The Thirty-Nine Steps is a 1915 adventure novel by the Scottish author John Buchan, first published by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh. It was serialized in All-Story Weekly issues of 5 and 12 June 1915, and in Blackwood's Magazine between July and September 1915, before being published in book form in October of that year. It is the first of five novels featuring Richard Hannay, an all-action hero with a stiff upper lip and a knack for getting himself out of tricky situations.
Hogan's Heroes is an American television sitcom set in a prisoner-of-war (POW) camp in Nazi Germany during World War II, which concerns a group of Allied prisoners who use the POW camp as an operations base for sabotage and espionage purposes directed against Nazi Germany. It ran for 168 episodes from September 17, 1965, to April 4, 1971, on the CBS network, the longest broadcast run for an American television series inspired by that war.
Robert Powell is a British actor who is known for the title roles in Mahler (1974) and Jesus of Nazareth (1977), and for his portrayal of secret agent Richard Hannay in The Thirty Nine Steps (1978) and its subsequent spinoff television series. Other major screen roles have included Tobias "Toby" Wren in the BBC science-fiction programme Doomwatch (1970), David Briggs in the sitcom The Detectives (1993–1997) alongside Jasper Carrott, and Mark Williams in the medical drama Holby City (2005–2011).
Robin of Sherwood is a British television series, based on the legend of Robin Hood. Created by Richard Carpenter, it was produced by HTV in association with Goldcrest, and ran from 28 April 1984 to 28 June 1986 on the ITV network. In the United States it was shown on the premium cable TV channel Showtime and, later, on PBS. It was also syndicated in the early 1990s under the title Robin Hood. The show starred Michael Praed and Jason Connery as two different incarnations of the title character. Unlike previous adaptations of the Robin Hood legend, Robin of Sherwood combined a gritty, authentic production design with elements of real-life history, 20th-century fiction, and pagan myth. Robin of Sherwood has been described by historian Stephen Knight as "the most innovative and influential version of the myth in recent times". The series is also notable for its musical score by Clannad, which won a BAFTA award. A video game adaptation, Robin of Sherwood: The Touchstones of Rhiannon, was released in 1985.
Danger Man is a British television series that was broadcast between 1960 and 1962, and again between 1964 and 1968. The series featured Patrick McGoohan as secret agent John Drake. Ralph Smart created the programme and wrote many of the scripts. Danger Man was financed by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment.
Greenmantle is the second of five novels by John Buchan featuring the character Richard Hannay. It was first published in 1916 by Hodder & Stoughton, London. It is one of two Hannay novels set during the First World War, the other being Mr Standfast (1919); Hannay's first and best-known adventure, The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), is set in the period immediately preceding the war.
Doomwatch is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC, which ran on BBC1 between 1970 and 1972. The series was set in the then present day, and dealt with a scientific government agency led by Doctor Spencer Quist, responsible for investigating and combating various environmental and technological dangers.
The Saint is a British crime television series that aired in the United Kingdom on ITV between 1962 and 1969. It was based on the literary character Simon Templar created by Leslie Charteris in the 1920s and featured in many novels over the years. In the television series, Templar was played by Roger Moore. Templar helps those whom conventional agencies are powerless or unwilling to protect, often using methods that skirt the law. Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal is his nominal nemesis who considers Templar a common criminal, but often grudgingly tolerates his actions for the greater good.
Major-General Sir Richard Hannay, KCB, OBE, DSO, is a fictional character created by Scottish novelist John Buchan and further made popular by the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film The 39 Steps, very loosely based on Buchan's 1915 novel of the same name. In his autobiography, Memory Hold-the-Door, Buchan suggests that the character is based, in part, on Edmund Ironside, from Edinburgh, a spy during the Second Boer War, and a British Army field marshal and CIGS.
Combat! is an American television drama series that originally aired on ABC from 1962 until 1967. The exclamation point in Combat! was depicted on-screen as a stylized bayonet. The show covered the grim lives of a squad of American soldiers fighting the Germans in France during World War II. The first-season episode "A Day in June" shows D-Day as a flashback, hence the action occurs during and after June 1944. The program starred Rick Jason as platoon leader Second Lieutenant Gil Hanley and Vic Morrow as Sergeant "Chip" Saunders. Jason and Morrow would play the lead in alternating episodes in Combat!.
Richard Crispin Armitage is an English actor and author. He received recognition in the UK with his first leading role as John Thornton in the British television programme North & South (2004). His role as dwarf king and leader Thorin Oakenshield in Peter Jackson's film trilogy adaptation of The Hobbit brought him international recognition.
The Four Just Men is a 1959 television series produced by Sapphire Films for ITC Entertainment. It was broadcast for one series of 39 half-hour monochrome episodes.
The Thirty Nine Steps [sic] is a British 1978 thriller film directed by Don Sharp, with screenplay by British playwright Michael Robson, based on the novel The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan. It was the third film version of the 1915 novel.
The fifth series of the British comedy drama television series Cold Feet was broadcast on the ITV network from 23 February to 16 March 2003. This was the final series of the drama and while the number of episodes was halved compared to the previous series, the running time was increased from 46 minutes to 72 minutes per episode, necessitating a 95-minute timeslot. The plot of the series follows three couples: Adam and Rachel getting to grips with bringing up baby Matthew, the return of Pete and Jo from their honeymoon, and the subsequent breakdown of their marriage, and the divorce proceedings between Karen and David.
The 39 Steps is a 2008 British television adventure thriller feature-length adaptation of the 1915 John Buchan novel The Thirty-Nine Steps produced by the BBC. It was written by Lizzie Mickery, directed by James Hawes, and filmed on location in Scotland, starring Rupert Penry-Jones, Lydia Leonard, David Haig, Eddie Marsan, and Patrick Malahide. Following three screen versions of the novel and the 1952 and 1977 television adaptations of The Three Hostages, Penry-Jones became the sixth actor to portray Hannay on screen. This adaptation is set on the eve of the First World War and sees mining engineer Richard Hannay caught up in an espionage conspiracy following the death of a British spy in his flat.
Chris Ryan's Strike Back, also known as Strike Back: Origins on Cinemax, is a six-part British television series based on the novel of the same name written by best-selling author and former soldier of the Special Air Service, Chris Ryan, and is the first series of Strike Back. It was produced by Left Bank Pictures for Sky1. The cast of Strike Back is led by Richard Armitage and Andrew Lincoln, also starring Orla Brady, Shelley Conn, Colin Salmon and Jodhi May, including a variety of guest appearances including Toby Stephens, Ewen Bremner, Dhaffer L'Abidine, Shaun Parkes and Alexander Siddig. The series follows John Porter (Armitage), a former British Special Forces soldier, who is drafted back into service by Section 20, a fictional branch of the Defence Intelligence (DI) of the Ministry of Defence.
The seventh series of the BBC espionage television series Spooks began broadcasting on 27 October 2008 on BBC One before ending on 8 December 2008 on the same channel, and consists of eight episodes, two fewer than previous series. It follows the actions of Section D, a counter-terrorism division in MI5. The primary storyline involves Sugarhorse, a top secret operation set up by MI5 during the final years of the Cold War, and a mole working for the FSB who intends to leak the operation to the Russians. Peter Firth, Rupert Penry-Jones, Hermione Norris, Richard Armitage, Miranda Raison, Gemma Jones, Hugh Simon and Alex Lanipekun are credited as the main cast.
The Three Hostages was a British television series which aired on the BBC in 1952. It was an adaptation of the 1924 novel The Three Hostages by John Buchan featuring his character Richard Hannay who is played by Patrick Barr. It consisted of six 30 minutes episodes. The BBC adapted the story again in 1977 as a film The Three Hostages with Barry Foster as Hannay. Broadcast live before telerecording was utilised in the UK, the series is missing, believed lost.
The Hollow Crown is a series of British television film adaptations of William Shakespeare's history plays.
Strike Back is an action-adventure/spy-drama television series based on the 2007 novel of the same name by novelist and former Special Air Service soldier Chris Ryan. The series follows the actions of Section 20, a secretive branch of the British Secret Intelligence Service, who operate several high risk, priority missions around the world. The six-part first series began broadcasting on Sky One on 5 May 2010.
