Acting

Charles Pemberton

Born — Died

1939-09-19 — 2007-05-13

Place of birth

Leyland, Lancashire, U.K.

Known for

Acting

Credits

64 titles

Character actor Charles Pemberton had a long career in television but found theatrical fame with his one man entertainment, WS Gilbert - A Disagreeable Man? which he toured throughout the UK and Europe. The two hour show, from a script by Brian Jones, traced the life of the 19th century popular composer and martinet. Pemberton was born on September 19, 1939 in Leyland, Lancashire. He trained for the stage at the Rose Bruford Drama School and graduated with distinction in 1963. He joined the Bristol Old Vic Theatre Company where he remained for two years before appearing in repertory at the Library Theatre, Manchester, Harrogate and Derby. He made his television debut in 1964 as a detectiv…

Known for

Agatha Christie's Poirot poster
8.2

From England to Egypt, accompanied by his elegant and trustworthy sidekicks, the intelligent yet eccentrically-refined Belgian detective Hercule Poirot pits his wits against a collection of first class deceptions.

Agatha Christie's Poirot

1989

Minder poster
7.2

Roguish comedy drama following the misadventures of small-time crook Arthur Daley.

Minder

1979

Screen Two poster
7.1

Series of single made-for-television dramas.

Screen Two

1985

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

Foyle's War poster
7.9

As WW2 rages around the world, DCS Foyle fights his own war on the home-front as he investigates crimes on the south coast of England. Foyle's War opens in southern England in the year 1940. Later series sees the retired detective working as an MI5 agent operating in the aftermath of the war.

Foyle's War

2002

All Creatures Great and Small poster
7.8

The trials and misadventures of the staff at a country veterinary office in Yorkshire. James Herriot, a young animal surgeon, moves to a small Yorkshire town to begin his first job.

All Creatures Great and Small

1978

Film credits

1990s · 3 titles

A Murder of Quality poster
5.7

At the request of his old war time colleague Ailsa Brimley, George Smiley agrees to look into the murder of Stella Rode. Brimley had only just received a letter from her saying she feared for her life at her husband's hand. The husband, Stanley Rode teaches at Carne School, but Smiley is doubtful that he had anything to do with his wife's death. As Smiley investigates, he learns that Stella was a nosy busybody who loved to learn other's little secrets and then gossip about them - or possibly blackmail them. When a student is killed and Smiley unearths a secret, he has the evidence to name the killer.Based on John Le Carré's 1962 thriller (his first) in which George Smiley is brought out of spy retirement to solve a murder in a British public school. The setting is based on Le Carre"s own schooldays in Sherborne and his brief experience teaching at Eton.

A Murder of Quality

1991

Pat and Margaret poster
7.7

Unexpected events occur when Pat, a glamorous British-born star of American soaps, returns home to plug her auto-biography on television and meets, for the first time since they were teenagers, Margaret her plain and frumpy younger sister. The meeting is painful for both women highlighting the vast differences in their lives and resurrecting painful memories of their unhappy childhood with an uncaring, errant mother. The tabloid press smell a juicy story and a race ensues to trace the whereabouts of the long lost parent.

Pat and Margaret

1994

A Pin for the Butterfly poster
5.6

Communism seen through the eyes of a young girl who watches her beloved uncle struggle with the oppressive government .

A Pin for the Butterfly

1995

1980s · 9 titles

Dangerous Davies: The Last Detective poster
6.2

When D. C. Dangerous Davies, not held in high regard by his superiors, is assigned to find a notorious criminal kingpin, he uncovers the details of 15-year-old cold case.

Dangerous Davies: The Last Detective

1981

Stainless Steel and the Star Spies poster
1.0

The Metaliens, alien robots intent on galactic domination, encounter a major setback. Their enormous Space Saucer, 'Compromise', enters a black hole in a strange, uncharted region of Space, and collides with another craft – sending the Kleptonite Ball, their precious cargo and the key to Universal Conquest, hurtling to a planet inhabited by primitive life forms: Earth. Having materialised in a bar, the Ball variously functions as a Christmas tree decoration, a bathroom ornament, and a fortune-teller's prop. The Metaliens must retrieve the Kleptonite Ball if their mission is ever to succeed. And that's when their problems really begin…

Stainless Steel and the Star Spies

1981

The Best of the Adventures poster
6.3

A feature-length compilation of the funniest and naughtiest bits from the legendary 1970s 'Adventures of a...' series!

The Best of the Adventures

1981

Playing Away poster
6.0

To mark the conclusion of their "Third World Week" celebration, a cricket team in a small English village invites a black cricket team from South London to a charity game with comical results.

Playing Away

1987

Wayne and Albert poster
NR

When Wayne has to go and live with his grandfather Albert, they both initially resent the arrangement. Hostilities soften when they discover some common interests.

Wayne and Albert

1983

Unfair Exchanges poster
NR

Julie Walters stars as a single mother seemingly haunted by a sinister telephone system that seems to have become an evil intelligence in its own right.

Unfair Exchanges

1984

Norbert Smith: A Life poster
8.0

A mockumentary charting the life and career of the fictitious British actor Sir Norbert Smith.

Norbert Smith: A Life

1989

The First Kangaroos poster
7.0

The story of the Australian Rugby League's first visit to England.

The First Kangaroos

1988

The Russian Soldier poster
8.0

What is it that Edgar Garrett sees, or thinks he sees, on his farm one morning in the mists of early spring? Whatever it is, one thing is certain. Life will never be the same again for him and his family.

The Russian Soldier

1986

1970s · 11 titles

Brannigan poster
6.0

A hard-nosed Chicago cop is sent to London to bring back an American mobster being held for extradition. Brannigan in his Irish-American way brings American law to the people of Scotland Yard but has to contend with a stuffy old London first.

Brannigan

1975

Let's Get Laid poster
3.6

A demobbed soldier, Gordon Laid, returning from World War II meets Maxine Lupercal, a member of a traveling troupe of actors returning to England on the same ship. As Gordon closely resembles a member of the troupe of actors, mistaken identity causes him to become embroiled in various murders and an international espionage plot involving a cigarette lighter that strangely affects electricity. The action reaches its comical climax on stage with Gordon and his double as the spies and the police converge on the theatre is a desperate attempt to retrieve the missing cigarette lighter.

Let's Get Laid

1978

The Naked Civil Servant poster
6.7

Story of the life of Quentin Crisp, an Englishman who was brave enough to live his life according to his own style even in the hostile days of WW2.

The Naked Civil Servant

1975

The Black Panther poster
5.9

A gung-ho ex-military man pursues a secret life of crime, culminating in the kidnapping of a teenage heiress.

The Black Panther

1977

Adventures of a Taxi Driver poster
5.2

Joe North is a London taxi driver who manages to get himself into any number of sexual situations with various women.

Adventures of a Taxi Driver

1976

Eskimo Nell poster
4.0

Three young men, a scriptwriter, a producer and a director are called in by Benny U Murdoch, an exotic movie producer. He wants to make a new erotic movie starring a big woman - the "Eskimo Nell" of the title. However problems start from the beginning, the scriptwriter is a virgin, a lover of penguins and hasn't a clue on how to write an erotic movie, each of the three main backers want a different type of movie - a western, an erotic and a kung-fu movie with different people in the main part. However problems really start for the three when Benny runs off with all the money and they have to make three different versions of the same film and try not to let the backers and stars know what has happened. And this is made harder when there is a clean-up-filth society breathing down their necks....

Eskimo Nell

1975

Porridge poster
6.7

Times are hard for habitual guest of Her Majesty Norman Stanley Fletcher. The new prison officer, Beale, makes MacKay look soft and what's more, an escape plan is hatching from the cell of prison godfather Grouty and Fletcher wants no part of it.

Porridge

1979

On Giant's Shoulders poster
9.0

The true story of Terry Wiles, born with no limbs in 1962 as a result of his mother's use of the drug thalidomide. This film tells the story of his childhood and adoption by the couple Len and Hazel Wiles who live on a remote farm, and the subsequent challenges and resistance to give Terry a 'normal' life.

On Giant's Shoulders

1979

Black Joy poster
6.8

An innocent and unsophisticated Guyanese immigrant is exposed to the hustlin' way of life in the Brixton ghetto.

Black Joy

1977

No artwork available
NR

A play from 1976

England, Summer, Sunday

1976

The Chauffeur poster
NR

Joe, the chauffeur to an unnamed South American embassy, enjoys the small prks of privilege that his job provides him. When a coup in the country results in the ambassador's recall, his halycon life is upended.

The Chauffeur

1976

1960s · 2 titles

Series credits

Agatha Christie's Poirot poster
8.2

From England to Egypt, accompanied by his elegant and trustworthy sidekicks, the intelligent yet eccentrically-refined Belgian detective Hercule Poirot pits his wits against a collection of first class deceptions.

Agatha Christie's Poirot

1989

Agatha Christie's Poirot poster
8.2

From England to Egypt, accompanied by his elegant and trustworthy sidekicks, the intelligent yet eccentrically-refined Belgian detective Hercule Poirot pits his wits against a collection of first class deceptions.

Agatha Christie's Poirot

1989

Minder poster
7.2

Roguish comedy drama following the misadventures of small-time crook Arthur Daley.

Minder

1979

Screen Two poster
7.1

Series of single made-for-television dramas.

Screen Two

1985

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

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

Foyle's War poster
7.9

As WW2 rages around the world, DCS Foyle fights his own war on the home-front as he investigates crimes on the south coast of England. Foyle's War opens in southern England in the year 1940. Later series sees the retired detective working as an MI5 agent operating in the aftermath of the war.

Foyle's War

2002

All Creatures Great and Small poster
7.8

The trials and misadventures of the staff at a country veterinary office in Yorkshire. James Herriot, a young animal surgeon, moves to a small Yorkshire town to begin his first job.

All Creatures Great and Small

1978

The Upper Hand poster
7.2

The Upper Hand is a British television sitcom, produced by Central Independent Television and Columbia Pictures Television and broadcast by ITV from 1990 to 1996. The programme was adapted from the American sitcom Who's the Boss?. As in the former series, an affluent single woman, raising a son with the help of her mother, hires a housekeeper only to have a man apply for the job.

The Upper Hand

1990

Centre Play poster
7.0

Anthology series of half hour plays produced in BBC's Television Centre's studios.

Centre Play

1973

Return of the Saint poster
7.0

Follow the swashbuckling exploits of Simon Templar, a modern-day Robin Hood of sorts.

Return of the Saint

1978

Bread poster
7.0

Bread is a British television sitcom, written by Carla Lane, produced by the BBC and screened on BBC1 from 1 May 1986 to 3 November 1991. The series focused on the devoutly-Catholic and extended Boswell family of Liverpool, in the district of Dingle, led by its matriarch Nellie through a number of ups and downs as they tried to make their way through life in Thatcher's Britain with no visible means of support. The street shown at the start of each programme is Elswick Street. A family called Boswell had also featured in Lane's earlier sitcom The Liver Birds and Lane admitted in interviews that the two families were probably related. Nellie's feckless and estranged husband, Freddie, left her for another woman known as 'Lilo Lill'. Her children Joey, Jack, Adrian, Aveline and Billy continued to live in the family home in Kelsall Street and contributed money to the central family fund, largely through benefit fraud and the sale of stolen goods.

Bread

1986

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

Shoestring poster
7.7

Shoestring is a BBC detective drana set in Bristol and starring Trevor Eve as private detective Eddie Shoestring, who operatee his own show on Radio West, the local radio station. The programme ran between 30 September 1979 and 21 December 1980, in two series with 21 hour-long episodes. Eve opted not to return after two series, as he wanted to diversify into theatre, so the production team changed the setting to Jersey and created Bergerac, also following a detective returning to work after a bad period in his life.

Shoestring

1979

Terry and June poster
6.5

Middle-aged Terry and June Medford are beginning to find the trials of life more difficult as they try to succeed in their daily lives. The couple have just moved to Purley, south-east London... Aunt Lucy and the mynah bird have disappeared, as had the occasionally visiting daughters. Terry and June now mixed with friendly next door neighbour Beattie; Terry's chatty work colleague, Malcolm; and their gruff boss Sir Dennis Hodge. Otherwise, things were much as before, with Terry's pigheaded childishness causing no end of problems, usually thwarting June's attempts at leading a cosy life.

Terry and June

1979

Hammer House of Horror poster
7.0

Each self-contained episode features a different kind of horror, varying from witches, werewolves, ghosts, devil worship and voodoo, but also includes non-supernatural themes such as cannibalism, confinement and serial killers.

Hammer House of Horror

1980

Sapphire & Steel poster
7.0

Sapphire & Steel is a British television science-fiction fantasy series starring David McCallum as Steel and Joanna Lumley as Sapphire. Produced by ATV, it ran from 1979 to 1982 on the ITV network. The series was created by Peter J. Hammond who conceived the programme under the working title The Time Menders, after a stay in an allegedly haunted castle. Hammond also wrote all the stories except for the fifth, which was co-written by Don Houghton and Anthony Read. None of the stories had onscreen titles, or any official titles assigned by the writers. The Region 1 Complete Series DVD release gives the titles "Escape Through a Crack in Time", "The Railway Station", "The Creature's Revenge", "The Man Without a Face", "Dr. McDee Must Die" and "The Trap", respectively. These titles have often been cited as having been created by science fiction magazine Time Screen.

Sapphire & Steel

1979

The Paradise Club poster
6.2

Focuses on brothers Frank and Danny Kane. Their mother is the matriarch of a South London criminal gang, assisted by Danny. Frank has become a priest but leaves the church; he inherits The Paradise Club following the death of their mother and returns to London to try and steer Danny away from crime.

The Paradise Club

1989

(All Quiet on the) Preston Front poster
5.8

All Quiet on the Preston Front (or the shortened Preston Front as it became known for series two and three) was a BBC comedy drama about a group of friends in the fictional Lancashire town of Roker Bridge, and their links to the local Territorial Army infantry platoon. It was created by Tim Firth and ran from 1994 to 1997.

(All Quiet on the) Preston Front

1994

Dickens of London poster
7.3

A 13-episode miniseries from Yorkshire Television, about Charles Dickens, by now an internationally renowned novelist, during an 1869 tour of America, looking back over his life.

Dickens of London

1976

Big Deal poster
7.2

The ups and downs of small time London gambler Robby Box, and the effect that his poker addiction has on his long suffering girlfriend Jan Oliver and family.

Big Deal

1984

Danger UXB poster
8.0

Danger UXB is a 1979 British television series developed by John Hawkesworth and starring Anthony Andrews as Lieutenant Brian Ash, an officer in the Royal Engineers. The programme is titled and partly based on the memoirs of Major A. B. Hartley, M.B.E, RE, Unexploded Bomb - The Story of Bomb Disposal, with episodes written by Hawkesworth and four screenwriters. The series chronicles the exploits of the fictional 97 Tunnelling Company which, as a result of thousands of unexploded bombs in London during the Blitz, has become a bomb disposal unit. As with all his fellow officers, Ash must for the most part learn the techniques and procedures of disarming and destroying the UXBs through experience, repeatedly confronted with more cunning and deadlier technological advances in aerial bomb fusing. The storylines were primarily military, with a romantic thread between Ash and an inventor's married daughter, and other human interest vignettes.

Danger UXB

1979

Not in Front of the Children poster
7.0

Jennifer Corner is a rather scatterbrained middle-class housewife. Her husband Henry is a school art teacher, and they have three children, Henry, Robin and Trudi.

Not in Front of the Children

1967

Miss Marple: A Pocketful of Rye poster
7.3

When a handful of grain is found in the pocket of a murdered businessman, Miss Marple seeks a murderer with a penchant for nursery rhymes.

Miss Marple: A Pocketful of Rye

1985

No artwork available
NR

Dramatisations of three different women, three different cases—Constance Kent (episodes 1–8), Mary Blandy (9–14), and Adelaide Bartlett (15–22)—all 18th- and 19th-century murderesses.

A Question of Guilt

1980

Romany Jones poster
6.8

Romany Jones is a British sitcom created and written by Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe for LWT. Broadcast between 1973 and 1975, the programme follows the comic misadventures of two layabout families living on a caravan site. Originally designed as a starring vehicle for James Beck (Dad's Army), the 1972 pilot and 1973 first series centred on Bert and Betty Jones (Jo Rowbottom), newlywed after seven years, who spend their wedding night in their rickety caravan, natural to Bert but distinctly alien to Betty, born and bred in Streatham. Most of the humour focused on life in theirs and a neighbouring caravan housing Lily and Wally Briggs (Queenie Watts and Arthur Mullard, although Arthur English was cast in the pilot). Following Beck's death after completion on the second series, Bert and Betty were written out, and replaced with a city gentleman and his debutante wife, both of whom remain blissfully oblivious to the Briggs' antics.

Romany Jones

1972

Oliver Twist poster
6.3

An orphan endures a harsh life in a workhouse before fleeing to London, where he falls in with a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the criminal Fagin, and eventually finds a better life, exposing the cruelties of poverty and child labor in Victorian England.

Oliver Twist

1985

The Box of Delights poster
8.0

Follows the exploits of young Kay Harker, who finds himself drawn into a world of magic and danger when he encounters an old Punch and Judy man.

The Box of Delights

1984

Virtual Murder poster
7.0

Eccentric 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

Shillingbury Tales poster
7.2

Shillingbury Tales is a 1980–81 British sitcom produced by Associated Television for ITV. Comprising a single feature length pilot and six one-hour episodes, the series deals with life in an idealised fictional English village and stars Robin Nedwell, Diane Keen, Nigel Lambert, Jack Douglas, John Le Mesurier, Bernard Cribbins and Trevor Howard. The series was written by Francis Essex and directed by Val Guest. Unusual for the time, it was shot entirely on location in the village of Aldbury in Hertfordshire on 16mm and consequently there was no laugh track. The show ended when ATV lost their licence to broadcast and their replacement Central declined to continue production.

Shillingbury Tales

1981

No Strings poster
6.0

No Strings is a British sitcom produced by Yorkshire Television for ITV, broadcast from 12 April to 31 May 1989. It stars Edward Petherbridge and Joan Marsh. Sam comes home to find that his wife has run off with another man. He contacts Rosie, the other man's wife, and finds that they have a lot in common. Gradually, a relationship develops between them.

No Strings

1989

Gone to Seed poster
3.3

Gone to Seed is a British comedy-drama series created by Tony Grounds, a standalone spin-off to his earlier Gone to the Dogs. With much of the cast returning—albeit in new roles—the six-episode series follows the Plant family, who have run a garden centre in Rotherhithe since Dickens’ time, surviving both war and redevelopment. But now, family rivalry threatens to poison their unlikely paradise when matriarch Mag refuses to hand over control to her triplet children. Frumpy Hilda has only one passion in life: Milwall FC. Country/western singer Monty dreams of turning the run-down nursery into a floral oasis in the heart of Docklands, whilst his one-eyed jobless builder and part-time wrestler Winston doesn’t know a begonia from a buttercup! Meanwhile, local conman Wesley Willis lurks in the shadows and knows the true-worth of prime-location London real-estate.

Gone to Seed

1992

No artwork available
6.0

A chronicle of three working-class Manchester lads and their descendants spanning from 1877 to the onset of the Second World War. Hamer Shawcross' youthful socialist zeal soon converts to personal ambition, exploiting the Labour movement to become an MP, marrying well and eventually entering the House of Lords. Arnold Ryerson is the sensitive and courageous pioneer of Trade Union growth. Tom Hannaway is a perky opportunist who progresses from rag-and-bone man to tycoon and a knighthood following his own self-help philosophy.

Fame Is the Spur

1982

No artwork available
7.0

Ken Archer has worked for the same company for 33 years. Then, one day, he's told that he is about to be made redundant. To make a bad day even worse, Ken's wife Joan tells him that she is leaving him for a man 20 years younger. Things continue to go from bad to worse as Kern is subsequently mugged, taken hostage, arrested and committed to an asylum.

Time of My Life

1980

No artwork available
6.0

My Honourable Mrs is a 1975 British comedy-drama written by Richard Waring and produced by Graeme Muir for BBC One. Jane Prendergast becomes a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP), much to the disruption of her publisher husband Henry. The show focuses on the domestic and political chaos that ensued as the couple navigated her new role, with Pauline Yates as Jane.

My Honourable Mrs

1975

Charters and Caldicott poster
6.2

Charters and Caldicott is a 1985 BBC mystery series featuring the characters Charters and Caldicott from the film The Lady Vanishes. It featured six 50 minute episodes broadcast on BBC1 at 9.25pm on Thursdays from 10 January to 14 February 1985.

Charters and Caldicott

1985