
Acting
Michael Pennington
Born — Died
1943-06-07 — 2026-05-10
Place of birth
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK
Known for
Acting
Credits
76 titles
Michael Vivian Fyfe Pennington (June 7, 1943 - May 10, 2026) was a British actor and director who, together with director Michael Bogdanov, founded the English Shakespeare Company. Although primarily a stage actor, he is best known to wider audiences for his role as Moff Tiaan Jerjerrod, commanding officer of the Death Star in the film Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and as Michael Foot in The Iron Lady, opposite Meryl Streep.
Known for
7.6A team of exceptional forensic pathologists and scientists investigate heinous crimes and use their skills to catch the people responsible.
Silent Witness
1996
7.7Father Brown is based on G. K. Chesterton's detective stories about a Catholic priest who doubles as an amateur detective in order to try and solve mysteries.
Father Brown
2013
5.2An anthology series of television plays which aired on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured.
The Wednesday Play
1964
5.2A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983.
BBC Play of the Month
1965
7.2A detective team apply new techniques to old crimes as they solve cold cases.
Waking the Dead
2001
8.1The early days of a young Endeavour Morse, whose experiences as a detective constable with the Oxford City Police will ultimately shape his future.
Endeavour
2013
Film credits
2010s · 4 titles
6.3A look at the life of Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, with a focus on the price she paid for power.
The Iron Lady
2011
7.1A monarch ordained by God to lead his people. But he is also a man of very human weakness. A man whose vanity threatens to divide the great houses of England and drag his people into a dynastic civil war that will last 100 years.
RSC Live: Richard II
2013
7.6How, in 1945, after the end of World War II and the fall of the Nazi regime, the defeated were atrociously mistreated, especially those ethnic Germans who had lived peacefully for centuries in Germany's neighboring countries, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland. A heartbreaking story of revenge against innocent civilians, the story of acts as cruel as the Nazi occupation during the war years.
1945: The Savage Peace
2015
7.0The story of the greatest physicists of the 20th century and the discoveries they made.
Secrets of the Universe: Great Scientists in Their Own Words
2014
2000s · 6 titles
6.5Haunted by memories of a patient's death, a nurse takes a job at an antiquated hospital for children. Soon she learns that the kids fear a ghost that prowls the floors and will not allow anyone to leave. Amy tries to protect them and convince the other staffers of the evil that lurks there.
Fragile
2005
7.3Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Pyramid is the only one to survive. Many believe that even with our 21st-century technology, we could not build anything like it today. Based on the most up-to-date research and the latest archaeological discoveries, here is how the Pyramid came to be.
Pyramid
2002
7.2Colosseum: Rome's Arena of Death aka Colosseum: A Gladiator's Story is a 2003 BBC Television docudrama which tells the true story of Verus a gladiator who fought at the Colosseum in Rome.
Colosseum - Rome's Arena of Death
2003
6.5One man who kept asking questions was Gideon Mantell, the amateur paleontologist who, in the early 19th century, fought to get the British scientific establishment to accept Britain had been inhabited by dinosaurs. As this dramatised documentary shows, Mantell had an uphill battle in a time when the biblical account of creation was considered literal truth and authorities such as the Reverend William Buckland were determined that science remain "the handmaid of religion".
The Dinosaur Hunters
2002
6.0Reflective drama of pioneering nurse, writer and noted statistician Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
2008
The RAF sprang to life during the First World War. It took off into a dangerous adulthood during the Battle of Britain and the bombing of Germany, and achieved maturity as a delivery platform for the hydrogen bomb. Now, at the lively old age of 90, the RAF fights the Taliban in the War on Terror.
Airborne: The RAF at 90
2008
1990s · 10 titles
7.6A documentary on Soviet filmmaker Aleksandr Medvedkin, examining his tumultuous career, the rediscovery of his masterpiece Happiness, and Russia's struggles over the course of the 20th Century.
The Last Bolshevik
1994
7.0A British businessman operating in Hong Kong has feelings of inferiority and turns to murder when he faces bankruptcy.
Cracker: White Ghost
1996
NRShakespeare's Richard III, performed by the English Shakespeare Company as part of the complete Historical Octology.
Richard III
1991
8.0Shakespeare's Henry V, performed by the English Shakespeare Company as part of the complete Historical Octology.
Henry V
1991
NRSecond part of an adapted version of Henry VI as performed by the English Shakespeare Company as part of the complete Historical Octology.
Henry VI: House of York
1991
NRFirst part of an adapted version of Henry VI as performed by the English Shakespeare Company as part of the complete Historical Octology.
Henry VI: House of Lancaster
1991
NRShakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1 recorded live at the Grand Theatre in Swansea, performed by the English Shakespeare Company as part of the complete Historical Octology.
Henry IV: Part 1
1991
8.0A forgotten gem made for the British arts anthology series Without Walls, this half-hour drama imagines the two 19th century impressionist painters on a modern-day talk show–-exploring their friendship and historic conflict over the Dreyfus Affair. Resembling Patrick Watson’s Witness to History in its dramatization of the past, filmmaker Paul Morrison goes one step further by creating a behind-the-scenes world around the show; and in doing so, he offers up a clever satire, as timely as ever, on the medium’s exploitation of two men who are united through art, but divided over politics. For this short piece, Morrison assembled a wonderful cast, featuring Henry Goodman (this year’s Love Gets a Room), Michael Pennington, Louise Jameson (Doctor Who) and Alison Steadman (Life is Sweet).
Degas and Pissario Fall Out
1994
NRShakespeare's Henry IV, Part 2 performed by the English Shakespeare Company as part of the complete Historical Octology.
Henry IV: Part 2
1991
NRShakespeare's Richard II recorded live at the Grand Theatre in Swansea, performed by the English Shakespeare Company as part of the complete Historical Octology.
Richard II
1991
1980s · 10 titles
7.9Luke Skywalker leads a mission to rescue his friend Han Solo from the clutches of Jabba the Hutt, the Emperor prepares to crush the Rebellion with a more powerful Death Star, and the Rebel fleet mounts a massive attack on the space station. Luke Skywalker confronts Darth Vader in a final climactic duel before the evil Emperor.
Return of the Jedi
1983
4.5Plagues are ravaging Thebes, and the blind fortune-teller Tieresias tells Oedipus, the King, that the gods are unhappy. The murder of the former king has gone unavenged, and Oedipus sets out to find the killer.
Theban Plays: Oedipus the King
1986
6.0Sherlock Holmes is brought back to life by Watson's female descendant after being cryogenically frozen for eighty years.
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
1987
6.2Cymbeline, the King of Britain, is angry that his daughter Imogen has chosen a poor (but worthy) man for her husband. So he banishes Posthumus, who goes to fight for Rome. Imogen (dressed as a boy) goes in search of her husband, who meanwhile has boasted to his pal Iachimo that Imogen would never betray him. And Iachimo's determined to prove him wrong.
Cymbeline
1983
5.0Dino Labriola runs the small town of Montemilone in the deep south. He was elected the first Communist mayor. Now he faces the problems of a town dying on its feet. There are no jobs, the young emigrate, the old have given up hope and government aid often goes astray. While Dino is determined to fight for his town, his wife Angela sometimes feels that the struggle is not worth it. A massive dam is being built just outside Montemilone. It's a new threat to the town and to Dino's position as mayor.
The Mayor of Montemilone
1984
NRAs in earlier Oscar Wilde biopics, this version preoccupies itself with the homosexuality scandal involving Lord Alfred Douglas and his lordship's political powerful father, the Marquis of Queensbury. Arrested for corrupting Lord Douglas' morals, Wilde spends a debilitating five years in Reading Gaol, emerging a shattered shell of his former self
Forbidden Passion: The Oscar Wilde Movie
1985
By chance a businessman changing trains at a busy railway junction overhears the station announcement for a local train to a beauty spot which he last visited when a child. On a whim he decides to take the local and revisit that spot where he, his sister and mother picnicked on an glorious summers day at the moment when the lives of both children were about to change for ever. The past, present and future combine in his memory of that day.
Waving to a Train
1984
NRIn prison the night before his execution, republican preacher Hugh Peter prepares to be hanged, drawn and quartered for treason
A Last Visitor for Mr. Hugh Peter
1981
1.0In an unscripted inquest, three practicing barristers interrogate actors portraying relevant figures of the 16th century in order to determine what really happened to the playwright and poet, Christopher Marlowe.
The Marlowe Inquest
1986
8.0The local social cricket team are up to bat and sometimes it seems they are one batsman short of of an eleven. There are good secrets and not so good secrets that come to light during the course of the day. Roger is the ultimate captain rallying his troops whilst ignoring his greatest strength, Miriam, who makes the 'fantastic' teas with or without the 'non-compulsory' help. The days builds to a climax where it seems that everything must change forever. But will it?
Outside Edge
1982
1970s · 6 titles
A rock star is kidnapped at the end of a concert.The record company ask the question is he worth more dead than alive?
It's Only Rock 'n' Roll
1977
9.0Danton's Death is arguably the most dramatic and penetrating study of revolution ever written. Georg Büchner concentrates on that moment in 1794 when the Reign of Terror, already well established, spills over into a total blood-bath. The play, adapted by director Alan Clarke and Stuart Griffiths, both highly imaginative and closely documentary, shows how the great hero of the early phase of the Revolution, Danton, sickened by the excesses of the guillotine, which he helped to create, wants to call a halt. But Robespierre and Saint-Just, leaders of the Jacobins, with a ferocious puritanical zeal, spur on 'the wild horses of the Revolution'.
Danton's Death
1978
NRBehind the façade of form-filling at the Department of Something-or-Other, careers fall and rise at the drop of an apostrophe. Will HIB's double negative be accepted, ensuring his pension prospects?
Mr and Mrs Bureaucrat
1978
5.5A BBC dramatization of the Pendle witch trials of Lancashire, England that occurred in 1616.
The Witches of Pendle
1976
9.0Play dealing with the life of British Army lieutenant Siegfried Sassoon, and his protests against the inhumanity of the First World War
Mad Jack
1970
Anna can't seem to help ending up with the wrong partner in a line of disastrous affairs. Her hope now lies with a young man from the pop music scene.
The Dolly Scene
1970
1960s · 2 titles
5.8Tony Richardson's Hamlet is based on his own stage production. Filmed entirely within the Roundhouse in London (a disused train shed), it is shot almost entirely in close up, focusing the attention on faces and language rather than action.
Hamlet
1969
When millionaire businessman Guy Taylor takes up with the beautiful Rachel Bell, two years married to a struggling sculptor, he starts to question what he really wants. TV play. Third part of writer Kenneth Jupp's "Chelsea Trilogy"; see also The PHOTOGRAPHER (tx 29/1/1968) and The EXPLORER/ PLAYHOUSE (tx 14/10/1968).
The Tycoon
1968
Series credits
7.6A team of exceptional forensic pathologists and scientists investigate heinous crimes and use their skills to catch the people responsible.
Silent Witness
1996
7.7Father Brown is based on G. K. Chesterton's detective stories about a Catholic priest who doubles as an amateur detective in order to try and solve mysteries.
Father Brown
2013
5.2An anthology series of television plays which aired on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured.
The Wednesday Play
1964
5.2A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983.
BBC Play of the Month
1965
5.2A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983.
BBC Play of the Month
1965
7.2A detective team apply new techniques to old crimes as they solve cold cases.
Waking the Dead
2001
8.1The early days of a young Endeavour Morse, whose experiences as a detective constable with the Oxford City Police will ultimately shape his future.
Endeavour
2013
7.2Theatre 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
7.2Theatre 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
7.0ITV Playhouse is a British comedy-drama TV series that ran from 1967 to 1983, which featured contributions from playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Rhys Adrian and Alan Sharp. The series began in black and white, but was later shot in colour and was produced by various companies for the ITV network, a format that would inspire Dramarama. Actors appearing in the series included Leslie Anderson, Gwen Nelson, Ricky Alleyne, Pat Heywood, Michael Elphick, Ian Hendry, Edward Woodward, Margaret Lockwood, Jessie Matthews and Lloyd Peters.
ITV Playhouse
1967
7.0A one-hour anthology television series of one-off contemporary and classic dramas produced by the BBC.
Playhouse
1974
4.2An anthology of short plays shown on BBC Television between 1965 and 1973, used in part at least as a training ground for new writers, on account of its short length, and which therefore attracted many writers who later became well known.
Thirty-Minute Theatre
1965
7.6Inspector Robert Lewis and Sergeant James Hathaway solve the tough cases that the learned inhabitants of Oxford throw at them.
Lewis
2007
4.8No Hiding Place is a British television series that was produced at Wembley Studios by Associated-Rediffusion for the ITV network between 16 September 1959 and 22 June 1967. It was the sequel to the series Murder Bag and Crime Sheet, all starring Raymond Francis as Detective Superintendent, later Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Lockhart.
No Hiding Place
1959
6.4In the fictional Yorkshire town of Wetherton, the unlikely duo of politically incorrect elephant-in-a-China-shop-copper DS Andrew Dalziel (pronounced Dee-ell) and his more sensitive and university educated sidekick DS, later DI, Peter Pascoe is always on hand to solve the classic murder mystery, while maintaining down-to-Earth wit and humour.
Dalziel and Pascoe
1996
7.5After Earth is ravaged by a great religious war, an atheistic android architect sends two of his creations, Mother and Father, to start a peaceful, godless colony on the planet Kepler-22b. Their treacherous task is jeopardized by the arrival of the Mithraic, a deeply devout religious order of surviving humans.
Raised by Wolves
2020
6.0Screenplay was a drama anthology television series, broadcast on BBC between 1986 and 1993. Numerous episodes were produced including one named "Boswell and Johnson's Tour of the Western Islands" starring Robbie Coltrane as English writer Samuel Johnson who in the autumn of 1773, visits the Hebrides off the north-west coast of Scotland. That episode was directed by John Byrne and co-starred John Sessions and Celia Imrie.
ScreenPlay
1986
8.2Public Eye is a British television drama broadcast from 1965 to 1975 on ITV1. Produced by ABC Television for three series, and Thames Television for a further four, the programme follows the investigations and cases handled by the unglamourous enquiry agent Frank Marker.
Public Eye
1965
7.0An anthology of plays and novels adapted into feature length TV movies, broadcast on BBC2 from September 1977 to April 1979.
BBC2 Play of the Week
1977
5.5Detective Superintendent Tony Clark is an ambitious member of the Complaints Investigation Bureau, an internal organisation that investigates claims of corruption inside the police in England and Wales. Along the way Clark overcomes strong influence from his superiors and problems in his private life, most notably the break-up of his marriage following an affair with WPC Jenny Dean.
Between the Lines
1992
Drama 61-67 is anthology drama series which took a different title, based on year of transmission, each year. It alternated with Armchair Theatre from ABC in the Sunday evening slot. The series was described at the time as epitomising ATV drama.
Drama 61-67
1961
7.0Callan is the title of a British television series set in the murky world of espionage. Originally produced by ABC Weekend Television and later Thames Television, it was aired on the ITV network over four seasons spread out between 1967 and 1972. The series starred Edward Woodward as David Callan, a reluctant professional killer for a shadowy branch of the British Government's intelligence services known as 'the Section'.
Callan
1967
7.5The murder of Sonia Baker, a young political researcher, leads journalist Cal McCaffrey to uncover complex links between government and big business.
State of Play
2003
An anthology series based on the varied stories by W. Somerset Maugham divided into three categories: "Rule Britannia" about colonial life, "Women of the World" which focus on female characters, and "Victims of Fate".
W. Somerset Maugham
1969
7.1A chilling and bloody legal thriller that explores the line between law and justice. Will Burton, a talented junior barrister of peerless intellect and winning charm, specialises in spiriting people out of tight legal corners. He is in high demand as he has never lost a case. But when his talents acquit the notorious prime suspect in an horrific murder trial, that brilliance comes back to bite him with unexpected and chilling results, not to mention a shocking twist.
The Escape Artist
2013
7.0Dr Terrible's House of Horrible is a satirical British comedy-horror anthology series created by Graham Duff, who co-wrote the series with Steve Coogan. Spoofing the British horror films of Amicus, Hammer, and Tigon, the title parodies Amicus' 1965 anthology film Dr Terror's House of Horrors. Coogan presents each episode as the titular Dr Terrible, and plays the lead in each story.
Dr Terrible's House of Horrible
2001
9.7John Barton holds a master class in how to play Shakespeare, using members of the RSC doing scenes, sonnets, and commentary as prime examples.
Playing Shakespeare
1984
6.0Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series of single plays that ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation, and later by Thames Television from mid-1968.
Armchair Theatre
1956
6.0Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series of single plays that ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation, and later by Thames Television from mid-1968.
Armchair Theatre
1956
5.0Freud, also known as Freud: The Life of a Dream, is a 1984 six-part BBC television serial dramatised by Carey Harrison, and starring David Suchet as Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Each episode begins with Freud and his family in London, where they had fled from Vienna in 1938 following the Nazi Anschluss, leading up to Freud's death a little over a year later. The rest of the episodes are told mainly in flashbacks to key moments in Freud's life and career.
Freud
1984
An anthology series of TV plays with a monetary theme.
The Root of All Evil?
1968
7.2Fortysomething wife and mother Molly Pargeter leads a stable but dull life in 1980s West London. She feels overweight and there is no passion in her relationship with her husband Hugh, who is secretly seeing another woman. For most of her life, Molly has found escape in detective novels and art books, especially on 15th-century Italian fresco painter Piero Della Francesca. Suddenly, in the small ads, she spots the details of a Tuscany villa to let, and after a viewing, she takes it for holiday.
Summer's Lease
1989
Series of dramas about people who have passionately defended their beliefs or acts, regardless of the consequences.
In My Defence
1991
6.0The Lost World of Communism is a three-part British documentary series which examines the legacy of Communism twenty years on from the fall of the Berlin Wall. Produced by Peter Molloy and Lucy Hetherington, the series takes a retrospective look at life behind the Iron Curtain between 1945 and 1989, focusing on three countries in the Eastern Bloc - East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Romania. Through film and television footage and the personal recollections of those who lived in these countries, the series offers a glimpse of what daily life was like during the years of Communist rule. The Lost World of Communism debuted on BBC Two on Saturday 14 March 2009 at 9:00pm. There is also a book which accompanies the series.
The Lost World of Communism
2009
Anthology series of plays dealing with the themes of fear and entrapment
No Exit
1972
7.0Four-part documentary series about four 'wars on terror' during the final phase of the British Empire. As the Union Jack finally descended on former colonies all over the world after the Second World War, Communist, Nationalist and religious guerrilla forces saw their chance. The British Empire was leaving a dangerous power vacuum in its place. The war to succeed the British had begun.
Empire Warriors
2004
NRAired in October 1984 on BBC One, this was a ten-part British documentary series. Produced by the BBC, each episode explored different facets of daily life, culture, and history in Italy, such as the episode "The Mayor of Montemilone".
Italians
1984

