Phyllis Nan Sortain Pechey, better known as Fanny Cradock, was an English restaurant critic, television chef and writer. She frequently appeared on television, at cookery demonstrations and in print with her fourth husband Major Johnnie Cradock who played the part of a slightly bumbling hen-pecked husband.
Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) is Thomas Hardy's fourth published novel and his first major literary success. It originally appeared anonymously as a monthly serial in Cornhill Magazine, where it gained a wide readership.
My Family is a British sitcom created and initially co-written by Fred Barron, which was produced by DLT Entertainment and Rude Boy Productions, and broadcast by BBC One for eleven series between 2000 and 2011, with Christmas specials broadcast from 2002 onwards. My Family was voted 24th in the BBC's "Britain's Best Sitcom" in 2004 and was the most watched sitcom in the United Kingdom in 2008. As of 2011, it is one of only twelve British sitcoms to pass the 100-episode mark. In April 2020, BBC One began airing the series from the first episode in an 8 pm slot on Friday nights; along with this all 11 series were made available on BBC iPlayer.
Home to Roost is a British sitcom produced by Yorkshire Television between 19 April 1985 and 19 January 1990. Written by Eric Chappell, it stars John Thaw as Henry Willows and Reece Dinsdale as his teenaged son Matthew.
Reeson Wayne "Reece" Shearsmith is an English actor, writer and comedian. He is best known for being a member of The League of Gentlemen, alongside Steve Pemberton, Mark Gatiss, and Jeremy Dyson. With Pemberton, he later created, wrote and starred in the sitcom Psychoville, as well as the dark comedy anthology series, Inside No. 9.
Catterick, aka Vic and Bob in Catterick, is a surreal 2004 BBC situation comedy in 6 episodes, written by and starring Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, with Reece Shearsmith, Matt Lucas, Morwenna Banks, Tim Healy, Mark Benton and Charlie Higson. The series was originally broadcast on BBC Three and later rerun on BBC Two. Reeves has said that the BBC do not want another series of Catterick, though he may produce a spin-off centring on the DI Fowler character.
Keith Barron was an English actor and television presenter who appeared in films and on television from 1961 until 2017. His television roles included the police drama The Odd Man, the sitcom Duty Free, and Gregory Wilmot in Upstairs, Downstairs.
Reece Dinsdale is an English actor and director of stage, film and television. He is a Huddersfield Town fan. In 2017 he became a patron of the Square Chapel, an arts centre in Halifax. He is also an honorary patron of The Old Courts multi-arts centre in Wigan
The Million Pound Note is a 1954 British comedy film directed by Ronald Neame and starring Gregory Peck, Ronald Squire, Wilfrid Hyde-White and Jane Griffiths. It is based on the 1893 Mark Twain short story The Million Pound Bank Note, and is a precursor to the 1983 film Trading Places. It was shot at Pinewood Studios and on location around London. The film's sets were designed by the art directors John Box and Jack Maxsted. It was released by Rank's General Film Distributors. The American release was handled by United Artists under the alternative tile Man with a Million.
Martin Chuzzlewit is a 1994 TV serial produced by the BBC, based on the 1844 novel by Charles Dickens, adapted by David Lodge and directed by Pedr James. The music was composed by Geoffrey Burgon.
Bachelors Walk was an Irish (RTÉ) comedy-drama series shot in and around Dublin. The programme was first broadcast on Network 2 on 1 October 2001. After a run of three series and an absence for three years, a one-off Christmas special which aired on St. Stephen's Day 2006 on RTÉ Two.
After Henry is a British sitcom that aired on ITV from 1988 to 1992. It was based on the radio series of the same name that was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 1985 and 1989. Like the radio series, the TV series was written by Simon Brett, and starred Prunella Scales and Joan Sanderson. It was made for the ITV network by Thames Television. The opening and closing music is "Three-Quarter Blues", by George Gershwin.
Celia Daisy Morna Haggard is a British actress and writer. She is known for her roles in the BBC sitcoms Uncle and Episodes. Haggard stars in BBC Three’s comedy-drama, Back to Life, which she also created and co-wrote with Laura Solon. Since 2020, she has appeared alongside Martin Freeman as Ally in the FX series Breeders, a role for which she was nominated for the BAFTA Television Award for Best Female Comedy Performance.
Reece Noi is a British-Ghanaian actor. He is best known for portraying Taylor Mitchell in the BBC school-based drama serial, Grange Hill, from 2004 to 2007, and also Noel Parkin and Earl Kelly in the second and fourth series of Waterloo Road in 2007 and 2009 respectively, and Mossador in the HBO series Game of Thrones. Noi also starred in the 2019 Emmy Nominated Netflix crime series When They See Us.
London Assurance is a five-act comedy co-authored by Dion Boucicault and John Brougham. While the play was collaboratively written by both playwrights, after the play's initial premiere Broughman, who originated the role of Dazzle, relinquished his authorship rights to the work in a lawsuit settlement and left the production. It was the second play that Boucicault wrote but his first to be produced. Its first production was by Charles Matthews and Madame Vestris's company and ran from 4 March 1841 at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. It was Boucicault's first major success.
Simon John Blackwell is an English comedy writer and producer. He is best known for his work on The Thick of It, In The Loop and Veep, and for his collaborations with Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain on Peep Show, Four Lions and The Old Guys. Blackwell is the creator of the comedy series Back, starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb, as well as Breeders, starring Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard.
Take Me Home is a British television drama series that originally aired from 2–16 May 1989. The 3-part mini-series starred Keith Barron, Maggie O'Neill, Reece Dinsdale, and Annette Crosbie. It was created and written by Tony Marchant and was shown in three episodes on BBC One. The lead character, Kathy, was one of the first television roles for actress Maggie O'Neill.
Inside No. 9 is a British black comedy anthology television programme that first aired in 2014. It is written by Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton and produced by the BBC. Each 30-minute episode is a self-contained story with new characters and a new setting, almost all starring Pemberton or Shearsmith. Aside from the writers, each episode has a new cast, allowing Inside No. 9 to attract a number of well-known actors. The stories are linked only by the number 9 in some way, typically taking the form of a door marked with the number 9, and a brass hare statue that is in the background of all episodes. Themes and tone vary from episode to episode, but all have elements of comedy and horror or perverse humour, in addition to a plot twist. Pemberton and Shearsmith took inspiration for Inside No. 9 from an episode of Psychoville, a previous project, which was filmed in a single room – this in turn was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's Rope.
Bliss is a British television science thriller series first broadcast on 11 October 1995. It ran for a total of five episodes on ITV. The series starred Simon Shepherd as Dr. Sam Bliss, a medical research scientist based at Cambridge University, and widowed father-of-two, who often finds himself investigating bizarre and unexplained deaths, with the help of his assistant, Dr. Melanie Kilpatrick. Initially broadcast as a single stand-alone pilot episode in 1995, Bliss spawned a run of four episodes, which followed in 1997.
"The Riddle of the Sphinx" is the third episode of the third series of the British dark comedy anthology television programme Inside No. 9. It first aired, on BBC Two, on 28 February 2017. The episode was written by the programme's creators, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, and directed by Guillem Morales. "The Riddle of the Sphinx", which is set in Cambridge, stars Alexandra Roach as Nina, a young woman seeking answers to the Varsity cryptic crossword, Pemberton as Professor Nigel Squires, who pseudonymously sets the crossword using the name Sphinx, and Shearsmith as Dr Jacob Tyler, another Cambridge academic. The story begins with Nina surreptitiously entering Squires's rooms on a stormy night and being discovered; this leads to Squires teaching her how to decipher clues in cryptic crosswords.
