
Elspet Gray
Actor · 1929 – 2013 · Inverness, Inverness Shire, Scotland, UK
Elspet Jean Gray, Baroness Rix (née Gray; 12 April 1929 – 18 February 2013) was a Scottish actress, who first became known for her partnership with her husband, Brian Rix, and later was cast in many television roles in the 1970s and 1980s. She played Lady Collingford in the television series Catweazle and Mrs. Palmer in the television series Solo, alongside Felicity Kendal. Gray had a long stage career, particularly known for her appearances in the Whitehall farces, the company being managed by her husband Brian Rix, which were originally performed at the Whitehall Theatre and later at the Garrick. Gray married Brian Rix in 1949. The couple had four children - two sons and two daughters. Their eldest child, daughter Shelley (born 1951) had Down syndrome. The experience of caring for her led the couple to become active campaigners for the disabled. Rix later became Mencap chairman and president. He became a life peer in 1992. This page is based on a Wikipedia article written by contributors. Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Series19
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 · 723 votes
TV6.2DramaSoapDrama series about the staff and patients at Holby City Hospital's emergency department, charting the ups and downs in their personal and professional lives.
Casualty
1986 · 88 votes
TV7.1DramaSeries of single made-for-television dramas.
Screen Two
1985 · 7 votes
TV7.9CrimeDramaInspector Morse is a detective drama based on Colin Dexter's series of Chief Inspector Morse novels. The series starred John Thaw as Chief Inspector Morse and Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis, as well as a large cast of notable actors and actresses.
Inspector Morse
1987 · 146 votes
TV8.0ComedyBlackadder traces the deeply cynical and self-serving lineage of various Edmund Blackadders throughout British history, from the muck of the Middle Ages to the frontline of The Great War.
Blackadder
1983 · 580 votes
TV3.5DramaSunday Night Theatre was a long-running series of televised live television plays screened by BBC Television from early 1950 until 1959. The productions for the first five years or so of the run were re-staged live the following Thursday, partly because of technical limitations in this era, and the theatrical basis of early television drama. Some of the earliest collaborations between Rudolph Cartier and Nigel Neale were produced for this series, including Arrow to the Heart and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The Sunday night drama slot was subsequently renamed The Sunday-Night Play which ran for four seasons between 1960 and 1963. ITV transmitted its own unrelated run of Sunday Night Theatre between 1971 and 1974.
Sunday Night Theatre
1950 · 2 votes
TV8.3DramaWar & PoliticsBased on real-life experiences, Tenko remains one of the most fondly remembered and acclaimed BBC dramas of the early 1980s. It follows a group of women, formerly comfortably well-off ex-pats living in Singapore, as they are captured by the Japanese during World War II.
Tenko
1981 · 12 votes
TV8.3ComedyOwner Basil Fawlty, his wife Sybil, a chambermaid Polly, and Spanish waiter Manuel attempt to run their hotel amidst farcical situations and an array of demanding guests.
Fawlty Towers
1975 · 853 votes
TV6.8Action & AdventureMysteryThis ten episode program was based on ten short stories written by Agatha Christie but with wide-ranging themes. Some were romances, some had supernatural themes and a couple were adventures. The common link was that all came from the talented pen of Agatha Christie, all were entertaining and each drama was carefully crafted and well cast with many of Britain's best known actors of the time represented.
The Agatha Christie Hour
1982 · 18 votes
TV7.3ComedyDramaLytton's Diary is a 1985–86 British comedy-drama programme created and written by Peter Bowles and Philip Broadley. Produced by Thames Television for ITV, it originated as a single play on the anthology programme Storyboard before expanding into two popular series, known for their mix of glamour, intrigue, and social commentary. Bowles stars as Neville Lytton, a suave and successful Fleet Street gossip columnist for the Daily News. Lytton navigates the world of high-society scandals, political corruption, and personal challenges, balancing his professional life with his love life and his ambition to write a novel.
Lytton's Diary
1985 · 3 votes
TV7.5Sci-Fi & FantasyComedyA medieval wizard (though not a very good one) Catweazle is transported to the modern age... A British television series, created and written by Richard Carpenter which was produced and directed by Quentin Lawrence for London Weekend Television under the LWI banner, and screened in the UK on ITV in 1970. A second season in 1971 was directed by David Reid and David Lane. Both series had thirteen episodes each, with Geoffrey Bayldon playing the leading role. The series was broadcast in Ireland, Britain, Gibraltar, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Germany, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Czechoslovakia, Nicaragua and Quebec. The first episode is available to view in full at the BFI Screenonline site.
Catweazle
1970 · 21 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 · 38 votes
TV7.5DramaColonel March of The Department of Queer Complaints investigates unusual cases, locked-room murders, and mysteries concerning the supernatural.
Colonel March of Scotland Yard
1956 · 8 votes
TV7.3DramaFollowing his service in World War II, Doctor Finlay returns to the practice at Arden House. This is at a time when the National Health Service is about to be instituted.
Doctor Finlay
1993 · 3 votes
TV7.0ComedyGemma Palmer is 30 years old, and fed up with being betrayed and taken for granted. She's just found out her boyfriend, Danny, has been having sex with her friend, Gloria, and this is the last straw. She throws Danny out, tells Gloria to go jump in a lake, tells off all the people who have been treating her like a doormat, and quits her boring job at an estate agent's. From now on, she's going solo. At least, that is her firm intention.
Solo
1981 · 7 votes
- TVComedy
An anthology of 50-minute farces written specifically for television, created and presented by the prominent English actor-manager Brian Rix, performing alongside his Whitehall Theatre Company.
Dial RIX
1962
TVCrimeDramaA series of three minute strange tales narrated by Peter Williams.
- TV4.0Drama
Pulaski is a British television drama series produced by the BBC in 1987. Created by Roy Clarke, the series was a parody of detective dramas centred around Larry Summers, an American actor starring in a British detective series in the title role of Pulaski, who finds himself involved in real life cases. He was assisted by his co-star Kate Smith, who played his sidekick Briggsy in the series. The theme music was performed by The Shadows.
Pulaski
1987 · 1 votes
TV6.3DramaOn the eve of World War I, Agnes Conway manages both the business and the problems of her troubled family. She finds the strength to break class barriers and help her sister Jessie marry a good boy from a family of dockside toughs. Is she strong enough to break them again when Charles Farrier, a gentleman, courts her over his parents' opposition? Agnes faces an added dilemma when she finds her heart divided between Charles and his soldier brother Reginald.
The Wingless Bird
1997 · 3 votes
Movies18
Movie6.8ComedyDramaOver the course of five social occasions, a committed bachelor must consider the notion that he may have discovered love.
Four Weddings and a Funeral
1994 · 3.1K votes
Movie4.9DramaThrillerA London art broker goes to Copenhagen where he requires the services of a secretary fluent in Danish, English, and German. He falls deeply in love with the woman, despite the fact that he knows virtually nothing about her. She insists on not being married in a church, and after they are married, some bad things from her past begin surfacing in subtly supernatural ways, and he must find the best way to deal with them without destroying their relationship.
The Girl in a Swing
1988 · 15 votes
MovieDocumentaryScience FictionA look at the subtle (and not so subtle!) links to the show's past and future contained within the story of The Five Doctors.
Movie6.8DramaMusicAcademy Award-honoree Peter O'Toole stars in this musical classic about a prim English schoolmaster who learns to show his compassion through the help of an outgoing showgirl. O'Toole, who received his fourth Oscar-nomination for this performance, is joined by '60s pop star Petula Clark and fellow Oscar-nominee Michael Redgrave.
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
1969 · 54 votes
- Movie6.5Comedy
Movie with some of the greatest brittish comedians such as Rowan Atkinson, John Cleese.
The Funny Blokes of British Comedy
2005 · 2 votes
Movie8.4DocumentaryComedy30 years after Fawlty Towers (1975) ended, Stephen Fry narrates a documentary about the making of this classic sitcom.
Fawlty Towers: Re-Opened
2009 · 5 votes
Movie5.3ComedyBritish comedy legend Victoria Wood entertains a star-studded audience including Julie Walters, Judi Dench and Dawn French in this 1988 special. Watch her crack jokes, play the piano and answer light-hearted questions.
An Audience With Victoria Wood
1988 · 5 votes
Movie7.1DocumentaryComedySir Tony Robinson takes a journey back in time to find out where Blackadder really began, and to uncover the story of the previously-unseen pilot episode.
Blackadder: The Lost Pilot
2023 · 8 votes
Movie4.5ComedyDocumentaryA countdown of the top 40 "Blackadder" moments chosen by cast and crew members, celebrity fans and 15 genuine Blackadders.
Blackadder's Most Cunning Moments
2008 · 2 votes
- Movie
When millionaire businessman Guy Taylor takes up with the beautiful Rachel Bell, two years married to a struggling sculptor, he starts to question what he really wants. TV play. Third part of writer Kenneth Jupp's "Chelsea Trilogy"; see also The PHOTOGRAPHER (tx 29/1/1968) and The EXPLORER/ PLAYHOUSE (tx 14/10/1968).
The Tycoon
1968
Movie5.5CrimeAn ex-convict, who was framed, struggles to clear his name.
Johnny-on-the-Spot
1954 · 4 votes
Movie6.3ComedyGood natured comic caper charting the misadventures of a hapless bunch of Brighton based petty crooks dogged with disaster at every turn.
The Night We Got the Bird
1960 · 3 votes
Movie5.8DramaJustice, the poets have it, is a blind goddess. Eric Portman stars as the lawyer defending a lord, Hugh Williams, accused by his secretary Michael Dennison of having diverted public funds for his own use.
The Blind Goddess
1948 · 7 votes
Movie7.0MusicDramaTottie True is a gay-90s British music-hall performer who has her sights set on moving from rags to riches, who loses her heart to the pure-and-true blue balloonist, Sid Skinner, but continues her upward search on improving her social status. She finally settles for Lord Landon Digby who has lots of assets and a very-stiff upper lip. She gets a lot of the latter and very little of the former, and decides Sid might have been a better choice.
Trottie True
1949 · 3 votes
Movie9.0DramaDirector Charles Saunders' low-key domestic comedy, adapted from A.P. Dearsley's play, centers on a middle-aged London couple who react in different ways as their four children grow up, fall in love and make career choices.
Fly Away Peter
1948 · 1 votes
Movie7.0CrimeDramaA Thames River barge operator finds a mysterious package dropped by smugglers.
Devil's Point
1954 · 1 votes
Movie7.5ComedyRomanceThe story of three women working as waitresses in post-World War II Britain.
Love in Waiting
1948 · 2 votes
Movie9.0This comedy is set in an army boot camp. It displays a drill sergeant who must somehow turn an inept group of recruits into real soldiers.
Reluctant Heroes
1952 · 1 votes