Roy Mitchell Kinnear was an English character actor and comedian. He was known for his acting roles in movies such as Henry Salt in the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Algernon in The Beatles' Help! (1965), Clapper in How I Won the War (1967), and Planchet in The Three Musketeers (1973). He reprised the role of Planchet in the 1974 and 1989 sequels, and died following an accident during filming of the latter.
Z-Cars or Z Cars was a British television police procedural series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, near Liverpool. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.
Alan Edgar Stratford Johns, known as Stratford Johns, was a British stage, film and television actor who is best remembered for playing the role as senior CID officer Charlie Barlow, a character he originated in the early years of the long-running BBC police series Z-Cars, and then continued to play in several spin-off series in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Liver Birds is a British sitcom, set in Liverpool, North West England, which aired on BBC1 from April 1969 to December 1978, and again in 1996. The show was created by Carla Lane and Myra Taylor. The two Liverpudlian housewives had met at a local writers club and decided to pool their talents. Having been invited to London by Michael Mills, the BBC's then Head of Comedy, and asked to write about two women sharing a flat, Mills brought in sitcom expert Sydney Lotterby to work with the writing team.
Richard Evelyn Vernon was a British actor. He appeared in many feature films and television programmes, often in aristocratic or supercilious roles. Prematurely balding and greying, Vernon settled into playing archetypal middle-aged lords and military types while still in his 30s. He is perhaps best known for originating the role of Slartibartfast in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Other notable roles included the lead role of Edwin Oldenshaw in The Man in Room 17 (1965–67), Sir James Greenley alias "C" in The Sandbaggers (1978–80), and Sir Desmond Glazebrook in Yes Minister (1980–81) and its sequel series Yes, Prime Minister (1987).
Peter Jeffrey was an English character actor. Starting his performing career on stage, he later portrayed many roles in television and film.
Softly, Softly is a British television police procedural series produced by the BBC and screened on BBC 1 from January 1966. It was created as a spin-off from the series Z-Cars, which ended its fifth series run in December 1965. The series took its title from the proverb "Softly, softly, catchee monkey", the motto of Lancashire Constabulary Training School.
James Ellis was an actor and theatre director from Northern Ireland, with a career stretching over sixty years.
Frank Windsor Higgins, known professionally as Frank Windsor, was an English actor, primarily known for his roles on television, especially policeman John Watt in Z-Cars and its spin-offs.
John Woodvine is an English actor who has appeared in more than 70 theatre productions, as well as a similar number of television and film roles.
John Michael Frederick Castle is an English actor. He is best known for his film and television work, most notably playing Bill in Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup (1966) and Geoffrey in The Lion in Winter (1968). Other significant credits include Man of La Mancha (1972), I, Claudius (1976) and RoboCop 3 (1993).
Derek John Newark was an English actor in television, film and theatre.
Leonard Jack Lewis was a British producer and director. He was most active in television. He was the Executive/Series Producer for BBC's EastEnders during the early 1990s, though he had success with many other television programmes for both the BBC and ITV. It has been said that Lewis believed in "the principles of public service broadcasting" and he has been described as a "gifted television producer with hidden directorial talents". After over 40 years working in the television industry, Lewis retired in 1995. He died in December 2005, aged 78.
Jack the Ripper is a six-part BBC police procedural made in 1973, in which the case of the Jack the Ripper murders is reopened and analysed by Detective Chief Superintendents Barlow and Watt. These characters were hugely popular with UK TV viewers at the time from their appearances on the long-running police series Z-Cars and its sequels Softly, Softly and Barlow at Large. The programme was presented partly as a discussion between the two principals in the present day, interspersed with dramatised-documentary scenes set in the 19th century. The series discusses suspects and conspiracies, but concludes there is insufficient evidence to determine who was Jack the Ripper. The experiment was seen to be a success, and the formula was repeated in 1976 with Second Verdict, in which Barlow and Watt cast their gaze over miscarriages of justice and unsolved mysteries from the past.
Softly, Softly: Task Force is a police procedural series which ran on BBC 1 from 1969 to 1976. It was a revamp of Softly, Softly, itself a spin-off from Z-Cars. The change was made partly to coincide with the coming of colour broadcasting to the BBC's main channel BBC1. The programme was due to be called simply Task Force, but reluctant to sacrifice a much-loved brand the BBC compromised this so it became Softly, Softly: Task Force.
Second Verdict is a six-part BBC television series from 1976. It combines the genres of police procedural and docudrama, with dramatised documentaries in which classic criminal cases and unsolved crimes from history were re-appraised by fictional police officers. In Second Verdict, Stratford Johns and Frank Windsor reprised for a final time their double-act as Detective Chief Superintendents Barlow and Watt, hugely popular with TV audiences from the long-running series Z-Cars, Softly, Softly and Barlow at Large. Second Verdict built on the formula of their 1973 series Jack the Ripper in which dramatised documentary was drawn together with a discussion between the two police officers which formed the narrative. Second Verdict also allowed for some location filming and, when the case being re-appraised was within living memory, interviews with real witnesses.
Frank Dudley Foster was an English actor who regularly appeared in television roles.
This is a list of British television related events from 1973.
This is a list of British television related events from 1971.
Lord Peter Wimsey is a series of television serial adaptations of five Lord Peter Wimsey novels by Dorothy L. Sayers, starring Ian Carmichael as Wimsey. They were broadcast on BBC1 between 1972 and 1975, beginning with Clouds of Witness in April 1972.
