
Bernard Wrigley
Actor · b. 1948 · Bolton, Lancashire, England, UK
From starting in folk clubs as a child bride, and then writing & performing at the Octagon theatre in Bolton, the career has always combined singing and acting. From TV programmes and films such as Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Phoenix Nights, Dinnerladies, Alan Bennett films, Brassed Off, My Son The Fanatic & Steve Coogan’s Coogan’s Run, to the many radio plays and programmes presented or guested upon, there has throughout been a steady stream of LPs and CDs - eighteen to date, the early ones all now remastered to CD.
Movies17
Movie7.0ComedyRomanceA Yorkshire coal mine is threatened with closure and the only hope is for the men to enter their Grimley Colliery Brass Band into a national competition. They believe they have no hope until Gloria appears carrying her Flugelhorn. At first mocked for being a woman, she soon becomes the only chance for the band to win.
Brassed Off
1996 · 303 votes
Movie5.8CrimeComedyA hapless parole officer is framed for murder by a crooked police chief. To prove his innocence he must entice his former clients away from the law abiding lives they are now living to recover the evidence that will save him.
The Parole Officer
2001 · 127 votes
Movie6.4ComedyIn 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.
A Private Function
1984 · 68 votes
Movie7.0ComedyThe comedienne stars in this festive sketch show, alongside a host of celebrity guests.
Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings
2000 · 7 votes
Movie5.0DramaComedyPakistani taxi-driver Parvez and prostitute Bettina find themselves trapped in the middle when Islamic fundamentalists decide to clean up their local town.
My Son the Fanatic
1997 · 18 votes
Movie7.0CrimeDramaJames Bolam portrays serial killer Dr. Harold Shipman in this made-for-TV drama. The film follows the story of Shipman, a general practitioner who throughout his career is believed to have killed as many as 250 of his patients. When the high death rate of his practice was investigated, it was discovered that he had given lethal doses of diamorphine to a vast number of his patients. He was put on trial where he was convicted of 15 murders and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Harold Shipman: Doctor Death
2002 · 4 votes
Movie6.2ComedyDramaOn a run-down Bradford council estate, teenagers Rita and Sue both share a job babysitting for Bob and Michelle's children. On the way home one night, Bob takes Rita and Sue up to a deserted, countryside landscape. Knowing what he has in mind, the girls are only too happy to oblige and both have a sexual encounter with him that becomes a regular occurrence.
Rita, Sue and Bob Too
1987 · 84 votes
Movie10.0DramaTV MovieA repressed night-school teacher, secretly homosexual, struggles to cope with his demanding, eccentric mother.
Me! I'm Afraid of Virginia Woolf
1978 · 1 votes
Movie7.5DramaTV MovieA married couple, after a life time of work and bringing up a family, retire and awaken to the fast changing world around them, the habitual nature of their relationship, and what they have left.
Sunset Across the Bay
1975 · 2 votes
Movie5.1DramaComedyStrayman, a spontaneous poet, is landlord to a pack of stray dogs. Unable to resist another of life's strays, he hooks up with Strumpet, a shy, homeless girl with an extraordinary gift for music. After Strayman's neighbour overhears them singing, the three set off for London - Strayman's dogs in tow - in search of fame, fortune, and Top Of The Pops.
Strumpet
2001 · 16 votes
MovieComedyCrime"Z Cars" legend Bernard Holley reprises his role as Bill Newcombe, who recalls an incident from the 60's, where an old couple are having a heated argument about light.
Movie6.8FantasyAnimationThe young druid Imp y Celyn comes to Ankh-Morpork to become a famous musician, but a new guitar from a mysterious shop possesses him with a new kind of music - the Music with Rocks In. To make matters worse, Death, saddened by the death of his adopted daughter, has gone away to try and forget, and his granddaughter Susan suddenly has the family duty passed on to her.
Soul Music
1997 · 17 votes
Movie5.9DramaTV MovieFranz, a young man, works in a dye factory in Prague. One day he notices a rash-like eczema, growing on his hands. All attempts to treat it with ointment fail, and the rash gradually spreads over his body. After complaining to the management he is laid off work; his relationship with his fiancee is affected. In an attempt to get compensation from his former employers he looks to insurance firm Assicurazion Generali, where he encounters an enigmatic clerk called Kafka.
The Insurance Man
1986 · 7 votes
MovieDramaRomanceLee, a Chinese man, works as a waiter in a hotel in England, despite speaking very little English. Told that a girl called Iris might be interested in him, on his afternoon off work he buys a box of chocolates and sets off to find her.
Afternoon Off
1979
Movie9.0TV MovieDramaSpeech Day is a bit of a laugh if you are not one of nature's prize-winners. But now that they've finished with school and school with them, what comes next for Ronnie, Wally and Rob?
Speech Day
1973 · 1 votes
Movie5.5DramaTV MovieAlan Bennett's debut play for television follows the members of a Halifax cycling club, on an outing from Halifax to the ruins of Fountains Abbey. Set in the summer of 1911 and projects an idyllic vision of Edwardian England .
A Day Out
1972 · 6 votes
- MovieDrama
"I like preaching... Only two things in my life have ever excited me as much: playing football and making love." But his congregation feel he's gone too far this time...
Series16
TV7.5ComedyDramaThe story of a young group of siblings pretty much abandoned by their parents, surviving by their wits - and humor - on a rough Manchester council estate. Whilst they won't admit it, they need help and find it in Steve, a young middle class lad who falls for Fiona, the oldest sibling, and increasingly finds himself drawn to this unconventional and unique family. Anarchic family life seen through the eyes of an exceptionally bright fifteen year old, who struggles to come of age in the context of his belligerent father, closeted brother, psychotic sister and internet porn star neighbors.
Shameless
2004 · 158 votes
TV7.2ComedyUnencumbered by wives, jobs or any other responsibilities, three senior citizens who've never really grown up explore their world in the Yorkshire Dales. They spend their days speculating about their fellow townsfolk and thinking up adventures not usually favored by the elderly. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse in 1973. The show ran for 295 episodes until 2010. It is the longest running comedy Britain has produced and the longest running sitcom in the world.
Last of the Summer Wine
1973 · 41 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
TV8.2DramaComedyThe heartwarming and humorous adventures of a young country vet in the Yorkshire Dales in the 1930s. A remake of the 1978 series.
All Creatures Great & Small
2020 · 161 votes
TV7.7ComedyDramaFollow the lives and loves of a group of thirtysomethings in a heart-warming comic drama as they try to find true love - or at least keep their relationships on track. In this wry and funny look at a generation which is as confused as it is liberated by the choices it faces, will the chill in their feet put out the passion that burns in their hearts?
Cold Feet
1998 · 39 votes
TV7.3CrimeDramaStrangers is a 1978–82 ITV police procedural created and principally written by Murray Smith, based on characters created by Kenneth Royce in his novel series and subsequent 1977–78 television adaptation The XYY Man. Don Henderson and Dennis Blanch reprise their roles, respectively, of Detective Sergeant (DS) George Bulman and Detective Constable (DC) Derek Willis. A group of police officers are brought together from across the country to the north of England. There, the fact that they're not well-known gives them the advantage to infiltrate where a more familiar local detective could not. Despite being based around a comparatively small team of detectives, a regular feature in its early years is that few episodes feature the entire team, with most using just two or three regulars in any major role.
Strangers
1978 · 4 votes
TV7.5ComedyDinnerladies is a BBC sitcom written by and starring Victoria Wood that chronicles the antics of a group of workers in a canteen in the north of England. Bren tries to maintain a semblance of order in amongst the chaos, while dealing with the canteen supervisor, slightly sex-obsessed cancer sufferer Tony. Dolly and Jean are the bickering menopausal older women, always at odds but best friends beneath it all. Then there's thick-as-two-short-planks Anita, and the terminally uninterested Twinkle, more concerned with having a good time than anything else. Making up the motley crew are military man handyman Stan, all rules and regulations, and ditzy Philippa, who never seems to get anything right.
dinnerladies
1998 · 37 votes
- TVDrama
A series of plays from Birmingham by new writers.
TV8.0ComedyThe owner of The Phoenix Club is the wheelchair-bound Brian Potter, who has presided over two clubs in the past: the first (The Aquarius) flooded, the second (The Neptune) burned down. His ambition (with the help of Jerry St Clair) is to see The Phoenix Club become the most popular in Bolton and thus outdo his arch-nemesis, Den Perry, owner of rival club The Banana Grove.
Phoenix Nights
2001 · 55 votes
TV6.6ComedyCoogan's Run is a 1995 British anthology comedy programme created by and starring Steve Coogan as a series of odd characters residing in the fictional town of Ottle. The series consists of six self-contained stories, although Coogan's characters from the other episodes make occasional cameo appearances.
Coogan's Run
1995 · 8 votes
TV6.3ComedyYanks Go Home is a British sitcom about U.S. Army Air Forcemen stationed in Lancashire, England in the Second World War. It was produced and directed by Eric Prytherch for Granada Television and broadcast on ITV between 1976 and 1977. The series ran for 2 series and 13 episodes in total before its cancellation.
Yanks Go Home
1976 · 3 votes
TV7.0AnimationSci-Fi & FantasySoul Music is a seven-part animated television adaptation of the book of the same name by Terry Pratchett, produced by Cosgrove Hall, and first broadcast on 12 May 1997. It was the first film adaptation of an entire Discworld novel. The series soundtrack was also released on CD, but the disc is now out of production. The soundtrack is, however, now available through iTunes.
Soul Music
1997 · 6 votes
TV5.3ComedyUptight, try-hard dad Neil Hackett's decision to buy a lodge in the Lake District proves disastrous when he discovers he is living next door to the uber successful, effortlessly superior Dillons.
Home from Home
2018 · 3 votes
TV7.0ComedyBest friends Debbie and Veronica quit their jobs and decide to search for glamour, excitement and adventure as promotional girls at Glamgirls Ltd.
The Glamour Girls
1980 · 3 votes
TV7.8DramaFollows the staff and patients of a Yorkshire cottage hospital in the 60s, embroiled in tangled love lives and bitter power struggles.
The Royal
2003 · 10 votes
- TV5.5
The Mersey Pirate was a British childrens television programme that was shown in 1979. Based aboard a ship anchored at Liverpool Docks in the River Mersey, it was produced by Granada Television and was introduced to fill the Saturday morning summer break taken by Tiswas. The programme's presenters were Duggie Brown, Frank Carson, Bernard Wrigley and Billy Butler. Actors Andrew Schofield and Ray Kingsley, who would later work together on the television series Scully, played stowaways. Various guests appeared on the series including The Dooleys, Bad Manners, The Undertones, and Star Wars star David Prowse. Most ITV regions showed the programme, though several did not. The show had been due to run throughout the summer of 1979, but its run was cut short due to the ITV network strike that ran from August to October that year. The following year another Granada production, Fun Factory, took the Summer Saturday morning slot.
The Mersey Pirate
1979 · 2 votes