John Laurie

Richard Hanney has a rude awakening when a glamorous female spy falls into his bed - with a knife in her back. Having a bit of trouble explaining it all to Scotland Yard, he heads for the hills of Scotland to try to clear his name by locating the spy ring known as The 39 Steps.

Enchanted by the idea of locating treasure buried by Captain Flint, Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey and Jim Hawkins charter a sailing voyage to a Caribbean island. Unfortunately, a large number of Flint's old pirate crew are aboard the ship, including Long John Silver.

After a team of surgeons botches his beloved wife's operation, the distraught Dr. Phibes unleashes a score of Old-Testament atrocities on his enemies.

At the height of the Roman Civil War, an aging Julius Caesar finds himself intrigued by the young Egyptian queen Cleopatra, whom he teaches how to rule Egypt.

Three sailors get drunk while on shore leave and end up on the wrong ship. When they realise their mistake they scramble off it and onto their warship, HMS Ferocious. However, they soon realise that the vessel they have boarded is not the Ferocious but a German battleship.

In 1415, in the midst of the Hundred Years' War, the young King Henry V of England embarks on the conquest of France.

Winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor, Sir Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet continues to be the most compelling version of Shakespeare’s beloved tragedy. Olivier is at his most inspired—both as director and as the melancholy Dane himself—as he breathes new life into the words of one of the world’s greatest dramatists.

A disgraced officer risks his life to help his childhood friends in battle.

Escaping from China with a microfilm of the formula for the mysterious "Lotus X", Lord Southmere, a Queen's Messenger, is chased by a group of Chinese spies.

Plucky Englishwoman Joan Webster travels to the remote islands of the Scottish Hebrides in order to marry a wealthy industrialist. Trapped by inclement weather on the Isle of Mull and unable to continue to her destination, Joan finds herself charmed by the straightforward, no-nonsense islanders around her, and becomes increasingly attracted to naval officer Torquil MacNeil, who holds a secret that may change her life forever.

Having helped his brother King Edward IV take the throne of England, the jealous hunchback Richard, Duke of Gloucester, plots to seize power for himself. Masterfully deceiving and plotting against nearly everyone in the royal court, including his eventual wife, Lady Anne, and his brother George, Duke of Clarence, Richard orchestrates a bloody rise to power before finding all his gains jeopardized by those he betrayed.

Anthony Hope's classic tale gets a decidedly 'un-classic' treatment at the hands of Peter Sellers. Following the story somewhat, friends of the new King Rudolph of Ruritania fear for his life, and switch him with a look-a-like London cabby. Throw in two(!) lovely blondes, treachery, and a battle for life and honour, and enjoy life at its zaniest.

Kidnapped and cheated out of his inheritance, young David Balfour falls in with a Jacobite adventurer, Alan Breck Stewart. Falsely accused of murder, they must flee across the Highlands, evading the redcoats.

General Candy, who's overseeing an English squad in 1943, is a veteran leader who doesn't have the respect of the men he's training and is considered out-of-touch with what's needed to win the war. But it wasn't always this way. Flashing back to his early career in the Boer War and World War I, we see a dashing young officer whose life has been shaped by three different women, and by a lasting friendship with a German soldier.

Pandora Reynolds is a woman who has never fallen in love – but one who men kill and die for. When she meets dashing and mysterious ship's captain Hendrik van der Zee, he pushes her to commit the ultimate act of love.

A widower refuses to let his three daughters marry in order to avoid paying settlements, so they'll just have to outsmart him.

A mismatched collection of conscripted civilians find training tough under Lieutenant Jim Perry and Sergeant Ned Fletcher when they are called up to replace an infantry battalion that had suffered casualties at Dunkirk.

Harry and Valerie Spalding arrive in the remote Cornish village to an unwelcoming and suspicious population. Harry's brother dies suddenly, bitten by a lethal reptilian bite. They befriend a young woman Anna whose tyrannical father controls her life and, as they discover that others in the village have suffered a similar fate, their investigations lead to Anna. What they uncover is a victim of the most terrifying legacy... a destiny of mutilation and murder.

In the slums of Dublin during the Irish Civil War, the Boyle family’s fragile stability collapses after news of an unexpected inheritance lures them into a false sense of prosperity. Captain Boyle, a boastful idler, squanders their meager resources, while his wife Juno holds the household together. When the fortune proves illusory, the family faces ruin, betrayal, and tragedy.

The "Ladies Who Do" are office cleaners. One of them discovers some hot stock tips and they make a fortune. They then make good use of it to save their old neighbourhoods from the wicked developer.

Given only six months to live, Englishman Bruce Campbell goes to Canada to claim "Campbell's Kingdom", the land he inherited from his grandfather. In order to clear his grandfather's name and prove there is oil on the land, Campbell must face up to a ruthless contractor and work against the clock to find oil before "Campbell's Kingdom" is flooded by a new power dam.

A tale of life on board a Royal Navy cruiser assigned to protect the vital convoys between America and England during WWII.

Eight people at a remote Scottish inn find themselves confronted by a woman from Mars, who has landed her flying saucer for repairs but intends to soon conquer the Earth and enslave its men for breeding purposes.

King Arthur learns one of his knights is plotting to take over and marry his daughter. Following the King's death, the Knight wishing to marry the princess is ordered by the great wizard Merlin to remove the sword from the scabbard and prove his right to the throne.

A quirky spy show of the adventures of eccentrically suave British Agent John Steed and his predominantly female partners. Jonathan Steed - an urbane, proper gentleman spy - teams with various assistants throughout the series' run, including Dr. David Keel, Cathy Gale, Emma Peel and Tara King, to repeatedly save the world from diabolical schemes plotted by equally diabolical evil-doers (among them robots and man-eating monsters).

A 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.

Z-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.

Theatre 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.

ITV 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.

Anthology series of dramatic works.

Dr Finlay's Casebook is a BBC television series that was broadcast from 1962 until 1971. Based on A. J. Cronin's novella Country Doctor, the storylines centred on a general medical practice in the fictional Scottish town of Tannochbrae during the late 1920s.

Introducing the Walmington-On-Sea home guard. During WW2, in a fictional British seaside town, a ragtag group of Home Guard local defense volunteers prepare for an imminent German invasion.

Sunday 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.

Mystery and Imagination is a British television anthology of classic horror and supernatural dramas. Five series were broadcast from 1966 to 1970 on ITV and produced by ABC and Thames Television.

A UK anthology series of single plays from major playwrights old and new. It ran from 1955 to 1974, producing about five hundred ninety-minute episodes from Granada Television. Season 1 also incorporates the Plays from the 'H.M. Tennant Globe Theatre' series, some of which were incorporated and labelled in listings as official Play of the Week episodes and some of which were played in place of Play of the Week episodes in alternative ITV regions. All 8 plays have been incorporated into this entry for convenience.

Drama 61-67 is anthology drama series which took a different title, based on year of transmission, each year. It alternated with Armchair Theatre from ABC in the Sunday evening slot. The series was described at the time as epitomising ATV drama.

A father and son who work as rag-and-bone men live together in Shepherd's Bush, London. While Albert is content with their way of life, Harold aspires to better himself and build a life of his own, but his attempts are repeatedly thwarted by his father, leading to frequent clashes between the two.

The second collection of short stories written by Baroness Orczy about the gallant English hero, the Scarlet Pimpernel and his League.

Colonel March of The Department of Queer Complaints investigates unusual cases, locked-room murders, and mysteries concerning the supernatural.

Michael Strait is a world-renowned photographer whose assignments lead him into investigating mysterious goings-on amongst the rich and glamorous and intrigue from far-flung places as Iraq, French Indochina, and Algiers.

The series adapted for television some true tales from press correspondents from around the world.

From a Bird's Eye View is a 1970 ATV and ITC Entertainment co-produced sitcom. In the United States it aired on NBC, which had originally ordered the series as an entry in the 1969-70 TV season but pushed it back to the 1970-71 season as a mid-season replacement. The series followed two International Airlines stewardesses, a scatterbrained Briton and a savvy American, as they flew the London-European routes. The series ran for 16 25-minute colour episodes. The series was not a big success in either the UK or the US, but ITC re-used the format for the Shirley MacLaine series Shirley's World. That show also flopped, but ran to one more episode than From a Bird's Eye View.

An anthology series with the premise that there is a story behind every door.

Tales of Mystery was a British supernatural television drama anthology series based on the short stories of Algernon Blackwood. It was broadcast by ITV and ran over three seasons from 1961-1963. Produced by Peter Graham Scott, each episode was 25 minutes long and introduced by John Laurie. None of the 29 episodes broadcast survive in any television archive, however.

Former spy Richard Hannay is drawn out of retirement to stop a criminal conspiracy involving hypnotism and blackmail. A sinister organisation kidnaps the children of prominent figures to manipulate global affairs, forcing Hannay to confront the deviously charismatic Dominick Medina in a battle of wits and psychological warfare.

Toby Jones presents a set of must-see Dad's Army moments from the BBC's archives, including Mainwaring dancing and sparring with Morecambe and Wise and a special tribute to Noel Coward.

Adaptation of Aldous Huxley's novel, following the personal and spiritual progress of Anthony Beavis in the years between the world wars.