
Freddie Fletcher
Actor · b. 1950 · Grimethorpe, South Yorkshire
Grimethorpe born Freddie Fletcher is an actor who is best known for his role as Jud Casper, the bullying brother in Ken Loach's classic 1969 film Kes. Prior to the film, Fletcher had no acting experience and was working as a painter and decorator but, after the film proved a success, Fletcher secured a number of TV roles, most notably as layabout Raymond Shepherd, one of Diana Dors's wayward sons in the popular comedy series Queenie's Castle. Roles in Coronation Street, Emmerdale, All Creatures Great and Small, Children's Ward and Heartbeat followed, along with four Play for Today's, Jack Rosenthal's Another Sunday and Sweet F.A. and the 1974 film Juggernaut. His last acting role was as Judd the barman in the 1996 movie When Saturday Comes. The film, about Sheffield United, starred Sean Bean who recommended him for the part. Fletcher still lives in Grimethorpe with his wife, Joy, who was Willowgarth School's non-teaching Head of Year.
Movies12
Movie7.4DramaBullied 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.
Kes
1970 · 463 votes
Movie6.3ThrillerActionA terrorist demands a huge ransom in exchange for information on how to disarm the seven bombs he has planted aboard a trans-Atlantic cruise ship. Inspired by real events.
Juggernaut
1974 · 147 votes
MovieDramaTV MovieDuring Wakes Week in the Potteries, the factory is deserted except for three electricians on an emergency maintenance job.
Shut Down
1973
- Movie1.0ThrillerCrime
The thirteen-part series recounted the lives of the titular Fox family, who lived in Clapham in South London and had gangland connections.
Fox
1980 · 1 votes
Movie5.8DramaJimmy Muir comes from a typical gritty, northern town where there are only two options: working down the pit or in a factory. But Jimmy has other ideas — he dreams of becoming a professional footballer. Confronted by a bitter and unsupportive father, hard-drinking friends and a lifetime of bad habits...has Jimmy the will to achieve his ultimate goal?
When Saturday Comes
1996 · 30 votes
Movie9.0ComedyDramaA play by Victoria Wood. Maureen has been faithfully attending the slimmers' club for months. Now the weeks of endless crispbreads have paid off - but is her optimism misplaced? Sequel to Wood's earlier play Talent, featuring the same characters of lifelong friends Maureen and Julie.
Nearly a Happy Ending
1980 · 1 votes
Movie4.8ComedyDramaAmir is an illegal Pakistani immigrant smuggled into England in the 1960's to work, to send money to his family and perhaps even bring them over with him. A skilled laborer, he is forced to do unskilled work like shoveling sheep dung and processing wool. He lives in a boarding house with nearly a dozen other men, under the supervision of Hussein Shah. He befriends a young student, Sakib, who dreams of being a writer. Their existence is punctuated by secret movies, a visiting prostitute, fear of detection and deportation, and the gangster-like smuggler who comes by for his take every week. The household is shaken up by the arrival of a white girl, Shah's girlfriend, and the sense of femininity and family she brings.
Brothers in Trouble
1995 · 4 votes
Movie7.5DramaA boy reads about the attacks of a unknown animal on livestock in the town. He plans to run his own investigation. The so called beast however is also used as a metaphor for every day problems the townsfolk face.
The Nature of the Beast
1988 · 2 votes
MovieDramaTV MoviePubs, pigeons, weight-lifting – that's Terry's life, and his wife Glenda feels neglected. But now Terry's best mate, Albert, is on leave from the Merchant Navy, and Albert knows how to treat a lady. 'Fireworks assured,' says the wrestling poster.
Movie7.7DramaMysteryThree men at three different times in history come to Mow Top hill in search of sanctuary from their troubles. A Roman soldier, a medieval rebel and a 1970s young man. Somehow they seem linked through an energy within the hill and an axe. Is history doomed to repeat itself or can loving another person free them?
Red Shift
1978 · 5 votes
Movie6.5ComedyDramaMr. Armistead is the referee for an amateur league Sunday Football match. Disliked and abused by all the players he tries to play fair and ensure they follow the rules. By the end of the match he's had enough and really uses his head to show them that he's not as useless as they all think.
Another Sunday and Sweet F.A.
1972 · 2 votes
MovieDramaTV MovieWhen Gerry Broadbent, in search of his roots, takes his fiancée Nita home to Brighouse, they find that the picture is not quite as he painted.
Steps Back
1973
Series9
TV6.6DramaPlay 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.
Play for Today
1970 · 10 votes
TV6.5DramaPeak Practice is a British drama series about a GP surgery in Cardale — a small fictional town in the Derbyshire Peak District — and the doctors who worked there. It ran on ITV from 10 May 1993 to 30 January 2002 and was one of their most successful series at the time. It originally starred Kevin Whately as Dr Jack Kerruish, Amanda Burton as Dr Beth Glover and Simon Shepherd as Dr Will Preston, though the roster of doctors would change many times over the course of the series. Cardale was based on the Staffordshire village of Longnor for the final series, but was previously based in the Derbyshire village of Crich, although certain scenes were filmed at other nearby Derbyshire towns and villages, most notably Matlock, Belper and Ashover.
Peak Practice
1993 · 10 votes
TV7.2CrimeDramaSet during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.
Heartbeat
1992 · 33 votes
TV7.8ComedyDramaThe trials and misadventures of the staff at a country veterinary office in Yorkshire. James Herriot, a young animal surgeon, moves to a small Yorkshire town to begin his first job.
All Creatures Great and Small
1978 · 49 votes
TV6.3DramaGBH was a seven-part British television drama written by Alan Bleasdale shown in the summer of 1991 on Channel 4. The protagonists were Michael Murray, the Militant tendency-supporting Labour leader of a city council in the North of England and Jim Nelson, the headmaster of a school for disturbed children. The series was controversial partly because Murray appeared to be based on Derek Hatton, former Deputy Leader of Liverpool City Council — in an interview in the G.B.H. DVD Bleasdale recounts an accidental meeting with Hatton before the series, who indicates that he has caught wind of Bleasdale's intentions but does not mind as long as the actor playing him is "handsome". In normal parlance, the initials "GBH" refer to the criminal charge of grievous bodily harm - however, the actual intent of the letters is that it is supposed to stand for Great British Holiday.
G.B.H.
1991 · 18 votes
TV7.0CrimeDramaThe XYY Man is a 1976–77 British crime thriller television series created by Kenneth Royce, based on his novel series about reformed cat burglar William 'Spider' Scott, recruited by British intelligence for secret missions due to his unique genetic makeup (an extra Y chromosome), which supposedly predisposes him to crime. The plot follows his reluctant work for the secret service and his constant pursuit by the dogged Detective Sergeant George Bulman, leading to spin-offs like Strangers and Bulman.
The XYY Man
1976 · 4 votes
- TV5.0Drama
Between 1798 and 1812, the wild, romantic country of the English Lake District saw an intense concentrated flowering of literary genius. At its centre is poet William Wordsworth, born in the region, who lived there almost all his life with his beloved sister Dorothy. Around him, as the genius of the age, gathered other poets and writers – Robert Southey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Thomas de Quincey.
Clouds of Glory
1978 · 1 votes
TV6.8ComedyThe lives and, often illegal, activities of the residents of a tower block in early 1970s Leeds, West Yorkshire, with the brassy matriarch, Queenie Shepherd, ruling the roost over her neighbours.
Queenie's Castle
1970 · 4 votes
- TV7.0
Interlinked six episodes that focussed upon the separate lives of players at an amateur rugby club. A marvellous comedy drama that allowed an ensemble cast to each take their turn to shine. Written by the Oscar-winning Colin Welland.
The Wild West Show
1975 · 1 votes