Stanley Baxter

A portrait of Stanley Baxter, Scotland’s most dazzling TV star of the 1970s and ’80s, whose groundbreaking sketches and lavish specials made him a household name. Behind the fame, Baxter lived a hidden double life as a gay man in a hostile era, balancing public brilliance with private secrecy. Made shortly before his death, the film draws on personal archives and recordings to reveal the man behind the legend.

Jack Docherty brings together a jam-packed cast of comedians, actors and famous faces for a riotous celebration of Scotland's most valuable export – its sense of humour. Scotland is a small nation with a big funny bone. It's known the world over for self-deprecation, quick-witted patter and deadpan asides. But what makes it so funny? To find out the answer, this programme delves deep into the BBC Scotland archives to find a century’s worth of classic characters, catchphrases and comedy clips.

Celebrating the extraordinary career of entertainer Stanley Baxter, whose shows captivated huge audiences for twenty years before the cost of his epics priced him off our screens. Tracing his origins to Scotland's variety and review stages.

Comedy legend Stanley Baxter returns from retirement and returns to the Christmas schedules with a trawl through the very best of his classic sketches and routines, his memories of making the shows, plus some brand new material, including his contemporary take on the Queen's Christmas Message to the Commonwealth.

BBC Scotland documentary catching up with and celebrating the life of legendary Scottish comedian Stanley Baxter as he returns to Glasgow for his 75th Birthday.

Princess Yum Yum falls in love with Tack and saves him from being executed. Later, when the protective orbs of the palace get stolen, Tack and Yum Yum set out to find them and save the kingdom.

Documentary profile of Stanley Baxter featuring his first in-depth interview for forty years and extracts from his comedy series and specials. With contributions from Billy Connolly, Robbie Coltrane, Stephen Fry and Clive James.

The sketches include too many feet, Whicker's World looks at marriage, somewhere in Hell...1982, at look at the use of language in Arra Gemme, Brideshead, Charmaine Globb on Probe looks at The Conned-Sumers, the unyielding parking attendant, high expectations, the upcoming ITV winter shows, finishing with the Fast Food Follies.

Dame Edna Everage takes questions from a celebrity audience about her life and career.

Stanley Baxter's Christmas Hamper

Stanley Baxter's Picture Annual

Bing Crosby and his family spend Christmas at the estate of a distant relative in England.

We hear from the Minister of White Papers about how Stanley Baxter is to return, then we hear how Miss Porker wants her own show, we learn about sex and violence on the television, we have an episode of Mastermind with Magnus Magnusson, The Channing Report presents Sir John Gielgud and The Generation Game, Charmaine Globb presents an episode of Probe about 'Mimicry, a Cry for Help, there's the story of an actress behind television advertisements, an ad for the TV Times, a programme that appeals to sports lovers and movie lovers, Botanic Man, and the finale is the George Burns Show.

Sketches include the film noir 'Farewell my Cinders', the BBC Jewish news, The Bruce Fosdyke Show, A Christmas Appeal by Faith Douche, the meaning of Christiman, 'The Last Noël', Jacques Cousteau presents Some Mammals Do 'Ave 'Em, Girl on the Cover followed Harpies Bizarre's America's Loveliest Girls starring Lois Latnick.

A former burglar trying to go straight joins a rehabilitation scheme using much the same methods as AA. Through the process, he takes work as a department store Santa, where the endless parade of goods and money, not to mention the pretty young shop hands have him like a moth to a flame in no time flat.

A naïve Scottish civil servant must learn how to drive a Bentley to impress his girlfriend's tycoon father.

While posters urge austerity and vigilance in wartime Britain, 'Joey Boy' Thompson has never had it better. In a cellar beneath his East London fish shop, a gambling club thrives – and austerity provides a nice black-market sideline. But the dolce vita crumbles when police arrive in a lightning raid, and offer Joey and his fellow reprobates a stark choice: sign up for active service, or face another stint inside. Thus the lads find themselves heading off to Italy, determined to make the best of it...

When Dexter Munro and his new wife Juliet get married, they decide to escape Juliet's meddling father by buying a rundown cottage and doing it up themselves. But when the cottage proves to be more ramshackle than they thought, and the scale of the repairs needed far out of their budget, the newlyweds are forced into calling on Juliet's father after all. Before long he's employed incompetent builder Josh Wicks, and the situation goes from bad to worse.

Sir Ernest Pease is a self-important scientist sent undercover on a bombing mission to monitor the effectiveness of his latest invention, a new-fangled radar. When the plane is attacked, he parachutes to safety — only to be sent to a POW camp, where he takes on the alias of Lieutenant Farrow. There, the somewhat happy-go-lucky bunch of Brits suspect their acerbic new fellow prisoner of being a spy, and all sorts of culture clashes and misunderstandings ensue.

Concerned about his small stature, a young Scottish boy applies for a mail-order body building course, successfully gaining both height and strength. The film was released as "Wee Geordie" in the USA.