Eileen Atkins

When the denizens of Littlehampton – including conservative Edith – begin receiving letters full of hilarious profanities, rowdy Irish migrant Rose is charged with the crime. Suspecting something amiss, the town's women band together to investigate.

When an architect accepts a morally ambiguous project — building a survivalist bunker for a tech billionaire — his wife of 17 years begins to question their relationship.

Acclaimed actress Dame Siân Phillips is still working at 90. The star of I, Claudius speaks openly about her marriage to Peter O'Toole and reflects on her life and glittering career.

Doc Martin, one of UK's iconic TV characters, hangs up his stethoscope for the final time as the long-running titular series comes to an end. This one-hour retrospective spotlights the longevity and impact locally and around the world of Doc Martin over the years, as well as offering behind the scenes of the final season with the cast and crew. From scripting and pre-production to shooting and delivery, meet the regular characters that live and work in the picturesque Cornish town of Portwenn, the key crew behind the camera, the residents of Port Isaac, the show's real-life setting, and the visitors who come solely because Doc Martin films there.

When soldier Robin happens upon the dying Robert of Loxley, he promises to return the man's sword to his family in Nottingham. There, he assumes Robert's identity; romances his widow, Marion; and draws the ire of the town's sheriff and King John's henchman, Godfrey.

Paddington, now happily settled with the Browns, picks up a series of odd jobs to buy the perfect present for his Aunt Lucy, but it is stolen.

Set in the 1920s French Riviera, a master magician is commissioned to try and expose a psychic as a fraud.

Ethan Wate just wants to get to know Lena Duchannes better, but unbeknownst to him, Lena has strange powers. As Lena's 16th birthday approaches she might decide her fate, to be good or evil. A choice which will impact her relationship forever.

Victor Maynard is a middle-aged, solitary assassin who lives to please his formidable mother, despite his own peerless reputation for lethal efficiency. His professional routine is interrupted when he finds himself drawn to one of his intended victims. After sparing her life, he unexpectedly acquires a young apprentice. Believing Victor to be a private detective, his two new companions tag along, while he attempts to thwart the murderous attentions of his unhappy client.

BBC Arena's documentary on the Dames of British Theatre and film featuring Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench and Joan Plowright on screen together for the first time as they reminisce over a long summer weekend in a house Joan once shared with Sir Laurence Olivier.

It's 2067, the UK is vegan, but older generations are suffering the guilt of their carnivorous past. Simon Amstell asks us to forgive them for the horrors of what they swallowed.

In 1952, as England prepares for the coronation, two very different men have one thing in common—a face.

Psychoville returns with a spooktacular hour-long Halloween special. Four tales of terror unfold as location manager Phil Walker investigates the abandoned ruins of Ravenhill Psychiatric hospital. Does the ghost of evil governess Edwina Kenchington still walk the empty corridors? What other horrors lie within these crumbling walls?

ChickLit is a comedy drama about four guys trying to save their local pub from closing down. They group write a chick lit, or more specifically a 'mummy porn' novel in the style of 'Fifty Shades of Grey' and it gets snapped up. The only snag is that the publisher insists that the young woman 'author' does press and publicity. The guys have to keep their involvement a secret and so engage an out of work actress to 'role play' the part of the author. This leads to her becoming the star in the film of the book, the tables are turned on the guys and she is in control - leaving them with the awful prospect of having to secretly churn out sex novels for the foreseeable future.

In London for his daughter's wedding, a struggling jingle-writer, Harvey Shine, misses his plane to New York, and thus loses his job. While drowning his sorrows in the airport pub, Harvey meets Kate, a British government worker stuck in an endless cycle of work, phone calls from her mother, and blind dates. A connection forms between the unhappy pair, who soon find themselves falling in love.

In this classic story of love and devotion set against the backdrop of the American Civil War, a wounded Confederate soldier named W.P. Inman deserts his unit and travels across the South, aiming to return to his young wife, Ada, who he left behind to tend their farm. As Inman makes his perilous journey home, Ada struggles to keep their home intact with the assistance of Ruby, a mysterious drifter sent to help her by a kindly neighbor.

American Daphne Reynolds heads to Europe in search of the father she's never met. But instead of finding a British version of her boho mother, she learns the love of her mom's life is an uptight politician. The only problem now is that her long-lost father is engaged to a fiercely territorial social climber with a daughter who makes Daphne's life miserable.

The story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place, all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.

In early 19th century England, orphaned Becky Sharp defies her poverty-stricken background and ascends the social ladder alongside her best friend.

In 1930s England, a group of pretentious rich and famous gather together for a weekend of relaxation at a hunting resort. But when a murder occurs, each one of these interesting characters becomes a suspect.

An unusual explorer named Gum and his kindly niece adopt three orphans -- Pauline, Petrova and Posy -- and raise them as sisters in 1930s London. But the girls must fend for themselves when Gum doesn't return from one of his adventures. Together, they nurture their passions for acting, aviation and ballet in this charming TV adaptation of Noel Streatfield's novel.

A renowned professor is forced to reassess her life when she is diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer.

Sex and love. Some seek it, some need it, some spurn it and some pay for it, but we're all involved in it. Set on one afternoon on Hampstead Heath in north-west London, the film investigates the minutiae of seven couples. What makes us tick?

As Constance (Natasha Richardson) and Nina (Toni Collette) gather at the deathbed of their mother, Ann (Vanessa Redgrave), they learn for the first time that their mother lived an entire other lifetime during one evening 50 years ago. In vivid flashbacks, the young Ann (Claire Daines) spends one night with a man named Harris (Patrick Wilson), who was the love of her life.

Mexican beauty Camilla hopes to rise above her station by marrying a wealthy American. That is complicated by meeting Arturo Bandini, a first-generation Italian hoping to land a writing career and a blue-eyed blonde on his arm.

A lively, outspoken single mother develops an unlikely friendship with a shy cartoonist.

The life of England’s George VI, who was forced to become King following the abdication of his brother, and his relationship with his wife, Elizabeth.

Urania Cabral returns to Santo Domingo, after several years, and remembers her and her family's relationship to Rafael Trujillo, the Dominican dictator, as well as the events surrounding his assassination.

A behind-the-scenes look at the making of Robert Altman's 2001 film 'Gosford Park'. Cast and crew relate some of their experiences with making the film.

Violet Moon wants to be in control of the circumstances and people in her life. Particularly her son and daughter-in-law who she discovers are considering selling the farm where she has known some of the happiest times of her life. Violet's control is not only threatened by their decision, but also by the sudden reappearance of someone from her past whom she meets at a local spiritualists club. Someone who has the potential to resurrect a long buried secret as well expose her current plot to put a stop to the sale of the farm. When Violet takes the opportunity to silence this person, she doesn't consider that enemies have friends...

A young man journeys from a difficult childhood to maturity, exploring social injustice, personal development, and the complexities of human relationships.

Iván is living in exile from Hungary when he receives word that an old flame is ill. His return to Budapest rekindles old memories and reopens old wounds.

Set in post-war England, a mysterious woman arrives at the Prettys' rural family home on the eve of young Jack's 16th birthday. Her remarkable likeness to Jack's mother, Emily, who tragically died in an accident eight years ago both baffles and unsettles the family. She even wears the same pearls that Emily wore.

An aging publisher becomes a demon wolf and, with this newfound youthful vigor, fights to keep his job.

British Ministry agent John Steed, under direction from "Mother", investigates a diabolical plot by arch-villain Sir August de Wynter to rule the world with his weather control machine. Steed investigates the beautiful Doctor Mrs. Emma Peel, the only suspect, but simultaneously falls for her and joins forces with her to combat Sir August.

Jack always lands on his feet. He lands on his feet when he marries the beautiful Sarah. He lands on his feet when he buys a luxurious new home. However, when Sarah goes into labour, he takes a tumble down the stairs and lands on his head. When he comes around he discovers he is the proud father of a baby girl, but deficient in the spouse department to the tune of 1.

In 1950s England, slow-witted Derek Bentley falls in with a group of petty criminals led by Chris Craig, a teenager with a fondness for American gangster films. Chris and Derek's friendship leads to their involvement in the true case which would forever shake England's belief in capital punishment.

In this adaptation of the satirical British novel, Flora Poste, a plucky London society girl orphaned at age 19, finds a new home with some rough relatives, the Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm. With a take-charge attitude and some encouragement from her mischievous friend, Mary, Flora changes the Starkadders' lives forever when she settles into their rustic estate, bringing the backward clan up to date and finding inspiration for her novel in the process.

When a young gay man comes out of the closet, his friends support him, but when he comes out to his parents, he stirs up a wealth of hidden feelings and secrets in their relationship.

There is a strained atmosphere in the Maitland household which has fallen on hard times.

A series of monologues.

In 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.

In a touring Shakespearean theater group, a backstage hand - the dresser - is devoted to the brilliant but tyrannical head of the company. He struggles to support the deteriorating star as the company struggles to carry on during the London Blitz. The pathos of his backstage efforts rival the pathos in the story of Lear and the Fool that is being presented on-stage, as the situation comes to a crisis.

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.

Veteran broadcaster James Marriner is persuaded to front a new big budget national family TV channel. But he begins to suspect that the channel is a front for something much more sinister and political.

Adaptation of John Osborne's autobiography about his early life, showing his much-loved but frail father and combative relationship with his mother.

In the presence of HM Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother accompanied by Their Royal Highnesses The Prince and Princess of Wales. From the stage of the Victoria Palace Theatre stars from the world of entertainment bring you comedy and music.

An adaptation for television by Trevor Griffiths of DH Lawrence's classic novel

Drama reconstructing the events of a strike by the schoolchildren of a Norfolk school in 1914, who refused to accept the dismissal of their teachers, Tom and Annie Higdon, who were both socialists.

Read by actors Michael Gough, Edward Fox, and Eileen Atkins, T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land expresses the disillusionment and disgust of the post–World War I era in Europe. In this documentary, professor Frank Kermode, biographer Peter Ackroyd, and poets Sir Stephen Spender and Craig Raine examine the complex nature of Eliot’s influential poem, analyze its appeal, and trace the reasons why it became one of the best-known emblems of the 20th century.

A psychiatrist, Martin Dysart, investigates the savage blinding of six horses with a metal spike in a stable in Hampshire, England. The atrocity was committed by an unassuming seventeen-year-old stable boy named Alan Strang, the only son of an opinionated but inwardly-timid father and a genteel, religious mother. As Dysart exposes the truths behind the boy's demons, he finds himself face-to-face with his own.

A woman gives birth to a baby, but this is no ordinary one. The child is seemingly possessed by the Devil.

A lighthouse keeper's daughter, lives her opportunist marital life, until her past lover appears in her life.

Mistaken identity, unrequited love, and the supernatural are combined in Shakespeare's classic set in the woods of Greece on a moonlit night.

In a small Russian town at the turn of the century, three sisters (Olga, Irina, and Masha) and their brother Andrei live but dream daily of their return to their former home in Moscow, where life is charming and stimulating meaningful. But for now they exist in a malaise of dissatisfaction. Soldiers from the local military post provide them some companionship and society, but nothing can suffice to replace Moscow in their hopes. Andrei marries a provincial girl, Natasha, and begins to settle into a life of much less meaning than he had hoped. Natasha begins to run the family her way. Masha, though married, yearns for the sophisticated life and begins a dalliance with Vershinin, an army officer with a sick and suicidal wife. Even Irina, the freshest, most optimistic of the sisters, begins to waver in her dreams until, finally, tragedy strikes.

While on a Pyrenees vacation in 1922, upright English gentleman Richard Chandos (Malcolm McDowell, A Clockwork Orange, Heroes) encounters the villainous Vanity Fair (Eileen Atkins, Cold Mountain). Mistress of the turreted Chateau Jezreel and leader of a motley band of criminals, she will inherit millions if she can force her stepdaughter to marry. Pitting his wits against this formidable adversary, Chandos determines to rescue the beautiful young woman. But Vanity Fair keeps one step ahead of him, a trick forever up her sleeve and murder in her heart.

In the first part, The Compartment, an insane man boards a quiet railway coach and starts to annoy a patient man trying to read a paper with incessant small talk in an increasingly menacing manner until he finally pulls out a gun and screaming class hatred bile, humiliates the man until his stop is reached. In part two, Playmates, he breaks into a lonely house and proceeds to terrorise a spinster woman who lives there.

A lawyer's agonizing journey to the breaking point of his private and professional lives as he becomes more and more alienated from everyone connected with him.

Louie, a married factory worker, has just been made redundant when he meets a girl in a park and decides to change his life.

An intense court case involving divorce proceedings is adjourned for lunch. Husband and wife then discover they are both going to be eating in the same cafeteria.