
Acting
John McArdle
Born
1949-08-16 (77)
Place of birth
Liverpool, England
Known for
Acting
Credits
52 titles
John McArdle is an English actor. He is most notable for playing Billy Corkhill in the soap opera Brookside, with many other smaller appearances in other soaps and dramas.
Known for
4.3The lives of several families in the Yorkshire Dales revolve around a farm and the nearby village. With murders, affairs, lies, deceit, laughter and tears, it's all there in the village.
Emmerdale
1972
6.2Drama series about the staff and patients at Holby City Hospital's emergency department, charting the ups and downs in their personal and professional lives.
Casualty
1986
7.4A sharp detective with a messy life, DCI Vera Stanhope patrols her “patch” of northeast England, pursuing the truth in cases of murder, kidnapping, and blackmail. Vera is obsessive about her work and faces the world with caustic wit, guile and courage.
Vera
2011
7.1Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.
Heartbeat
1992
7.1Waterloo Road is a British television drama series set in a comprehensive school of the same name, first broadcast on BBC One on 9 March 2006, and concluding its original run on 9 March 2015. It was recommissioned in 2021, and resumed starting 9 January 2023. At the failing comprehensive school, and later academy of the same name, the professional and personal lives of the students and staff are examined. Affairs, scandals, blackmail and many, many headteachers. Who said education was easy?
Waterloo Road
2006
6.5Peak Practice is a British drama series about a GP surgery in Cardale — a small fictional town in the Derbyshire Peak District — and the doctors who worked there. It ran on ITV from 10 May 1993 to 30 January 2002 and was one of their most successful series at the time. It originally starred Kevin Whately as Dr Jack Kerruish, Amanda Burton as Dr Beth Glover and Simon Shepherd as Dr Will Preston, though the roster of doctors would change many times over the course of the series. Cardale was based on the Staffordshire village of Longnor for the final series, but was previously based in the Derbyshire village of Crich, although certain scenes were filmed at other nearby Derbyshire towns and villages, most notably Matlock, Belper and Ashover.
Peak Practice
1993
Film credits
2020s · 2 titles
NRAn infertile woman attempts to end her life; but an encounter with a wild doe prevents her from going through with her plan; and soon she discovers she is mysteriously pregnant.
Deer Woman Child
2022
NRTwelve-year-old Laura's goal in life is to one day play football professionally. Laura has many footballing heroes, but it's her older brother Thomas who's her biggest hero.
Our Kid
2023
2010s · 3 titles
5.6The parents of a girl who was killed by a savage dog are granted the opportunity to spend three days with their deceased daughter.
Wake Wood
2011
After an ex-ballet dancer's life is turned upside down after receiving devastating news, a chance encounter with a charismatic dancer marks the start to a fragile friendship that might turn into something more profound.
Love Tomorrow
2013
A film that tells the story of the birth of the co-operative movement in Rochdale in 1844.
The Rochdale Pioneers
2012
2000s · 4 titles
6.8Jimmy Grimble is a shy Manchester school boy. At school he is constantly being bullied by the other kids, and at home he has to face his mother's new boyfriend. However, through football, and some special boots, he manages to gain the confidence to succeed and leads his school football team towards the final of the local schools cup.
There's Only One Jimmy Grimble
2000
5.8A film adaptation of the 1606 satirical tragedy by Thomas Middleton, relocated to a post-apocalyptic Liverpool. Christopher Eccleston plays the revenge-obsessed Vindice, who has sworn to kill the evil Duke (Derek Jacobi) who murdered his one true love.
Revengers Tragedy
2002
8.0Trina Lavery returns home to Stoke after 20 years, to look after her ill mother. She learns that Bernard Cleve is also living in Stoke. Bernard was accused of killing Trinas best friend many years ago but was never convicted. Another girl is killed and Bernard is again a suspect. Trina thinks he is innocent but places herself in danger in trying to prove it.
My Fragile Heart
2000
6.2A doctor and his girlfriend are stalked by a woman who claims to be in love with him. Meanwhile, the man falls in love with a younger woman. Based on a true story
U Be Dead
2009
1990s · 7 titles
5.2Janice Beard is a dreamer who can't seem to quite make it big. She is working in an auto design company and falls for the mailboy, but he is hiding secrets.
Janice Beard 45 WPM
1999
NRA Gothic comedy, featuring a distinguished cast, and starring Leslie Phillips and Margaret Tyzack. Retired colonial army officer George Thacker has high hopes of recapturing his memories of an idyllic English village life after a lifetime of meting out justice in the Far East. But instead of peace and quiet, he is greeted by violence, voodoo and a distressed damsel, brandishing a shotgun. Worst of all, the ghost of his old flame, Edith, still haunts him, threatening both his marriage and his life.
Thacker
1992
NRA woman fights to adopt a war baby from the Third World after becoming unable to conceive.
Bambino Mio
1994
5.8It was one of the last unexplored places on Earth; a terrifyingly deep gully in the heart of the Borneo jungle. It was the ultimate challenge – to climb down into it and explore what the locals call, "The Place of the Dead." Based on a true story that made headlines around the world, this adventure drama is the tale of men pushed to their limits and beyond, battling against forces that they could not comprehend.
The Place of the Dead
1997
7.5A taxi driver is driven to distraction by her love of Tom Jones.
It's Not Unusual
1995
4.0Back in the 'bad old days' when the physically and mentally disabled were locked away in institutions a legend grew of someone who could stand up to the authorities and help them. This charming story is how a group of disabled people went to chase that legend. To assist them John is forced to come to terms with his daughter and her friends.
Skallagrigg
1994
4.0Ellie and Malc Freeman are a working-class couple in their forties who live in a terrace house in a poor district of Liverpool. Ellie has a part-time job as a shop assistant; Malc is a warehouseman in a dead-end job. Ellie is convinced that Malc can do better. One day Ellie wins £1.5 million on the football pools. Resisting the temptation to spend all the money on herself, she invests it in a local security firm - on condition that they give Malc a job as a salesman... and that they don't reveal how he got his big break. But does Ellie like the man that her husband has turned into?
Rich Deceiver
1995
Series credits
4.3The lives of several families in the Yorkshire Dales revolve around a farm and the nearby village. With murders, affairs, lies, deceit, laughter and tears, it's all there in the village.
Emmerdale
1972
6.2Drama series about the staff and patients at Holby City Hospital's emergency department, charting the ups and downs in their personal and professional lives.
Casualty
1986
6.2Drama series about the staff and patients at Holby City Hospital's emergency department, charting the ups and downs in their personal and professional lives.
Casualty
1986
6.2Drama series about the staff and patients at Holby City Hospital's emergency department, charting the ups and downs in their personal and professional lives.
Casualty
1986
7.4A sharp detective with a messy life, DCI Vera Stanhope patrols her “patch” of northeast England, pursuing the truth in cases of murder, kidnapping, and blackmail. Vera is obsessive about her work and faces the world with caustic wit, guile and courage.
Vera
2011
7.1Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.
Heartbeat
1992
7.1Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.
Heartbeat
1992
7.1Waterloo Road is a British television drama series set in a comprehensive school of the same name, first broadcast on BBC One on 9 March 2006, and concluding its original run on 9 March 2015. It was recommissioned in 2021, and resumed starting 9 January 2023. At the failing comprehensive school, and later academy of the same name, the professional and personal lives of the students and staff are examined. Affairs, scandals, blackmail and many, many headteachers. Who said education was easy?
Waterloo Road
2006
6.5Peak Practice is a British drama series about a GP surgery in Cardale — a small fictional town in the Derbyshire Peak District — and the doctors who worked there. It ran on ITV from 10 May 1993 to 30 January 2002 and was one of their most successful series at the time. It originally starred Kevin Whately as Dr Jack Kerruish, Amanda Burton as Dr Beth Glover and Simon Shepherd as Dr Will Preston, though the roster of doctors would change many times over the course of the series. Cardale was based on the Staffordshire village of Longnor for the final series, but was previously based in the Derbyshire village of Crich, although certain scenes were filmed at other nearby Derbyshire towns and villages, most notably Matlock, Belper and Ashover.
Peak Practice
1993
5.2The daily soap that follows the loves, lives and misdemeanours of a group of people living in the Chester village of Hollyoaks where anything could, and frequently does, happen...
Hollyoaks
1995
7.3New Tricks is a British comedy-drama that follows the work of the fictional Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad of the Metropolitan Police Service. Originally led by Detective Superintendent Sandra Pullman, it is made up of retired police officers who have been recruited to reinvestigate unsolved crimes.
New Tricks
2004
7.2A detective team apply new techniques to old crimes as they solve cold cases.
Waking the Dead
2001
7.3John Thaw dons the silks as barrister James Kavanagh Q.C., one of the most highly respected criminal advocates in London, commanding admiration from colleagues and opponents alike. However, all this has come at a price as his dedication to work has taken its toll on his private life… Going beyond traditional courtroom dramas, “Kavanagh Q.C.” uncovers the pressures of legal battles and the problems of defining the truth, providing a compelling representation of the euphoric ups and costly downs of success and failure in the legal world.
Kavanagh Q.C.
1995
7.9As 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
6.4In the fictional Yorkshire town of Wetherton, the unlikely duo of politically incorrect elephant-in-a-China-shop-copper DS Andrew Dalziel (pronounced Dee-ell) and his more sensitive and university educated sidekick DS, later DI, Peter Pascoe is always on hand to solve the classic murder mystery, while maintaining down-to-Earth wit and humour.
Dalziel and Pascoe
1996
7.0Adapted from the hit US series, Law & Order: UK follows a team of police detectives and prosecutors representing the public interest in the criminal justice system.
Law & Order: UK
2009
7.8Highly skilled Detective Inspector Jane Tennison battles to prove herself in a male dominated world.
Prime Suspect
1991
6.8Wycliffe is a British television series, based on W. J. Burley's novels about Detective Superintendent Charles Wycliffe. It was produced by HTV and broadcast on the ITV Network, following a pilot episode on 7 August 1993, between 24 July 1994 and 5 July 1998. The series was filmed in Cornwall, with a production office in Truro. Music for the series was composed by Nigel Hess and was awarded the Royal Television Society award for the best television theme. Wycliffe is played by Jack Shepherd, assisted by DI Doug Kersey and DI Lucy Lane. Each episode deals with a murder investigation. In the early series, the stories are adapted from Burley's books and are in classic whodunit style, often with quirky characters and plot elements. In later seasons, the tone becomes more naturalistic and there is more emphasis on internal politics within the police.
Wycliffe
1994
6.6The wise-cracking Edward 'Fitz' Fitzgerald is a brilliant but flawed criminal psychologist with a remarkable insight into the criminal mind.
Cracker
1993
7.0The Chief is a British crime drama transmitted on ITV from 20 April 1990 to 16 June 1995. Produced by Anglia Television, it centred on the politics at the top of a typical English police force in its continual battle to solve the problems the times, in this case the fictional Eastland of East Anglia.
The Chief
1990
7.2Anthology drama series.
Screen One
1989
6.7Blue Murder is a British crime drama television series based in Manchester. Shown on ITV from 2003 until 2009 when it was cancelled by the network, it starred Caroline Quentin as DCI Janine Lewis.
Blue Murder
2003
6.5The Afternoon Play is a British television anthology series of standalone contemporary dramas aired during the afternoons of 2003–07 on BBC One, featuring well-known actors in one-off stories. A daytime drama strand showcasing a variety of genres, from comedy to mystery, it was part of a long tradition of afternoon plays on BBC Radio 4, which would go on to influence the television version.
The Afternoon Play
2003
6.7Cluedo was a UK television game show based on the board game of the same name. Each week, a reenactment of the murder at the stately home Arlington Grange of a visiting guest was played and, through a combination of interrogating the suspects and deduction, celebrity guests had to discover who committed the murder, which of six weapons and in which room it was committed, whilst viewers were invited to play along at home.
Cluedo
1990
9.5Merseybeat follows the fortunes of Newton Park police force, as the officers struggle to balance their demanding work and home lives.
Merseybeat
2001
8.5The Cazalets is a 2001 television drama series about the life of a large privileged family in the years 1937 to 1947. Most of the action takes place in London, and at the family's large estate in Sussex. The drama was based on the novels of Elizabeth Jane Howard, and adapted by the screenwriter Douglas Livingstone. The series was originally produced by Cinema Verity for BBC One and is available on DVD.
The Cazalets
2001
NRA middle-class white housewife and her Indian cleaning lady set up a catering business together.
Firm Friends
1992
6.5Scully was a British television drama with some comedy elements set in the city of Liverpool, England, that originated from a BBC Play For Today episode "Scully's New Years Eve". Originally broadcast on Channel Four in 1984, the single series was spread over six half-hour episodes plus a one-hour final episode. It was written by playwright Alan Bleasdale. The drama is notable for featuring many of the Liverpool football club first-team squad of that era. Francis Scully is a teenage boy who has his heart set on gaining a trial match for Liverpool to hopefully fulfil his ambition of playing for the club. Francis, in everyday situations during his waking hours, occasionally "sees" famous Liverpool players such as Kenny Dalglish when they are not really there. These dream-like sequences recur throughout the episodes. The main plotline is the efforts of Scully's school teachers to persuade Scully to appear in the school pantomime which they attempt by promising him a trial with his beloved Liverpool if he will cooperate. When Scully and his friends are not in school making trouble for the teachers and the school caretaker, they are seen roaming the local streets upsetting the neighbours and getting into trouble with the police. Scully sometimes has visions of the school caretaker appearing as a vampire due to the caretaker's nickname being Dracula. These frequent waking dream sequences give the show a somewhat surreal atmosphere.
Scully
1984
9.0Byron Flitch is not enjoying his anniversary party. Instead of making him a partner in their classic car business, his father Burke has demanded he work harder. His mistress Judith could arrive to gate crash the celebrations at any moment and to top things off midway through the line 'I'm going to live forever' from his karaoke Fame rendition, Burke keels over with a heart attack. Amidst this chaos, Burke's wife Lili sees a chance to make her escape and ducks out of the party to leave for an impromptu holiday in Tenerife. When she returns, she is a changed woman and intent on taking up marathon running. With Burke critically ill and Lili off guard, the rest of the family squabble for control of the business.
Born to Run
1997
8.0An epic love story in nine parts, following the progress of handsome rogue Bob Longman , an ambitious working-class Yorkshire lad. The series begins with a feature-length episode by award-winning writer Peter Ransley. A Modest Hero. December 1943, Seaforth, Yorkshire: Bob, a young criminal on the run, rescues Paula while posing as an air-raid warden. From this moment on they develop a passionate obsession for each other.
Seaforth
1994
8.0The true life story of Lindy Chamberlain and her recount of a dingo taking her baby
Through My Eyes
2004
Three on-call GPs based in the fictional city of Haventry in Birmingham face a series of difficult patients and testing situations as they attempt to provide an "out of hours" service for the city's residents.
Out of Hours
1998
6.6Gallowglass is a British television miniseries adaptation of the Ruth Rendell novel of the same name. The word “gallowglass” means servant, or one indebted to another. This is the story of a young man who feels such indebtedness to another young man after he is saved from committing suicide by jumping in front of an oncoming train. It is an emotional story of obsessive love, lust and fear.
Gallowglass
1993
NRA successful property developer stands trial for corruption, while his best friend, the Minister for Prisons, struggles to quell a protest. Just when both men seem destined to win, fate takes a hand and their lives are changed forever.
Underbelly
1992


