Gordon Angus Deayton is an English actor, writer, musician, comedian and broadcaster.
The Royle Family is a British sitcom produced by Granada Television for the BBC, which ran for three series from 1998 to 2000, and specials from 2006 to 2012. It centres on the lives of a television-fixated Manchester family, the Royles, comprising family patriarch Jim Royle, his wife Barbara, their daughter Denise, their son Antony and Denise's fiancé David.
Caroline Mary Aherne was an English actress, comedian, writer and director. She was best known for performing as the acerbic chat show host Mrs Merton, in various roles in The Fast Show, and as Denise in The Royle Family (1998–2012), a series which she co-wrote. She won BAFTA awards for her work on The Mrs Merton Show and The Royle Family.
Robert Renwick Mortimer is an English comedian, author, television presenter and actor. He is known for his work with Vic Reeves as part of their Vic and Bob double act, and more recently the Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing series with Paul Whitehouse. He has also appeared on panel shows such as Would I Lie to You? and Taskmaster.
Butterflies is a British sitcom written by Carla Lane that aired on BBC2 from 10 November 1978 to 19 October 1983, with each series repeated on BBC1 a few months after the original transmissions.
Comedy Playhouse is a long-running British anthology series of one-off unrelated sitcoms that aired for 128 episodes from 1961 to 1975. Many episodes later graduated to their own series, including Steptoe and Son, Meet the Wife, Till Death Us Do Part, All Gas and Gaiters, Up Pompeii!, Not in Front of the Children, Me Mammy, That's Your Funeral, The Liver Birds, Are You Being Served? and particularly Last of the Summer Wine, which is the world's longest running sitcom, having run from January 1973 to August 2010. In all, 27 sitcoms started from a pilot in the Comedy Playhouse strand.
Mackenzie Crook is an English actor, comedian, director and writer. He played Gareth Keenan in The Office, Ragetti in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Orell in the HBO series Game of Thrones, and the title role of Worzel Gummidge. He is also the creator and star of BBC Four's Detectorists (2014–2022), for which he won two BAFTA awards. He also plays major roles in TV series Britannia, as the opposite leading druids Veran and Harka.
Betty Smith, known by the stage name Liz Smith, was an British character actress, known for her roles in BBC sitcoms, including as Annie Brandon in I Didn't Know You Cared (1975–1979), the sisters Bette and Belle in 2point4 Children (1991–1999), Letitia Cropley in The Vicar of Dibley (1994–1996) and Norma ("Nana") in The Royle Family (1998–2006). She also played Zillah in Lark Rise to Candleford (2008) and won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for the 1984 film A Private Function.
Stephen Dougray Scott is a Scottish actor. He has appeared in the films Ever After (1998), Mission: Impossible 2 (2000), Enigma (2001), Ripley's Game (2002), Hitman (2007), and My Week with Marilyn (2011). He is a recipient of the International Emmy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the Scottish crime drama series Crime (2021).
Terry and June is a BBC television sitcom, which was broadcast on BBC1 from 1979 to 1987. The show was largely a reworking of Happy Ever After, and starred Terry Scott and June Whitfield as a middle-aged, middle-class suburban couple, Terry and June Medford, who live in Purley.
Susan Pammenter OBE, better known by her stage name Sue Johnston, is an English actress. She is known for portraying Sheila Grant in the Channel 4 soap opera Brookside (1982–1990), Barbara Royle in the BBC comedy The Royle Family (1998–2012), Grace Foley in the BBC drama Waking the Dead (2000–2011), Gloria Price in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street (2012–2014) and Miss Denker in the ITV drama Downton Abbey (2014–2015). She won the 2000 British Comedy Award for Best TV Comedy Actress and was nominated for the 2000 BAFTA TV Award for Best Comedy Performance for The Royle Family.
The Green Green Grass is a BBC television sitcom, created and initially written by John Sullivan, and produced by BBC Studios Comedy Productions and Shazam Productions for the BBC. It is a sequel/spin-off of the long-running sitcom Only Fools and Horses and stars John Challis, Sue Holderness, and Jack Doolan. Four series and three Christmas specials were originally broadcast on BBC One between 2005 and 2009.
William James Nesbitt is an actor from Northern Ireland.
New Tricks is a British television police procedural comedy drama, created by Nigel McCrery and Roy Mitchell, produced primarily by Wall to Wall, and broadcast on BBC One. The programme originally began with a pilot episode on 27 March 2003, before a full series was commissioned for 1 April 2004; New Tricks concluded after twelve series on 6 October 2015. The show utilises an ensemble cast, of which Dennis Waterman was the only constant over all twelve series; this cast variously included Alun Armstrong, James Bolam, Amanda Redman, Denis Lawson, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Tamzin Outhwaite, and Larry Lamb.
Stephen Phillip Tompkinson is an English actor, known for his television roles as Marcus in Chancer (1990), Damien Day in Drop the Dead Donkey (1990–1998), Father Peter Clifford in Ballykissangel (1996–98), Trevor Purvis in Grafters (1998–1999), Danny Trevanion in Wild at Heart (2006–2013) and Alan Banks in DCI Banks (2010–2016). He won the 1994 British Comedy Award for Best TV Comedy Actor. He also starred in the films Brassed Off (1996) and Hotel Splendide (2000).
Ralf Alastair John Little is an English actor, writer, presenter, narrator and former semi-professional footballer. He has worked mainly in television comedy, including playing Antony Royle in The Royle Family and Jonny Keogh in the first six series of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps (2001–2006). He was the narrator of Channel 5's documentary series Our Yorkshire Farm (2018–2022) and its spin-off, Beyond The Yorkshire Farm: Reuben and Clive. Since 2020, he has starred as DI Neville Parker in Death in Paradise.
Sally Jane Lindsay is an English actress and television presenter known for her roles as Shelley Unwin in the long-running ITV soap opera Coronation Street, Lisa Johnson in the Sky One comedy series Mount Pleasant and Kath Agnew in the BBC sitcom Still Open All Hours.
Thomas Aiden Turgoose is an English actor, best known for his role as Shaun Fields in the film This Is England (2006), a role he reprises in the This Is England TV series This Is England '86 (2010), This Is England '88 (2011) and This Is England '90 (2015).
Dad's Army is a British television sitcom about the United Kingdom's Home Guard during the Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, and originally broadcast on BBC1 from 31 July 1968 to 13 November 1977. It ran for nine series and 80 episodes in total; a feature film released in 1971, a stage show and a radio version based on the television scripts were also produced. The series regularly gained audiences of 18 million viewers and is still shown internationally.
This is a list of British television related events from 1988.
