Maria Aitken

Acting

Maria Aitken

Born

1945-09-12 (81)

Place of birth

Dublin, Ireland

Known for

Acting

Credits

35 titles

Aitken was born in Dublin, Ireland, the daughter of Sir William Aitken, a Conservative MP, and Penelope Aitken, whose father was John Maffey, 1st Baron Rugby. Her grandfather was the UK Representative to Ireland (1939–49). She is a great-niece of newspaper magnate and war-time minister Lord Beaverbrook, and sister to former Conservative cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken. She attended Riddlesworth Hall Preparatory School in Norfolk, Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset and St Anne's College, Oxford, where she graduated with a degree in English Language and Literature. She has directed several plays in the West End and on Broadway. Her production of The 39 Steps, which ran in London for nine y…

Known for

Crown Court poster
5.7

Crown Court is an afternoon television courtroom drama produced by Granada Television for the ITV network that ran from 1972, when the Crown Court system replaced Assize courts and Quarter sessions in the legal system of England and Wales, to 1984.

Crown Court

1972

Wogan poster
5.6

Chat show hosted by Terry Wogan, featuring live studio interviews with famous and notable personalities.

Wogan

1982

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

No artwork available
5.1

The BBC's flagship cinema review TV program featuring reviews of new releases, news items and interviews. The title of the program changes each year to incorporate the year of broadcast.

Film '72

1971

A Fish Called Wanda poster
7.2

While a diamond advocate attempts to steal a collection of diamonds, troubles arise when he realises he’s not the only one after the collection.

A Fish Called Wanda

1988

Justice poster
7.3

Justice is a British drama television series which originally aired on ITV in 39 hour-long episodes between 8 August 1971 and 16 October 1974. Margaret Lockwood stars as Harriet Peterson a female barrister in the North of England. It was made by Yorkshire Television and was based loosely on Justice Is a Woman, an episode of ITV Playhouse broadcast in 1969 in which Lockwood had previously also played a barrister. The theme music was Crown Imperial by William Walton.

Justice

1971

Film credits

1990s · 5 titles

Fierce Creatures poster
6.2

Ex-policeman Rollo Lee is sent to run Marwood Zoo, the newly acquired business of a New Zealand tycoon. In order to meet high profit targets and keep the zoo open, Rollo enforces a new 'fierce creatures' policy, whereby only the most impressive and dangerous animals are allowed to remain in the zoo. However, the keepers are less enthusiastic about complying with these demands.

Fierce Creatures

1997

The Grotesque poster
5.4

Sir Hugo is more interested in reconstructing dinosaur bones than in paying attention to his wife, Lady Harriet. He's not thrilled when daughter Cleo brings home her betrothed, Sidney, who aspires to be a poet. The new butler, Fledge, provides Lady Harriet with the attention she's been missing and then seduces Sidney. Did he have a role in Sidney's disappearance as well?

The Grotesque

1995

Jinnah poster
6.9

Biography of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of modern Pakistan is told through flashbacks as his soul tries to find eternal rest. The flashbacks start in 1947 as Jinnah pleads for a separate nation for the Muslim minority, infuriating Lord Mountbatten. Mountbatten then tries to enlist Gandhi & Nehru to persuade Jinnah to stop his efforts. Gandhi sides with Jinnah, which upsets Nehru. However, Jinnah turns down the offer to become prime minister and the film takes another slide back to 1916, which reveals all of the political implications that have occurred.

Jinnah

1998

No artwork available
8.0

A costume drama / satire about financial skull-duggery, and confidence tricksters in both the upper and lower classes in Victorian London. A working class man impersonates a lord who is supposedly very rich and a financial wizard. As such he is invited to all the best peoples' parties.

The Fool

1990

Dare To Dream: The Making of Jinnah poster
7.0

A documentary on the making of the film Jinnah (1998), and the trials and tribulations faced by a British production team.

Dare To Dream: The Making of Jinnah

1998

1980s · 3 titles

1970s · 5 titles

1960s · 2 titles

Series credits

Crown Court poster
5.7

Crown Court is an afternoon television courtroom drama produced by Granada Television for the ITV network that ran from 1972, when the Crown Court system replaced Assize courts and Quarter sessions in the legal system of England and Wales, to 1984.

Crown Court

1972

Crown Court poster
5.7

Crown Court is an afternoon television courtroom drama produced by Granada Television for the ITV network that ran from 1972, when the Crown Court system replaced Assize courts and Quarter sessions in the legal system of England and Wales, to 1984.

Crown Court

1972

Wogan poster
5.6

Chat show hosted by Terry Wogan, featuring live studio interviews with famous and notable personalities.

Wogan

1982

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

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

No artwork available
5.1

The BBC's flagship cinema review TV program featuring reviews of new releases, news items and interviews. The title of the program changes each year to incorporate the year of broadcast.

Film '72

1971

Justice poster
7.3

Justice is a British drama television series which originally aired on ITV in 39 hour-long episodes between 8 August 1971 and 16 October 1974. Margaret Lockwood stars as Harriet Peterson a female barrister in the North of England. It was made by Yorkshire Television and was based loosely on Justice Is a Woman, an episode of ITV Playhouse broadcast in 1969 in which Lockwood had previously also played a barrister. The theme music was Crown Imperial by William Walton.

Justice

1971

Manhunt poster
6.8

Manhunt is a World War II drama series consisting of 26 episodes, produced by London Weekend Television in 1969 and broadcast nationwide.

Manhunt

1970

The Edwardians poster
6.2

The Edwardians is an eight-part miniseries broadcast in 1972–73. An anthology, each 90-minute episode explores influential figure(s) of the Edwardian era: Charles Rolls and Henry Royce; Horatio Bottomley; E. Nesbit; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Robert Baden-Powell; Marie Lloyd; Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick; and David Lloyd George.

The Edwardians

1972

No artwork available
8.0

Codename, which premiered in April 1970, was about the secretive MI17 Spy Organisation of the same name based in the residential hall of a Cambridge College. Eventually the series attained a more international flavour, although its base was always in Great Britain. Primarily Codename dealt with the themes of espionage and counter-espionage at the time of the Cold War of the sixties. Its cast contained many of Great Britain's most versatile and talented actors.

Codename

1970

The Regiment poster
4.5

The Regiment is a 1972 BBC One television drama series starring Christopher Cazenove and follows the story of a British Army regiment from the view of two families.

The Regiment

1972

Counterstrike poster
7.0

Simon King, an alien agent from the Inter Galactic Council, is sent to Earth on a mission to stop unscrupulous refugees from a dying planet from wiping out Mankind and taking over the planet Earth.

Counterstrike

1969

No artwork available
NR

Television adaptations of six books by well-known romantic novelists.

Romance

1977

Love on a Branch Line poster
5.2

Refined civil servant Jasper Pye is sent to the rural Suffolk–Norfolk border to close the Office of Output Statistics, which has outlived its usefulness. Instead, he's seduced by the small idyllic world he discovers, making his task far more difficult than he'd imagined. He soon finds himself entangled with the local aristocrat's three beautiful daughters.

Love on a Branch Line

1994

Scotch on the Rocks poster
NR

Two undercover army operatives infiltrate an activist group working towards an independent Scotland by illegal means.

Scotch on the Rocks

1973

Jemima Shore Investigates poster
8.0

Patricia Hodge stars as the investigative journalist, TV presenter, writer and amateur sleuth Jemima Shore . This enormously popular series based on the novels by Antonia Fraser - also features appearances by Tom Baker, Don Henderson, Bill Nighy, Brian Cox and Lysette Anthony. Poised, determined, and possessed of a sharp intellect and a keen eye, Jemima presents Megalith Television s Jemima Shore Investigates . But in her spare time, she uses her connections to pursue her own investigations and her relentlessly inquiring mind uncovers crime and intrigue of every variety, particularly within the world of the wealthy and the privileged...

Jemima Shore Investigates

1978

Poor Little Rich Girls poster
7.5

A sitcom portraying the lives of two financially-struggling cousins who attempt to rebuild their lives, following the loss of their husbands from divorce and widowhood.

Poor Little Rich Girls

1984

No artwork available
NR

Sister and brother Samantha and Simon Company open a night club, sing their own songs and find themselves solving problems and mysteries for their customers.

Company and Co

1980

Behind the camera