Acting
Ben Aris
Born — Died
1937-03-16 — 2003-09-04
Place of birth
London, England, UK
Known for
Acting
Credits
68 titles
Benjamin Patrick Aris (16 March 1937 – 4 September 2003) was an English actor who was best known for his parts in Hi-de-Hi! and To the Manor Born, and was also very active on stage. He was often cast as an eccentric, upper-class, or upper-middle class, man.
Known for
7.9The adventures of The Doctor, a time-traveling humanoid alien known as a Time Lord. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, The Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right many wrongs.
Doctor Who
1963
8.2From 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
5.7Crown Court is an afternoon television courtroom drama produced by Granada Television for the ITV network that ran from 1972, when the Crown Court system replaced Assize courts and Quarter sessions in the legal system of England and Wales, to 1984.
Crown Court
1972
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
7.4The Comic Strip is a group of British comedians, who do parodies of films, literature and sometimes major events.
The Comic Strip Presents...
1982
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
Film credits
2000s · 2 titles
5.3Superficial people are revealed and drastically changed by circumstance or luck in this a tale of death, seduction, blackmail and theft among British and Americans in Florence in the turbulent days just before World War II.
Up at the Villa
2000
Naomi has known all her life that she will succumb to the same fate that has befallen her family for generations. Unlike her ancestors, who all made unmitigated fools of themselves trying to avoid the curse, Naomi has accepted her destiny and tells herself that she is ready.
Ready
2002
1990s · 4 titles
7.0In 1727, an Arab colt is born with the signs of the wheat ear and the white spot on his heel: evil and good. And thus begins the life of Sham. He is a gift to the King of France, through a series of adventures with his faithful stable boy, Agba, he becomes the Godolphin Arabian, the founder of one of the greatest thoroughbred racing lines of all time.
King of the Wind
1990
9.0Biopic purporting to tell the real story behind the marriage of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson from their initial courtship through their eventual separation.
Fergie & Andrew: Behind the Palace Doors
1992
A costume drama / satire about financial skull-duggery, and confidence tricksters in both the upper and lower classes in Victorian London. A working class man impersonates a lord who is supposedly very rich and a financial wizard. As such he is invited to all the best peoples' parties.
The Fool
1990
6.0The legendary Roy 'Chubby' Brown stars in his very first feature length movie. Chubby is captured by a gang of feminist aliens from the 25th century and beamed up to their spaceship during his live show in Blackpool. Put on trial for crimes against woman, he is soon found guilty and sentenced to the ultimate penalty. Is this the end of the planet's favourite son? Will he escape? Or will Chubby be terminated? Co-starring super model Sara Stockbridge and Roger Lloyd Pack, 'Trig' from Only Fools and Horses. U.F.O. is the bawdiest, most outrageous celluloid experience of the year or indeed any year.
U.F.O. The Movie
1993
1980s · 9 titles
7.8In a desperate bid to cover his debts, compulsive gambler Sir Giles Staverley stakes his estate and his daughter's hand on a game of chance. Serena Staverley soon finds herself bound to a mysterious victor and trapped in a cliff-top manor.
A Hazard of Hearts
1987
6.2Adaptation of the novella by Robert Louis Stevenson
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
1980
6.0A new underground TV-Channel is set up. This comedy drama about the rise and fall of a cable TV channel. Vunderful Video chain owner Bob Surge gets the franchise for one of the new public access TV channels and wants it to rekindle his spirit of rebellion. He hires employee Max Loom to run the station and Max creates something wild, including presenter Teddy Whazz. It's the wild west and edgy and exciting, but dark clouds are looming for Max and the gang when they draw the attention of right wing censorship group Cable Concern.
Video Stars
1983
7.0Sir Henry Rawlinson attempts to exorcise the ghost of his brother Humbert, who was accidentally killed in a drunken duck-shooting incident.
Sir Henry at Rawlinson End
1980
NRCarl Moss leaves jail,where he has taken the rap for his evil twin Sterling,and has been declared a model prisoner. Pauline Sneek,his probation officer - and girlfriend - gets him community work teaching youngsters how to lead law-abiding lives. This displeases Sterling,as he needs the young delinquents for his bicycle stealing ring.
Didn't You Kill My Brother?
1988
6.0When Eric's niece Kathy becomes one of the heirs to a considerable fortune, her life (and those of the other heirs) is placed in jeopardy by the actions of a mysterious inter-loper.
Night Train to Murder
1984
6.7Lorraine Barrie, a fading but brilliant actress with a penchant for manipulating every theatrical endeavour to her best advantage, meets her match when she must trust her success to an equally willful stage director.
Star Quality
1985
7.0Is there nothing new under the sun? 1770. The South Atlantic. A fleet sets sail from Buenos Aires to expel the British forces and reconquer the Falkland Islands. A major international crisis explodes. What follows may sound strangely familiar, but is firmly based on the historical record and the actual speeches and writings of the time.
The Falklands Factor
1983
Julia, a Hollywood property scout, is looking for a house to star in a horror movie, she finds more than she bargained for at Glebes Hall. Unaired in the UK.
Christmas Spirits
1981
1970s · 19 titles
6.7In 17th century France, young D'Artagnan wants to join the King's Musketeers, but instead befriends three legendary musketeers—Athos, Porthos, and Aramis—and together, they become embroiled in the political intrigue surrounding King Louis XIII and his adversaries, particularly the powerful Cardinal Richelieu.
The Three Musketeers
1973
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
6.5After a series of traumatic childhood events, a psychosomatically deaf, dumb and blind boy becomes a master pinball player and the object of a religious cult.
Tommy
1975
6.8An ambitious coffee salesman has a series of improbable and ironic adventures seemingly designed to challenge his naive idealism.
O Lucky Man!
1973
5.1In order to revive his long hibernating bride, Vampira, Count Dracula takes blood samples from several beautiful models, but during the transfusion, Vampira's race turns from white to black.
Vampira
1974
6.0To escape from a mobster, businessman Gaetano Proclo orders a cab driver to take him to a place where he can't be found. Unfortunately for Gaetano, the place turns out to be a gay bathhouse.
The Ritz
1976
6.5Composer, conductor and teacher Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky struggles against his homosexual tendencies by marrying, but unfortunately, he chooses wacky nymphomaniac Nina, whom he is unable to satisfy.
The Music Lovers
1971
6.9Jack Carter is a small-time hood working in London. When word reaches him of his brother's death, he travels to Newcastle to attend the funeral. Refusing to accept the police report of suicide, Carter seeks out his brother’s friends and acquaintances to learn who murdered his sibling and why.
Get Carter
1971
5.9Cowardly rogue Harry Flashman's (Malcolm McDowell) schemes to gain entry to the royal circles of 19th-century Europe go nowhere until he meets a pair of devious nobles with their own agenda. At their urging, Flashman agrees to re-create himself as a bogus Prussian nobleman to woo a beautiful duchess. But the half-baked plan quickly comes unraveled, and he's soon on the run from several new enemies who are all calling for the rapscallion's head.
Royal Flash
1975
6.4In the Paris of the 1910s, brash young sculptor Henri Gaudier begins a creative partnership with an older writer, Sophie Brzeska. Though the couple is 20 years apart in age, Gaudier finds that his untamed work is complemented by the older woman's cultural refinement. He then moves to London with Brzeska, where he falls in with a group of avant-garde artists. There, Gaudier encounters yet another artistic muse in passionate suffragette Gosh Boyle.
Savage Messiah
1972
4.5Alfie meets his romantic match when the modern-day Casanova falls in love with a career woman. Alfie soon realises that Abby, a magazine editor, is just as romantically ruthless as he is.
Alfie Darling
1975
6.8The Third Doctor and Sarah arrive in 1970s London to find it has been evacuated because dinosaurs have appeared mysteriously. It turns out the dinosaurs are being brought to London via a time machine to further a plan to revert London to a pre-technological level.
Doctor Who: Invasion of the Dinosaurs
1974
7.5A comic extravaganza about a young woman's adventures in the world of big business charity.
The After Dinner Joke
1978
3.6Virginal nerd Jon Pigeon, manages to secure a job in a sex research institute where the patients run about the corridors naked, nude aerobics are encouraged and no man is safe from the crotch-grabbing tea lady. In his attempts to seduce pretty office secretary Cheryl, Pigeon invents a machine called Agnes that emits a 'sonic aphrodisiac' guaranteed to turn any man or woman into an slathering sex maniac. Although his attempts to zap Cheryl are singularly unsuccessful, Pigeon gets some interesting results when he accidentally turns the 'sex ray' on his bullying boss Nutbrown and the prudish Mary Watchtower.
I'm Not Feeling Myself Tonight
1976
7.0Three children rejuvenate an old traction engine and enter it for the County Championship.
Smokey Joe's Revenge
1974
7.5Michael Marler, a successful businessman in London, is about to make his way to the top. After 37 years, the death of his father brings him back to his hometown of Liverpool, where he’s confronted with his lost Irish roots. He finds out that his father died in a fight with some Anglo-Saxon teddy boys. It becomes a matter of honour for him to take his revenge without involving the police.
The Reckoning
1970
NRThe outrageous – and not entirely reliable – memoirs of Irish writer Frank Harris, sometime cowboy in the Old West, friend to the famous in the literary world, essayist and critic, and seducer of beautiful women.
Fearless Frank
1978
1799: George, Prince of Wales and heir to the throne of mad King George III, awaits the Pope's judgement on his marriage to the twice-widowed Mrs. Fitzherbert.
Husband to Mrs. Fitzherbert
1975
8.0Frightening events unfold that may or may not be figments of Marigold’s imagination.
Enemy
1976
1960s · 6 titles
6.2During the Crimean War between Britain and Russia in the 1850s, a British cavalry division, led by the overbearing Lord Cardigan, engages in an infamously reckless strategic debacle against a Russian artillery battery.
The Charge of the Light Brigade
1968
7.0In an English boys' boarding school, social hierarchy reigns supreme and power remains in the hands of distanced and ineffectual teachers and callously vicious prefects in the Upper Sixth. Three Lower Sixth students, Wallace, Johnny and leader Mick Travis decide on a shocking course of action to redress the balance of privilege once and for all.
if....
1968
6.4Sir James Forbes arrives in a remote Cornish village to identify a mysterious plague afflicting the population. He discovers that one of the squires is a disciple of Haitian witchcraft and using dark magic to resurrect the dead. As the plan to create undead servants unravels, the squire unleashes his zombie army on the unsuspecting village.
The Plague of the Zombies
1966
6.9In Notting Hill's jazz club, coffee bar and bedsit land of the early 1960s, Joe Beckett is a young unemployed misfit and drifter whose life takes a turn for the worse when he encounters Richard Dyce, an ex-army officer.
West 11
1963
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
6.5A lion escapes from a circus but is rescued and protected by a young boy.
Lionheart
1968
Series credits
7.9The adventures of The Doctor, a time-traveling humanoid alien known as a Time Lord. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, The Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right many wrongs.
Doctor Who
1963
8.2From 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
5.7Crown Court is an afternoon television courtroom drama produced by Granada Television for the ITV network that ran from 1972, when the Crown Court system replaced Assize courts and Quarter sessions in the legal system of England and Wales, to 1984.
Crown Court
1972
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
7.4The Comic Strip is a group of British comedians, who do parodies of films, literature and sometimes major events.
The Comic Strip Presents...
1982
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
6.3After a crippling injury leaves her husband impotent, Lady Chatterly is torn between her love for her husband and her physical desires. With her husband's consent, she seeks out other means of fulfilling her needs.
Lady Chatterley
1993
7.5You Rang, M'Lord? is a British comedy series written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, the creators of Dad's Army, It Ain't Half Hot Mum and Hi-de-Hi! It was broadcast between 1990 and 1993 on the BBC. The show was a comedy set in the house of an aristocratic family in the 1920s, contrasting the upper-class family and their servants in a house in London, along the same lines as the popular drama Upstairs, Downstairs. The series featured many actors who had also appeared in their earlier series, notably Paul Shane, Jeffrey Holland and Su Pollard, all of whom had previously been in Perry and Croft's holiday camp sitcom, Hi-de-Hi!. Also featured were Donald Hewlett and Michael Knowles from Perry and Croft's It Ain't Half Hot Mum, and Bill Pertwee and occasionally Frank Williams from Dad's Army. The memorable 1920s-style theme tune was sung by Bob Monkhouse.
You Rang, M'Lord?
1990
7.7Shine on Harvey Moon! is a British comedy-drama series made by Central Television for ITV from 8 January 1982 to 23 August 1985 and briefly revived in 1995 by Meridian. This generally light-hearted series was created by comedy writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran. The series is set in the East End of London shortly after the Second World War. Upon being demobbed RAF serviceman Harvey Moon, played by Kenneth Cranham, returns home and finds his family involved in various troubles. His wife Rita, played by Maggie Steed, is not interested in resuming their relationship, and works in a seedy nightclub frequented by American servicemen. He becomes involved with the Labour Party and the union movement. The name of the series is a wordplay on the title of the popular 1908 song 'Shine On, Harvest Moon'. The first series was commissioned and recorded by ATV at their Elstree studios with the remaining series filmed at newly constructed facilities in Nottingham.
Shine on Harvey Moon
1982
7.0Hi-de-Hi! is a British sitcom set in Maplins, a fictional holiday camp, during 1959 and 1960, and was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, who also wrote Dad's Army and It Ain't Half Hot Mum amongst others. It aired on the BBC from 1980 to 1988. The series revolved around the lives of the camp's management and entertainers, most of them struggling actors or has-beens. The inspiration was the experience of writers Perry and Croft: after being demobilised from the army, Perry was a Redcoat at Butlin's, Pwllheli during the holiday season. The series gained large audiences and won a BAFTA as Best Comedy Series in 1984. In 2004, it came 40th in Britain's Best Sitcom and in a 2008 poll on Channel 4, 'Hi-de-Hi!" was voted the 35th most popular comedy catchphrase.
Hi-de-Hi!
1980
7.0A crime drama set in Southampton following a team of detectives and the cases they solve.
Target
1977
6.5Introduced by renowned English actor Edward Woodward, In Suspicious Circumstances is an anthology of reenactments depicting real-life murder mysteries, some famous and some obscure, exploring cases with elements of miscarriage of justice, unsolved mysteries, and unusual circumstances, often spanning different historical periods.
In Suspicious Circumstances
1991
7.5The Famous Five is a British television series based on the children's books of the same name by Enid Blyton. It was broadcast on ITV over two series in 1978 and 1979. It was produced by Southern Television in 26 half-hour episodes.
The Famous Five
1978
7.6Meet Frank Spencer, an eager young man trying to find his way in the world. He's enthusiastic, well-meaning... and disaster-prone.
Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em
1973
8.0Village Hall is an anthology drama series produced by Granada between 1974–75. It is entirely set in a village hall, with each episode highlighting a different use to which the space is put by locals.
Village Hall
1974
8.0Victorian England, the late 1800s: Detective Sergeant Daniel Cribb of the newly formed Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is determined to remove crime from the streets of London using the latest detection methods.
Cribb
1980
5.2Hazell is a British television drama based on the novel series by Terry Venables and Gordon Williams (collectively known as P.B. Yuill), and starring Nicholas Bell as James Hazell, a 'smart parody' of Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade. The program ran for 2 series, from January 1978 to July 1979.
Hazell
1978
6.2Jean Price is the newly elected, somewhat rebellious Labour MP for an inner-city constituency, and her life in the House of Commons. She's married to Geoff Price, a public defender and carer of many household chores so that Jean can pursue her new career. Jean balances her personal life with parliamentary duties, including 'women's issues', which Jean alternately fights for and is frustrated by, as other MPs think she cares about nothing else due to her gender. She often is surprised by others' duplicity and hypocrisy, holding them to a significantly higher standard.
No Job for a Lady
1990
6.0Australian ex-cop Jack Bartholomew goes to Britain when he discovers he's heir to a family title; when he doesn't get on with his new family, he starts working as a private detective.
Call Me Mister
1986
5.8Slinger's Day is a British sitcom created by Brian Cooke and produced by Thames Television for ITV. A continuation of Tripper's Day, which had come to a natural end due to a combination of star Leonard Rossiter's death and an overwhelmingly negative response, Bruce Forsyth plays a different character to Norman Tripper but fulfilling the same role, that of the manager of a Supafare supermarket with a team of incompetent eccentrics. Several cast members from Tripper's Day reprised their roles in the first series but departed in the second, allowing for new characters. Broadcast for two six-episode runs from 1986–87, Slinger's Day represented Forsyth's sole situation comedy acting role, and he remained more associated with stand-up and game shows.
Slinger's Day
1986
6.2Executive Stress is a British sitcom that aired on ITV from 1986 to 1988. Produced by Thames Television, it first aired on 20 October 1986. After three series, the last episode aired on 27 December 1988. Written by George Layton, Executive Stress stars Penelope Keith as Caroline Fairchild, a middle-aged woman who decides to go back to work. Her husband, Donald, is played by Geoffrey Palmer in the first series. However, Palmer was unable to return for the second series, so Peter Bowles played Donald in the last two series. Keith and Bowles had previously appeared in together in To the Manor Born.
Executive Stress
1986
4.4Hold the Dream is a two-part 1987 television serial based on Barbara Taylor Bradford's 1985 novel of the same name, a sequel to the 1984 miniseries A Woman of Substance. Deborah Kerr reprises her role of Emma Harte, with Jenny Seagrove, who played the young Emma, taking the lead role as Paula Fairley. Paula Fairley, now head of the Harte chain of department stores, has taken on the burden of preserving Emma's legacy. However, she suffers dissent within her extended family, in particular from her devious cousin Jonathan Ainsley. In the United Kingdom, the series aired in four one-hour episodes, although it was initially created as two two-hour parts.
Hold the Dream
1987
10.0The challenging and spirited early life of cinema's first great comedic artist, Charlie Chaplin, is portrayed. The innately talented young Charlie must overcome a wayward life of poverty and familial chaos to reach the pinnacle of stardom.
Young Charlie Chaplin
1989
Follows the eccentric Bagthorpe family – ineffective advice columnist Laura, frustrated and emotionless comedy writer Henry, Scrabble cheating Grandma, 16-year-old electronics whizz and tennis champion William, artistic 14-year-old Tess, and twelve-year-old 'ordinary' Jack, who decides to train their mongrel dog Zero into a super dog.
The Bagthorpe Saga
1981
7.0Astronauts Malcolm Mattocks, Gentian Foster and David Ackroyd are sent into outer space to occupy a space station for six months.
Astronauts
1981
NRWhile attending Oxford University, Mark Fraser is recruited as an agent by Department Six of British Intelligence. In time he becomes one of their top "eliminators." After several years, he resigns in disgust, marries his girlfriend, Jill Marshall, and retires to the Scottish Highlands. While shopping one afternoon, Jill is kidnapped by five German terrorists and brought to Spain. When Mark receives a telephone call from the terrorists, instructing him to assassinate a right-wing German publisher, he is forced to employ his old skills as a hit man to ensure Jill's safety. .
The Assassination Run
1980
Between 1798 and 1812, the wild, romantic country of the English Lake District saw an intense concentrated flowering of literary genius. At its centre is poet William Wordsworth, born in the region, who lived there almost all his life with his beloved sister Dorothy. Around him, as the genius of the age, gathered other poets and writers – Robert Southey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Thomas de Quincey.
Clouds of Glory
1978
Mark Fraser (Malcolm Stoddard), an ex-intelligence agent, was falsely accused of murdering a well-known scientist. Three agents, hired by an unknown organization, go after Mark to prevent him from revealing the organization's most hideous secrets. Mark struggles to fight his way out against these skilled intelligence agents to save his life and clear his name.
The Treachery Game
1981
