
Bill Fraser
Actor · 1908 – 1987 · Perth, Scotland, UK
William Simpson Fraser was a Scottish actor known for his roles in television and film from 1938 to 1987, particularly for his character Snudge in the sitcoms "The Army Game" and "Bootsie and Snudge". He won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance in 1986 for his role in the play "When We Are Married".
Movies24
Movie6.7DramaThrillerGreat Britain, 1944, during World War II. Relentlessly pursued by several MI5 agents, Henry Faber the Needle, a ruthless German spy in possession of vital information about D-Day, takes refuge on Storm Island, an inhospitable, sparsely inhabited island off the coast of northern Scotland.
Eye of the Needle
1981 · 265 votes
Movie6.7ComedyDramaAmerican sailor Charlie Madison falls for a pretty Englishwoman while trying to avoid a senseless and dangerous D-Day mission concocted by a deranged admiral.
The Americanization of Emily
1964 · 83 votes
Movie6.7DramaA washed-up filmmaker gets a second chance at stardom when he discovers stunning peasant Maria Vargas dancing in a Madrid nightclub. Goaded by his producer, the director convinces Maria to screen test for, and then star in, his next big picture. But as the producer's possessive nature and the realities of stardom weigh on Maria, she seeks a genuine lover with whom she can escape.
The Barefoot Contessa
1954 · 285 votes
Movie5.6AdventureFamilySurvivors of a sinking ship are rescued by Captain Nemo and his submarine crew. They are taken to an underwater city where they may spend the rest of their lives.
Captain Nemo and the Underwater City
1969 · 36 votes
Movie5.8DramaRomanceIn England during WWII, an American news correspondent’s affair with a married British correspondent ends tragically when he is killed in action. Fearing a nervous breakdown as a result of his death, she travels to Cornwall to mourn with his family without any intention of revealing her relationship with him.
Another Time, Another Place
1958 · 20 votes
Movie6.4DramaAmy Dorrit spends her days earning money for the family and looking after her proud father who is a long term inmate of Marshalsea debtors' prison in London. Amy and her family's world is transformed when her employer's son, Arthur Clennam, returns from overseas to solve his family's mysterious legacy and discovers that their lives are interlinked.
Little Dorrit
1987 · 14 votes
Movie5.0ComedyAdventureThe British send an American and a war hero to kidnap and hide an oil-country prince.
Masquerade
1965 · 18 votes
Movie6.4AdventureAn American insurance investigator is sent to Rhodesia to investigate the mysterious death of a diamond broker who drowned whilst diving off the coast. The broker was insured for $1 million so the insurers are suspicious.
Duel in the Jungle
1954 · 7 votes
Movie5.7RomanceComedyMediterranean ferryboat captain Henry St James has things well organized - a loving and very English wife Maud in Gibraltar, and the loving if rather more hot-blooded Mistress, Nita in Tangiers. A perfect life. As long as neither woman decides to follow him to the other port.
The Captain's Paradise
1953 · 26 votes
Movie6.5MysteryIn this murder mystery, a woman's brother is killed in a freak accident, or so she believes. Fortunately for her, an American journalist is more suspicious and so begins roaming the London streets in search of the killer.
Lady in the Fog
1952 · 6 votes
Movie6.4ComedyRomanceA detective gets involved with a wealthy socialite who can't seem to stop hiccuping.
Helter Skelter
1949 · 4 votes
Movie7.5DramaComedyComedians is a TV movie/play by Trevor Griffiths, set in a Manchester evening class for aspiring working-class comedians.
Comedians
1979 · 2 votes
Movie4.1ComedyA funny thing happened to Lurkalot, serf to Sir Coward de Custard, on the way to Custard Castle. Lurkalot sells lusty love potions and rusty chastity belts in the market place, but on this day Sir Graggart de Bombast arrives to sack the castle, and to get the lovely Lobelia Custard in the sack! Lurkalot must help Custard cream the knight in pining armour...
Up the Chastity Belt
1972 · 22 votes
Movie7.4DramaTV MovieA strong-willed teacher, determined to educate the poor and illiterate youth of an impoverished Welsh village, discovers one student whom she believes to have the seeds of genius in him.
The Corn Is Green
1979 · 5 votes
Movie6.1ComedyA funny thing happens to Lurcio on the way to the rent-a-vestal-virgin market stall. A mysterious scroll falls into his hands, listing the names of all the conspirators plotting to murder Emperor Nero. And when the upstart slave is elected to infiltrate the ringleader's den, the comical ups-and-downs lead to total uproar.
Up Pompeii
1971 · 41 votes
Movie6.2ComedyCrimeSwinging playboy Grand Duke Nicholas Goduno, a direct descendent of the Romanov family who were overthrown in the Russian Revolution of 1917, learns that his family's crown jewels will be exhibited at a London museum and plots to steal them. To this end, he gathers a crew of beautiful but dangerous women, led by Bridget Rafferty, to assist in his plot against Popov, the Soviet functionary in charge of the exhibit.
Diamonds for Breakfast
1968 · 8 votes
Movie6.6ComedyA Home of Your Own is a 1964 British comedy film which is a brick-by-brick account of the building a young couple’s dream house. From the day when the site is first selected, to the day – several years and children later – when the couple finally move in, the story is a noisy but wordless comedy of errors as the incompetent labourers struggle to complete the house. It may well have been inspired by the success of Bernard Cribbins' classic song of the same vein from two years earlier, "Right Said Fred". In this satirical look at British builders, many cups of tea are made, windows are broken and the same section of road is dug up over and over again by the water board, the electricity board and the gas board. Ronnie Barker’s put-upon cement mixer, Peter Butterworth’s short-sighted carpenter and Bernard Cribbins’ hapless stonemason all contribute to the ensuing chaos.
A Home of Your Own
1964 · 7 votes
Movie6.2ComedyWhile posters urge austerity and vigilance in wartime Britain, 'Joey Boy' Thompson has never had it better. In a cellar beneath his East London fish shop, a gambling club thrives – and austerity provides a nice black-market sideline. But the dolce vita crumbles when police arrive in a lightning raid, and offer Joey and his fellow reprobates a stark choice: sign up for active service, or face another stint inside. Thus the lads find themselves heading off to Italy, determined to make the best of it...
Joey Boy
1965 · 3 votes
Movie7.0DramaTV MovieTrilogy of one-act plays based on short stories by Lewis Grassic Gibbon. ‘Clay’ is the story of a men who neglects his wife in favour of his land. ‘Smeddum’ is the story of a matriarch’s attempt to control her brood. ‘Greenden’ is the story of a city woman moving to the country with her husband.
Clay, Smeddum and Greenden
1976 · 2 votes
Movie4.0ComedyIn Victorian London, the British Government attempts a solution to the problem of street prostitution by establishing the world's most fabulous brothel.
The Best House in London
1969 · 9 votes
Movie5.5ComedyDoctors Burke and Hare leave the confines of St Swithins for the world of general practice, stopping off on the way as patients at the Foulness Anti-cold Unit. Hare then takes up a position as junior in a well-healed G.P.'s surgery while Burke continues to sow his doctorial wild oats.
Doctor in Love
1960 · 18 votes
Movie5.7TV MovieMysterySarah Jane Smith arrives at the home of her Aunt Lavinia in the cozy village of Moreton Harwood, only to find that Lavinia is nowhere to be found and that the Doctor has left her a parting gift in K·9 Mark III. With the help of K·9 and Lavinia's young ward Brendan Richards, Sarah Jane starts investigating her aunt's disappearance. In the process, they discover that Moreton Harwood is home to a coven worshipping the pagan god Hecate and preparing for a human sacrifice...
K-9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend
1981 · 7 votes
Movie7.0ComedyFred Midway may be a bit short on brains, but he's got plenty of ambition. However, before he can gain promotion as a salesman, he must make his family more socially acceptable.
All the Way Up
1970 · 4 votes
Movie6.3RomanceComedyDeborah and Charles, young executives at the thriving Pontifex Advertising Agency, are very much in love. Deborah is recognised by her employers as the most brilliant TV executive in the country, while Charles is regarded as 'thoroughly reliable'. But there is one hard-and-fast rule at the agency: the board of directors will not allow any married women on their staff; as soon as a girl marries, she must resign!
Second Fiddle
1957 · 6 votes
Series24
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 · 722 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
TV5.2DramaA BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983.
BBC Play of the Month
1965 · 8 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
TV5.2DramaAn anthology series of television plays which aired on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured.
The Wednesday Play
1964 · 5 votes
TV7.0DramaITV Playhouse is a British comedy-drama TV series that ran from 1967 to 1983, which featured contributions from playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Rhys Adrian and Alan Sharp. The series began in black and white, but was later shot in colour and was produced by various companies for the ITV network, a format that would inspire Dramarama. Actors appearing in the series included Leslie Anderson, Gwen Nelson, Ricky Alleyne, Pat Heywood, Michael Elphick, Ian Hendry, Edward Woodward, Margaret Lockwood, Jessie Matthews and Lloyd Peters.
ITV Playhouse
1967 · 3 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
TV7.1DramaComedyRumpole of the Bailey is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer. It stars Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, an aging London barrister who defends any and all clients, and has been spun off into a series of short stories, novels, and radio programmes.
Rumpole of the Bailey
1975 · 24 votes
TV7.0ComedyFollows the exploits of Hut 29, a dysfunctional group of soldiers and their National Service conscription into the British Army during the post war years.
The Army Game
1957 · 4 votes
TV7.7ComedyA British television comedy series of the 1970s and early 1980s, combining surreal sketches and situation comedy.
The Goodies
1970 · 26 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
TV6.8DocumentaryThe World of Hammer is a thirteen-part British documentary series created and written by Robert and Ashley Sidaway for Channel 4. Initially broadcast from 12 August to 4 November 1994, the series is narrated by English actor and frequent Hammer collaborator Oliver Reed.
The World of Hammer
1994 · 4 votes
TV7.4ComedyHancock's Half Hour is a BBC television comedy series of the 1950s and 60s written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The series starred Tony Hancock with Sid James. The final series, renamed simply Hancock, starred Hancock alone. Comedian Tony Hancock starred in the show, playing an exaggerated and much poorer version of his own character and lifestyle, Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock, a down-at-heel comedian living at the dilapidated 23 Railway Cuttings in East Cheam. The series was influential in the development of the situation comedy, with its move away from radio variety towards a focus on character development.
Hancock's Half Hour
1956 · 9 votes
TV7.6ComedyThis English follows the East End working-class Garnett family, headed by patriarch Alf, a reactionary working-class man who wields racist and anti-Socialist views. His long-suffering wife Else manages to keep things in control... for the most part. Their progressive daughter Rita lives with them, as does her Irish husband Mike, who, with an array of liberal worldviews, often quarrels with his father-in-law. It inspired the American show "All In The Family" and several other international variations on the same theme.
Till Death Us Do Part
1966 · 28 votes
TV7.0ComedyBootsie and Snudge is a British television situation comedy series written, in the early days, by Barry Took and Marty Feldman; later writers were John Antrobus, Jack Rosenthal, ventriloquist Ray Alan and Harry Driver. The plot follows Former Sergeant Major Claude Snudge meets up with Corporal Bootsie when they both start work at an exclusive Gentlemen's Club. Of the 104 produced episodes, 100 of these survive.
Bootsie and Snudge
1960 · 2 votes
TV10.0ComedySeries based on the short French farces written by Georges Feydeau, Eugène Labiche, Marc Michel and Sacha Guitry. All of them include mistaken identities and impeccable timing.
Ooh La La!
1968 · 1 votes
TV6.9ComedyDramaThe everyday traumas and emotional upheavals of the legendary teenage diarist as he struggles to come to terms with life in Margaret Thatcher's 1980s England.
The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole
1987 · 8 votes
TVDramaLondon itself takes the starring role in this series of plays from the BBC – a role which varies between hero and villain, enchantress and harpy. The series features extensive location filming, ranging from Soho to the Law Courts, Wembley to the docks. Of the twelve episodes, eleven are believed to be lost.
Londoners
1965
- TV6.5ComedyDrama
Black and Blue was a BBC TV comedy-drama series, first broadcast in 1973. The show consisted of six 50–60 minutes episodes, each a separate self-contained playlet. The only connection was the Black and Blue humour theme. The first episode was broadcast on 14 August 1973, with the finale on 18 September 1973. The first, Secrets, was wiped, only surviving thanks to a domestic videotape copy made from the master by producer Mark Shivas.
Black and Blue
1973 · 2 votes
TV6.0ComedyWhoops Baghdad is a BBC television comedy programme first broadcast from 25 January to 1 March 1973. The series stars Frankie Howerd, and was similar to his earlier programme Up Pompeii!, with the setting moved from Ancient Rome to mediaeval Baghdad. However, it was significantly less successful than its predecessor, only running for six episodes and is little remembered, although all episodes survive. The original proposed title, Up Baghdad, was rejected because it was felt that it might have been seen as supportive of the then-current Iraqi regime.
Whoops Baghdad
1973 · 2 votes
TV6.9DramaComedyA British television series based on the book of the same name written by Sue Townsend.
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾
1985 · 14 votes
- TV6.5Drama
A young man journeys from a difficult childhood to maturity, exploring social injustice, personal development, and the complexities of human relationships. Initially broadcast on BBC One from January to April 1966, only nine of the thirteen episodes are believed to still exist.
David Copperfield
1966 · 2 votes
TV6.7CrimeMysteryCover Her Face is the debut 1962 crime novel of P. D. James. It details the investigations into the death of a young, ambitious maid, surrounded by a family which has reasons to want her gone – or dead.
Cover Her Face
1985 · 6 votes
TVComedyWar vet Hedley Green has been the station master of Burberry Halt railway station for 30 years. A quiet, run-down country station on the Milchester line that sees three trains a day, Hedley stills wears the uniform of the Great Western Railway and uses a 1933 rulebook. Assisted by Peter Pringle, their time is mostly spent dealing with crises caused by area manager Mr Potts, who is later replaced by Mr Pitts.