Ram John Holder

Acting

Ram John Holder

Born

1934-01-01 (92)

Place of birth

Georgetown, British Guiana

Known for

Acting

Credits

45 titles

Guyanese actor and musician, Ram John Holder started his professional life as a folk singer in New York in the early '60s before moving to the UK to work as a musician and later an actor for Pearl Connor's Negro Theatre Workshop. His big break was as the effeminate dancer Marcus in the 1969 film Two Gentlemen Sharing and he's worked in film and TV ever since, most notably as the loveable Porkpie in Channel 4 sitcom Desmond's (1989-1994) and the shortlived spin-off Porkpie

Known for

Death in Paradise poster
7.4

A brilliant but idiosyncratic British detective and his resourceful local team solve baffling murder mysteries on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie.

Death in Paradise

2011

Casualty poster
6.2

Drama 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

BBC Play of the Month poster
5.2

A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983.

BBC Play of the Month

1965

Heartbeat poster
7.1

Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.

Heartbeat

1992

ITV Playhouse poster
7.0

ITV Playhouse is a British comedy-drama TV series that ran from 1967 to 1983, which featured contributions from playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Rhys Adrian and Alan Sharp. The series began in black and white, but was later shot in colour and was produced by various companies for the ITV network, a format that would inspire Dramarama. Actors appearing in the series included Leslie Anderson, Gwen Nelson, Ricky Alleyne, Pat Heywood, Michael Elphick, Ian Hendry, Edward Woodward, Margaret Lockwood, Jessie Matthews and Lloyd Peters.

ITV Playhouse

1967

The Story of Tracy Beaker poster
6.5

Tracy Beaker is a 10-year-old girl who has been placed in a children's home. Tracy makes new friends along the way and causes mischief wherever she goes.

The Story of Tracy Beaker

2002

Film credits

2000s · 3 titles

1990s · 5 titles

1980s · 7 titles

Half Moon Street poster
5.0

Dr. Lauren Slaughter, a research fellow at the Arab-Anglo Institute in London is utterly frustrated by her job. To supplement her income, she starts moonlighting at the Jasmine Escort Service, where she has more control over men and money than she does at the office. On one of her 'dates', Lauren meets the politician Lord Bulbeck who is trying to mediate a peace accord between the Arabs and Israelis. Bulbeck falls in love with his escort, and unwittingly, Lauren becomes a pawn in some very dirty politics.

Half Moon Street

1986

My Beautiful Laundrette poster
6.7

A young Pakistani Briton manages a rundown laundrette with his lover while dealing with tension in his family, the local Pakistani community, and a persistent mob of skinheads.

My Beautiful Laundrette

1985

Britannia Hospital poster
6.2

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.

Britannia Hospital

1982

Video Stars poster
6.0

A 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

The Passion of Remembrance poster
NR

Co-directed by Blackwood and Julien, the first full-length feature film by Sankofa Film and Video offers a radical and necessary interrogation into what constitutes 'post-colonial' identity at a time of political and social restlessness in Britain. Set within an isolated desert landscape contrasted with recognizable scenes of the intensity of family life, this vanguard work demonstrates the richness and variety of the black experience; it is a poetic and hard-hitting commentary on the complexities of race, gender and sexuality.

The Passion of Remembrance

1986

Playing Away poster
6.0

To mark the conclusion of their "Third World Week" celebration, a cricket team in a small English village invites a black cricket team from South London to a charity game with comical results.

Playing Away

1987

No artwork available
NR

Based on J. M. Synge's Playboy of the Western World. Peggy Ford runs her father's rum bar in Mayaro, a quiet fishing village in Trinidad. Nothing much happens in Mayaro until a handsome young stranger appears and insists that he has just murdered his father.

Playboy of the West Indies

1985

1970s · 8 titles

Series credits

Death in Paradise poster
7.4

A brilliant but idiosyncratic British detective and his resourceful local team solve baffling murder mysteries on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie.

Death in Paradise

2011

Casualty poster
6.2

Drama 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

Casualty poster
6.2

Drama 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

BBC Play of the Month poster
5.2

A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983.

BBC Play of the Month

1965

Heartbeat poster
7.1

Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.

Heartbeat

1992

ITV Playhouse poster
7.0

ITV Playhouse is a British comedy-drama TV series that ran from 1967 to 1983, which featured contributions from playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Rhys Adrian and Alan Sharp. The series began in black and white, but was later shot in colour and was produced by various companies for the ITV network, a format that would inspire Dramarama. Actors appearing in the series included Leslie Anderson, Gwen Nelson, Ricky Alleyne, Pat Heywood, Michael Elphick, Ian Hendry, Edward Woodward, Margaret Lockwood, Jessie Matthews and Lloyd Peters.

ITV Playhouse

1967

The Story of Tracy Beaker poster
6.5

Tracy Beaker is a 10-year-old girl who has been placed in a children's home. Tracy makes new friends along the way and causes mischief wherever she goes.

The Story of Tracy Beaker

2002

Hex poster
6.5

Shy college student Cassie Hughes only wants to be accepted by others, but is only truly loved by her best friend Thelma Bates. Cassie later discovers that she possesses dangerous powers, and is being drawn into a world far beyond her control. And the man that she should fear the most manages to find a way into her heart.

Hex

2004

Desmond's poster
7.3

Desmond's was a British television situation comedy broadcast by Channel 4 from 1989 to 1994. With 71 episodes, Desmond's became Channel 4's longest-running sitcom. The first series was shot in 1988, with the first episode broadcast in January 1989. The show was made in and set in Peckham, London, England and featured a predominantly Black British Guyanese cast. Conceived and co-written by Trix Worrell, and produced by Charlie Hanson and Humphrey Barclay, this series starred Norman Beaton as barber Desmond Ambrose. Desmond's shop was a gathering place for an assortment of local characters.

Desmond's

1989

Rockliffe's Babies poster
5.8

Rockliffe's Babies is a British television police procedural devised by Richard O'Keefe, and starring Ian Hogg as maverick Detective Sergeant Alan Rockliffe, who is assigned to train seven young recruits to the CID, all fresh out of uniform. Under his irascible guidance, it is hoped that they will blossom into full-blown detectives. But Rockliffe is human – so human that he makes more mistakes than the 'Babies' he's supposed to be training. A follow-up series, Rockliffe's Folly, follows Rockliffe through his relocation to Wessex, dealing with rural crimes as part of a new team of investigators. The seven episode third series proved to be the last, with many citing a change in the programme's formula for the heavy ratings decline. Many viewers stated that the success of the two Babies series came not from Rockliffe himself, but from the popular ensemble cast.

Rockliffe's Babies

1987

No artwork available
NR

An anthology of 1920s set plays and musicals, transmissioned from 10 September to 10 December 1968 on BBC One.

The Jazz Age

1968

Beautiful People poster
6.8

Beautiful People is a British comedy drama television series based on the memoirs of Barneys creative director Simon Doonan. The series takes place in Reading, Berkshire, in 1997, where thirteen-year-old Simon Doonan and his best friend Kylie dream of escaping their dreary suburban surroundings and moving to cosmopolitan London "to live amongst the beautiful people." The first episode aired on BBC Two on 2 October 2008 and recorded overnight ratings of 1.5 million viewers and positive critical reaction. Episodes are self-contained, but do follow a loose story arc throughout the course of each series. The second and final series finished airing on 18 December 2009.

Beautiful People

2008

White Van Man poster
6.6

The incredible misadventures of two handymen on the road and the extraordinary people they meet along the way.

White Van Man

2011

Stupid! poster
7.0

King Stupid and Butler Goober control a machine causing mischief worldwide, like kids poking with "Devil Fingers" and a divorced man camping at his ex-wife's home.

Stupid!

2004

No artwork available
7.0

Porkpie was a British sitcom on Channel 4 television starring Ram John Holder as Augustus "Porkpie" Grant. It was a spinoff from Desmond's. Porkpie kept several key characters from Desmond's and in the first episode Grant was seen standing outside the barbershop Desmond used to run, saying: "Desmond, since you died it hasn't stopped raining. I know how much you used to say it can rain in England, and it's true. Must be one of two things: either a thousand angels weeping for you, or you having a good drink up in heaven and you spilling it all over the place."

Porkpie

1995

The Fear poster
5.0

The Fear is a five-part television drama produced by Thames Television subsidiary Euston Films for ITV. Broadcast from 17 February to 16 March 1988, the serial follows Carl Galton, the enterprising leader of a criminal gang running a protection racket in North London. Young and ambitious, Galton represents a new breed of criminal who seeks to expand his underworld empire and takes on the old East End firms. 1980s materialism clashes with old school London villainy as Galton rises to power, yet his ruthlessness carries a personal cost, especially on his wife Linda and best friend Marty.

The Fear

1988

No artwork available
NR

Six of Britain's top television playwrights were given the opportunity to write the plays they had always wanted to write.

Plays of Today

1969