ABC Weekend TV was the popular name of the British broadcaster ABC Television Limited, which provided the weekend service in the Midlands and Northern England regions of the Independent Television (ITV) network from 1956 to 1968. It was one of the "Big Four" companies that between them produced the majority of ITV networked programmes during this period.
Dame Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft, known professionally as Peggy Ashcroft, was an English actress whose career spanned more than 60 years.
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, distribution, and education. It is sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and partially funded under the British Film Institute Act 1949.
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.
Nice Time is a 1957 documentary film made by Alain Tanner and Claude Goretta in Britain and included in the third Free Cinema programme at the National Film Theatre, London in May 1957. It won the Experimental Film prize at the film festival in Venice and much critical praise.
John E. Blakeley was a British film producer, director and screenwriter, the founder of Mancunian Films.
Vladek Sheybal was a Polish character actor, singer and director of both television and stage productions. He was well known for his portrayal of the chess grandmaster Kronsteen in the James Bond film From Russia with Love (1963), a role for which he had been personally recommended by his friend Sean Connery, and as Otto Leipzig in Smiley's People (1982). He also had notable recurring roles as Dr. Douglas Jackson in Gerry Anderson's UFO, Captain Ferreira in the NBC miniseries Shōgun and as Gen. Bratchenko in the 1984 version of Red Dawn.
Penny Points to Paradise is a 1951 comedy feature film directed by Tony Young and starring Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers of The Goon Show in their feature film debut.
A Private Function is a 1984 British comedy film starring Michael Palin and Maggie Smith. The film was predominantly filmed in Ilkley, and Ben Rhydding in West Yorkshire. The film was also screened in the section of Un Certain Regard at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival.
High Treason is a 1929 film based on a play by Noel Pemberton Billing. It was directed by Maurice Elvey, and stars James Carew, Humberstone Wright, Benita Hume, Henry Vibart, Hayford Hobbs, Irene Rooke, and Jameson Thomas. Raymond Massey makes his first screen appearance in a small role. The film was initially produced as a silent but mid-way during production, Elvey was pushed by the studio to add sound to the film in order to cash in on the talkies. Although a third of the film was filmed in sound, Elvey maintained much of the silent footage and dubbed over the dialogue for shots that were originally silent, with Elvey himself voicing some of the minor characters, which he admitted when interviewed by the Manitoba Free Press shortly after the film was released in the US. Likewise, BIP's Blackmail, directed by Alfred Hitchcock was also turned into a sound picture mid-way during production and many of the silent scenes used dubbed dialogue and sound effects in a similar fashion to High Treason.
Jane Arden was a British film director, actress, singer/songwriter and poet, who gained note in the 1950s. Born in Pontypool, Monmouthshire, she studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She started acting in the late 1940s and writing for stage and television in the 1950s. In the 1960s, she joined movements for feminism and anti-psychiatry. She wrote a screenplay for the film Separation (1967). In the late 1960s and 1970s, she wrote for experimental theatre, adapting one work as a self-directed film, The Other Side of the Underneath (1972). In 1978 she published a poetry book. Arden committed suicide in 1982. In 2009, her feature films Separation (1967), The Other Side of the Underneath (1972) and Anti-Clock (1979) were restored by the British Film Institute and released on DVD and Blu-ray. Her literary works are out of print.
Penny Slinger, sometimes Penelope Slinger, is a British-born American artist and author based in California. As an artist, she has worked in different mediums, including photography, film and sculpture. Her work has been described as being in the genres of surrealism and feminist surrealism. Her work explores the nature of the self, the feminine and the erotic.
Sheila Allen was an English actress, who was best known to the wider public for her role on television as Cassie Manson in Bouquet Of Barbed Wire and its sequel Another Bouquet (1976–77). From 1966 to 1978, Allen was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Piccadilly Incident is a 1946 British drama film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding, Coral Browne, Edward Rigby and Leslie Dwyer.
Madness of the Heart is a 1949 British drama film directed by Charles Bennett, produced by Richard Wainwright for Two Cities Films and starring Margaret Lockwood, Maxwell Reed, Kathleen Byron and Paul Dupuis. The screenplay was written by Charles Bennett, adapted from the novel of the same name by Flora Sandström.
For the 1928 film starring Lon Chaney, Lionel Barrymore and Warner Baxter, see West of Zanzibar
"In Two Minds" is a television play by David Mercer commissioned for The Wednesday Play anthology drama series. First transmitted on 1 March 1967, it was directed by Ken Loach and produced by Tony Garnett and features Anna Cropper in the lead role.
Fiona Finlay is an English TV /film producer and writer. She received a BAFTA (1995) for her TV production of Jane Austen’s Persuasion and the Documentaries Special Prize at the Prix Italia 1994 and the 1st Mental Health in the Media Award for Black Daisies for the Bride, a television film written by international poet Tony Harrison about Alzheimer's disease.
Kenneth Charles Loach is a British film director and screenwriter. His socially critical directing style and socialism are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as poverty, homelessness, and labour rights.
James Scott is a British filmmaker, painter, draughtsman and printmaker.
