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History states that Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin. This drama uncovers the forgotten team involved in the development and manufacture of the drug.
Drama illuminating one doctor's pioneering efforts to protect the people of Manchester from the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic.
Set against the background of the Armistice in November 1918 as millions of exhausted soldiers return home from the Great War, the film tells the little-known story of Dr James Niven, Manchester's medical health officer for thirty years, and his heroic efforts to combat a second wave of fatal influenza as it spreads across the city and the UK.
Margaret is a compelling drama about power and betrayal written by Richard Cottan (Wallander, Hancock & Joan).
The extraordinary cast for this powerful production is headed by multi-BAFTA nominated actress Lindsay Duncan (Rome) as the Iron Lady.
She is joined by a host of outstanding veteran actors including Ian McDiarmid (Star Wars) as Margaret's loyal husband Denis, James Fox (A Passage To India) as foreign policy adviser Charles Powell, Robert Hardy (All Creatures Great And Small) as Willie Whitelaw, Philip Jackson (Poirot) as chief press secretary Bernard Ingham, Kevin McNally (Pirates Of The Caribbean) as Kenneth Clarke and Oliver Cotton (The Commander) as Michael Heseltine.
The film is an intimate portrayal of a woman on the brink of ruin; a very human story about the private Margaret behind the public persona as she loses her grip on the power she has strived so hard to achieve.
Freefall is the first drama to tackle the extraordinary financial crisis we are living through. Helmed by multiple BAFTA-winning director Dominic Savage, the film takes a startling and provocative look at the events that caused our lives to spiral out of control. With pace, edge and real emotional punch, it gives a unique insight into how we came so perilously close to the edge.
Set almost entirely in Wales, Framed tells the story of 10-year-old Dylan Hughes and his family's struggle to keep their small petrol station, which sits at the foot of a mountain in North Wales, afloat.
Manod village is a rain-soaked community where hope is thin on the ground, and money even thinner. When Dylan's dad suddenly leaves home, things get even tougher for him, his sisters Minnie and Marie, baby brother Max, and his mother.
Da's departure however, coincides with the secretive arrival of a convoy of men and trucks, who take residence on top of the mountain. The villagers discover that the National Gallery in London has been flooded, and the priceless paintings sent by the lorry load to Wales for safe storage in the bowels of the old slate mine inside Manod mountain (as they were back in the Second World War).
In charge of this is Lester, an intelligent but uptight art curator who prefers paintings to people. That is, until a funny and pivotal misunderstanding leads him to invite Dylan to view the paintings inside the mountain. What ensues is good news for both Lester and the rather depressed town of Manod.
Manod develops an interest in art and Lester develops an interest in Manod, in the form of the lovely Angharad, the local school teacher. Through the transformative power of art, Manod starts to transform itself, beginning with the service station, where Mam and the children revive the flagging fortunes of the petrol station by broadening the services they offer into catering and a coffee bar.
However, despite everybody's best efforts, the petrol station faces closure when the family fail to generate enough cash to keep it going. Could an audacious art theft solve their problems?
Docudrama sequel to The Gathering Storm, charting Winston Churchill's rise to power, victory in World War II and subsequent election defeat, set against his personal relationships.
Illuminating and surprising drama telling the story of arguably the most popular children's storyteller of all, Enid Blyton.
It reveals how Blyton became the writer who would capture more youthful imaginations than anyone else, following her career from ambitious, driven and as yet unpublished young woman to household name and moral guardian, while glimpsing her own childhood - a dark time, far from the carefree, happy idyll portrayed in her books.
Through marriages and children, the roles of Enid the wife (to Hugh and then Kenneth) and mother are portrayed, ones she struggled to fulfil while balancing them with her extraordinary output.
The film also uncovers a strong and resourceful woman; a woman who never really grew up; a woman who rewrote the endings of many chapters of her real life, sometimes with cruel and hurtful results; and a woman whose legacy has often been criticised but whose success cannot be argued with, who gave children the stories they wanted.
Singer and comedienne from Rochdale, Gracie Fields was the nation's darling. Beginning on the cusp of World War II and at the phenomenal peak of her career, this heart-breaking love story tells of Gracie's relationship with Italian-born Hollywood director, Monty Banks and its staggering repercussions.
Drama based on events in the life of ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn. At the beginning of the 1960s, Fonteyn faces retirement as a prima ballerina and a crisis in her marriage to Panamanian 'politician' Tito de Arias. When the much younger Rudolf Nureyev arrives on the scene, he transforms Margot's professional and personal life in a partnership celebrated around the world. But when Tito is shot and paralysed, the dancer must face an agonising choice about her future.
David Tennant stars in a film of the Royal Shakespeare Company's award-winning production of Shakespeare's great play. Director Gregory Doran's modern-dress production was hailed by the critics as thrilling, fast-moving and, in parts, very funny.
Hamlet must decide whether to avenge his father's murder at the hands of his uncle Claudius (played by Patrick Stewart), who has married his brother's wife - Hamlet's mother, Gertrude. This visually sumptuous screen version was filmed on location with all of the original stage cast.
Drama studying the interactions between the living and the dead.
A young governess, Ann, is sent to a country house to take care of two orphans, Miles and Flora. Soon after her arrival, Miles is expelled from boarding school. Although charmed by her young charge, she secretly fears there are ominous reasons behind his expulsion.
With Miles back at home, the governess starts noticing ethereal figures roaming the estate's grounds. Desperate to learn more about these sinister sightings she discovers that the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of her predecessor hold grim implications for herself.
As she becomes increasingly fearful that malevolent forces are stalking the children the governess is determined to save them, risking herself and her sanity in the process.
Affectionately comic drama about the British home computer boom of the early 1980s.
Legendary inventor Clive Sinclair battles it out with ex-employee Chris Curry, founder of Acorn Computers, for dominance in the fledgling market.
The rivalry comes to a head when the BBC announce their Computer Literacy Project, with the stated aim of putting a micro in every school in Britain. When Acorn wins the contract, Sinclair is furious, and determines to outsell the BBC Micro with his ZX Spectrum computer.
Home computing arrives in Britain in a big way, but is the country big enough for both men?
Family film about three children who find a genie - Genius - on a farm in Alderley Edge. Genius takes them on a wild and unpredictable adventure to a world of magic, dragons and hidden treasure. In return, the kids introduce him to something he has never known: friendship.
The watchwords of the French Revolution were liberty, equality and fraternity. Maximilien Robespierre believed in them passionately. He was an idealist and a lover of humanity. But during the 365 days that Robespierre sat on the Committee of Public Safety, the French Republic descended into a bloodbath.
'The Terror' only came to end when Robespierre himself was devoured by the repressive machinery he'd created. This drama-documentary tells the story of the Terror and looks at how Robespierre's revolutionary idealism so quickly became an excuse for tyranny, and why a lover of liberty was so keen to use the guillotine.
Simon Schama and Slavoj Zizek are among the contributors.
One-off period comedy, peeping into the lives of a south Wales family's Christmases across the 1980s, written by comedian Mark Watson and inspired by a Dylan Thomas short story. Christmas in this household may be a less than poetic affair, but it is just as eventful. So much changes across a decade in any family, and yet so much manages to remain the same.
Best: His Mother's Son is a 2009 drama television film that chronicles the life of the late footballer George Best's mother, Ann, and her battles against alcoholism that would ultimately lead to her death at the age of 54. The film was originally broadcast on BBC Two] and BBC Northern Ireland on 26 April 2009, receiving ratings of 2.74 million viewers.
Best: His Mother's Son was filmed at County Antrim and Belfast in Northern Ireland, the country where George Best was born in 1946. It starred Tom Payne as the title character, with Michelle Fairley playing his mother Ann and Lorcan Cranitch appearing as his father Dickie. Des McAleer was also featured as the Manchester United manager during George's playing career, Matt Busby.
Julie Walters stars in a one-off drama inspired by the true story of Dr Anne Turner, who in 2006 took her own life in a Zurich clinic having developed an incurable degenerative disease.
Having recently witnessed the death of her husband from a neurological disease, Anne Turner is diagnosed with a near-identical illness and determines to end her life once her condition has reached a critical point.
As her health deteriorates, Anne's son and two daughters struggle to reach a consensus over their mother's intentions and while they search for alternative options, silent recriminations and stubborn practicality threaten to tear the family apart. With her family at logger heads, Anne must also face the fury of her best friend, whose opposing views bring them into direct conflict.
Written by award-winning writer Frank McGuinness.
