1980 New Mexico State Penitentiary Riots in which 33 inmates were killed.

Local journalist, Cameron Colley writes articles that are idealistic, from the viewpoint of the underdog. A twisted serial killer seems to have some motives. His brutal murders are also committed on behalf of the underdog. The stories begin to merge and Cameron find himself inextricably and inextricably implicated by the brutal killer. The arms dealer that Cameron plans to expose is found literally 'disarmed' before he can put pen to paper. The brewery chief, loathed by Cameron, who sold up at the expense of his workers, finds himself permanently unemployable. The police are convened of Cameron's guilt and so are half his friends and colleagues. Cameron is forced to employ all his investigative skills to find the real killer and his motive.

Teddy Knox, a failed inventor, finds the key to a Stone Age riddle.

The story of a Jewish family living in Hungary—through three generations—rising from humble beginnings to positions of wealth and power in the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire. The patriarch becomes a prominent judge but is torn when his government sanctions anti-Jewish persecutions. His son converts to Christianity to advance his career as a champion fencer and Olympic hero, but is caught up in the Holocaust. Finally, the grandson, after surviving war, revolution, loss and betrayal, realizes that his ultimate allegiance must be to himself and his heritage.

Romantic comedy set against the story of a grudge football match between two pubs. The prize for the winner of the centenary match is the the closure of their opponent's bar. The Match was mainly filmed around Straiton in Ayrshire.

A woman, plastered in blood, is arrested by a grave, and a tale of loss, lust and jealousy slowly unfolds.

The tragic story of world-renowned cellist Jacqueline du Pré, as told from the point of view of her sister, flautist Hilary du Pré-Finzi.

A journalist becomes an independent MP. Loosely based on the election of Martin Bell to the constituency of Tatton between 1997 and 2001.

World famous pop group the Spice Girls zip around London in their luxurious double decker tour bus having various adventures and performing for their fans.

Axel Heyst is an American recluse with a dubious past living in the Dutch East Indies port of Surabaya circa 1913. Staying in a German hotel there, Heyst becomes entranced with a member of the hotel's all-female orchestra.

When a bomb explodes in a British RAF base in Germany, MI5 terrorist specialist Bull (Bill Paterson) is called in to investigate. However, the further he begins to dig into the secrets behind the terrorism, the more he finds himself immersed in dodgy goings-on in the corridors of power of NATO itself.

A film about the tall actor who was most famous for playing the quintessential villain for Charlie Chaplin's Tramp character.

A murderous lust for the British throne sees Richard III descend into madness. Though the setting is transposed to the 1930s, England is torn by civil war, split between the rivaling houses of York and Lancaster. Richard aspires to a fascist dictatorship, but must first remove the obstacles to his ascension—among them his brother, his nephews and his brother's wife. When the Duke of Buckingham deserts him, Richard's plans are compromised.

Private investigator Nick Sharman accepts a case which at first seems intriguing, but ends up causing him bitter regret.

Documenting the life in the estuary of the River Aithen in North-East Scotland.

Charles Dickens' bleak, passionate novel about the challenges of life in 19th-century London comes to life with an outstanding cast and brilliant cinematography.

A corpse is fished out of a north London canal with stab wounds through the eyes. The victim was a prominent member of the Hasidic Jewish community, and the cause of death one reserved by the Hasidim to punish "moysers" or informers.

Growing up in a household incapable of showing love and affection, Margaret's life is transformed when Lydia, a worldly teenage maid, arrives.

An aged Charlie Chaplin narrates his life to his autobiography's editor, including his rise to wealth and comedic fame from poverty, his turbulent personal life and his run-ins with the FBI.

Anthony Steadman, a child murderer, is being released from prison after 17 years. Sally McCann, a mother whose child disappeared around the time of the original murders, pursues Steadman. Also on his trail is Becky Wilson, a local radio reporter, for whom the case brings back ghosts from her own past.

American couple Jake and Tina are living in an expensive London hotel above their means, incurring a sizeable debt. When they are asked to pay a lavish dinner bill and Jake's card is declined, he suggests they sell Tina's tiny, expensive Henry Moore sculpture to cover the debt. After they hatch a scheme to claim the sculpture was stolen in order to collect insurance on it, the sculpture mysteriously goes missing.

Nina is totally heartbroken at the death of her boyfriend Jamie, but is even more unprepared for his return as a ghost. At first it's almost as good as it used to be - hey, even the rats that infested her house have disappeared. But Jamie starts bringing ghostly friends home and behaving more and more oddly.

A young boy named Luke and his grandmother go on vacation only to discover their hotel is hosting an international witch convention, where the Grand High Witch is unveiling her master plan to turn all children into mice. Will Luke fall victim to the witches' plot before he can stop them?

Johnny Fortune (Damon Lowry) is no good to anyone, not mean, but just no good. Surrounded by violence and dishonesty, Johnny lives with Kate. Johnny messes up, he loses a lot of money, his girlfriend Kate's money. Alone, desperate and on the run from a couple of hit-men, he applies for a job as an entertainer's assistant becoming a dancing bear. Unwittingly learning of secrets around him, his past catches up with him.

Poised to attend Oxford University, 19-year-old Charles Highway decides it's high time to have a romantic encounter with an older woman. With the help of a computer program and several eccentric relatives, Highway sets his sights on seducing Rachel Noyce, a stunning American in her 20s. However, Highway has his work cut out for him. Noyce has a boyfriend, DeForest, and is not exactly receptive to Highway's advances — at first, anyway.

It's 1649: Mazarin hires the impoverished D'Artagnan to find the other musketeers: Cromwell has overthrown the English king, so Mazarin fears revolt, particularly from the popular Beaufort. Porthos, bored with riches and wanting a title, signs on, but Aramis, an abbé, and Athos, a brawler raising an intellectual son, assist Beaufort in secret. When they fail to halt Beaufort's escape from prison, the musketeers are expendable, and Mazarin sends them to London to rescue Charles I. They are also pursued by Justine, the avenging daughter of Milady de Winter, their enemy 20 years ago. They must escape England, avoid Justine, serve the Queen, and secure Beauford's political reforms.

An account of Baron Munchausen's supposed travels and fantastical experiences with his band of misfits.

BBC documentary about Franz Kafka played by GREEK TV in 1990.This documentary is one of the ten films of "The Modern World: Ten Great Writers (1988)".

Thirteen-year-old Nick and his slightly dense older brother Herbert run the Diamond Private Detective Agency above Camden Town Tube Station in north-central London. When a master criminal called The Falcon dies, they come into possession of his box of chocolate Maltesers, which contains the secret key to a fabulous cache of diamonds. Can they unravel the mystery and avoid the clutches of seedy lowlifes Brenda Von Falkenberg, Gott and Himmell, The Fat Man and the dogmatic Chief Inspector Snape, all of whom want to find the swag first.

A suspect is brought to a London police station charged with gross indecency. Police at the station believe he is connected with a murder in the area earlier that night, but the suspect refuses to speak.

A robot messenger is sent to earth to appeal to humans to live in peace. Originally designed to go to MIT, by mistake she ends up in Amman, Jordan during the Black September riots of 1970. Sullivan, a British journalist, comes to her aid when she is found wandering without papers following a bombing and grants her refuge in his hotel room. But there she tells him she is a robot, sent as a peace envoy from another planet. He is not sure whether to believe her story or not, but finds her unusual view of the world appealing. They examine the human condition in a series of incredibly insightful and entertaining conversations.

Lily is 13, Colin is 39 and a vagrant. They run away together. 'One and a half to the English Lakes, single, because we're never coming back, we're going on.'

Cassies Stuart leads the uncooperative Charles Dance into a world of misplaces government secrets, capalistic artists and bungling secret agents. Will the truth be out, or will the attempts of agents suppress the truth hidden within government propaganda films, classified as top secret by complete mistake, be successful. Or is it the mysterious medical records that are the true catch of the spies.

Nathaniel Box, a self-styled prophet, along with his daughter Barbara and her fiancé Curtis, holds a night time press conference in an underground car park, devoutly believing that "a new Messiah for a New Age" will appear there before dawn - and their wait does not go unrewarded.

A reporter named Mullen 'stumbles' onto a story linking a prominent Member of Parliament to a KGB agent and a near-nuclear disaster involving a teenage runaway and a U.S. Air Force base. Has there been a Government cover-up? Mullen teams up with Vernon Bayliss, an old hack, and Nina Beckam, the MP's assistant, to find out the truth.

A romantic comedy based around the proposed closure of the last cinema in a small Welsh town.

A look at the career of Oscar-winning cameraman Chris Menges. Filmed on location of 'Comfort and Joy'. Chris Menges discusses his early career in television and film. Featuring interviews with Bill Forsyth, Bill Paterson, Ken Loach, Neil Jordan, and Jeremy Isaacs.

In this sophomoric comedy, a lusty adolescent British hockey team heads for Holland where they find something far more interesting than tulips and windmills: gorgeous, lusty women. They are so busy pursuing romance that they forget all about their upcoming match.

The real-life story of a friendship between two journalists, an American and a Cambodian, during the bloody Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia in 1975, which led to the death of 2-3 million Cambodians during the next four years, until Pol Pot's regime was toppled by the intervening Vietnamese in 1979.

In the summer of 1947, Britain prepares to commemorate the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. To get around food-rationing laws, Dr. Charles Swaby, accountant Henry Allardyce and solicitor Frank Lockwood are fattening a black-market pig for the big day. Egged on by his wife, meek Gilbert Chilvers steals the swine, but the couple must conceal it from inspector Morris Wormold.

Radio host Alan 'Dickie' Bird witnesses how an icecream van is attacked and destroyed by angry competitors. This leads him into the struggle between two Italian families over the icecream market of Glasgow.

As England begins its military engagement in the Falklands, a BBC news journalist attempts to climb up from his working-class roots, at any cost, lying to those around him to get what he wants, only to discover that he is the recipient of a deception far more clever than his own.

Incendiary 1981 Play for Today, written by Jim Allen and directed by Roland Joffé that tells the story of a group of housing estate residents who attempt to organise against persistent rent rises.

Madame Ranevsky and her daughter Anya return home from Paris to find that their beloved family estate and cherry orchard are to be auctioned off to pay debts. Lopahin, a former serf on the estate who is now a walthy landowner, proposes razing the home and cherrt orchard and dividing the estate into plats that could be leased at great profit. The family, however, continues to hold out hope that their beloved home can somehow be saved from destruction.

Alan Bennett's play about the mid-life crisis of an estate agent.

Career army man Bill Paterson faces discharge in this examination of the harsh treatment of British NCOs.

Arthur Harris is a happily married man who returns from his job to discover that his wife, Fiona, is leaving him. Devastated he gets really drunk and tries to commit suicide. After a few setbacks and while he is trying to electrocute himself with a lamp, the door bell rings. An odd man in a leather coat asks if there are any odd jobs that he can perform. Arthur hires the man to kill him. The next day his wife returns, but the man he hired is still trying to kill him...

1941 and the upper class Anna Seaton is hired as part of an allied radio propaganda project, creating disinformation about the Nazi war effort. But tensions between her and brilliant, working class writer Archie MacLean threaten to undermine her work.

'Five days of darkness then. Unless you get it together we will have five days of darkness. And on the sixth day you will say, let there be light, and no doubt it'll an be such an effort that on the seventh day you'll have to rest!'. TV play by Sean McCarthy.

The Garden Beyond is a dramatised portrayal of the life of bed-ridden Perth poet William Soutar - the first independently produced Scottish film to be broadcast on the BBC One UK network. Made in 1977, it reflected, as well as Soutar's own passion and commitment, the debate then current in the run-up to the 1979 devolution referendum. Forty-odd years later with a second independence referendum in prospect, it has, we believe, a renewed relevance.

The "ceilidh play", as writer John McGrath styled it, is presented in the BBC's 1974 "Play for Today" production to a live audience intercut with filmed reconstructions of the Highland Clearances and the Victorian obsession with hunting stags. Restored in high definition from the original film masters held in the BBC Archives.