Joan Plowright

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.

Franco Zeffirelli passed away on 15th June 2019. Chris Hunt's biography explores how Zeffirelli's sense of drama was born out of his own experience and how his life inspired his productions. Chris Hunt interviewed him and other famous actors, friends and associates, had a camera at Zeffirelli's 94th birthday and during the opening of his foundation in Florence. This documentary, including clips from operas, films and plays aims to be the definitive portrait of a Renaissance man larger than life.

An orphaned dinosaur raised by lemurs joins an arduous trek to a sancturary after a meteorite shower destroys his family home.

When The Man in the Yellow Hat befriends Curious George in the jungle, they set off on a non-stop, fun-filled journey through the wonders of the big city toward the warmth of true friendship.

Upon moving into the run-down Spiderwick Estate with their mother, twin brothers Jared and Simon Grace, along with their sister Mallory, find themselves pulled into an alternate world full of faeries and other creatures.

Uptight lawyer Peter Sanderson wants to dive back into dating after his divorce and has a hard time meeting the right women. He tries online dating and lucks out when he starts chatting with a fellow lawyer. The two agree to meet in the flesh, but the woman he meets — an escaped African-American convict named Charlene — is not what he expected. Peter is freaked out, but Charlene tries to convince him to take her case and prove her innocence. Along the way, she wreaks havoc on his middle-class life as he gets a lesson in learning to lighten up.

In 12th century England, the handsome and noble knight, George, has left the Crusades behind to follow his dream of a peaceful life on his own piece of land. However, in order to obtain his land from the ruling King Edgaar, he must help find the King's missing daughter, Princess Lunna, a quest which sees George drawn into an unexpected battle with the kingdom's last surviving dragon.

A 12-year-old boy manages to flee a Communist concentration camp on his own, through sheer will and determination. All he has in his possession is a loaf of bread, a letter to deliver to someone in Denmark, and a compass to help get him there.

Aging opera singer Maria Callas tries to make a comeback by performing in a production of Bizet's "Carmen."

A successful Wall Street trader returns to England with her new husband and five-year-old son, but their new start together turns into a nightmare when they move into a country house which contains a terrible secret.

All but abandoned by her family in a London retirement hotel, an elderly woman strikes up a curious friendship with a young writer.

A youngster living in a stately home discovers the magical garden Mary, Colin & Dickon stumbled across years before - but faces a battle with the housekeeper over whether to nurture it.

Actress JoBeth Williams directed this Showtime family feature starring The Sixth Sense's Mischa Barton for Barbra Streisand's Barwood Films. Barton is Frankie and Ingrid Uribe is Hazel, Frankie's neighbor and best friend. Frankie is an orphan who lives with her imperious grandmother, Phoebe (Joan Plowright), while Hazel lives with her father and older brother. Frankie's mother was a prima ballerina--killed in a car crash along with her father--and Frankie's been following in her toe shoes ever since. Although she's the best dancer in her class, she'd rather play baseball, whereas Hazel's a local activist who'd rather be mayor. The story strains credibility when 13-year-old Hazel runs for office against the middle-aged incumbent, but Frankie's goal is more understandable, and both actresses make their characters sympathetic and believable. It's as hard not to like them as it is not to root for them to succeed.

A rock band bursts onto the scene and then their frontman disappears on the eve of a European tour.

"Bailey's Mistake" is the name of a cold, dreary island that a bitter widow finds herself stuck on. Seems Liz Donovan got cut out of her husband's will because he'd secretly spent all his money on a New England island. Kids in tow, Liz discovers spooky secrets while getting to know the eccentric natives.

Grieving young Will Donnelly looks to protect his new best friend, a talking goose, from school Principal Congreve Maddox, who's fattening up the bird for a Christmas cook-off.

An evil, high-fashion designer plots to steal Dalmatian puppies in order to make an extravagant fur coat, but instead creates an extravagant mess.

Mr. Wilson's ever-present annoyance comes in the form of one mischievous kid named Dennis. But he'll need Dennis's tricks to uncover a collection of gold coins that go missing when a shady drifter named Switchblade Sam comes to town.

After his father's death, a young boy finds solace in action movies featuring an indestructible cop. Given a magic ticket by a theater manager, he is transported into the film and teams up with the cop to stop a villain who escapes into the real world.

Set in puritanical Boston in the mid 1600s, the story of seamstress Hester Prynne, who is outcast after she becomes pregnant by a respected reverend. She refuses to divulge the name of the father, is "convicted" of adultery and forced to wear a scarlet "A" until an Indian attack unites the Puritans and leads to a reevaluation of their laws and morals.

Young Cuban Rafael just buried his mother, and comes to Houston to meet his father John for the first time. The difficult part is that John doesn't know he is Rafael's father. John runs a dance studio, and everyone prepares for the World Open Dance championship in Las Vegas. It soon becomes clear Rafael is a very good dancer, and Ruby is the biggest hope for the studio at the championship.

Joey Boca is the owner of a pizza parlour, and has been married to Rosalie for years. When Rosalie discovers that Joey is a womanizer and has been cheating on her for a long time, she goes to extreme lengths to punish him.

After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meets the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Edward Rochester. Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?

When Tom's brother Peter gets measles, he is sent to stay with his Uncle Alan and Aunt Gwen in a flat with no garden and an elderly landlady, Mrs Bartholomew, living upstairs. Because he may be infectious, he is not allowed to play outside and feels lonely. Without exercise he is less sleepy at night and when he hears the communal grandfather clock strangely strike 13, he investigates and finds the small back yard is now a large sunlit garden.

In 1930s fascist Italy, adolescent Luca just lost his mother. His father, a callous businessman, sends him to be taken care of by British expatriate Mary Wallace. Mary and her cultured friends - including artist Arabella, young widow Elsa, and archaeologist Georgie - keep a watchful eye over the boy. But the women's cultivated lives take a dramatic turn when Allied forces declare war on Mussolini.

The passionate Merchant-Ivory drama tells the story of Francoise Gilot, the only lover of Pablo Picasso who was strong enough to withstand his ferocious cruelty and move on with her life.

A Polish-Jewish family comes to the U.S. at the beginning of the twentieth century. There, the family and their children try to make themselves a better future in the so-called promised land.

Scandal and mystery reign following the arrival of Edwina in a small Irish town populated entirely by widows. Edwina quickly falls out with the locals while also falling in with the son of the community's leader

When married British women Rose Arbuthnot and Lottie Wilkins decide to take a break from their respective spouses, they stay at a castle in Italy for a quiet holiday. Joining the ladies is Caroline Dester, a young socialite, and Mrs. Fisher, an older aristocrat. Liberated from their daily routines, the four women ease into life in rural Italy, and each finds herself transformed by the experience.

A pastry boy and the son of a hair-piece mogul become involved in an arson scandal. Sergio is offered a bribe in exchange for taking the blame for the fire that destroys his workplace. Garet, the real arsonist, is apalled that someone else would try to take credit for his act of love. Before long, Sergio and Garet become entangled in a zany love-quadrangle involving Hattie and Stephanie. Written by Brian Whiting

Eustacia Vye, an exquisite beauty despairing at her boring life on an English moor, sets up a fateful lovers' triangle when she uses her wiles to entice two men, a dashing suitor and a successful man who made his name abroad and returned to his home on the heath.

Margaret is a shy, pale, middle-class Englishwoman who is reluctantly engaged to her older, twittish neighbor Syl. Both bride- and groom-to-be still live with their mothers in the humdrum suburb of Croydon. However Margaret has been acting strangely ever since a vacation in Egypt, where she stayed with her mother's friend Marie-Claire. She secretly despises Syl, but does not resist when her mother, who has repressed the failure of her own matrimony, insists on marriage for the sake of social convention.

A single and lonely woman finds the seemingly perfect man to date, but soon regrets it when his deranged and possessive other personality emerges and worst still, she cannot convince anyone else of his Jekyll/Hyde true nature.

Baby Annie is HIV positive and has been left in the clinic by her drug addicted mother. To prevent her from being placed in a home where they'd just wait for her to die, nurse Susan takes charge of Annie at her home. Two years later, she plans to adopt her -- but suddenly Annie's mother reappears and demands her back. And under the law, Susan, as foster-mother, has no claim to the child.

The life and career of the brutal Soviet dictator, Josef Stalin. Through the eyes and memories of Anna Aliluyeva, Stalin’s granddaughter, the film traces the rise of the Bolshevik tyrant from Lenin’s return from exile to his brutal struggle with Trotsky, the creation of his feared secret police and the merciless inner workings of his regime. As Anna recounts her grandfather’s life, viewers gain an intimate, personal perspective on the paranoia and purges that left even his closest circles living in constant fear.

Fact-based story about a 90's espionage case that was chronicled as the worst case of espionage in US history

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

A domineering,reclusive, and ostentatiously pious widow in a small Spanish town keeps such close watch on her daughters that they are unable to have normal social lives. However, the eldest is allowed to become engaged to an unprincipled young man, primarily for the financial advantages it will bring the mother, Bernarda. Jealousy and envy ensues among the other daughters.

In the 1950s, the Ween family live and work on land that was promised to their family. The landowners, the Appletree family, use the promise of the land to keep the family working for them, putting the transfer of the land in doubt.

Meg, Pippa, and Hillary are sisters who grew up in Sorrento, a small seaside town in Australia. Meg, who has lived in England for 10 years has just written a criticially acclaimed novel which she claims is entirely fictional. The book causes a stir in Sorrento and in her family when it is supected that the book is not as fictional as she claims.

Cissie Colpitts drowns her cheating husband and, in the ensuing cover-up, enlists the help of lonely coroner Henry Madgett, an old friend with a longstanding weakness for her charms. But when Cissie's daughter and granddaughter—both also named Cissie Colpitts—decide to resort to the same methods for solving conflicts with their own frustrating husbands, the women and their repeated appeals for help begin to wear on Madgett's conscience.

New York trapper Tom Dobb becomes an unwilling participant in the American Revolution after his son Ned is drafted into the Army by the villainous Sergeant Major Peasy. Tom attempts to find his son, and eventually becomes convinced that he must take a stand and fight for the freedom of the Colonies, alongside the aristocratic rebel Daisy McConnahay. As Tom undergoes his change of heart, the events of the war unfold in large-scale grandeur.

Britannia Hospital, an esteemed English institution, is marking its gala anniversary with a visit by the Queen Mother herself. But when investigative reporter Mick Travis arrives to cover the celebration, he finds the hospital under siege by striking workers, ruthless unions, violent demonstrators, racist aristocrats, an African cannibal dictator, and sinister human experiments.

A mysterious stranger inserts himself into a troubled family's life, blurring the lines between good and evil as he cares for their disabled daughter.

The story of a 13-year-old Jewish girl and her family who are forced into hiding by the Nazis during World War II.

In England during World War II, a repressed dressmaker and her sister struggle looking after their 17-year-old niece, who is having a delusional affair with an American soldier.

Set in working class Newcastle, the Stott family fight their private battles against the backdrop of the conflict of World War II. Helen Stott, over thirty and with a limp, is resigned to being left on the shelf until she meets and falls in love with Norman, a serviceman from London. In contrast, her younger sister Joyce has quite a way with men, and finds herself a little too popular with the troops, especially when her husband pops up on leave from his regiment.

A multi-award winning biography covering the life and career of legendary screen and stage actor/director Laurence Olivier.

Two young gentlemen living in 1890s England use the same pseudonym ('Ernest') on the sly, which is fine until they both fall in love with women using that name, which leads to a comedy of mistaken identities.

Edith is a hotel waitress, single and in her mid-forties, with a major infatuation on Maurice Silcox, the hotel's head waiter. But Edith becomes distraught when she learns that Maurice has been offered a more prestigious job at a luxury hotel. Maurice explains to Edith that he can only take the position if he is married. Unaware Edith's crush, Maurice proposes. She accepts and they set up a household for business purposes only -- complete with a photograph of a make-believe son. As Edith continues to live with this charade, her obsession with Maurice and the "son" grows, leading to a shocking and disturbing outcome!

It is Stanley's birthday, but the party he is given is not quite what he expects. [A BBC production broadcast on the Theatre Night series.]

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 young man becomes infatuated with the exotic Lady Pitts whose much older husband is not pleased.

Sir Alec Guinness, Sir Ralph Richardson and Joan Plowright star in this merry on-stage mix-up of identity, gender and love in Tony Award-winner John Dexter’s production of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Originally broadcast on Britain’s ITV, this classic performance captures all the slapstick, puns and double entendres that have amazed and amused audiences for over four hundred years.

An Edwardian take on the Shakespeare play starring Laurence Olivier.

Nearly a thousand miles away from their beloved Moscow, Chekhov's Three Sisters live in virtual exile. Olga , a schoolmistress, attempts to support her siblings and the home that is the sole legacy of their late father.

Adaptation of Chekhov's play from the Chichester Festival.

Archie Rice, an old-time British vaudeville performer sinking into final defeat, schemes to stay in show business.

Alec Graham is sentenced to death for the murder of his girlfriend Jennie, with whom he spent a weekend at the English country home of the parents of his friend Brian Stanford. Alec’s father, David Graham, a not-so-successful writer and alcoholic who has neglected his son in the past, flies in from Canada to visit his son on death row. David then goes on a quest to try and clear his son’s name while battling “the bottle.”

A meta-theatrical adaptation of Moby-Dick in which a rehearsal evolves into a full performance, as actors are absorbed into the roles of Ishmael, Starbuck, and Ahab in a stripped-down, imagination-driven staging. Filmed by Orson Welles in 1955, the footage remains unreleased and is considered lost.