
Derek Martin
Actor · 1933 – 2026 · Bow, London, England, UK
Derek Martin was one of the most authentic working class voices in British film and television since the 1970s. Born Derek William Rapp in 1933, Martin was in the RAF for his National Service and took up a series of jobs including road worker, Smithfield Meat Market porter, and professional gambler, before entering showbusiness as an extra and stunt performer in a variety of programmes including Doctor Who. He retired from stunt work following an injury on Elizabeth I in 1971 and moved into acting. His most famous break out role was as the corrupt detective Fred Pyle in GF Newman's controversial 1978 drama Law & Order. In the following decade Martin had major roles in TV dramas such as The Chinese Detective and King & Castle, and played James Cagney's aide in milos Forman's epic 1981 film Ragtime. In 2000, Martin joined the cast of EastEnders as Charlie, the patriarch of the Slater family, a role he continued to play on and off for sixteen years.
Series24
TV4.3SoapDramaThe everyday lives of working-class residents of Albert Square, a traditional Victorian square of terrace houses surrounding a park in the East End of London's Walford borough.
EastEnders
1985 · 230 votes
TV7.9DramaAction & AdventureThe adventures of The Doctor, a time-traveling humanoid alien known as a Time Lord. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, The Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right many wrongs.
Doctor Who
1963 · 724 votes
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
TV8.0RealityTalented chefs battle it out against the clock, creating delicious dishes in 20 minutes
Ready, Steady, Cook
1994 · 1 votes
TV5.3CrimeComedyPrivate Schulz is a six-part 1981 television comedy-drama serial written by Jack Pulman and produced for BBC Two. It stars Michael Elphick in the title role, with Ian Richardson, Tony Caunter, Billie Whitelaw, Billy Murray, and Mark Wingett. Set primarily in Germany, during and immediately following World War II, fraudster and petty criminal Gerhard Schulz is forced to serve in the SS. In a story based on the real, though unrealised, plot by the Germans known as Operation Bernhard, Schulz tricks the Nazis into making counterfeit British £5 notes, millions of which will be used to destroy the British economy.
Private Schulz
1981 · 6 votes
TV6.8CrimeDramaThe daily lives of the men and women at Sun Hill Police Station as they fight crime on the streets of London. From bomb threats to armed robbery and drug raids to the routine demands of policing this ground-breaking series focuses as much on crime as it does on the personal lives of its characters.
The Bill
1984 · 47 votes
TV7.1ComedyDramaRoguish comedy drama following the misadventures of small-time crook Arthur Daley.
Minder
1979 · 30 votes
TV6.9Action & AdventureCrimeWealthy couple Jonathan and Jennifer Hart, a self-made millionaire and his journalist wife, moonlight as amateur detectives.
Hart to Hart
1979 · 135 votes
TV5.8NewsGMTV is the name of the national Channel 3 breakfast television contractor/licensee, broadcasting in the United Kingdom from 1 January 1993 to 3 September 2010. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of ITV plc in November 2009. Shortly after, ITV plc announced the programme would end. The final edition of GMTV was broadcast on 3 September 2010.
GMTV
1993 · 14 votes
TV7.3DramaZ-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.
Z-Cars
1962 · 7 votes
TV7.6Action & AdventureCrimeThe lives of Bodie and Doyle, top agents for Britain's CI5 (Criminal Intelligence 5), and their controller, George Cowley. The mandate of CI5 was to fight terrorism and similar high-profile crimes. Cowley, a hard ex-MI5 operative, hand-picked each of his men. Bodie is a cynical ex-SAS paratrooper and mercenary whose nature ran to controlled violence, while his partner, Doyle, comes to CI5 from the regular police force, and is more of an open minded liberal. Their relationship is often contentious, but they are the top men in their field, and the ones to whom Cowley always assigned to the toughest cases.
The Professionals
1977 · 47 votes
TV7.0DramaA one-hour anthology television series of one-off contemporary and classic dramas produced by the BBC.
Playhouse
1974 · 1 votes
TV7.2DramaTheatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.
Theatre 625
1964 · 5 votes
TV4.8CrimeDramaNo Hiding Place is a British television series that was produced at Wembley Studios by Associated-Rediffusion for the ITV network between 16 September 1959 and 22 June 1967. It was the sequel to the series Murder Bag and Crime Sheet, all starring Raymond Francis as Detective Superintendent, later Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Lockhart.
No Hiding Place
1959 · 4 votes
TV6.0Celebrity Mastermind is a British television quiz show broadcast by BBC television. The show is a spin-off of the long-running quiz show Mastermind, with the exception that all the contestants are celebrities. As with the main show, John Humphrys is the host and question-master. Magnus Magnusson was quizmaster on the 2003/04 episodes featuring Jonathan Meades as winner.
Celebrity Mastermind
2003 · 2 votes
TV8.1Action & AdventureDramaJack Regan, an unethical officer of the Flying Squad, uses unorthodox methods to pursue criminals with the help of his partner, George Carter.
The Sweeney
1975 · 28 votes
TV7.1CrimeDramaBBC series based on the novels by Georges Simenon which starred Rupert Davies as Inspector Maigret, a French police detective who preferred to watch and listen in order to solve crimes. The series ran from 1960-63 on British television.
Maigret
1960 · 15 votes
TV7.8DramaUpstairs: the wealthy, aristocratic Bellamys. Downstairs: their loyal and lively servants. For nearly 30 years, they share a fashionable townhouse at 165 Eaton Place in London’s posh Belgravia neighborhood, surviving social change, political upheaval, scandals, and the horrors of the First World War.
Upstairs, Downstairs
1971 · 32 votes
TV6.3CrimeDramaNew Scotland Yard is a police drama series produced by London Weekend Television for ITV from 1972 and 1974. It features the activities of two officers from the Criminal Investigations Department in the Metropolitan Police force headquarters at New Scotland Yard, as they dealt with the assorted villains of the day.
New Scotland Yard
1972 · 3 votes
TV7.1ComedyA zany comedy show with Matt Lucas and David Walliams, featuring characters from all over Little Britain.
Little Britain
2003 · 264 votes
TV6.0DramaDixon of Dock Green was a BBC television series following the activities of police officers at a fictional Metropolitan Police station in the East End of London from 1955 to 1976. Some episodes were later remade as a BBC radio series in 2005 and 2006.
Dixon of Dock Green
1955 · 4 votes
TV4.5DramaAngels is a BBC medical soap-opera which launched on 1st September 1975 and was the blue print for such medical soaps as Casualty, Holby City, plus daytime soap, Doctors. The medical soap focuses on different departments within Heath Green Hospital and was a highly successful continuing drama.
Angels
1975 · 4 votes
TV7.7CrimeDramaShoestring is a BBC detective drana set in Bristol and starring Trevor Eve as private detective Eddie Shoestring, who operatee his own show on Radio West, the local radio station. The programme ran between 30 September 1979 and 21 December 1980, in two series with 21 hour-long episodes. Eve opted not to return after two series, as he wanted to diversify into theatre, so the production team changed the setting to Jersey and created Bergerac, also following a detective returning to work after a bad period in his life.
Shoestring
1979 · 6 votes
TV6.8Action & AdventureDramaDempsey and Makepeace is a British television crime drama made by London Weekend Television for ITV, created and produced by Ranald Graham. The leading roles were played by Michael Brandon and Glynis Barber, who later married each other on 18 November 1989. The series combined elements of previous series such as the mis-matching of British and American crime-fighters from different classes as seen in The Persuaders! and the action of The Professionals.
Dempsey and Makepeace
1985 · 33 votes
Movies20
Movie6.2HorrorScience FictionOnce hounded from his castle by outraged villagers for creating a monstrous living being, Baron Frankenstein returns to Karlstaad. High in the mountains they stumble on the body of the creature, perfectly preserved in the ice. He is brought back to life with the help of the hypnotist Zoltan who now controls the creature. Can Frankenstein break Zoltan's hypnotic spell that incites the monster to commit these horrific murders or will Zoltan induce the creature to destroy its creator?
The Evil of Frankenstein
1964 · 122 votes
Movie7.0DramaHistoryA young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence, and other nostalgic events in early 1900s New York City.
Ragtime
1981 · 198 votes
Movie6.9FamilyWhen ex-con artist Harry claims that a secret treasure is hidden inside Candleshoe, an English estate, he creates an elaborate plan to find and steal the prize. By convincing a girl named Casey to impersonate the estate owner's long-lost granddaughter, Harry hopes to uncover the treasure's location. But when Casey has a change of heart, she must follow the clues and find the treasure, in order to save Candleshoe and stop Harry before it is too late.
Candleshoe
1977 · 125 votes
Movie4.2ComedyRandy plumber Sid South enjoys a profession which offers him ample opportunity to bed sexy housewives.
Adventures of a Plumber's Mate
1978 · 29 votes
Movie4.9ComedyHorrorFu Manchu's 168th birthday celebration is dampened when a hapless flunky spills Fu's age-regressing elixir vitae. Fu sends his lackeys to round up ingredients for a new batch of elixir, starting with the Star of Leningrad diamond, nabbed from a Soviet exhibition in Washington. The FBI sends agents Capone and Williams to England to confer with Nayland Smith, an expert on Fu.
The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu
1980 · 39 votes
Movie8.6Science FictionTV MovieUNIT is providing security cover at an experimental drilling project at Eastchester, designed to penetrate the Earth's crust and release a previously untapped source of energy. Soon, however, the drill head starts to leak an oily green liquid that transforms those who touch it into vicious primeval creatures with a craving for heat. The Doctor is accidentally transported "sideways in time" by the partially repaired TARDIS control console into a parallel universe where the drilling project is at a more advanced stage. Thwarted by his friends' ruthless alter egos, he works to save both universes.
Doctor Who: Inferno
1970 · 5 votes
Movie5.4ComedyCrimeA struggling pulp fiction writer who doubles as an incompetent jewel thief. He gets caught in the act every time, but he uses his looks and charm to make the best of it. Soon he becomes a celebrity. Wealthy women start leaving their jewels out like milk and cookies for Santa Claus in hopes that the sex thief will unlawfully invade their domiciles.
The Sex Thief
1973 · 15 votes
Movie'The Cutter' is a master of his craft – gangland killings using a cut-throat razor. When his son disturbs him in his work and announces that he wants to follow in his father's footsteps, 'The Cutter' is faced with a dilemma.
The Cutter
1992
Movie5.0DramaRomanceFollowing the banning and burning of his novel, "The Rainbow," D.H. Lawrence and his wife, Frieda, move to the United States, and then to Mexico. When Lawrence contracts tuberculosis, they return to England for a short time, then to Italy, where Lawrence writes "Lady Chatterley's Lover."
Priest of Love
1981 · 14 votes
Movie6.3DramaThree black militants kidnap the waiters in an Italian restaurant in London. Soon the victims befriend their kidnappers.
Spaghetti House
1982 · 20 votes
Movie7.0DramaThis special episode revealed what caused the feud between Pat Evans and Mo Harris that lasted until Pat's death. Pat and Mo meet at the grave of Pat's brother and Mo's husband, Jimmy Harris, and reminisce about old times through a series of flashbacks. Mo's brother, Stan Porter also appeared in the episode.
EastEnders: Pat and Mo
2004 · 1 votes
Movie3.8ComedyFailed music hall performer Jack James inherits a brothel when his ancient Aunt dies. He takes over the running of the business and falls in love with its star attraction, beautiful prostitute Virginia.
Keep It Up, Jack!
1974 · 16 votes
Movie5.0HorrorIn order to enjoy a romantic private swim together, Jo and Eddie hide when their local swimming pool is closing for the evening. But unknown to them, a killer is on the loose - and in the building with them.
Dark Water
1980 · 1 votes
Movie4.0ComedyThree young men, a scriptwriter, a producer and a director are called in by Benny U Murdoch, an exotic movie producer. He wants to make a new erotic movie starring a big woman - the "Eskimo Nell" of the title. However problems start from the beginning, the scriptwriter is a virgin, a lover of penguins and hasn't a clue on how to write an erotic movie, each of the three main backers want a different type of movie - a western, an erotic and a kung-fu movie with different people in the main part. However problems really start for the three when Benny runs off with all the money and they have to make three different versions of the same film and try not to let the backers and stars know what has happened. And this is made harder when there is a clean-up-filth society breathing down their necks....
Eskimo Nell
1975 · 24 votes
Movie4.7CrimePlayboy John Carter picks up a woman in a discotheque and takes her home. When she is murdered and he is framed for the crime, he finds himself drawn into a seedy underworld plot.
The Big Switch
1968 · 14 votes
MovieDramaSam, a quiet West Indian working as a London Transport ticket collector, strikes up an unlikely, but warm, friendship with Joe, an old man who has a room in the same house.
Movie6.3DramaSchool leaver Phil moves with his father from inner-city London to the satellite Hertfordshire New Town of Stevenage, where they are promised a brighter future...but all Phil finds there is a bleak, cultural wilderness; a world of unemployment, violence, alcoholism and drug abuse in 90s Britain
Boston Kickout
1995 · 13 votes
Movie7.0DramaScience FictionIn the future England is ruled by a fascist government, and one day the leaders begin the construction of a heavily guarded, mysterious airport. BBC adaptation of Rex Warner's 1941 novel of the same name. A stereotypical village in a somewhat alternative England is taken over wholesale by 'The Air Force.' Living in the village is young Roy, who has just learned he is not who he thought he was. Attempting to forge a new sense of identity, he joins the dashing Air Force, seduced by its dynamism and direct and brutal ways.
The Aerodrome
1983 · 1 votes
MovieDramaTV MovieLike alcoholism, gambling is a disease. Ches, a compulsive gambler, is sent for medical help. A wonder drug perhaps? Or hypnosis maybe? Ches finds that his psychiatrist has other ideas.
Bet Your Life
1976
Movie8.0TV MovieScience FictionOn Jupiter's moon Ganymede, an alien life-form has taken over the body of a human astronaut, creating an almost perfect copy. It then begins the long return journey to Earth.
The Counterfeit Man
1965 · 1 votes