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Jeanette Winterson looks back on the iconic drama series Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1989).
Bernard Hill looks back on the iconic drama series Boys from the Blackstuff (1982).
Colin Baker looks back on one of his earliest TV roles and discusses the significance of acclaimed 13-part drama series 'The Roads to Freedom', which is being shown on television for the first time since 1977 as part of the BBC’s…
Writer Hanif Kureishi looks back on how his semi-autobiographical novel The Buddha of Suburbia became one of the defining BBC dramas of the 1990s. He discusses the ways in which it set new standards in representing multicultural Britain,…
Actor Vivien Heilbron and director Moira Armstrong look back on the 1971 BBC Scotland drama Sunset Song, based on Lewis Grassic Gibbon's classic novel. Together, the friends discuss how their collaboration worked and the pressures of…
To mark the rescreening of Our Friends in the North, as part of the BBC’s centenary celebrations, Christopher Eccleston looks back on Peter Flannery’s acclaimed 1996 drama. Following the lives of four friends from Newcastle over a period…
Kenneth Branagh looks back on his experiences working on the first major production of his career: Graham Reid’s Billy Plays trilogy. The three Play for Today dramas won great praise for the way they captured ordinary working class lives…
Actor David Harewood shares his impressions of John Elliot’s game-changing 1956 BBC drama, which explored the challenges and racism encountered by Windrush immigrants from the West Indies, who had come to Britain after being promised work…
Award-winning actress Siân Phillips takes a look back at the BBC’s landmark 1975 adaptation of Richard Llewellyn’s classic novel How Green Was My Valley. Siân’s role as Beth, the matriarch and heart of the Morgan family, was crucial to…
Author, politician and member of the House of Lords Michael Dobbs looks back on the TV drama that had 90s Britain hooked on political intrigue and infighting. Based on his best-selling novel, the BBC adaptation of House of Cards…
Alison Steadman looks back at Dennis Potter’s The Singing Detective, hailed as one of the most important and influential TV dramas ever made, and once described by Stephen King as ‘television’s Citizen Kane’. From memories of happy times…
Considered one of the finest TV adaptations of a novel ever made for television, BBC Scotland’s The Crow Road was first broadcast in 1996, four years after the publication of Iain Banks’s acclaimed bestseller. Here, actor Joe McFadden,…
Wolf Hall, one of the most critically acclaimed television dramas of recent years, was based on the first two of the late Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell novels and brought together a stellar cast that included Mark Rylance as Cromwell,…
It’s a trip down rock 'n' roll’s memory lane for Richard Wilson as he recalls his role as manager of The Majestics in John Byrne’s 1987 acclaimed TV drama series Tutti Frutti. When it first hit our television screens, the series was…
Michael Jayston looks back on the acclaimed drama series Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979).
Double Oscar winner Glenda Jackson remembers the role that brought her back to television after the huge success she had found on the big screen.
Actor Duncan Preston introduces Victoria Wood's comedy drama about two ill-matched sisters.
Stephen Poliakoff introduces his drama about an unexpected pact between two women.
Gyles Brandreth remembers the comedy and musical duo Hinge and Bracket.
Alan Bennett remembers his 1983 television drama, based on the true story of a chance meeting in Moscow between actress Coral Browne and British defector Guy Burgess.
Zoë Wanamaker remembers the 1982 BBC adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s first play, Baal, in which she appeared with David Bowie.
It’s now 50 years since we first met and fell for accident-prone Frank Spencer and his long-suffering wife Betty in the very first episode of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em. In all that time, actors Michael Crawford and Michele Dotrice have…
Novelist William Boyd looks back on his long friendship with fellow writer Martin Amis, who died in May 2023 at the age of 73. Boyd’s focus is on what many consider to be Martin’s most successful work, 1984’s Money, which introduced…
Sir Derek Jacobi remembers the landmark 1976 TV series I, Claudius.
Award-winning documentary maker Michael Cockerell is a master of the political profile, with a reputation for uncovering the human side of the men and women of Westminster and for really getting under the skin of the great, the good and…
Contains some upsetting scenes. When the BBC’s long-running Silent Witness first combined doctors, DNA and detective work back in 1996, nobody could have known that the show that changed the way death was examined in a crime drama would…
Acclaimed political profiler Michael Cockerell tells the story behind his encounter with one of the grand dames of Westminster, the formidable Labour MP Barbara Castle. A female icon of the left, Castle stood out from the herd thanks to…
Line of Duty writer Jed Mercurio looks back on the first drama he wrote and the start of his extraordinary journey from junior doctor to award-winning TV showrunner. The acclaimed 1994 series 'Cardiac Arrest' featured a cast of then…
Political interviewer Michael Cockerell introduces his acclaimed profile of Roy Jenkins, the man who, as home secretary in the 1960s, helped transform British society by changing laws on homosexuality, abortion and hanging. As Michael…
David Tennant looks back on the role he time-travelled into after leaving the Tardis, playing Hamlet in Greg Doran’s award-winning 2008 production for the Royal Shakespeare Company. David’s portrayal was described at the time as…
Dame Janet Suzman looks back on her role as Joan of Arc in the BBC adaptations of Shakespeare’s Wars of the Roses. Under the direction of John Barton and Peter Hall at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Janet delivered a highly acclaimed…
Gregory Doran, former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, looks back on the challenges he faced bringing together a cast of acclaimed actors and even members of the royal family for his 2016 live BBC extravaganza marking…
Actor Simon Russell Beale looks back on the The Hollow Crown, the BBC’s 2012 adaptations of the most vital of Shakespeare’s history plays: Richard II, Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV Part 2 and Henry V. Bringing together a stellar cast that…
Actors Damian Lewis and Matthew Macfayden and director Peter Kosminsky reunite to look back on 1999’s BBC drama Warriors and the roles that first set Lewis and Macfayden on the road to international success. The acclaimed series examined…
Hugh Quarshie looks back on his highly praised interpretation of Othello in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2015 production, directed by Iqbal Khan. He considers the extra responsibility a black actor must take on with a role that for…
Dame Helen Mirren looks back on one of her earliest television roles, filmed before she’d become a household name and international star, playing Rosalind in the BBC’s 1978 production of the Shakespeare comedy As You Like It. She shares…
Actress Margi Clarke looks back on the BBC’s popular 1980s comedy drama series Making Out, written by Debbie Horsfield. Acclaimed for being a celebration of working women in the north of England, the series followed the ups and downs of…
In 1964, a young Steven Berkoff was cast in one of his earliest screen roles, as a junior player in Hamlet in Elsinore, a BBC co-production with Danish television. Shot in Denmark by director Philip Saville, it starred Christopher Plummer…
Award-winning director and screenwriter Sir Richard Eyre looks back on his 2018 production of King Lear, which garnered huge critical acclaim upon its release and drew together a stellar cast that included Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson,…
Dame Siân Phillips looks back on Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood and her own experiences with the various adaptions that have brought perhaps the world’s most celebrated ‘play for voices’ to cinema and television audiences. She recalls the…
The groundbreaking director, photographer and artist Sir Horace Ové, who died in 2023 aged 86, was best known for his unique work exploring Britain's black culture, using drama and documentary to examine a section of society that was…
Ricky Tomlinson sits back in his chair and takes a fond look back at the much-loved comedy series The Royle Family, sharing his memories of playing head of the family Jim Royle and his experiences working with the show’s co-creator…
Renowned ballet dancer Dame Darcey Bussell introduces us to a gem from the BBC’s dance archives, The Magic of Dance, which was first transmitted in 1979 to great acclaim and is presented by celebrated ballet dancer, the unforgettable…
Penelope Keith casts an affectionate eye back on the much-loved sitcom To the Manor Born and her role as upper-class Audrey fforbes-Hamilton, who finds herself down on her luck and forced to change her circumstances and home after the…
Andrew Davies looks back on Pride and Prejudice (1995) and talks about how he adapted the story from Jane Austen's classic novel.
Orson Welles was the genius who changed the face of cinema with his 1941 directorial debut, Citizen Kane, and who became one of the key artistic figures of the 20th century – a great raconteur as well as a great artist, and larger than…
In 1965, a young Waris Hussein was perhaps the only experienced Indian director working in British television and was horrified when he discovered that the BBC was planning a TV adaptation of EM Forster’s A Passage to India without him at…
As BBC Four marks the 50th anniversary of the classic film comedy ‘Blazing Saddles’, Alan Yentob looks back on his experiences working with the great Mel Brooks, recently presented with an Honorary Oscar in recognition of a…
Claire Bloom introduces a rare screening of the BBC’s 1961 adaptation of Anna Karenina, in which she delivers one of her own personal favourite performances, playing Tolstoy’s tragic heroine. Claire recalls the challenges involved in…
National treasure Miriam Margolyes looks back on her role in the BBC’s 1995 adaptation of one of the much-loved jewels of 20th-century British literature, Stella Gibbons’s 1930s comic classic, Cold Comfort Farm. Directed by John…
Alan Yentob shares the fascinating story of how the 1974 broadcast of the great Ella Fitzgerald singing in Ronnie Scott’s nightclub came about. In a tale of tenacity combined with new camera technology, Alan recounts how, as a young TV…
Actors William Gaunt and Marcia Warren reunite for a look back at No Place Like Home, the BBC sitcom that ran from 1983 to 1987, and which made them two of the most popular TV stars of the day. William played Arthur Crabtree, a father of…
Acclaimed screenwriter Paul Abbott tells the story behind the creation of his 2000 Bafta-winning drama series Clocking Off, which ran for four series until 2003. Set in a Manchester textile factory, each episode focused on the home life,…
Siân Phillips is joined by directors Moira Armstrong and Waris Hussein to look back on the 1974 drama series Shoulder to Shoulder, which told the story of the Pankhurst family and the birth of the women’s suffrage movement. Over six…
Mary Beard delivers a personal introduction to Kenneth Clark’s landmark 1969 series, Civilisation, which became one of the most acclaimed and influential programmes ever made, bringing art history to the audiences of millions both in the…
Peter Egan looks back on the BBC’s 1987 adaptation of John le Carre’s A Perfect Spy, one of the writer’s most acclaimed novels, dramatised a year after the book’s publication. Egan starred as British intelligence officer and double agent…
Dame Helen Mirren looks back on her role in Dennis Potter’s seminal 1979 TV drama Blue Remembered Hills, one of the best-known episodes of the BBC’s much-admired Play for Today series. The drama famously featured adult actors taking on…
Carla Lane’s Butterflies was one of the best-loved sitcoms of the 1970s, following the life of frustrated housewife Ria, living in a male-dominated household with her husband Ben and two sons, Adam and Russell, and tempted by the…
Writer Roy Clarke is the man responsible for some of the BBC’s longest running and most popular sitcoms: Open All Hours, Keeping Up Appearances and Last of the Summer Wine. Despite the success of those series, the piece he’s proudest of…
Director Renny Rye looks back on the part he played in Karaoke, one of television’s most unusual commissions – a unique collaboration between the BBC and Channel 4, engineered by the writing force that was the late Dennis Potter. Karaoke,…
For over ten years and more than 100 episodes, Death in Paradise has delivered fans an irresistible cocktail of sun, sea and sin - demonstrating through a succession of murder mysteries that the ugly side of human nature is ever present,…
Dame Eileen Atkins takes us back to 1920s France and a fantastic world of foul play, chateaus, dungeons and fast cars in Tom Sharpe’s 1978 adaptation of Dornford Yates's She Fell Among Thieves. Atkins’s performance as the villainous…
In 1998, the BBC unveiled its latest look at the world of crime and policing, a new series called The Cops. Set in an unnamed northern town, it was gritty, hard-hitting and uncompromising, capturing a world where the line between criminal…
In 1997, the film version of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway was released in cinemas, based on a screenplay by Dame Eileen Atkins and with her friend Vanessa Redgrave playing the title role, a party-throwing socialite remembering the…
In the 1950s and 60s, Doris Day ranked amongst cinema’s biggest box office stars, thanks to roles in films such as musical Calamity Jane, Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, and especially a string of hit romantic comedies, including…
From its first appearance on our screens in 2000, Waking the Dead had viewers gripped by the activities of Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd and the ‘cold case’ unit he led, investigating unsolved murders from the past with the help of…
In 1978, the BBC crime drama Law and Order so shocked the nation with its realistic depiction of a police force riddled with corruption that questions were asked in the House of Commons, the BBC’s director general was summoned by…
Historian, author and presenter David Olusoga looks back on how his 2015 documentary Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners helped shine a light on the extent of Britain's involvement in the slave trade and the repercussions that has had on our…
Actor Richard Harrington looks back on his role as DCI Tom Mathias in Hinterland, the acclaimed crime drama set in Aberystwyth that took a groundbreaking approach to language barriers and inclusivity by filming the entire series in both…
Acclaimed comedy writer Roy Clarke has an extraordinary legacy when it comes to popular British sitcoms - creating Last of the Summer Wine, Open All Hours and the classic comedy that he looks back on here, Keeping Up Appearances – the…
Amanda Redman, James Bolam and Alun Armstrong, who formed the first incarnation of UCOS (Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad), look back on police comedy drama series New Tricks.
Celebrated theatre, film and television director Richard Eyre has forged links with some of Britain’s finest writers - one of the most notable being Trevor Griffiths, whose landmark piece, Comedians, he directed, as well as this prescient…
British screen legend Peter Davison sits down to give us an invaluable insight into the iconic 1989-1990 mystery drama series Campion, the BBC’s second adaptation of Margery Allingham’s highly celebrated set of detective novels. In a…
The Inspector Lynley Mysteries first appeared on our screens in 2001 and had viewers instantly hooked by the combination of puzzling crimes and murder investigations, spiced up with the added clash-of-class relationship between its two…
Dame Maureen Lipman shares her experiences of playing her own mother-in-law in the TV film The Evacuees, an autobiographical account written by her late husband Jack Rosenthal of his experiences as a young evacuee in wartime. Lipman…
Dame Patricia Routledge recalls how the character of Hyacinth Bucket first entered her life and looks back on the part she played in bringing to life one of TV’s most formidable comedy characters. She describes the pleasures of working…
Miss Pym's Day Out saw Dame Patricia Routledge portray legendary author Barbara Pym in an RTS Award-winning episode of Bookmark, set on the day of the 1977 Booker Prize Awards, of which Pym’s Quartet in Autumn was nominated. The novel…
Dame Patricia explains what attracted her to playing the woman who discovers an extraordinary talent for sleuthing in her sixties, cracking the case where all else fail, and why such roles are so vital in an industry that places a focus…
Talking Heads was Alan Bennett’s acclaimed series of one-off tele-plays, written specifically for a selection of some of his favourite actors, including the great Dame Patricia Routledge. Here, Patricia recalls what it was like to receive…
Line of Duty creator, writer and showrunner, Jed Mercurio, and leading cast member Martin Compston, aka DI Steve Arnott, enter the interrogation room, press the record button, and once the famous beep has signalled, it is time to begin as…
Writer Sally Wainwright looks back on the origins of her Bafta-winning drama Happy Valley, which first appeared on the nation’s TV screens in 2014, and instantly established itself as one of the great television experiences of recent…
As a new Labour government settles into power with a huge majority under Keir Starmer, director Peter Kosminsky considers this an ideal time to revisit and reflect on the lessons to be learned from his 2002 BBC drama The Project. The…
As fans prepare for the arrival of series nine of the BBC’s long-running crime drama Shetland, actor Alison O’Donnell, who plays the much-loved character Tosh, takes an affectionate look back on the series. She recalls how she got the…
Philip Glenister fires up the Cortina GXL one more time and takes a trip back in time to reflect on the hugely popular 1970s-set drama series Life on Mars, with writer and creator Matthew Graham joining him for the ride. Together, they…
Edward Mirzoeff, former BBC executive documentary producer and series editor of flagship series 40 Minutes, looks back on his time at the helm of one of the most innovative and exciting strands of documentary-making ever to appear on…
Sir Simon Schama’s first foray into TV presenting, Landscape and Memory, presented a unique take on the links between nature and art. The series was based on his 1995 book, about which he had said, 'If ever there was a book that was…
Ahead of a rare rescreening of the BBC’s apocalyptic drama Threads, director and producer Mick Jackson looks back to 1984 and shares the story behind the creation of this acclaimed vision of Britain suffering the effects of nuclear war.…
Angela Rippon buckles up for a trip down memory lane and checks the rear-view mirror before sharing her memories of working on the very first series of Top Gear. This was years before it became, in her eyes, all about the 'boys and their…
Angela Rippon’s love of dancing dates back to the ballet lessons she took as a young girl, and here – as she celebrates her 80th birthday – she looks back on the days when her profession and her passion came together perfectly, through…
Actors Christopher Timothy and Peter Davison share their memories of working on the popular BBC drama series All Creatures Great and Small.
Joan Bakewell looks back on what she describes as the greatest moment of her career, her scoop interview with Nelson Mandela as he left prison in 1990. She explains how the interview came about and how they beat news crews to the story -…
Joan Bakewell remembers her interview with legendary French artist and sculptor Marcel Duchamp, just months before his death in 1968. At a time when artists were unlikely talk show guests, Marcel came to Television Centre, armed with a…
Playwright Peter McDougall looks back at his bittersweet Play for Today from 1976, which starred Billy Connolly.
Joan Bakewell looks back fondly on her evening spent with the legendary screen actor Bette Davis in 1972. Joan was in awe of such an icon of the golden age of cinema but was careful not to let that put her off the job at hand. She talks…
David Nicholls's 2008 adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles provided Gemma Arterton with her first lead role on television. She joined a cast of young talent, including Eddie Redmayne and Jodie Whitaker, as well as…
Thomas Hardy’s classic story of class, love and familial heartbreak was so shocking at the time of its release that Hardy never wrote another novel. Christopher Eccleston looks back on the 1996 film version of Jude and how this tale from…
Professor Mary Beard is known for her explorations of the ancient world, but here looks back on her more recent past, and the making of her acclaimed four-part 2016 series Ultimate Rome. She explains how the series wasn’t just an…
Acclaimed novelist David Nicholls, perhaps best known for the best-selling One Day, looks back on the 2015 film of Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd, starring Carey Mulligan as the headstrong heroine Bathsheba Everdene. As a huge…
Don Cupitt, one of Britain’s leading Christian philosophers, once described by the Church Times as 'an ecclesiastical version of Tony Benn', marks 40 years since the broadcasting of his seminal 1984 series, The Sea of Faith. Cupitt’s…
Acclaimed director Martin Scorsese introduces the BBC’s much-anticipated season of films by the legendary team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Scorsese reveals why they resonate so strongly with him and are on his recommended…
Director Renny Rye looks back on the BBC TV adaptation of John Masefield's 1935 fantasy children's novel.
Actor Timothy Spall shares his memories of working alongside Benjamin on the 1992 comedy drama Dread Poets Society. This one-off production was inspired by the real-life outrage that followed Benjamin’s nomination to become an Oxford don…
Dame Judi Dench shares her memories of Talking to a Stranger, the groundbreaking 1960s drama by celebrated Z-Cars creator John Hopkins. The four-part piece followed four members of an outwardly everyday suburban family that is hit by…
Dame Judi Dench looks back on her role in 1985s Mr and Mrs Edgehill, a one-off drama based on a Noel Coward short story, which saw her and Sir Ian Holm playing husband and wife Eustace and Dorrie Edgehill. Set around the start of World…
Mackenzie Crook shares what inspired him to write his hit series Detectorists - a funny and touching series about a group of metal detectorists (not detectors) in the fictional town of Danebury in Essex. Mackenzie describes how he…
Fifty years on from when the prison doors first slammed shut on Norman Stanley Fletcher, Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais look back at a landmark British comedy. Dick and Ian explain the origins, how they nearly wrote a series about a…
Actor Zoë Wanamaker recalls the BBC's 1999 star-studded adaptation of the Dickens classic.
Sir Derek Jacobi looks back on the filmed version of Franco Zeffirelli’s famous 1960s production of Much Ado About Nothing - a performance that brought together Robert Stephens, in the role of Benedick, and his soon-to-be wife - the late,…
A self-confessed comedy hero to Ruth Jones, Hattie Jacques was a core part of postwar British comedy history. Roles in the Carry On films and TV sitcoms such as Sykes and Hancock cemented her place in the nation’s heart. Yet her…
Actress Vivien Heilbron looks back on the 1982 drama series Cloud Howe, the second part of the BBC’s acclaimed adaptation of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s classic trilogy A Scots Quair. Vivien’s character Chris is now moving on from the death of…
First broadcast in 1983, Grey Granite was the third and final part of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s A Scots Quair trilogy that the BBC adapted for television. Leading actress Vivien Heilbron looks back on her time making the series and the…
From Tony Hancock to Martin Luther King, Yoko Ono to Salman Rushdie, Face to Face interrogated some of the key figures in 20th-century culture. From its start in 1959, to its return 30 years later, it pushed contributors into revealing…
Actor Adrian Lester looks back on the celebrated 1996 Donmar Warehouse revival of the Stephen Sondheim musical Company.
Writer Tony Marchant looks back on his 1989 drama Take Me Home, a troubled love story set amidst a political backdrop of changing attitudes, technological advances and residential development. The drama was Tony’s first serial for…
Historian David Olusoga looks back on the 1986 BBC drama documentary Artists and Models, which had a profound influence on him as a young man. David remembers how the series ignited in him a love of art and history that would go on to…
The great opera singer Sir Willard White recalls his experiences on the first televised production of Porgy and Bess, based itself on Trevor Nunn’s acclaimed 1986 Glyndebourne staging of George Gershwin’s classic opera, and conducted by…
Writer Jimmy McGovern looks back on The Lakes, his 1997 drama that showed viewers one of Britain’s most-loved beauty spots in a whole new light, riddled with crime, drugs, sex and adultery. Jimmy talks about the inspiration behind the…
Screenwriter Jimmy McGovern looks back on his acclaimed, but controversial, 1995 drama Priest, explaining how an initial desire to explore the notion of celibacy for Catholic priests became a tale tackling homosexuality. He discusses the…
Gary Wilmot looks back fondly on his time presenting Showstoppers, a 1995 series jam-packed with well-known hits from musical theatre. The series started life as a one-off special and was then extended to include a further six episodes…
Screenwriter Jimmy McGovern remembers his 2014 drama Common, which explores the concept and consequences of the law of joint association through the story of a fictional murder involving a group of Liverpool teenagers. Jimmy explains how…
Elaine Paige looks back on A Night on the Town – a musical extravaganza from the early 1980s, filmed with a mostly American cast of singers and dancers, such as Ann Reinking, Hinton Battle, Frank Gorshin and the wonderful Eartha Kitt.…
AJP Taylor was rightly renowned as one of Britain’s finest historians, combining his academic work at Oxford with a successful career as author and broadcaster. Taylor established a reputation as one of the first television historians,…
Sir Simon Schama looks back on his 2006 series The Power of Art, which examined the works of eight artists and explored the question 'How powerful is art, can it change your life?'. It was a forensic study not of an artist’s life but of a…
Laurence Rees' landmark 1997 series explored the reasons why Germany fell in thrall to the Nazis. Combining astonishing archive, storytelling and interviews with figures at the heart of Hitler’s rise to power, it tells us of the Nazi…
Acting giant Brian Cox has enjoyed a stellar career and is known for the intensity of characters like Hannibal Lecter and Succession’s Logan Roy - but here we join him taking a fond look back at a character who, perhaps surprisingly,…
Alison Steadman Remembers... Girl National treasure Alison Steadman tells the story of one of the most groundbreaking and yet also most overlooked moments in British television. Despite the popular perception that Channel 4’s Brookside…
Actor Brian Cox looks back on the filming of the 1991 movie The Lost Language of Cranes, about a man struggling to come to terms with his sexuality and family secrets.
Romola Garai shares her experiences of filming the much-loved 2009 series Emma, recalling how she drew on the text to bring Austen’s complicated heroine to life.
Katharine Schlesinger looks back on the filming of the 1987 adaptation of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey.
Actors Amanda Root and Sophie Thompson look back on their roles in the BBC’s 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion, a story of missed opportunities and lost love.
Frank McGuinness and Julie Nicholson look back on the 2015 drama that explored the impact of the 7/7 bombing at Edgware Road tube station.
Producer George Gallaccio explains how Agatha Christie’s tales of death and deception were brought to life for the small screen and describes the pleasures of working with actress Joan Hickson.
Screenwriter Debbie Horsfield shares the story of how her TV adaptation of Winston Graham's novels came about and describes the challenges of bringing it up to date for a modern audience.
Nicholas Shakespeare looks back on the film he made for Omnibus that followed his friend and fellow writer Mario Vargas Llosa in his bid to become president of Peru.
Writer Debbie Horsfield looks back on Cutting It, her drama series following the personal and professional rivalries of two competing Manchester hair salons.
Patrick Marber looks back on his 1995 adaptation of August Strindberg's classic play Miss Julie.
Helen Mirren looks back on her role in Robert Altman’s acclaimed and multi-award-winning 2001 film Gosford Park, written by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes.
Dame Helen Mirren looks back on one of her earliest television roles in the BBC’s 1975 adaptation of JM Barrie’s The Little Minister.
Michael Aspel looks back on the BBC nuclear war drama documentary The War Game.
Paul Lewis provides a glimpse into the life and career of a performer assured of his place as one of the greatest musicians of the postwar era, classical pianist Alfred Brendel.
Stephen Poliakoff looks back on his 1999 TV series Shooting the Past, revealing how he was given the brief to write something 'totally different from anything seen before'.
Comedy hero Jasper Carrott marks hitting his 80th year with a look back over the unique career that has seen him gracing our screens for the past five decades.
Stephen Poliakoff gives an insight into the making of his landmark BBC drama Perfect Strangers.
Phil Davis pays tribute to maverick director Alan Clarke as he looks back on his time acting in the 1989 made-for-television film The Firm.
Sarah Churchwell looks at the origins of The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald's evocative novel of the Roaring Twenties, and the inspiration behind its plot and characters.
Anthony Wall looks back on his time on Arena, from producer to series editor, and celebrates the films and people that made it groundbreaking, unmissable, unforgettable TV.
Director Waris Hussein talks about his memories of making the 1993 TV drama The Clothes in the Wardrobe, adapted from the Alice Thomas Ellis novel by Martin Sherman.
Actor Bhasker Patel looks back at the 1993 BBC film Brothers in Trouble.
Acclaimed screenwriter William Nicholson looks back on the BBC drama he still considers one of his finest achievements, 1988's As Sweet as You Are.
Professor Angie Hobbs gives a modern view on Bryan Magee’s highly influential series The Great Philosophers. She examines its approach, ideas and thinking and explains how it inspired her and many others to explore philosophy when it was…
Former governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King looks back on the BBC’s 1977 series on the history of economic thinking, The Age of Uncertainty.
Screenwriter David Hare looks back on his 1995 political drama The Absence of War, a fictional account of a Labour general election campaign.
Actor Ian McNeice looks back on the 1985 political thriller Edge of Darkness, which quickly established itself as a landmark series in British TV history.
Emma Thompson and Paul Murton discuss The Blue Boy, a film Paul was inspired to write after a spooky experience the pair shared during a late night lock-in at a haunted inn as teenagers.
Acclaimed choreographer and director Sir Matthew Bourne discusses his groundbreaking reinterpretation of Tchaikovsky's classic ballet Swan Lake.
Writer Graham Reid looks back on his 1996 BBC drama The Precious Blood, set in a Belfast trying to secure a lasting peace and starring Amanda Burton and Kevin McNally.
Playwright Graham Reid looks back on his 1995 TV drama Life After Life, a powerful addition to his work on the Troubles, about a murderer released into ceasefire Belfast.
Actors Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens look back on the 2006 TV adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.
Actor, producer and writer Kay Adshead reflects on her memorable portrayal of Cathy Earnshaw in the BBC’s 1978 adaptation of Wuthering Heights.
Michael Aspel, now 92, reflects on his childhood as an evacuee during the Second World War, sharing vivid memories that he first touched on in the 1969 documentary The Evacuees.
Screenwriter William Nicholson recalls the making of the 1985 BBC drama Shadowlands, an exploration of faith, love and loss starring Joss Ackland and Claire Bloom.
Icon of children's broadcasting Derek Griffiths looks back on the much-loved 1970s animated series Bod, a cult classic narrated by Dad’s Army’s John Le Mesurier.
Michael Palin recounts the story behind his much-loved 1987 coming-of-age drama East of Ipswich.
Actors Peter Egan and Penelope Wilton look back on their roles as Ann and Paul in the BBC’s 1980s sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles.
Actor Samuel West introduces a special night of BBC programmes that celebrate the life and work of his mother, Prunella Scales.
Beloved entertainer Christopher Biggins takes a nostalgic look back at his time on the classic BBC comedy Rentaghost. Sharing fond memories of the show’s quirky humour and unforgettable characters, Biggins reflects on how the series…
Mike Leigh, icon of British TV and film, looks back on one of his most popular and influential television plays, 1976's classic camping comedy Nuts in May.
With a career spanning seven decades, acclaimed theatre, film and TV director Richard Eyre has been involved in a number of hugely successful Ibsen productions. His adaptation of Ghosts in 2013 won him the Evening Standard Best Director…
A look back at the BBC's acclaimed 1992 adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House that reunites leading cast members Trevor Eve and Juliet Stephenson and director David Thacker.
The recently knighted sitcom writer Roy Clarke looks back on one of his best-loved creations, Open All Hours, and shares his memories of working with two comedy legends.
Michael Palin shares memories of his 1988 screenplay for the drama Number 27 - one of his early post-Python solo ventures and written around the same time as East of Ipswich.