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Target (British TV Series)
''Target'' was a British police action drama series, which ran from 1977 to 1978, on BBC1. Set in Southampton, it starred Patrick Mower as Det. Supt. Steve Hackett, Brendan Price as Det. Sgt. Frank Bonney, Vivien Heilbron as Det. Sgt. Louise Colbert and Philip Madoc as Det. Chief Supt. Tate. Seventeen fifty-minute episodes were produced and the theme music was by Dudley Simpson. It was the BBC's response to ITV's successful series ''The Sweeney'', but received criticism for its levels of violence and lasted for just two seasons. Background ''Target'' was set in Southampton and involved the 13th Regional Crime Squad. The series was originally developed under the title ''Hackett'' by former ''Z-Cars'' script editor Graham Williams, but he was asked to swap roles with the outgoing producer of ''Doctor Who'', Philip Hinchcliffe. Hinchcliffe retitled the show ''Target''. He also persuaded the BBC to make the series entirely on film instead of the usual BBC production method at the t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Action Drama
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-genre, macro-genre, or micro-genre, such as soap opera, police crime drama, political drama, legal drama, historical drama, domestic drama, teen drama, and comedy-drama (dramedy). These terms tend to indicate a particular setting or subject-matter, or else they qualify the otherwise serious tone of a drama with elements that encourage a broader range of moods. To these ends, a primary element in a drama is the occurrence of conflict—emotional, social, or otherwise—and its resolution in the course of the storyline. All forms of cinema or television that involve fictional stories are forms of drama in the broader sense if their storytelling is achieved by means of actors who represent (mimesis) characters. In this broader sense, drama is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sweeney
''The Sweeney'' is a 1970s British television police drama focusing on two members of the Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police specialising in tackling armed robbery and violent crime in London. It stars John Thaw as Detective Inspector Jack Regan and Dennis Waterman as his partner, Detective Sergeant George Carter. It was produced by the Thames Television subsidiary Euston Films for broadcast on the ITV network in the UK between 2 January 1975 and 28 December 1978. The programme's title comes from the real-world Cockney rhyming slang nickname "Sweeney Todd" used to refer to the Flying Squad by London's criminal fraternity in the mid 20th Century. The popularity of the series in the UK led to two feature films, '' Sweeney!'' (1977) and ''Sweeney 2'' (1978), both starring Thaw and Waterman, and a later film, '' The Sweeney'' (2012), starring Ray Winstone as Regan and Ben Drew as Carter. Background ''The Sweeney'' was developed from a one-off TV drama entitled ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lewis Collins
Lewis Collins (27 May 1946 – 27 November 2013)"Happy Birthday Richard Hastilow, 65", ''The Times'', 26 May 2010 was an English actor, best known for his career-defining role playing 'Bodie' in the late 1970s – early 1980s British television series '' The Professionals''. Early life Collins was born in Bidston, Birkenhead, on the Wirral Peninsula Wirral (; ), known locally as The Wirral, is a peninsula in North West England. The roughly rectangular peninsula is about long and wide and is bounded by the River Dee to the west (forming the boundary with Wales), the River Mersey to t ... in Cheshire, now Merseyside. At the age of two he won 'The Most Beautiful Baby in Liverpool' contest. He was educated at Gautby Road Primary School and Grange School in Birkenhead, and the Birkenhead Institute School. When he was 13 years of age, his father Bill, a jazz dance band leader, bought him a drum kit. His first gig was playing with his father's band, and he also joined a g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Professionals (TV Series)
''The Professionals'' is a British crime-action television drama series produced by Avengers Mark1 Productions for London Weekend Television (LWT) that aired on the ITV network from 1977 to 1983. In all, 57 episodes were produced, filmed between 1977 and 1981. It starred Martin Shaw, Lewis Collins and Gordon Jackson as agents of the fictional "CI5" (Criminal Intelligence 5, alluding to the real-life MI5 and CID). ''The Professionals'' was created by Brian Clemens, who had been one of the driving forces behind '' The Avengers''. The show was originally to have been called ''The A-Squad''. Clemens and Albert Fennell were executive producers, with business partner Laurie Johnson providing the theme music. Sidney Hayers produced the first series in 1977, and Raymond Menmuir the remainder. Outline CI5 - or Criminal Intelligence 5, is a British law enforcement department, instructed by the Home Secretary to use any means to deal with crimes of a serious nature that go beyond the cap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shoestring (TV Series)
''Shoestring'' is a British detective fiction drama series, set in an unnamed city in the West of England and filmed in Bristol, featuring the down-at-heel private detective Eddie Shoestring (Trevor Eve), who presents his own show on Radio West, a local radio station. Broadcast on BBC1, the programme lasted for two series, between 30 September 1979 and 21 December 1980, featuring a total of 21 episodes. After the second series was broadcast Eve decided not to return to the role, as he "wanted to diversify into theatre roles". Subsequently, the production team began taking popular elements of the series and revising them for a new series, '' Bergerac'', set in Jersey and first shown in 1981. BBC Books published two novels written by Paul Ableman, ''Shoestring'' (1979) and ''Shoestring's Finest Hour'' (1980). ''Shoestring'' was repeated on terrestrial television in January 2002, with 14 of the 21 episodes being shown airing back to back on daytime BBC One. However, due to schedulin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graeme MacDonald
Graeme Patrick David MacDonald (30 July 1930 – 30 September 1997), sometimes credited as Graeme McDonald or Graham McDonald, was a British television producer and executive. Early life MacDonald was educated at St Paul's School, London and Jesus College, Cambridge, where he initially studied geology and physics, but changed to an arts degree. While at Cambridge he was vice-president of the Footlights and president of the University Players, but left without a degree. Career MacDonald began his career in 1960 as a trainee director at Granada Television. In 1966 he joined the BBC, becoming a producer in the drama department, working particularly on anthology play series such as ''The Wednesday Play'' (for which he produced some of Dennis Potter's early work), ''Thirty-Minute Theatre'', and ''Theatre 625''. In the 1970s he became the producer of the single play strand ''Play for Today'', the successor to ''The Wednesday Play'', during which he worked on many acclaimed piece ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Seeds Of Doom
''The Seeds of Doom'' is the sixth and final serial of the 13th season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in six weekly parts on BBC1 from 31 January to 6 March 1976. In the serial, the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) agrees to go on one final mission in his role as UNIT's scientific advisor to investigate a mysterious pod found in the Antarctic. However, the crazed millionaire and plant collector Harrison Chase (Tony Beckley) is also interested, and has sent his violent henchman Scorby (John Challis) and the botanist Arnold Keeler ( Mark Jones) to acquire the malignant alien plant for his personal collection. Plot In Antarctica, British scientists Charles Winlett and Derek Moberley discover a pod buried in the permafrost and take it back to their camp. John Stevenson, the base botanist, identifies it as vegetable-based and estimates it has been buried in the ice for twenty thousand years. In London, Richard Dunbar of the Wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
When The Boat Comes In
''When the Boat Comes In'' is a British television period drama produced by the BBC between 1976 and 1981. The series stars James Bolam as Jack Ford, a First World War veteran who returns to his poverty-stricken (fictional) town of Gallowshield in the North East of England. The series dramatises the interwar political struggles of the 1920s and 1930s and explores the impact of national and international politics upon Ford and the people around him. Production The majority of episodes were written by creator James Mitchell, but in series 1 north-eastern writers Tom Hadaway, Sid Chaplin and Alex Glasgow contributed episodes, and in series 3 Jeremy Burnham and Colin Morris shared writing duties with Mitchell. Mitchell also wrote three tie-in books to the T.V. show; ''When the Boat Comes In'', ''When the Boat Comes In: The Hungry Years'' and ''When the Boat Comes In: Upwards and Onwards''. The final book brings the reader up to date with the end of the second series of the TV s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Bolam
James Christopher Bolam (born 16 June 1935) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Terry Collier in ''The Likely Lads'' and its sequel ''Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?'', Jack Ford in ''When the Boat Comes In'', Roy Figgis in '' Only When I Laugh'', Trevor Chaplin in ''The Beiderbecke Trilogy'', Arthur Gilder in ''Born and Bred'', Jack Halford in ''New Tricks'' and the title character of Grandpa in the CBeebies programme '' Grandpa in My Pocket''. Early life Bolam was born on 16 June 1935 in Sunderland, County Durham, England. His father, Robert Alfred Bolam, was from Northumberland, and his mother, Marion Alice Drury, from County Durham. After attending Bede Grammar School, Sunderland, Bolam attended Bemrose School in Derby. Bolam trained as an articled clerk to chartered accountant, before becoming an actor, and formally trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, London, where he won the gold medal and the Margaret Rawlings Cup. Lacking fun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Banks Stewart
Robert Banks Stewart (16 July 1931 – 14 January 2016) was a Scottish screenwriter, television producer and former journalist. He was sometimes credited as Robert Stewart early in his career. Banks Stewart contributed extensively to drama for the BBC and ITV for several decades, which included creating and producing the series ''Shoestring'' (1979) and '' Bergerac'' (1981) and producing the first series of ''Lovejoy'' (1986). He also produced and co-adapted the early episodes of '' The Darling Buds of May'' (1991). Career Born in Edinburgh, Banks Stewart did national service in the British Army and began writing as a journalist, working for his home city's evening newspapers, where he became the youngest news editor in history for the ''Evening Dispatch''. Even then, he used to discuss ideas for television series. Later he became a story editor at Pinewood Studios. Working as a scriptwriter from the end of the 1950s, he worked on such TV series as ''Danger Man'', '' The Human Ju ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Whitehouse
Constance Mary Whitehouse (; 13 June 1910 – 23 November 2001) was a British teacher and conservative activist. She campaigned against social liberalism and the mainstream British media, both of which she accused of encouraging a more permissive society. She was the founder and first president of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, through which she led a longstanding campaign against the BBC. A hard-line social conservative, she was termed a reactionary by her socially liberal opponents. Her motivation derived from her Christian beliefs, her aversion to the rapid social and political changes in British society of the 1960s, and her work as a teacher of sex education. Whitehouse became an art teacher, at the same time becoming involved in evangelical Christian groups such as the Student Christian Movement (which became increasingly more liberal leading up to, and after, a 1928 split with the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship) and Moral Re-Armament. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alasdair Milne
Alasdair David Gordon Milne (8 October 19308 January 2013) was a British television producer and executive. He had a long career at the BBC, where he was eventually promoted to Director-General, and was described by ''The Independent'' as "one of the most original and talented programme-makers to emerge during television's formative years". In his early career, Milne was a BBC producer and was involved in founding the current affairs series ''Tonight'' in 1957. Later, after a period outside the BBC, he became controller of BBC Scotland and BBC Television's director of programmes. He served as Director-General of the BBC between July 1982 and January 1987, when he was forced to resign from his post by the BBC Governors following several difficult years for the BBC, which included sustained pressure from the Thatcher government about editorial decisions which had proved controversial. Early life Milne was born in British India to Charles Gordon Shaw Milne, an Aberdonian surgeon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
