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Michael Ferguson (director)
Michael Ferguson (14 June 1937 – 4 October 2021) was a British television director and producer. His early career included directing four serials of the BBC's science fiction series ''Doctor Who'' (1966–1971). He later directed ITV's police drama series ''The Bill'' and was promoted to become its producer (1988–1989), and as executive producer of the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'' (1989–1991) he was responsible for the introduction of two of its most popular and long-running characters, Phil and Grant Mitchell. He then produced the BBC medical drama series ''Casualty'' (1993–1994). Early life Ferguson was educated at King's College School in Wimbledon. He performed his national service with the British Army in Cyprus and north Africa. He trained as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Career Ferguson started his career as a stage actor and director with the Theatre Centre, a touring company visiting schools, before joining the BBC as an assistant f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Malden
New Malden is an area in South West London, England. It is located mainly within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames and the London Borough of Merton, and is from Charing Cross. Neighbouring localities include Kingston, Norbiton, Raynes Park, Surbiton, Tolworth, Wimbledon and Worcester Park. Prior to the creation of Greater London in 1965, New Malden was in the administrative county of Surrey. History New Malden was established entirely as a result of the arrival of the railway, when what is now called New Malden railway station was opened on 1 December 1846 on the main line from London Waterloo. Building started slowly in the area just to the north of the station, gathering pace in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with two- and three-bedroom terraced houses. Further out towards Coombe Hill are larger detached and semi-detached houses from the 1930s. The name of the road which leads up the hill to Coombe, Traps Lane, is thought to derive from a farm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compact (TV Series)
''Compact'' is a British television soap opera shown by BBC Television from January 1962 to July 1965. The series was created by Hazel Adair and Peter Ling; the partnership devised ''Crossroads'' while ''Compact'' was still running. In contrast to the kitchen sink realism of ''Coronation Street'', ''Compact'' was a distinctly middle-class serial, set in the more "sophisticated" arena of magazine publishing. An early "avarice" soap, it took viewers into the office, and aligned the professional lives of the characters with more personal storylines. The show was scheduled for broadcast on Tuesdays and Thursdays, thus avoiding a clash with ITV's ''Coronation Street'' on Mondays and Wednesdays. Outline and synopsis The idea came to Hazel Adair when she submitted a commissioned feature article for ''Woman's Own''. After the BBC decided to produce the project, she formed a working partnership with Peter Ling. When ''Compact'' began, the editor was female, Joanne Minster (Jean Harvey), s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Glory Boys
''The Glory Boys'' is a 1984 British three-part television thriller miniseries made for Yorkshire Television and first broadcast on the ITV network between 1 and 3 October 1984, starring Rod Steiger and Anthony Perkins. It is about two terrorists, one from the IRA and another from the PLO, who meet up in London to assassinate an Israeli nuclear scientist. Cast * Rod Steiger as Professor David Sokarev *Anthony Perkins as Jimmy *Alfred Burke as Jones *Joanna Lumley Dame Joanna Lamond Lumley (born 1 May 1946) is an English actress, presenter, former model, author, television producer, and activist. She has won two BAFTA TV Awards for her role as Patsy Stone in the BBC sitcom ''Absolutely Fabulous'' (1992 ... as Helen *Sallyanne Law as Norah *Aaron Harris as Cillian McCoy * Gary Brown as Famy Production Steiger and Perkins were at loggerheads during the production of ''The Glory Boys''. Perkins resented the fact that Steiger insisted on a bigger trailer and felt that Steig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Airline (1982 TV Series)
''Airline'' is a British television series produced by ITV Yorkshire, Yorkshire Television for the ITV (TV network), ITV network in 1982. The series starred Roy Marsden as Jack Ruskin, a pilot demobbed after the end of the Second World War who starts his own air transport business. ''Airline'' was created by Wilfred Greatorex and lasted for one series of nine episodes broadcast in January and February 1982, with a repeat in the summer of 1984. Other leading cast members were Polly Hemingway, Richard Heffer, Nicholas Bond-Owen, Sean Scanlan and Terence Rigby, while noted guest stars included Anthony Valentine and Walter Gotell (better known for his numerous guest stints as KGB General Gogol in a string of James Bond films during the Cold War era). Production The main location filming was at the former RAF Rufforth in Yorkshire, former RAF Duxford airfield in Cambridgeshire and on the island of Malta. The aerial unit was managed by the Aces High Company, who operated two Douglas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flambards (TV Series)
''Flambards'' is a television series of 13 episodes which was broadcast in the United Kingdom in 1979 on ITV and in the United States in 1980. The series was based on the three ''Flambards'' novels of English author K. M. Peyton. The series is set from 1909 to 1918 (World War I is still being fought at the end) and tells how the teenage heroine, the orphaned heiress Christina Parsons (Christine McKenna), comes to live at Flambards, the impoverished Essex estate owned by her crippled and tyrannical uncle, William Russell (Edward Judd), and his two sons, Mark (Steven Grives) and Will Russell ( Alan Parnaby). Other cast members included Sebastian Abineri as Dick Wright, Anton Diffring as Mr Dermott, Rosalie Williams as Mary and Frank Mills as Fowler. Four episodes were directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark, and four others by Michael Ferguson. In 1980 ''Flambards'' was broadcast on American television by PBS who cut the series from 13 episodes to 12 by combining the first two episode ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sandbaggers
''The Sandbaggers'' is a British spy drama television series about men and women on the front lines of the Cold War. Set contemporaneously with its original broadcast on ITV in 1978 and 1980, ''The Sandbaggers'' examines the effect of espionage on the personal and professional lives of British and American intelligence specialists. The series was produced by Yorkshire Television, based in Leeds. Premise Neil D. Burnside (Roy Marsden) is Director of Operations in Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (abbreviated 'SIS'), a.k.a. MI6, although that name is never used in the series. The series follows Burnside as he oversees a small, elite group of intelligence officers, the Special Operations Section, nicknamed "Sandbaggers", composed of highly trained officers whose missions tend to be politically sensitive or especially vital, such as escorting defectors across borders (or preventing defections from the UK), carrying out assassinations, or rescuing operatives from behind the Iron ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dickens Of London
''Dickens of London'' is a 1976 television miniseries from Yorkshire Television based on the life of English novelist Charles Dickens. Both Dickens and his father John were played by British actor Roy Dotrice. The series was written by Wolf Mankowitz and Marc Miller. In the United States, the series was shown in 1977. The series of 13 episodes of 60 minutes was directed by Michael Ferguson (6 episodes) and Marc Miller (7 episodes), who was also the series' producer, with David Cunliffe as executive producer. Mankowitz's book, ''Dickens of London'', published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in 1976, was based on the detailed research he made while writing the screenplay. Background Each of the 13 episodes of ''Dickens of London'' is a flashback, with Charles Dickens (Roy Dotrice), by now an internationally famous novelist, in America during a reading tour of 1869, looking back over his life. Dickens the boy (Simon Bell) is shown unhappily pasting labels onto pots of shoe blacking, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colditz (1972 TV Series)
''Colditz'' is a British television drama series co-produced by the BBC and Universal Studios and screened between 1972 and 1974. The series deals with Allied prisoners of war imprisoned at the supposedly escape-proof Colditz Castle when designated Oflag IV-C during World War II, and their many attempts to escape captivity, as well as the relationships formed between the various nationalities and their German captors. ''Colditz'' was created by Brian Degas working with the producer Gerard Glaister, who went on to devise another successful BBC series dealing with the Second World War, '' Secret Army''. Technical consultant for the series was Major Pat Reid, the real British Escape Officer at Colditz. One of the locations used in filming was Stirling Castle. Characters British *Lieutenant Colonel John Preston DSO TD (Jack Hedley) – Senior British Officer, Colonel Preston is the embodiment of British stiff upper lip. He is mostly emotionless, intelligent, respected by his troo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quiller (TV Series)
''Quiller'' is a British drama television series starring Michael Jayston. The series premièred with the episode ''The Price of Violence'' on 29 August 1975 on BBC One. Quiller is the alias of a fictional spy created by English novelist Elleston Trevor who featured in a series of Cold War thrillers written under the pseudonym "Adam Hall". The second episode's script - ''Tango Briefing'' - was written by "Adam Hall", adapted from his own novel of the same name. All the other episodes were written for the series. Although all episodes survived destruction, the series has never been repeated on the BBC or other channels since its original transmission nor is it currently available online, on Blu-ray or DVD. Background Quiller (Michael Jayston) works for a British secret organisation known simply as "The Bureau". This organisation dispatches Quiller on various missions across the globe to retrieve missing documentation, prevent secrets from falling into the hands of the enemy, res ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Claws Of Axos
''The Claws of Axos'' is the third serial of the eighth season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 13 March to 3 April 1971. In the serial, set in Britain, the alien organism Axos spreads its Axonite particles across the Earth to allow itself to feed on all life on the planet. Plot The Axons land on Earth, desperately in need of fuel. They propose to exchange the miracle substance they call Axonite for some much needed energy. Axonite is a "thinking" molecule that can replicate any substance... or so they claim. As it turns out, the ship is a single organism called Axos whose purpose is to feed itself by draining all energy through the Axonite (which is just a part of itself), including the energy of every life form on Earth. The deception about the Axonite's beneficial properties was to facilitate the distribution of Axonite across the globe. Meanwhile, the Master, who was captured by Axo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ambassadors Of Death
''The Ambassadors of Death'' is the third serial of the seventh season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in seven weekly parts on BBC1 from 21 March to 2 May 1970. Written by Trevor Ray, Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke (though solely credited to David Whitaker), the serial was directed by Michael Ferguson. The serial is set in London, Hertfordshire and the Earth's orbit. In the serial, the alien time traveller the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and the international organisation UNIT investigate the disappearance of astronauts who have lost contact with Earth. They become involved in a conspiracy and meet alien ambassadors who have arrived on Earth. Plot The United Nations Intelligence Taskforce attempts to make contact with the missing Mars Probe Seven and its two astronauts, who lost contact with Earth eight months earlier. When the recovery crew returns to earth, it is captured by General Charles Carrington, who has capt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Seeds Of Death
''The Seeds of Death'' is the fifth serial of the sixth season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. Written by Brian Hayles and an uncredited Terrance Dicks and directed by Michael Ferguson, it originally aired in six weekly parts on BBC1 from 25 January to 1 March 1969. It sees the return of the Ice Warriors, previously introduced by Hayles in the 1967 serial ''The Ice Warriors''. The serial is set in London and on the Moon in the late 21st century. In the serial, the time traveller the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and his travelling companions Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines) and Zoe Heriot (Wendy Padbury), along with the technicians Gia Kelly (Louise Pajo) and Phipps (Christopher Coll), try to prevent the Ice Warriors' plot to make the Earth's atmosphere inhospitable to humans but viable for the Ice Warriors to invade. Plot At the end of the twenty-first century, a teleportation technology called "T-Mat" has replaced all traditional forms ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
