David Dickinson is an English antiques dealer and television presenter. Between 2000 and 2004, Dickinson hosted the BBC One antiques show Bargain Hunt, where he was succeeded by Tim Wonnacott. Dickinson left the BBC in 2005, and between 2006 and 2024, he hosted the ITV daytime show Dickinson's Real Deal. The show saw members of the public bringing antiques and collectables to sell to a dealer or take to the auction.
The Bold and the Beautiful is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS. It premiered on March 23, 1987, as a sister show to the Bells' other soap opera The Young and the Restless; several characters from each of the two shows have crossed over to the other since the early 1990s. Set in Los Angeles, California, the show centers upon the Forrester family and their haute couture business.
Ian David McShane is an English actor, best known for his television performances, particularly as the title role in the BBC series Lovejoy (1986–1994), Al Swearengen in Deadwood (2004–2006) and its 2019 film continuation, and Mr. Wednesday in American Gods (2017–2021). For the original series of Deadwood, McShane won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama and received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. As a producer of the film, he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie.
Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration. A handful of these plays, including Rumpole of the Bailey, subsequently became television series in their own right.
Born and Bred is a British light-hearted 1950s-set medical drama series aired on BBC One which ran from 21 April 2002 to 3 August 2005. It was created by Chris Chibnall and Nigel McCrery. Initially the cast was led by James Bolam and Michael French as a father and son who run a cottage hospital in Ormston, a fictitious village in Lancashire, in the 1950s. Bolam's and French's characters were later replaced by characters played by Richard Wilson and Oliver Milburn.
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 had an ensemble cast, of which Dennis Waterman was the only constant over all twelve series; the cast variously included Alun Armstrong, James Bolam, Amanda Redman, Denis Lawson, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Tamzin Outhwaite, and Larry Lamb. Waterman, who was known as a vocalist alongside his acting work, additionally sang the program's theme song.
Chris Jury is an English actor, writer and director with a range of television credits. He is best known for his role as Eric Catchpole in the BBC television series Lovejoy, which he played between 1986 and 1993, with a brief return in 1994, for the show's finale.
Malcolm Tierney was an English actor who appeared in many stage, film and television roles.
Phyllis Logan is a Scottish actress, widely known for her roles as Lady Jane Felsham in Lovejoy (1986–1993) and Mrs Hughes in Downton Abbey (2010–2015). She won the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for the 1983 film Another Time, Another Place and was nominated for BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for the same film. Her other film appearances include Secrets & Lies (1996), Shooting Fish (1997), Downton Abbey (2019) and Misbehaviour (2020).
The Judas Pair is a crime novel by Jonathan Gash. It is the first book in the Lovejoy series. The story was first published in 1977 and won a John Creasey Award.
Kersey is a village and civil parish in the Babergh district in Suffolk, in the east of England. The main street has a ford across a stream. Its principal claim to fame is that a coarse woollen cloth called Kersey cloth takes its name from it. A particular green colour is known as Kersey Green. The cloth was presumably originally made there, but later in many other places too.
The first series of the British medical drama television series Holby City commenced airing in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 12 January 1999, and concluded on 9 March 1999. The show was created by Mal Young and Tony McHale as a spin–off from the BBC medical drama Casualty, intended to follow the treatment of patients from Casualty as they were transferred onto the hospital's surgical wards. McHale served as the programme's lead writer throughout the first series, which ran for nine episodes. Young cast actors who were already established names in the acting industry, particularly from a soap opera background. Several cast members shadowed real surgeons and nurses in preparation for their roles to increase the show's realism. The series received mixed reviews from critics. It was compared favourably with Casualty, but received negative reviews in which it was contrasted poorly with the American medical drama ER. The series première attracted 10.72 million viewers, falling to 8.51 million by the series finale.
NCS: Manhunt is a British television crime drama series, starring David Suchet, and based on the National Crime Squad. Created by Malcolm McKay, the series premiered with a two-part pilot episode on BBC One on 26 March 2001. A full series of six episodes debuted on 4 March 2002, and concluded on 19 March 2002. Despite the series' popularity, and strong viewing figures, a second series was never commissioned. Notably, neither the pilot nor the complete series have ever been issued on DVD, although the series was repeated in its entirety on Forces TV in 2016. The series notably starred Michael Fassbender in one of his earliest television roles, after appearing in Band of Brothers the previous year. Kenneth Cranham and Phyllis Logan also co-starred in the pilot episode.
Joanna Gabrielle "Pooky" Quesnel is an English actress, screenwriter and singer.
Lovejoy is a series of picaresque novels by John Grant about the adventures of Lovejoy, a British antiques dealer and faker based in East Anglia. A less than scrupulous yet likeable rogue, Lovejoy has a reputation in the antiques trade as a "divvie", meaning one with an almost supernatural talent for recognising exceptional items as well as for distinguishing fakes or forgeries from genuine antiques. Lovejoy's first name is never mentioned in the books. In the TV series based on the novels, he insists on being addressed by all solely as "Lovejoy".
Murder in Eden is a British television crime drama miniseries, consisting of three fifty-minute episodes, that first broadcast on 19 July 1991 on BBC1. The series stars Alun Armstrong as Sergeant McGing, a police officer in rural County Donegal who investigates when Tim Roarty, the landlord of a local pub, murders his barman after being blackmailed by one of the other inhabitants of the village. While the police are busy hunting for the killer, parts of the victim's body continue to resurface. The miniseries was written by Shane Connaughton and directed by Nicholas Renton.
Broken is a six-part British television drama series, created by Jimmy McGovern, that first broadcast on BBC One on 30 May 2017. The series focuses on Michael Kerrigan, the priest of a Roman Catholic parish in a northern English city, who despite suffering from his own troubles stemming from a traumatic childhood, tries to guide several of his most vulnerable parishioners through the trials and tribulations of everyday life.
Madson is a British television crime drama series, first broadcast on 17 April 1996, that ran for a total of six episodes on BBC1. The series starred Ian McShane as the title character who, sentenced on forged evidence to life imprisonment, gains a law degree in prison and overturns his conviction. Suddenly freed again after eight years inside, he uses his contacts to secure a position as an outdoor clerk with a top firm of City Solicitors.
