David Thomas Jones was an English actor and singer. Best known as a member of the band The Monkees and a co-star of the TV series The Monkees (1966–1968), Jones was considered a teen idol.
Till Death Us Do Part is a British television sitcom that aired on BBC1 from 1965 to 1975. The show was first broadcast in 1965 as a Comedy Playhouse pilot, then as seven series between 1966 and 1975. In 1981, ITV continued the sitcom for six episodes, calling it Till Death.... The BBC produced a sequel from 1985 until 1992, In Sickness and in Health.
George Michael Dolenz Jr. is an American musician and actor. He was the drummer and one of two primary vocalists for the pop-rock band the Monkees, and a co-star of the TV series The Monkees (1966–1968).
Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series of single plays that ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by ABC Weekend TV. Its successor Thames Television took over from mid-1968.
Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps is a British television sitcom that ran from 26 February 2001 to 24 May 2011. First broadcast on BBC Two, it starred Sheridan Smith, Will Mellor, Natalie Casey, Ralf Little, Kathryn Drysdale, Beverley Callard and, later on in series 7, Luke Gell. The show was created and written by Susan Nickson and set in her hometown of Runcorn, Cheshire, it originally revolved around the lives of five twentysomethings. Little departed after the sixth series, and Smith and Drysdale left after the eighth series. The ninth and final series had major changes with new main cast members and new writers.
Rudolph Malcolm Walker is a Trinidadian-British actor, best known for his roles as Bill Reynolds in Love Thy Neighbour (1972–1976) and Constable Frank Gladstone in The Thin Blue Line (1995–1996), as well as his long-running portrayal of Patrick Trueman on the BBC's EastEnders (2001–present), for which he received the 2018 British Soap Award for Outstanding Achievement. He also provided voiceovers for the British and American versions of Teletubbies (1997–2001). Walker's feature film credits include 10 Rillington Place (1971), Bhaji on the Beach (1993), and Ali G Indahouse (2002). He runs The Rudolph Walker Foundation, a charity designed to help disadvantaged youths find careers in entertainment, and was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2021.
Desmond's is a British television situation comedy broadcast by Channel 4 from 1989 to 1994. Conceived and co-written by Trix Worrell, and produced by Charlie Hanson and Humphrey Barclay, Desmond's stars Norman Beaton as barber Desmond Ambrose, whose shop is a gathering place for an assortment of local characters. The show is set in Peckham, London, and features a predominantly black British Guyanese cast. With 71 episodes, Desmond's became Channel 4's longest running sitcom in terms of episodes.
Jeffery Kissoon is an actor with credits in British theatre, television, film and radio. He has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company at venues such as the Royal National Theatre, under directors including Peter Brook, Peter Hall, Robert Lepage, Janet Suzman, Calixto Bieito and Nicholas Hytner. He has acted in genres from Shakespeare and modern theatre to television drama and science fiction, playing a range of both leading and supporting roles, from Mark Antony in Antony and Cleopatra and Prospero and Caliban in The Tempest, to Malcolm X in The Meeting and Mr Kennedy in the children's TV series Grange Hill.
Judith Jacob is a British actress best known for her role as the health visitor Carmel Roberts in the BBC soap opera EastEnders, a role she played from 1986 to 1989. During her period in Albert Square, her character suffered from severe marital abuse and her husband's attempted murder and eventual separation. She was a founding member of BiBi Crew, Britain's first comedy troupe made up entirely of Black actresses, founded in 1991. She also launched at the Hackney Empire the live talk show Judith Jacob Yabba Yabbas With Friends.
Mustapha Matura was a Trinidadian playwright living in London. Characterised by critic Michael Billington as "a pioneering black playwright who opened the doors for his successors", Matura was the first British-based dramatist of colour to have a play in London's West End, with Play Mas in 1974. He was described by the New Statesman as "the most perceptive and humane of Black dramatists writing in Britain."
Trevor Laird is a British actor.
Janet Kay Bogle is an English actress and vocalist, best known for her 1979 lovers rock hit "Silly Games".
Lindzi James Tyger Drew-Honey is an English actor and television presenter. He is best known for his role as Jake Brockman in the British sitcom Outnumbered, Citizen Khan as Richard Scab before later appearing in Horrid Henry: The Movie and the television series Cuckoo.
The Monkees is an American television sitcom that first aired on NBC for two seasons, from September 12, 1966, to March 25, 1968. The series follows the adventures of four young men trying to make a name for themselves as a rock 'n roll band. The show introduced a number of innovative new-wave film techniques to series television and won two Emmy Awards in 1967, including Outstanding Comedy Series. The program ended in 1968 at the finish of its second season and has received a long afterlife through Saturday morning repeats and syndication, as well as overseas broadcasts.
Tandoori Nights is a television sitcom that was broadcast on Channel 4 between 1985 and 1987. It consisted of two series of six episodes each. The series was directed by Jon Amiel and written by Farrukh Dhondy. It is the story of two rival restaurants in London, and starred Saeed Jaffrey, Tariq Yunus, Rita Wolf and Zohra Sehgal. It was Channel 4's first Asian comedy series.
A sitcom is a genre of comedy centred on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use new characters in each sketch, and stand-up comedy, where a comedian tells jokes and stories to an audience. Sitcoms originated in radio, but today are found mostly on television as one of its dominant narrative forms.
Mixed Blessings is a British sitcom starring Christopher Blake and Muriel Odunton that aired on ITV from 3 March 1978 to 7 June 1980. It was created by comedy writer Sid Green and produced for the ITV network by LWT.
Stefan Kalipha is a Trinidad-born British actor who has been active since about 1970. He played Ramon, the Cigar Factory Foreman in the film Cuba (1979), Daoud in The Curse of King Tut's Tomb and Fat Larry in Babylon. He also appeared as Hector González, a Cuban hitman, in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only (1981). Kalipha's other film roles include Wali Dad in The Crucifer of Blood (1991) and Buldeo in The Jungle Book (1994).
Nitrobeat is a British theatre company. Founded in 1979 as the Black Theatre Co-operative by the playwright Mustapha Matura and the director Charlie Hanson, it was renamed Nitro in 1999. "Black Theatre Co-operative have been producing black theatre for longer than any other black company in Europe, and their existence has been significant to the careers of many of Britain's renowned black actors, actresses and playwrights."
