
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
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
5.6The 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
7.3Z-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
7.6The 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
7.0Jim 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
8.1Jack 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
1990s · 1 titles
1980s · 4 titles
7.1R. Neville, a brash young draftsman, is hired to make a dozen landscape illustrations at the estate of Mr Herbert and his wife Virginia. Aside from monetary compensation, the arrangement includes a sexual liaison offered to Neville by Virginia while her estranged husband is away. But when the murdered body of Mr Herbert is discovered at the estate, mysterious clues found in Neville's drawings point to the identity of the killer.
The Draughtsman's Contract
1982
6.0A biplane pilot is saddled with a spoiled industrialist's daughter on a search for her missing father through Asia that eventually involves them in a struggle against a Chinese warlord.
High Road to China
1983
6.7This intriguing story is set in the 1930s at a country house, where two amateur sleuths, Bobby Jones and Lady Frankie Derwent, try to unravel the mystery behind a tale of murder, suspense and false identities. And the only clues the two have to go on are the puzzling last words of a dying man. Featuring characters created by Agatha Christie, Why Didn't They Ask Evans is a classic crime thriller sure to please murder-mystery fans.
Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
1980
Sheppey, an ordinary working-class waiter, wins a fortune in a sweep-stake, and elects to use the money to help the unfortunate.
Sheppey
1980
1970s · 3 titles
8.0A misfit teenage checkout operator has an unrequited crush on her supermarket manager. At the same shop's cuddly cartoon mascot seems to have come alive and is causing havoc. Created as an episode of Nigel Kneale’s “Beasts” horror anthology miniseries.
Beasts: Special Offer
1976
Young Mr. Wignall is on a business trip to northern England. He is keen to pull some local girls while there. His unassuming boss, meanwhile, has organised his calendar to meet with a different lady each day he is there.
Our Young Mr. Wignall
1976
5.0Lewis, a gay writer of romantic novels, writes an article on gay issues under the pseudonym of "Zippy Grimes." The reason for this is that he hasn't come out yet and he doesn't want to alienate his mainly female fan-base. The article is a great success and leads to a huge amount of reactions, mainly from other gay men who are leading a double life. He decides to meet a number of these letter writers and eventually is forced to come out.
Coming Out
1979
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
5.6The 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
7.3Z-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
7.6The 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
7.0Jim 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
8.1Jack 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
5.1The 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
6.7Spirited 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
6.7Spirited 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
6.8After 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
7.2Notable 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
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
5.2This 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
Anthology of self-contained dramas that aired from 1977 to 1978.
The Sunday Drama
1977
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
6.4Beasts 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
7.8Frank 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
6.2Winston 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
7.5Marmalade 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
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
The job of Velma Hardy and her Personality Promotions team is to put glamour into sales drives.
Send in the Girls
1978
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
6.2A 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
5.3New 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
8.0Drama (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
7.0No synopsis available yet.
The Warden
2001
9.0When 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
NRNellie (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


