Lynda La Plante

Writing

Lynda La Plante

Born

1943-03-15 (83)

Place of birth

Liverpool, England, UK

Known for

Writing

Credits

38 titles

Lynda La Plante, CBE, is an English author, screenwriter and former actress, best known for writing the Prime Suspect television crime series.

Known for

Play for Today poster
6.6

Play 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

The South Bank Show poster
5.6

The South Bank Show is a television arts magazine show produced by ITV between 1978 and 2010. A new series began on Sky Arts from 27 May 2012. Presented by Melvyn Bragg, the show aims to bring both high art and popular culture to a mass audience.

The South Bank Show

1978

Z-Cars poster
7.3

Z-Cars or Z Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.

Z-Cars

1962

The Professionals poster
7.6

The lives of Bodie and Doyle, top agents for Britain's CI5 (Criminal Intelligence 5), and their controller, George Cowley. The mandate of CI5 was to fight terrorism and similar high-profile crimes. Cowley, a hard ex-MI5 operative, hand-picked each of his men. Bodie is a cynical ex-SAS paratrooper and mercenary whose nature ran to controlled violence, while his partner, Doyle, comes to CI5 from the regular police force, and is more of an open minded liberal. Their relationship is often contentious, but they are the top men in their field, and the ones to whom Cowley always assigned to the toughest cases.

The Professionals

1977

Bergerac poster
7.0

Jim Bergerac is a detective sergeant in The Foreigners Office who likes to do things his own way. While dealing with his own personal demons Bergerac has a knack of finding trouble, and sometimes causing it.

Bergerac

1981

The Sweeney poster
8.1

Jack Regan, an unethical officer of the Flying Squad, uses unorthodox methods to pursue criminals with the help of his partner, George Carter.

The Sweeney

1975

Film credits

1980s · 4 titles

1970s · 3 titles

Series credits

Play for Today poster
6.6

Play 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

The South Bank Show poster
5.6

The South Bank Show is a television arts magazine show produced by ITV between 1978 and 2010. A new series began on Sky Arts from 27 May 2012. Presented by Melvyn Bragg, the show aims to bring both high art and popular culture to a mass audience.

The South Bank Show

1978

Z-Cars poster
7.3

Z-Cars or Z Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.

Z-Cars

1962

The Professionals poster
7.6

The lives of Bodie and Doyle, top agents for Britain's CI5 (Criminal Intelligence 5), and their controller, George Cowley. The mandate of CI5 was to fight terrorism and similar high-profile crimes. Cowley, a hard ex-MI5 operative, hand-picked each of his men. Bodie is a cynical ex-SAS paratrooper and mercenary whose nature ran to controlled violence, while his partner, Doyle, comes to CI5 from the regular police force, and is more of an open minded liberal. Their relationship is often contentious, but they are the top men in their field, and the ones to whom Cowley always assigned to the toughest cases.

The Professionals

1977

Bergerac poster
7.0

Jim Bergerac is a detective sergeant in The Foreigners Office who likes to do things his own way. While dealing with his own personal demons Bergerac has a knack of finding trouble, and sometimes causing it.

Bergerac

1981

The Sweeney poster
8.1

Jack Regan, an unethical officer of the Flying Squad, uses unorthodox methods to pursue criminals with the help of his partner, George Carter.

The Sweeney

1975

The Paul O'Grady Show poster
5.1

The Paul O'Grady Show is a British comedy chat show hosted by Birkenhead-born comedian Paul O'Grady. The format was originally devised by Granada Television and was broadcast on ITV before moving to Channel 4, where the show was produced by Olga TV. The programme is a teatime chat show consisting of a mixture of celebrity guests, comic stunts, musical performances, and occasionally viewer competitions.

The Paul O'Grady Show

2004

Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime poster
6.7

Spirited dialogue, posh Roaring '20s style, and devious mysteries abound as Tommy and Tuppence Beresford mix marriage and mystery solving.

Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime

1983

Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime poster
6.7

Spirited dialogue, posh Roaring '20s style, and devious mysteries abound as Tommy and Tuppence Beresford mix marriage and mystery solving.

Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime

1983

Rentaghost poster
6.8

After his death, Fred Mumford wants a second chance at achieving the success that eluded him in life. Coming back to Earth as a spirit, he recruits a Victorian gent and a medieval jester to set up 'Rentaghost', a supernatural service for wanted hauntings.

Rentaghost

1976

The Gentle Touch poster
7.2

Notable as the first British series to feature a female police officer (predating Juliet Bravo by four months), Detective Inspector Maggie Forbes raises her teenage son while navigating a male-dominated police force following the murder of her police commissioner husband.

The Gentle Touch

1980

No artwork available
NR

Donald Maddocks is happy with his disorganised life but his wife, Sheila, is fed up with having to make all the decisions in their marriage.

Coming Home

1981

This Morning poster
5.2

This Morning features a variety of news, as well as show business, fashion, beauty, lifestyle, home and garden, food, tech, live phone-ins, and competitions.

This Morning

1988

No artwork available
5.0

Anthology of self-contained dramas that aired from 1977 to 1978.

The Sunday Drama

1977

No artwork available
7.0

The Doctors is a British television drama produced by the BBC. A twice-weekly broadcast from November 1969 to June 1971, it was a highly authentic, serious medical drama set in a North London group practice, aiming to depict realistic medical environments without the antiseptic sentimentality often seen in American medical shows of the era.

The Doctors

1969

Beasts poster
6.4

Beasts is a series of six television plays by Manx writer Nigel Kneale, unconnected save for a bestial horror theme, made by ATV for ITV in the United Kingdom and broadcast in 1976. The series avoids typical monster horror clichès, more so focusing on psychological and supernatural themes.

Beasts

1976

Out poster
7.8

Frank Ross returns from an eight-year prison sentence for a robbery that was thwarted because somebody 'grassed' the gang. Nobody knows who put the finger on him, but Ross is determined to find out and seeks revenge on those who betrayed him. Little by little, Ross pieces together the trail that leads to a dramatic conclusion.

Out

1978

Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years poster
6.2

Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years is an 8-part 1981 drama serial based on the life of Winston Churchill, and particularly his years in enforced exile from political position during the 1920s and 30s. It was written and directed by Ferdinand Fairfax and Churchill was played by Robert Hardy. Hardy's brilliant performance as Churchill won critical acclaim and a BAFTA award in 1982. He reprised the role in The Sittaford Mystery, Bomber Harris and War and Remembrance and at the 50th anniversary celebrations of the end of World War II in 1995 when he quoted a number of Churchill's wartime speeches in character.

Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years

1981

Educating Marmalade poster
7.5

Marmalade Atkins is the naughtiest girl in the world. In fact, she's so wicked that her parents and social worker decide that the only thing to do with her is to blast her into space. But, knowing Marmalade, it's not going to be that easy!

Educating Marmalade

1982

Armchair Theatre poster
6.0

Armchair 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

No artwork available
NR

The job of Velma Hardy and her Personality Promotions team is to put glamour into sales drives.

Send in the Girls

1978

No artwork available
9.0

Di Dorkins, aka 'Big D', runs a large textile company called Garsley Garments and also manages of the local rugby league team. Always at the bottom of the league, she renames the team Frilly Things and sets about reviving their fortunes.

All Our Saturdays

1973

Behind the camera

Mind Games poster
6.2

A former nun turned criminal profiler is called in to investigate the horrific ritualistic murders of two middle aged women. Her unorthodox approach means that she has to deal not only with solving a murder but also winning the trust of her sceptical colleagues.

Mind Games

2001

Framed poster
5.3

New York detective Mike Santini is enjoying a holiday with his family when he spots Eddie Meyers a fugitive from justice who might be the key witness in a high profile case involving money laundering. Santini plays a major role in capturing Meyers which prompts the wiley criminal to request Santini to be the interrogating officer. The two size each other up in the interrogation room in a thriller that provides a number of unexpected twists.

Framed

2002

The Prosecutors poster
8.0

Drama (and prospective pilot) about the lives of three women who work in the New York City DA's office: one a brilliant prosecutor of high-profile cases whose husband is shot and killed in an armed robbery; a second, her tough, bitter, chain-smoking, boozing, wheelchair-bound former mentor; a third, a Latina who is an ambitious legal intern.

The Prosecutors

1996

The Warden poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

The Warden

2001

Seconds Out poster
9.0

When boxer Murray Ritchie is framed for rape, he loses his chance of a long-awaited title fight. Released too late by the police, he blames Jack, his veteran trainer and manager, and goes over to rival promoter Tony Farrington. Needing the money, Murray is encouraged to turn to the rough and seedy unlicensed circuit for a fight that would see him banned from professional bouts.

Seconds Out

1992

Hidden Talents poster
NR

Nellie (Pat Phoenix) is weak and bedridden in her aging, decrepit house due to a bad heart. Living out of her front room, Nellie is looked after by her son Harold (Tom Bell) who is going deaf and prone to eccentric and emotional outbursts following a motorbike accident some years previous. Relations are tense and fractious between Nellie and Harold, a state of affairs which isn't helped by Nellie's affectionate recollections of her estranged son Stanley (Tom Georgeson) who left many years before, taking with him Nellie's savings.

Hidden Talents

1986