Acting

Ann Way

Born — Died

1915-11-14 — 1993-03-13

Place of birth

Wiveliscombe, Somerset, England, UK

Known for

Acting

Credits

46 titles

Ann Way (14 November 1915 – 13 March 1993) was an English film and television character actress. Born in Wiveliscombe, Somerset, she began her career in repertory in Birmingham in the 1950s moving from there to the Dundee Rep. Her petite build and deep-set eyes saw her frequently typecast as a stereotypically dotty or timid and mouse-like spinster. She nonetheless appeared in a wide range of roles, including the television series Dr Finlay's Casebook, Emmerdale Farm where she played an aunt of publican and newspaper correspondent Amos Brearly, Fawlty Towers (where she memorably played the Colonel's wife inadvertently served the raw red mullet in "Gourmet Night") and Rumpole of the Bailey as…

Known for

The Bill poster
6.8

The daily lives of the men and women at Sun Hill Police Station as they fight crime on the streets of London. From bomb threats to armed robbery and drug raids to the routine demands of policing this ground-breaking series focuses as much on crime as it does on the personal lives of its characters.

The Bill

1984

Playhouse poster
7.0

A one-hour anthology television series of one-off contemporary and classic dramas produced by the BBC.

Playhouse

1974

Theatre 625 poster
7.2

Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.

Theatre 625

1964

All Creatures Great and Small poster
7.8

The trials and misadventures of the staff at a country veterinary office in Yorkshire. James Herriot, a young animal surgeon, moves to a small Yorkshire town to begin his first job.

All Creatures Great and Small

1978

Rumpole of the Bailey poster
7.1

Rumpole of the Bailey is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer. It stars Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, an aging London barrister who defends any and all clients, and has been spun off into a series of short stories, novels, and radio programmes.

Rumpole of the Bailey

1975

Lovejoy poster
7.4

The adventures of the eponymous Lovejoy, a likeable but roguish antiques dealer based in East Anglia. Within the trade, he has a reputation as a “divvie”, a person with an almost supernatural powers for recognising exceptional items as well as distinguishing genuine antique from clever fakes or forgeries.

Lovejoy

1986

Film credits

1980s · 12 titles

Brazil poster
7.7

Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle, he meets the woman from his daydream, and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.

Brazil

1985

Clockwise poster
6.2

School headmaster Brian Stimpson is obsessed with timeliness, order, and discipline. Brian misses his train after meticulously preparing a speech for an education conference. With no one else to turn to, he asks young former student Laura Wisely for a ride. Laura, upset over a break-up, agrees to drive him in her parents' car - which alarms her mother and father, who worry that she has run away with a married man and subsequently alert the police.

Clockwise

1986

Killing Dad poster
4.3

A man, always very devoted to his mother, decides to look for his father whom he never met. He meets a seducing older woman prone to drinking and her aged boyfriend whom she grew tired of.

Killing Dad

1989

Little Lord Fauntleroy poster
7.3

Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American. But after the death of the Earl's remaining son, he decides to accept Cedric as his heir.

Little Lord Fauntleroy

1980

Haunted Honeymoon poster
5.4

Radio personalities Larry Abbot and Vickie Pearle are stars of a mystery show. Since they announced their engagement, Larry has been plagued by speech problems and, seeking out an unconventional cure, he returns to his boyhood home, a mansion in the countryside, bringing Vickie along. Larry reunites with numerous family members, but discovers that there are sinister things afoot within the walls of the creepy estate.

Haunted Honeymoon

1986

The Dresser poster
6.8

In a touring Shakespearean theater group, a backstage hand - the dresser - is devoted to the brilliant but tyrannical head of the company. He struggles to support the deteriorating star as the company struggles to carry on during the London Blitz. The pathos of his backstage efforts rival the pathos in the story of Lear and the Fool that is being presented on-stage, as the situation comes to a crisis.

The Dresser

1983

The Dawning poster
5.9

An IRA gunman on the run from the government meets an idealistic young woman and attempts to win her support for his cause.

The Dawning

1988

Bread or Blood poster
NR

Between April and May 1816, "Bread or Blood" riots erupted across East Anglia as the price of bread surpassed the wages of agricultural and industrial laborers. While food riots had a long history in Britain, industrialization, enclosure, and globalization increasingly safeguarded the nation's food supply by the early nineteenth century

Bread or Blood

1981

Crystalstone poster
6.7

Deserted by their father and with their mother dead, nine-year-old Pablo and his little sister Maria refuse to be separated from each other by their caretaker aunt. With a cross as their guide, they embark on a perilous, but ultimately rewarding adventure in search of a mystical gem that holds the key to happiness. They escape the fearsome metal hook of a pirate and are helped by a delightfully drunken Captain in their quest for the magic stone.

Crystalstone

1987

No artwork available
NR

Play about a pregnant cleaner in a North Country museum who becomes entranced by one of the exhibits, a baby's lace christening cap, and its dead maker.

Long Live the Babe

1984

The Pigman's Protege poster
NR

In 1919 the carnage of the First World War has left the country desperately short of young men. Maud, who runs the farm for her crippled father, decides that it is time for her young sister Clara to be married, and a husband could provide a strong pair of hands around the place. Stan the pigman seems to fix most things, why not this?

The Pigman's Protege

1982

Dead Lucky poster
4.0

Martin Urban, a young accountant, is gay but unwilling to own up to this fact because he desperately wants to be the ideal son for his parents. When he wins a fortune on the football pools, he decides to give half of it away to deserving people. But he neglects to include his friend Tim Sage, who filled in the coupon for him and really needs the money. Perhaps Martin doesn't acknowledge Tim because Martin is strongly sexually attracted to him. Tim's revenge upon Martin succeeds beyond his wildest dreams, setting in motion a chain of events leading to a tragic climax.

Dead Lucky

1988

1970s · 4 titles

Carry On Loving poster
5.7

The Wedded Bliss computer dating agency aims to bring together the lonely hearts of Much-Snoggin-in-the-Green. Its owner, Sidney Bliss, has enough complications in his own love life, but still produces a pamphlet called 'The Wit to Woo'. The strange collection of hopefuls lead to some outlandish matches—and jealousies are bound to lead to trouble.

Carry On Loving

1970

Endless Night poster
6.1

Shiftless dreamer Michael Rogers fantasizes about a lifestyle above his means and marries a wealthy, young girl who just came of age. They hire a famous architect to build their dream home amidst a series of suspicious incidents. The spouse has dark intentions toward his naive, inexperienced bride. Secrets from his past and sinister ties to their house guest Greta lead to a terrible turn of unexpected events.

Endless Night

1972

The Sailor's Return poster
6.2

Based on the 1925 novel The Sailor's Return by David Garnett. A sailor returns to his hometown to open a pub bringing with him his new black wife. Very quickly they find themselves ostracised by the community.

The Sailor's Return

1978

Whinfrey's Last Case poster
9.5

In 1913 the British government, hearing that the Germans are planning World War I, ask top agent Whinfrey to intervene, but instead he decides to go on holiday to Cornish fishing village Torpoint. Here he believes he has stumbled upon a smuggling ring, but in fact they are Germans who are masquerading as locals in an advance invasion party. The British arrive and arrest them, believing that Whinfrey deliberately planned everything - though it is apparent that he did not.

Whinfrey's Last Case

1979

Series credits

The Bill poster
6.8

The daily lives of the men and women at Sun Hill Police Station as they fight crime on the streets of London. From bomb threats to armed robbery and drug raids to the routine demands of policing this ground-breaking series focuses as much on crime as it does on the personal lives of its characters.

The Bill

1984

Playhouse poster
7.0

A one-hour anthology television series of one-off contemporary and classic dramas produced by the BBC.

Playhouse

1974

Theatre 625 poster
7.2

Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.

Theatre 625

1964

Theatre 625 poster
7.2

Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.

Theatre 625

1964

All Creatures Great and Small poster
7.8

The trials and misadventures of the staff at a country veterinary office in Yorkshire. James Herriot, a young animal surgeon, moves to a small Yorkshire town to begin his first job.

All Creatures Great and Small

1978

Rumpole of the Bailey poster
7.1

Rumpole of the Bailey is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer. It stars Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, an aging London barrister who defends any and all clients, and has been spun off into a series of short stories, novels, and radio programmes.

Rumpole of the Bailey

1975

Lovejoy poster
7.4

The adventures of the eponymous Lovejoy, a likeable but roguish antiques dealer based in East Anglia. Within the trade, he has a reputation as a “divvie”, a person with an almost supernatural powers for recognising exceptional items as well as distinguishing genuine antique from clever fakes or forgeries.

Lovejoy

1986

Fawlty Towers poster
8.3

Owner Basil Fawlty, his wife Sybil, a chambermaid Polly, and Spanish waiter Manuel attempt to run their hotel amidst farcical situations and an array of demanding guests.

Fawlty Towers

1975

Shoestring poster
7.7

Shoestring is a BBC detective drana set in Bristol and starring Trevor Eve as private detective Eddie Shoestring, who operatee his own show on Radio West, the local radio station. The programme ran between 30 September 1979 and 21 December 1980, in two series with 21 hour-long episodes. Eve opted not to return after two series, as he wanted to diversify into theatre, so the production team changed the setting to Jersey and created Bergerac, also following a detective returning to work after a bad period in his life.

Shoestring

1979

Sergeant Cork poster
7.2

Sergeant Cork is a British detective television series which first aired between 1963 and 1968 on ITV. It was a police procedural show that followed the efforts of two police officers and their battle against crime in Victorian London. In all 66 hour-long episodes were aired during the five-year run, although the last episode was not broadcast until January 1968, 16 months after the others. Journalist Tom Sutcliffe has credited it as a first example of the use of the Victorian-era policeman in a television crime series. A 1969 review in The Age opined that rather than suspense, the strengths of the series were its "excellent period settings and wonderfully thick pea-soupers" which "add up to splendid evocative stuff", as well as the performance of star John Barrie. At no time during the whole series is Sergeant Cork's first name given.

Sergeant Cork

1963

The Goodies poster
7.7

A British television comedy series of the 1970s and early 1980s, combining surreal sketches and situation comedy.

The Goodies

1970

Mind Your Language poster
8.2

Jeremy Brown, a language teacher, tries to make a living by teaching English to immigrants. With pupils from India, France, China, and many other countries, his lessons do not always go as planned.

Mind Your Language

1977

No artwork available
7.0

A completely lost BBC1 drama series centred on the King family, who love, live, fight and work around a harbour in the Thames estuary.

King of the River

1966

No artwork available
NR

An anthology of 1920s set plays and musicals, transmissioned from 10 September to 10 December 1968 on BBC One.

The Jazz Age

1968

No artwork available
NR

Castle Haven was a British soap opera, set around the residents of two Victorian seaside houses that had been converted into a series of flats and bedsits. It was first broadcast on 4 April 1969, but cancelled just under a year later on 26 March 1970 100 episodes were produced, but it is believed that only fifteen minutes of the series is still in existence; the rest were wiped after transmission, as per the (then commonplace) procedure of wiping videotape.

Castle Haven

1969

Jane Eyre poster
NR

An adaptation of the novel by Charlotte Brontë.

Jane Eyre

1963

Bleak House poster
9.0

The generous John Jarndyce, struggling with his own past, and his two young wards Richard and Ada, are all caught up, like Lady Dedlock, in the infamous case of Jarndyce vs Jarndyce, which will make one of them rich beyond imagination if it can ever be brought to a conclusion. As Tulkinghorn digs deeper into Lady Dedlock's past, he unearths a secret that will change their lives forever, and which is almost as astounding as the final outcome of the Jarndyce case.

Bleak House

1959

The Modern World: Ten Great Writers poster
8.0

This documentary series uses drama and commentary to shed light on the lives and works of Joseph Conrad, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, T. S. Eliot, Henrik Ibsen, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Luigi Pirandello, Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf.

The Modern World: Ten Great Writers

1988

Shadows of Fear poster
6.7

Anthology series in which characters find themselves in weird and scary situations. Not evoked by the supernatural but by other people.

Shadows of Fear

1970

No artwork available
7.0

A situation comedy about divorcee James Shepherd, a charismatic vet, who struggles to run both a successful surgery and a home for his two teenage children.

Close to Home

1989

All Gas and Gaiters poster
6.2

All Gas and Gaiters is a British television ecclesiastical sitcom which aired on BBC1 from 1966 to 1971. It was written by Pauline Devaney and Edwin Apps, a husband-and-wife team who used the pseudonym of "John Wraith" when writing the pilot. At St Oggs Cathedral is a carefree bishop, an old tippling archdeacon, and an accident-prone chaplain, who all wish to live a quiet bachelor life, but this is continually threatened by the dean, who tries to bring by-the-book rule to the cathedral.

All Gas and Gaiters

1967

David Copperfield poster
5.2

A young man journeys from a difficult childhood to maturity, exploring social injustice, personal development, and the complexities of human relationships.

David Copperfield

1986

The Clifton House Mystery poster
7.7

An old woman's possessions are auctioned, and orchestral conductor Timothy Clare and his family move into her large, though rather gloomy and dilapidated, old house in Bristol. It soon becomes clear that this is a house full of secrets, and that Mrs. Betterton had good reason to leave with her young granddaughter, the ethereal, otherworldly Emily; after a series of frightening experiences and disturbing discoveries - including a walled-up room containing a skeleton - the Clares realise that they are not the only occupants.

The Clifton House Mystery

1978

Q.E.D. poster
7.1

Q.E.D. is a 1982 short-lived adventure series set in Edwardian England, starring Sam Waterston as Professor Quentin Everett Deverill. The Professor was a scientific detective in the mold of Sherlock Holmes, and the series had a smattering of what would later be called steampunk. In the show, the lead character was known primarily by his initials, Q.E.D; the reference here is that Q.E.D. usually stands for quod erat demonstrandum, a statement signalling the end of a proof. The show aired on the CBS network in the United States, and on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom.

Q.E.D.

1982

Thundercloud poster
7.0

Thundercloud is a 1979 British television comedy created and written by Ian Mackintosh. Produced by Yorkshire Television for ITV, it was significantly more lighthearted than Mackintosh's prior series Warship and The Sandbaggers. Lieutenant Commander ‘Monty’ Morgan – a stickler for forms – and his shipmates operate aboard the shore-based HMS Thundercloud, a secret Royal Navy station on the Yorkshire coast during World War II, apparently far enough away from HQ to merit a remarkable degree of autonomy. In fact, the Admiralty were convinced that the station was actually a destroyer in the North Sea!

Thundercloud

1979