Frances Barber

Charts six interlinked narratives after the cast and crew of a film are sent home from set.

1923. In the heart of an old English college, Edward Williams receives an engraving of of an unknown country house with an imposing facade, a sweeping lawn - and, just perhaps, something else.

With exclusive interviews and outtakes, this anniversary special celebrates a decade of Robert Popper's iconic comedy, from celebrity fans to Paul Ritter's infamous squirrel-based catchphrase

Greg Kielty's life is turned upside down when his estranged brother Dan turns up, claiming to have drunkenly run someone over. But has Dan just murdered a gangster's son? Or maybe there's an even more sinister explanation.

A new republican prime minister strips the British monarch and her family of their money and assets, and forces them to live on a rundown council estate.

He's a low level criminal with no future and just out of prison. She's a low level lawyer never noticed by others, a lost soul without a life. Their anger and hostility makes them serious criminals. Love happens in the strangest of places.

In An Ideal Husband, an ambitious government minister, Sir Robert Chiltern, is on an assured smooth ascent to the top. Until Mrs Cheveley appears in London with damning proof of his previous financial chicanery, that is.

Built upon a 14 hour interview, McKellen: Playing the Part is a unique journey through the key landmarks of McKellen's life, from early childhood into a demanding career that placed him in the public eye for the best part of his lifetime. Using an abundance of photography from McKellen's private albums and cinematically reconstructed scenes, a raw talent shines through in the intensity, variety and devotion to that moment in the light.

An ordinary woman makes an extraordinary decision which will change her life forever.

Liverpool, 1978: What starts as a vibrant affair between a legendary femme-fatale, the eccentric Academy Award-winning actress Gloria Grahame, and her young lover, British actor Peter Turner, quickly grows into a deeper relationship, with Turner being the person Gloria turns to for comfort.

Set in a small English town in 1959, a woman decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop, a decision which becomes a political minefield.

Spain, 1937. Ramón Mercader, a young communist combatant, is recruited and trained by the Soviet intelligence service to participate in a top secret mission ordered by the ruthless dictator Joseph Stalin: the assassination of his former political rival, Leon Trotsky, who is living in exile in Mexico.

In 1947, long-retired and near the end of his life, Sherlock Holmes grapples with an unreliable memory and must rely on his housekeeper's son as he revisits the still-unsolved case that led to his retirement.

A story seen from the eyes of a five-year-old boy who, through no fault of his own, comes face to face with disaster.

This behind-the-scenes documentary features interviews with the creators and cast of the cult comedy "The IT Crowd", plus chats with celebrity fans.

Funny, passionate, exciting, and smart: ‘Muse Of Fire’ will change the way you feel about Shakespeare forever. This unique feature documentary follows two actors, Giles Terera and Dan Poole, as they travel the world to find out everything they can about tackling the greatest writer of them all. Together they have directed and produced an inspiring film that aims to demystify and illuminate Shakespeare’s work for everyone: from actors, directors and students of all disciplines, right through to the? man on the street? Denmark with Jude Law, Baz Luhrmann in Hollywood, Prison in Berlin, and on the street with Mark Rylance. Think Shakespeare is boring? Think again!

A PC becomes a vigilante after a head trauma.

We’ll Take Manhattan explores the explosive love affair between sixties supermodel Jean Shrimpton and photographer David Bailey. Focusing on a wild and unpredictable 1962 Vogue photo shoot in New York, the drama brings to life the story of two young people falling in love, misbehaving and inadvertently defining the style of the Sixties along the way.

Georgie Godwin is the fattest man in Britain. A tourist attraction, thanks to greedy 'agent, cabbie Morris. Devoted neighbour Janice is Georgie's only other regular outside contact until he meets Amy, a pregnant teenager fleeing a violent boyfriend ,whom he takes in as a lodger. Amy tries to help Georgie change his lifestyle, but Morris is more than keen to stop her ruining his tourist attraction.

King Lear, old and tired, divides his kingdom among his daughters, giving great importance to their protestations of love for him. When Cordelia, youngest and most honest, refuses to idly flatter the old man in return for favor, he banishes her and turns for support to his remaining daughters. But Goneril and Regan have no love for him and instead plot to take all his power from him. In a parallel, Lear's loyal courtier Gloucester favors his illegitimate son Edmund after being told lies about his faithful son Edgar. Madness and tragedy befall both ill-starred fathers.

Tempted away from Newcastle United to join Real Madrid, rising star Santiago Munez finds this latest change of fortune the greatest challenge yet - personally as well as professionally. He is reunited with Gavin Harris, though they must compete to be on the team, and estranged from fiancee Roz, whose nursing career keeps her back home.

Gary Oldman is Lynch, a strangely charming hit man in this explosively funny dark comedy in the tradition of Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. With an all-star cast including Terence Stamp, Elena Anaya, Robert Carlyle and Billy Zane, Dead Fish is a chaotic tale of criminals looking for love, money and revenge that will have you falling out of your chair laughing!

Like millions of kids around the world, Santiago harbors the dream of being a professional footballer... However, living in the Barrios section of Los Angeles, he thinks it is only that--a dream. Until one day an extraordinary turn of events has him trying out for Premiership club Newcastle United.

Adrian Savage will have to marry if he wants to inherit his father's estate and he plans to marry Lola. However Lola loves Russell; a man she met in a night of passion who went off to become a war photographer where he was shot and lost a leg. When the two meet at the engagement party, Lola remembers how much she cares for him; but now Russell has a mistress (Elizabeth) who jealously spies Lola's flickering of lust.

For years, Andrei Evilenko eluded the obsessive Detective Lesiev and the psychiatric profiler Aron Richter. Spurred on by his rabid fury at the gradual crumbling of his precious Soviet Union, Evilenko is a man who will live, die and kill as a communist.

Based on a true story, the movie tells the story of two pigs, named Butch and Sundance, who staged a dramatic escape from an abattoir in January 1998 and remained at large for a week ...

At a spa where talking is forbidden, an emotionally distraught woman finds solace in the company of a kind man and the two of them gradually fall in love.

Good-looking, well-spoken Phil is broke and cannot understand how flatmate James has recently acquired a lot of extra cash and a permanent grin on his face. James's secret? Adonis Escorts - 40 pounds an hour, 150 for the night. Faced with imminent eviction, a reluctant Phil is persuaded to join the agency and soon the two gigolos have a loyal following including bored housewife, Frances. In fact business is booming until love rears its ugly head. And then chaos reigns as James falls in love with Phil, Phil falls in love with Helen, Helen takes Phil home to her mother - Frances, Frances goes crazy because she had fallen for her daughter's new boyfriend Phil, and Darren just wants to make it alright - by settling down with James. Who is definitely not gay. Just confused!

Nearly 13, Alice rebels, telling the Paris police that her mother is a murderer. Alice has no evidence; her mother, Eva, rich and powerful, avoids charges. Alice promptly runs away, determined to find her dad whom she claims lives in Portugal. The police believe he is dead and that Alice is in denial. Nonetheless, they dispatch Anita, an Italian police officer on loan to the French, to find Alice and bring her back. Meanwhile, Eva has launched her own paramilitary force to hunt for Alice, and Alice has found a protector in Hugo, an ex-soldier turned hit man and gang member. He promises to get her to her father. All roads lead to a small town on the Portuguese coast.

19 year old babysitter aupair Julie is accused of murder when the bed of the sheltered baby inflames. Is seems as if Julie possesses rare telepathic skills, that she cannot control. Her young lawyer fights for her in court and against the public opinion in Italy, who take her for a witch.

A Jewish girl in 19th century London dreams of becoming a stage actress.

The past catches up with a ruthlessly ambitious boxing promoter.

A movie about a middle aged french man who after a family crisis travels on the spur of the moment to London only to get caught up in the male prostitution business and eventually drugs.

A seemingly happily married, successful plastic surgeon embarks on a torrid affair with tragic consequences for his marriage and those close to him.

Middle-class parents face difficult decisions if they want their sons to go to the “right” school.

In the seventies Strange Fruit were it. They lived the rock lifestyle to the max, groupies, drugs, internal tension and an ex front man dead from an overdose. Even their demise was glamorous; when lightning struck the stage during an outdoor festival. 20 years on and these former rock gods they have now sunk deep into obscurity when the idea of a reunion tour is lodged in the head of Tony, former keyboard player of the Fruits. Tony sets out to find his former bandmates with the help of former manager Karen to see if they can recapture the magic and give themselves a second chance.

The doomed marriage of the Prince Regent and Caroline of Brunswick.

Photographer Charles Castle is numbed with grief following the death of his beautiful bride. He goes off to war, working in the trenches as a photographer. Following the war and still in grief Charles is given some photographs purporting to be of fairies. His search for the truth leads him to Burkinwell, a seemingly peaceful village seething with secrets

A tramp called Raymond finds his life changes radically when he gets his hands on a sought-after film script.

A bereaved woman adopts multiple disguises to track down the last three people to see her boyfriend before he died.

A boozy barmaid (Frances Barber) and her newly found gay friend (Con O’Neill) quit London and hightail it to northeast England on the lookout for sex and excitement in this multi-award-winning film based on Tennessee Williams’ short story Two on a Party. This sensitive and finally very moving film both celebrates and challenges the unusual relationship between the two characters.

October 1918: After returning to the civil life, the young Doctor Giorgino Volli searches for a group of children, which he had been the care-taker of before the first world war began. However, soon the searching becomes a part of hide-and-seek with death. Giorgino finds a village bordered with a treacherous marsh and rumours of wolves. There he also meets the mysterious Catherine....

It is the late 1930s and some British households still eagerly await the arrival of electricity. When a pylon is erected in the garden, Morris's mother can't wait to show off her Swedish lumbago belt and toaster. But Morris is gripped by a deeper passion that will change his life - one that will not be illuminated for 50 years.

Douglas Livingstone has direct experience of the tensions in South Africa. On a research visit there in the summer of 1993, he was mugged within 24 hours of arriving in Johannesburg. Over the following week. the East Rand riots claimed 600 lives.

Eight years ago, Gavin, artistic son of an Scots/Italian ice-cream dynasty, turned his back on Glasgow and moved south to London to make his name illustrating children's books. Now, frustrated and broke, his Uncle Sal appears with an offer. Gavin's father has sold the family business and to get his share of the proceeds, Gavin must return home for his father's birthday party. Swayed by the money, he sets off north and picks up a hitchicker with a secret. Their journey is difficult but ultimately rewarding.

A poignant and forceful saga which traces the fortunes of two English children uprooted from their beloved Liverpool dockside to the alien environment of Australia in the years following World War Two.

Screen One biopic detailing the final eight years in the life of comedian Tony Hancock, from the peak of his powers as Britain's number one comedian to his eventual mental, alcoholic decline and suicide in Australia.

Two disc jockeys have a friend's murder to solve in the fringe-group melting pot of 1977 London.

During a train ride, an anxiety attack leads middle-aged illustrator John into an identity crisis. As his marital problems merge and blur into his fantasy life with prostitutes and call girls, a long-dormant secret friend of his childhood surfaces in his delusions.

When Jenny and Bruce Coldfield bring a curious party of literary enthusiasts to a remote Norfolk village to visit the hidden world of ghost story writer Eleanor Mont other forces start to stir.

An Ulster Volunteer Force vigilante, turned police informer, is sent by the British government to New Zealand to start a new life, leaving behind his eldest son. Although his wife and two young boys are also in New Zealand, they are no longer together, and he has a new love interest. After some eight years his past catches up with him when former comrades show up, intent on extracting revenge. After two nearly successful attempts by them (in Dunedin), the action moves to a final confrontation and shootout in the hills above Queenstown.

Martin and Gert lead a very quiet life, until the day when their path crosses that of Marie and Francis. Martin, the shy one, lets himself be seduced by Marie. Gert wasted no time in understanding and dropped into Francis' arms.

The tale begins when a brother and sister are separated in a shipwreck, but survive to be washed up on the shore of Illyria. The sister, Viola, disguises herself as a man and takes service with Duke Orsino, who has fallen in love with Lady Olivia. Entrusted with pleading on her master's behalf, Viola is utterly disconcerted to find that Olivia has fallen in love with her. Thus begins the confusion of this delightful comedy.

An aimless young man, Johnny, is sent prison. He entrusts his beloved dog, Evie, to the care of his former lover and best friend, Frank. When he gets out of prison, he has to face difficulties at home. Added to this, is the fact that he may have to give up Evie to Frank.

Sammy and Rosie are an unconventional middle-class London married couple. They live in the midst of inner-city chaos, surround themselves with intellectual street people, and sleep with everybody - except each other! Things become interesting when Sammy's father, Rafi, who is a former Indian government minister, comes to London for a visit. Sammy, Rosie, and Rafi try to find meaning through their lives and loves.

Stephen Frears directs this biographical drama focusing on controversial British playwright Joe Orton, revealed in flashback after his murder by lover Kenneth Halliwell. Born in 1933 in Leicester, in the English Midlands, John 'Joe' Orton moves to London in 1951, to study at RADA, and enjoys an openly gay relationship with Halliwell in their famous Islington flat in the 1960s. However, when Orton achieves spectacular success with such plays as 'What the Butler Saw' and 'Loot', Halliwell begins to feel alienated and the pair's future looks increasingly uncertain.

Middle-aged Gerald Kingsland advertises in a London paper for a female companion to spend a year with him on a desert island. The young Lucy Irving takes a chance on contacting him and after a couple of meetings they decide to go ahead. Once on the island things prove a lot less idyllic than in the movies, and gradually it becomes clear that it is Lucy who has the desire and the strength to try and see the year through.

Twin zoologists lose their wives in a car accident and become obsessed with decomposing animals.

A film based on Townshend's album "White City: A Novel". The story is based on the area where Townshend was raised. The drama is directed by Richard Lowenstein.

Brixton in the early 80s. Viv presides over a cheerfully immoral and variously under-employed bunch of ex-Oxford playmates in her parents' gentrified home. But when Jane's boyfriend introduces a discordant note of reality from the streets, Viv plots her retribution. And behind her double-locked doors there are some hard feelings to contend with.

A countess and her military sons prepare for the German invasion of Poland in 1939 as World War II begins.

Girls growing up in 1960-61 London develop a passion for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, the first British team in the 20th century to win the English league and FA Cup "double". Twenty years later, one of the girls tracks down players of the '60-'61 Spurs for a documentary.

A BBC film crew is interviewing a ‘typical Catholic family’ in the Divis Flats area of Belfast, when news comes in that a child, known to the family, has been hit by a stray plastic bullet fired by a British soldier – a version of events contested by the army. Back in London, editing the footage, the producer and researcher on the project wrestle with how to present the incident, and with their responsibility to the people in the film.

In 1905, after 10 years of missionary work in Africa, the Rev. Charles Fortesque is recalled to England, where his bishop gives him his new assignment - to minister to London's prostitutes.

Three postal workers and their dysfunctional families interact over cups of tea and Sunday dinner.

A group of six friends, who have known each other since childhood, find their friendship tested when one of their number is found dead, leading to the question - were they murdered or did they commit suicide?