Writing
Alan Plater
Born 1935-04-15 · Jarrow, Tyne and Wear, England, UK
Acting credits
NRAn appreciation and retrospective look at the songs and humour of Leeds folk singer/songwriter Jake Thackray, including performances of some of his songs.
Jake on the Box
2006
Alan Plater looks at the various adaptations of J.B. Priestley's 'The Good Companions', in the company of the author himself.
On the Road with J.B. Priestley and The Good Companions
1980
Behind the camera
6.3A terrorist demands a huge ransom in exchange for information on how to disarm the seven bombs he has planted aboard a trans-Atlantic cruise ship. Inspired by real events.
Juggernaut
1974
5.0Following the banning and burning of his novel, "The Rainbow," D.H. Lawrence and his wife, Frieda, move to the United States, and then to Mexico. When Lawrence contracts tuberculosis, they return to England for a short time, then to Italy, where Lawrence writes "Lady Chatterley's Lover."
Priest of Love
1981
5.9After giving up her job as a librarian to care for her husband’s elderly family, Jess’ world falls apart when he leaves her for a younger woman.
Belonging
2004
6.9After Elizabeth's husband dies, she begins to play her tenor saxophone again, and remembers when she was 15 and a member of the Blonde Bombshells, an all-girl (with one exception) swing band. Accompanied by the exception and urged on by her grand-daughter, Elizabeth hunts up all the old members of the band and urges them to perform, and in doing so, learns more than she knew about the band, its members, the roses on the drum set, and herself--the last of the Blonde Bombshells.
The Last of the Blonde Bombshells
2000
6.0Gordon Comstock is a copywriter at an ad agency, and his girlfriend Rosemary is a designer. Gordon believes he is a genius, a marvelous poet and quits the ad agency, trying to live on his poems, but poverty soon comes to him.
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
1997
A plumber named Benny tries to find his way around a university, and gets no sense out of the intellectuals who work and study there.
Curriculee Curricula
1978
10.0The new owners of a Manor House discover a legend that whoever is carried across the threshold shall unleash unknown forces...
Feet Foremost
1983
NRA classical string quartet stop at a motorway cafe in early hours. Among the people they meet are a football supporter, a commercial traveller and an elderly couple on their way to Gretna Green to get married.
Night People
1978
4.3Newcastle, 1939. Shipyard worker Joe feels emasculated and past his prime; too old to serve in the war, and he’s shocked when his wife leaves him for a younger naval officer. Needing a new challenge, Joe and his friend Harry reluctantly volunteer to join the Home Guard.
Joe Maddison's War
2010
Sam and Ingrid start out with dreams of marrying someone rich who will make life easy. When they find they do not match up to each other's dreams however, they decide to set about making another dream come true. Buying their own home.
Sam's Song
1979
8.5Docudrama film exploring the efforts of World in Action researchers Ian MacBride and Chris Mullin in proving that the "Birmingham Six" only admitted to the bombing under extreme duress, and that the five IRA members were in fact responsible for the deadly attacks
Who Bombed Birmingham?
1990
6.0The past catches up with an ageing American jazz pianist when he returns to the clubs of Lancashire and Yorkshire that he last visited 10 years previously.
Doggin' Around
1994
NRA writer seeking seclusion takes rooms in a remote farmhouse. Soon his quiet is broken by sounds and then sightings of a small child...
The Intercessor
1983
4.7While researching the work of author D.H. Lawrence (Kenneth Branagh), Kate (Alison Steadman) begins a romance with a fellow academic, and learns about Lawrence's love affair with the married aristocrat Frieda Von Richthofen (Helen Mirren) in this made-for-television drama. As Lawrence and Von Richthofen fall deeper into their forbidden relationship, Kate grows more familiar with Lawrence's work, such as the sensuous Lady Chatterly's Lover.
Coming Through
1985
8.0Based on James Herriot's books about life as a 1930s veterinarian in Yorkshire, John Alderson plays the kindly doctor who ministers to animals in this enjoyable family film. Sequel to the 1975 film All Creatures Great and Small.
It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet
1976
Spoof story, set in the 1950s, about espionage in a humberside village.
The Blacktoft Diaries: True or False?
1979
3.1Film adaptation from the novel by D.H. Lawrence, discovered after the celebrated author's death in 1930, a romantic love story tells of a prim young English girl who is sexually attracted to a seductively virile gypsy. The climatic dam burst is linked with the consummation of her desire.
The Virgin and the Gypsy
1970
3.9In 1981, after the successful test of a submarine tracker device developed by the Swedish scientist Paul Mandell and sponsored by the US government through his representative Miller, his industry is totally burned and the laser device is stolen. Stig Larsson from the Swedish Secret Agency suspects of an inside job and brings the Swedish Marine Thomas Kallin to investigate Paul undercover as his driver. The naive Kallin is double-crossed but continues his investigation while Larsson finds the truth about the heist.
The Inside Man
1984
NRCasual labour appeals to Wilfred, and the street market is a friendly home until he meets the beautiful Christabel. Her haughty dismissal drives him to amazing feats. He'll do anything for a kiss.
Give Us a Kiss, Christabel
1977
NRThe story is set in a small English coastal town, around the turn of the century. A young woman, thought by many in the village to be a witch, dies suddenly one day. Not long after she's buried, the villagers begin to see her walking around the area and especially along the shoreline. The village minister begins to look into her life and her death, hoping to lay the spirit to rest.
Bewitched
1983
NRWhat was it like to go to school 100 years ago?
Let There Be Light
1970
10.0Faced with the prospect of being sent to work abroad, Sally Brown returns home from London to Hull, to see if she still feels the same attachment for her home town - and for her old boyfriend Mike Thurlow. Will she decide to take the job abroad or return to live with Mike in Hull?
Land of Green Ginger
1973
NROn the death of her mother, a young woman in northern England learns that her father is actually her step-father. She embarks on a search for her birth father, finds him running a jazz club in London, and learns a lot of happy and sad things about her family that she didn't know before. The title of the film is the classic jazz piece, "Misterioso," by Thelonious Monk, which features prominently in it.
Misterioso
1991
8.0South Africa in the 60s. The campaign of sabotage is halted and the arrests continue. The Special Branch obviously have inside Information.
Death Is Part of the Process
1986