
Acting
Rita May
Born
1942-05-09 (84)
Place of birth
Sheffield, Yorkshire, England
Known for
Acting
Credits
33 titles
Rita May is an English film and television actress, singer, and writer, best known for playing Mrs Kemp in Threads, Jean in Early Doors and Margaret in Trollied. She's also the only original cast remember who appeared in all episodes of the children's ITV drama series "Children's Ward" from 1989 to 2000.
Known for
7.1Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.
Heartbeat
1992
7.2Unencumbered by wives, jobs or any other responsibilities, three senior citizens who've never really grown up explore their world in the Yorkshire Dales. They spend their days speculating about their fellow townsfolk and thinking up adventures not usually favored by the elderly. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse in 1973. The show ran for 295 episodes until 2010. It is the longest running comedy Britain has produced and the longest running sitcom in the world.
Last of the Summer Wine
1973
7.1Frank Hathaway, a hardboiled private investigator, and his rookie sidekick Lu Shakespeare form the unlikeliest of partnerships as they investigate the secrets of rural Warwickshire's residents.
Shakespeare & Hathaway - Private Investigators
2018
7.0A new academy school in a Yorkshire mill town merges the lives and cultures of the largely divided white and Asian community
Ackley Bridge
2017
7.3Instead of spending her golden years lying down, the indomitable Hetty Wainthropp found her calling late in life. Combining common sense, her husband, and her pocketbook, this senior sleuth takes on all the cases the police deem too minor.
Hetty Wainthropp Investigates
1996
5.2Children's Ward is a British children's television drama series produced by Granada Television and broadcast on the ITV network as part of its Children's ITV strand on weekday afternoons. The programme was set – as the title suggests – in Ward B1, the children's ward of the fictitious South Park Hospital, and told the stories of the young patients and the staff present there. Aimed at older children and teenagers, Children's Ward was a long-lived series for a children's drama, starting life in 1988 as a contribution to the Dramarama anthology strand, "Blackbird Singing In The Dead of Night", then first broadcast as a series 1989 and running from then until 2000. The series was conceived by Granada staff writers Paul Abbott and Kay Mellor, both of whom went on to enjoy successful careers as award-winning writers of adult television drama. At the time, they were both working on the soap opera Coronation Street, and had recently collaborated on a script for Dramarama. Abbott, who had been through a troubled childhood himself, had initially wanted to set the series in a children's care home rather than a hospital, but this was vetoed by Granada executives. During the course of its run, however, Children's Ward won many plaudits for covering difficult issues such as cancer, alcoholism, drug addiction and child abuse in a sensitive manner. The programme won many awards, including in 1996 a BAFTA Children's Award for Best Drama, won by an episode in which a serial killer lures children to him via the internet and is – highly unusually for children's television – not eventually caught.
Children's Ward
1989
Film credits
2020s · 2 titles
6.2Jamie New is 16 and doesn’t quite fit in—instead of pursuing a "real" career he dreams of becoming a drag queen. Uncertain about his future, Jamie knows one thing for sure: he is going to be a sensation. Supported by his loving mom and his amazing friends, Jamie overcomes prejudice, beats the bullies and steps out of the darkness, into the spotlight.
Everybody's Talking About Jamie
2021
NRThe untold story of the film that traumatised a generation.
Survivors: The Spectre of Threads
2025
2000s · 3 titles
7.0The US President and the UK Prime Minister are planning on launching a war in the Middle East, but—behind the scenes—government officials and advisers are either promoting the war or are trying to prevent it.
In the Loop
2009
6.6Yorkshire, 1974. Fear, mistrust and institutionalised police corruption are running riot. Rookie journalist Eddie Dunford is determined to search for the truth in an increasingly complex maze of lies and deceit surrounding the police investigation into a series of child abductions. When young Clare Kemplay goes missing, Eddie and his colleague, Barry, persuade their editor to let them investigate links with two similar abductions that draw them into a deadly world of secrecy, intimidation, shocking revelations and police brutality.
Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1974
2009
10.0A 7-year-old boy (Jonathan Mason) struggles to understand why his mother, newly returned from hospital, isn't giving him the attention he craves.
Nits
2004
1990s · 3 titles
6.4Yorkshire writer Kate finds out her biological clock is ticking down the same day that her husband leaves her. To get over the financial crisis this creates she takes in car-dealer Dave. He's homeless as Kate's husband has moved in with his wife. This leaves the problem of how to get promptly pregnant. Surely not with increasingly interesting Dave. They can't even agree on a baby's name - he thinks Fanny is silly and she finds Elvis, well, inconceivable.
Fanny & Elvis
1999
5.8Jimmy Muir comes from a typical gritty, northern town where there are only two options: working down the pit or in a factory. But Jimmy has other ideas — he dreams of becoming a professional footballer. Confronted by a bitter and unsupportive father, hard-drinking friends and a lifetime of bad habits...has Jimmy the will to achieve his ultimate goal?
When Saturday Comes
1996
7.1England, Summer 1814. Sharpe returns to England, with his reputation fully restored. He is soon ordered to the North of England to take command of a local militia force in his home town as it is troubled with unrest and machine-breakers. Sharpe finds that he is torn between two sides - that of the corrupt gentry and that of his own people, the rough, tough and spirited masses who are kept down by their superiors. He finds himself faced with one of the hardest decisions of his life.
Sharpe's Justice
1997
1980s · 5 titles
7.6Documentary style account of a nuclear holocaust and its effect on the working class city of Sheffield, England; and the eventual long run effects of nuclear war on civilization.
Threads
1984
6.0George Purse is the gamekeeper for the duke's estate, a role he takes seriously. His position gives him a certain status, but he has an uneasy relationship with some of the locals, not least those who turn to poaching
The Gamekeeper
1980
6.7Thatcherism and the Irish troubles provide the backdrop for this study of Mick, a well-meaning youth in Sheffield, who has, unlike Dickens' Pip, no expectations. Mick lives with his parents, works on his motorbike, looks for work, and every two weeks gets his check from the dole. There are no jobs. His best mate Alan joins the army to fix tanks and is sent to Belfast to quell Catholics. At a disco, Mick meets Karen, who works at a shoe shop and lives with her recently-separated mum. She offers emotional stability and a route to adulthood while Alan pitches the army. What will become of Mick?
Looks and Smiles
1981
NRA planning decision must be made, and the motorway extension must go through on either the Golf Course or the Allotments - will the greens survive or the peasant lands?
England's Greens and Peasant Land
1982
Drama based on events during the 1984/85 miners strike. One of the first dramatised accounts, it was written by Geoffrey Case and directed by Gordon Flemyng for Yorkshire Television and won the Rai award at the Prix Italia and the Prix Futura at the Berlin Film Festival in 1987.
Scab
1987
1970s · 2 titles
6.0The workers of Milton Colliery prepare for a royal visit from Prince Charles.
The Price of Coal, Part 1: Meet the People
1977
5.8A month after the royal visit, the workers at Milton Colliery are brought crashing back down to earth by an underground explosion.
The Price of Coal, Part 2: Back to Reality
1977
Series credits
7.1Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.
Heartbeat
1992
7.2Unencumbered by wives, jobs or any other responsibilities, three senior citizens who've never really grown up explore their world in the Yorkshire Dales. They spend their days speculating about their fellow townsfolk and thinking up adventures not usually favored by the elderly. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse in 1973. The show ran for 295 episodes until 2010. It is the longest running comedy Britain has produced and the longest running sitcom in the world.
Last of the Summer Wine
1973
7.1Frank Hathaway, a hardboiled private investigator, and his rookie sidekick Lu Shakespeare form the unlikeliest of partnerships as they investigate the secrets of rural Warwickshire's residents.
Shakespeare & Hathaway - Private Investigators
2018
7.0A new academy school in a Yorkshire mill town merges the lives and cultures of the largely divided white and Asian community
Ackley Bridge
2017
7.3Instead of spending her golden years lying down, the indomitable Hetty Wainthropp found her calling late in life. Combining common sense, her husband, and her pocketbook, this senior sleuth takes on all the cases the police deem too minor.
Hetty Wainthropp Investigates
1996
5.2Children's Ward is a British children's television drama series produced by Granada Television and broadcast on the ITV network as part of its Children's ITV strand on weekday afternoons. The programme was set – as the title suggests – in Ward B1, the children's ward of the fictitious South Park Hospital, and told the stories of the young patients and the staff present there. Aimed at older children and teenagers, Children's Ward was a long-lived series for a children's drama, starting life in 1988 as a contribution to the Dramarama anthology strand, "Blackbird Singing In The Dead of Night", then first broadcast as a series 1989 and running from then until 2000. The series was conceived by Granada staff writers Paul Abbott and Kay Mellor, both of whom went on to enjoy successful careers as award-winning writers of adult television drama. At the time, they were both working on the soap opera Coronation Street, and had recently collaborated on a script for Dramarama. Abbott, who had been through a troubled childhood himself, had initially wanted to set the series in a children's care home rather than a hospital, but this was vetoed by Granada executives. During the course of its run, however, Children's Ward won many plaudits for covering difficult issues such as cancer, alcoholism, drug addiction and child abuse in a sensitive manner. The programme won many awards, including in 1996 a BAFTA Children's Award for Best Drama, won by an episode in which a serial killer lures children to him via the internet and is – highly unusually for children's television – not eventually caught.
Children's Ward
1989
8.0Fat Friends is an ITV drama created by Kay Mellor, broadcast from 12 October 2000 to 24 March 2005. It follows a group of overweight people, their laughter and pain and addresses the absurdities of dieting in our modern age. It examines people and how they relate to one another and use body weight as an excuse for all sorts of failings in their relationships, or not living their lives to the full. Four cast members—Ruth Jones, James Corden, Sheridan Smith, and Alison Steadman—went on to appear in Gavin & Stacey.
Fat Friends
2000
6.5Set in Valco, a fictional budget supermarket in the north west of England, Trollied finds the funny in one of our most familiar surroundings and focuses on the types of characters we all recognise: bored checkout staff, ineffectual managers and a range of customers, from the irate to the downright bizarre.
Trollied
2011
7.6A drama exploring how winning the lottery transforms the lives of ordinary people.
The Syndicate
2012
7.2Red Riding is a British crime drama limited series written by Tony Grisoni, based on the book series of the same name by David Peace. Comprised of the novels 1974 (1999), 1977 (2000), 1980 (2001), and 1983 (2002), with the first, third, and fourth of these became three feature-length television episodes, Red Riding 1974, Red Riding 1980 and Red Riding 1983. Three epic tales of murder, corruption and obsession. Utilising recurring characters and events, the Red Riding Trilogy recounts three series of gruesome crimes over a turbulent decade in Northern England.
Red Riding
2009
8.1Environmental activist Emma Craven is murdered in front of her father, local police inspector Ronald Craven. Investigating the death leads him through a haunting revelation of the murkiness of British nuclear policy of the 1980s.
Edge of Darkness
1985
7.8A sitcom set in a small pub in Manchester, “The Grapes”, where daily life is bound up in the issues of love, loneliness, and blocked urinals. Regular drinkers Joe and Duffy pass the time with landlord Ken and his police officer cronies.
Early Doors
2003
7.8Sunshine is a three-part comedy drama that began on 7 October 2008 on BBC1 from the co-writers of The Royle Family and Early Doors. These co-writers, Craig Cash and Phil Mealey, also appear in the series.
Sunshine
2008
10.0The saga of Manchester lad Joe Henshaw, a story that takes in family life, the trials and tribulations of the Labour movement and World War Two
The Gathering Seed
1983
7.8Follows the staff and patients of a Yorkshire cottage hospital in the 60s, embroiled in tangled love lives and bitter power struggles.
The Royal
2003
Behind the camera
NRA darts tournament is put in peril when the players' wives stage a sit-in in the pub.
One Hundred and Eighty!!!
1981
NRA planning decision must be made, and the motorway extension must go through on either the Golf Course or the Allotments - will the greens survive or the peasant lands?
England's Greens and Peasant Land
1982

