
Writing
Philip Martin
Born — Died
1938-07-03 — 2020-12-13
Place of birth
Liverpool, England
Known for
Writing
Credits
18 titles
Philip Martin (3 July 1938 – 13 December 2020) was an English television screenwriter. He created the BBC television drama series Gangsters in the 1970s and later wrote two television serials for Doctor Who during Colin Baker's tenure as the Sixth Doctor in the 1980s. His early work included regular series such as Z-Cars in the late 1960s/early 1970s, but his most famous work is the postmodern television series Gangsters. This was an examination of race seen through an increasingly surreal vision of Birmingham's criminal underworld. Beginning as an acclaimed one-off edition of Play for Today in 1975, it was followed by two series of 6 episodes each in 1976 and 1978. Martin appeared in the s…
Known for
6.6Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.
Play for Today
1970
7.0A one-hour anthology television series of one-off contemporary and classic dramas produced by the BBC.
Playhouse
1974
7.0Eccentric psychology professor Dr John Cornelius solves technologically-charged crimes with his partner Samantha Valentine, police contact Inspector Cadogan, and his HOD Professor Owen Griffiths.
Virtual Murder
1992
8.5A pioneering show starring Maurice Colbourne as Birmingham gangster John Kline. The show was noted for its gritty true-life quality, and often graphic violence.
Gangsters
1976
7.2A rebellious youth, sentenced to a boy’s reformatory for robbing a bakery, rises through the ranks of the institution by impressing its Governor through his prowess as a long distance runner. He is encouraged to compete in an upcoming race, but faces ridicule from his peers.
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
1962
7.7As the Doctor's trial continues, evidence is presented showing his most recent adventure, one where he faces an old adversary, Sil. As a scientist conducts his unethical experiments to prolong the life of Sil's boss Kiv, the Doctor's memories of the events begins to return and an unpleasant surprise awaits him.
Doctor Who: Mindwarp
1986
Film credits
2000s · 3 titles
9.0A look at the late-80s BBC series Star Cops, which followed the adventures of the International Space Police Force in the year 2027.
The Cult of Star Cops
2006
NRThe Making of The Trial of a Time Lord was the umbrella title for a series of four 2|entertain documentaries. Each covered a different story within the larger fourteen-part serial The Trial of a Time Lord. An instalment of the series was found on each DVD of the The Trial of a Time Lord box set.
The Making of The Trial of a Time Lord
2008
NRA retrospective of Colin Baker's turbulent three-years as the Sixth Doctor in Doctor Who (1963), covering his casting, the 1985 hiatus, and his sacking on the orders of BBC One controller Michael Grade.
Trials and Tribulations
2008
Series credits
6.6Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.
Play for Today
1970
7.0A one-hour anthology television series of one-off contemporary and classic dramas produced by the BBC.
Playhouse
1974
7.0Eccentric psychology professor Dr John Cornelius solves technologically-charged crimes with his partner Samantha Valentine, police contact Inspector Cadogan, and his HOD Professor Owen Griffiths.
Virtual Murder
1992
8.5A pioneering show starring Maurice Colbourne as Birmingham gangster John Kline. The show was noted for its gritty true-life quality, and often graphic violence.
Gangsters
1976
8.5A pioneering show starring Maurice Colbourne as Birmingham gangster John Kline. The show was noted for its gritty true-life quality, and often graphic violence.
Gangsters
1976
Behind the camera
7.7As the Doctor's trial continues, evidence is presented showing his most recent adventure, one where he faces an old adversary, Sil. As a scientist conducts his unethical experiments to prolong the life of Sil's boss Kiv, the Doctor's memories of the events begins to return and an unpleasant surprise awaits him.
Doctor Who: Mindwarp
1986
7.4When the TARDIS is in need of repairs, the Doctor and Peri are forced to land on Varos, a mining planet whose population is entertained and enslaved by a sadistic system of public torture and execution, and find themselves the latest unwilling subjects in this most extreme form of reality TV.
Doctor Who: Vengeance on Varos
1985
8.0A physicist has apocalyptic visions of his unborn baby.
The Unborn
1980
NRJack is obsessed with nuclear armageddon and takes his wife, Ellen, and their children into a fallout shelter in their garden to wait out the atomic bomb.
The Remainder Man
1982
5.5An original drama from the world of BBCtv's Doctor Who, featuring Sil, the ruthless alien entrepreneur from planet Thoros Beta, played by Nabil Shaban. Sil is worried, very worried, which doesn't keep his reptilian skin in the best condition! Confined in a cold detention cell on the moon, awaiting a deportation hearing for trial on drugs offences on Earth, he faces a death sentence if the application is successful and he is found guilty. And his employers at the Universal Monetary Fund aren t pleased either. Not at all. As time runs out and friends desert him, Sil must use all of his devious, vile, underhanded, ruthless, and amoral business acumen to survive. Can he possibly slime his way out of this one?
Sil and the Devil Seeds of Arodor
2019
9.0Birmingham is a melting pot of races and every community has a stake in the city's underworld. When former SAS officer John Kline is released from prison after serving a sentence for murder, he becomes the unwilling catalyst in a gang war. Movie screened as part of Play of Today.
Gangsters
1975
The sequel to Sil And The Devil Seeds Of Arodor!
Vote Sil
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