
Acting
Brian Pettifer
Born
1953-01-01 (73)
Place of birth
Durban, Natal, South Africa
Known for
Acting
Credits
83 titles
Brian Pettifer (born January 1, 1953) is a South African actor who has appeared in many television shows, and also on stage and in film. He is the younger brother of folk musician Linda Thompson. He intended to become a photographer, but pursued a career as an actor. He appeared as a child in the BBC's This Man Craig and Dr Finlay's Casebook, and Madame Bovary (with his friend Alex Norton) which gave him an avid interest in acting on television. His first film role was in Lindsay Anderson's film if.... (1968). He also appeared in Anderson's O Lucky Man! (1973) and Britannia Hospital (1982) playing the same character in all three Anderson films, that of Biles. His other film credits include…
Known for
8.2The story of Claire Randall, a married combat nurse from 1945 who is mysteriously swept back in time to 1743, where she is immediately thrown into an unknown world where her life is threatened. When she is forced to marry Jamie, a chivalrous and romantic young Scottish warrior, a passionate affair is ignited that tears Claire's heart between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.
Outlander
2014
8.3Twisted tales run wild in this mind-bending anthology series that reveals humanity's worst traits, greatest innovations and more.
Black Mirror
2011
6.6Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.
Play for Today
1970
7.1Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.
Heartbeat
1992
7.2Unencumbered by wives, jobs or any other responsibilities, three senior citizens who've never really grown up explore their world in the Yorkshire Dales. They spend their days speculating about their fellow townsfolk and thinking up adventures not usually favored by the elderly. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse in 1973. The show ran for 295 episodes until 2010. It is the longest running comedy Britain has produced and the longest running sitcom in the world.
Last of the Summer Wine
1973
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
Film credits
2020s · 3 titles
6.5Widower Tom, on the recent passing of his wife Mary, uses his free bus pass to travel the length of Britain from John O'Groats in Caithness to Land's End in Cornwall, their shared birthplace, using only local buses. It's an incident-fuelled nostalgia trip and his encounters with local people make him a media phenomenon. Tom is totally unaware and to his surprise on arrival at Land’s End he’s greeted as a celebrity.
The Last Bus
2021
5.6A Chicago detective travels to Scotland after an emerging serial killer’s crimes match those that he investigated five years earlier, one of which was the crime scene of his murdered girlfriend.
Damaged
2024
When a Palestinian woman claims asylum in the UK, she faces the indifference of British bureaucracy and the disillusionment of an asylum officer on the verge of leaving the country for good.
Go Home
2021
2010s · 8 titles
7.4In May 1940, the fate of World War II hangs on Winston Churchill, who must decide whether to negotiate with Adolf Hitler or fight on knowing that it could mean the end of the British Empire.
Darkest Hour
2017
6.1Barney Thomson, awkward, diffident, Glasgow barber, lives a life of desperate mediocrity and his uninteresting life is about to go from 0 to 60 in five seconds, as he enters the grotesque and comically absurd world of the serial killer.
The Legend of Barney Thomson
2015
5.9The story of the inhabitants of the isolated Scottish island of Todday, in the Outer Hebrides, where gloom sets in as their wartime rationing of whisky runs out. When cargo ship the SS Cabinet Minister runs aground the shrewd islanders run rings around the buffoonish English Home Guard commander Captain Waggett and conspire to hide away cases of the precious amber nectar.
Whisky Galore
2016
6.1It is 1918 and the end of WWI. Millions have died, and the world is exhausted by war. But soon a new horror is sweeping the world, a terrifying virus that will kill more than fifty million people - the Spanish flu. Using dramatic reconstruction and eyewitness testimony from doctors, soldiers, civilians and politicians, this one-off special brings to life the onslaught of the disease, the horrors of those who lived through it and the efforts of the pioneering scientists desperately looking for the cure. Narrated by Christopher Eccleston, the film also asks whether, a century later, the lessons learnt in 1918 might help us fight a future global flu pandemic.
The Flu That Killed 50 Million
2018
6.2An anarchic, hip-hop inspired comedy that follows four city boys on a wilderness trek as they try to escape a mysterious huntsman.
Get Duked!
2019
5.7Reveals how the home life of the larger-than-life Carry On actress Hattie Jacque was blown apart by a secret sexual liaison with her handsome young driver while she was married to Dad's Army star John Le Mesurier.
Hattie
2011
NRChris Wade's documentary film is a personal, intimate and affectionate look at the life and work of Lindsay Anderson, the legendary film and theatre director behind if. - and O Lucky Man. With new recollections from director Stephen Frears, if - star David Wood, plus actor and friend Brian Pettifer, Memories of Lindsay Anderson paints a portrait of a stubborn, self assured artist, an anti establishment non conformist who refused to play the game, and a private man who, though on the surface seemed confident, held his emotional cards close to his chest. This is an in depth study of one of our most brilliant yet undervalued filmmakers.
Memories of Lindsay Anderson
2019
6.0Alfred is 64. He's lost touch with his family and a threat to his health makes him realise he wants to make amends. The more he tries to do right, the more he does wrong, and as his past comes back to haunt him, he is forced to face up to what his life means to him. Rounding Up Donkeys is the second film in Sigma and Zentropa's three feature film concept 'Advance Party'.
Donkeys
2010
2000s · 12 titles
7.3At the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942, senior Nazi officials meet to determine the manner in which the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" can be best implemented.
Conspiracy
2001
5.8In early 19th century England, orphaned Becky Sharp defies her poverty-stricken background and ascends the social ladder alongside her best friend.
Vanity Fair
2004
6.4A family in financial crisis is forced to sell Lassie, their beloved dog. Hundreds of miles away from her true family, Lassie escapes and sets out on a journey home.
Lassie
2005
6.3In early 20th century New York City, an impoverished socialite desperately seeks a suitable husband as she gradually finds herself betrayed by her friends and exiled from high society.
The House of Mirth
2000
5.5Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde is Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale of horror, the duality of mankind and the darker side of late Victorian society. Dr Henry Jekyll (John Hannah), a great scientist, handsome, and renowned throughout the scientific community, is developing a formula that will revolutionise human nature by isolating criminal elements. He experiments on himself and intoxicated by the drug he undergoes a monstrous transformation. He is released from conventions of the social order and his own moral code into euphoric, remorseless wickedness - the villainous Mr Hyde. What follows is the gripping and terrifying stuggle of two opposing personalities battling for the soul of one man...
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
2003
5.4Switch off and enjoy the beautiful scenery of Scotland. Based on fact, this film will take you on a journey of love amidst spectacular scenery. The Rocket Post will give a convincing portrayal of island life, beliefs and culture of the time A definite for those who have even the tiniest drop of Scottish blood..... as it will tug at the heart strings and stir the soul. Something that can be shared with the family and watched time and time again..................a real classic, one that I am sure will walk alongside some of the great films that never die.
The Rocket Post
2004
6.6What led Arthur Conan Doyle to create, and then destroy the world famous detective, Sherlock Holmes? This compelling drama explores the dark secrets that surround the author and his creation.
The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes & Arthur Conan Doyle
2005
Biographical documentary on director Lindsay Anderson, featuring interviews with friends, family, and colleages.
Lindsay Anderson: Lucky Man?
2004
8.0The story of three generations told against the backdrop of the 20th century. The drama focuses on the life of Mary Corrigan, from her days as a rebellious mill worker in 1915 and her doomed love affair for a man who must fight for his country, through to her final days in the run up to the British General Election of 1997.
The Key
2003
3.5A wife nursing her terminally ill husband finds herself falling for his friend.
A Risk Worth Taking
2008
5.8A group of slackers think they have found gold in the Highlands.
One Last Chance
2004
6.5In 1794, French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre produced the world's first defense of "state terror" - claiming that the road to virtue lay through political violence. This film combines drama, archive and documentary interviews to examine Robespierre's year in charge of the Committee Of Public Safety - the powerful state machine at the heart of Revolutionary France. Contesting Robespierre's legacy is Slavoj Zizek, who argues that terror in the cause of virtue is justifiable, and Simon Schama, who believes the road from Robespierre ran straight to the gulag and the 20th-century concentration camp. The drama, based on original sources, follows the life-and-death politics of the Committee during "Year Two" of the new Republic.
Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution
2009
1990s · 8 titles
6.4In 1429, a French teenager stood before her King with a message she claimed came from God; that she would defeat the world's greatest army and liberate her country from its political and religious turmoil. As she reclaims God's diminished kingdom, this courageous young woman has various amazing victories until her violent and untimely death.
The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc
1999
5.7Dr. Dempsey, an American scientist, is sent to Scotland to disprove the existence of the Loch Ness Monster. He is shocked when Laura, an inn-keeper, introduces him to a small family of Nessie-dinosaurs.
Loch Ness
1996
7.1Out of work actor Joe volunteers to help try and save his sister's local church for the community by putting on a Christmas production of Hamlet, somewhat against the advice of his agent Margaretta. As the cast he assembles are still available even at Christmas and are prepared to do it on a 'profit sharing' basis (that is, they may not get paid anything) he cannot expect - and does not get - the cream of the cream. But although they all bring their own problems and foibles along, something bigger starts to emerge in the perhaps aptly named village of Hope.
In the Bleak Midwinter
1995
6.0After an audacious jewellery robbery the whole James family heads for home on the run with the obsessive detective Julia Armstrong in hot pursuit.
The James Gang
1997
5.4Based on the life of a classic french cineast Jean Vigo, the story follows his daily struggle with sanity, normal life and uncompromising filmmaking. Story also focuses on his relationship with his supporting wife whom he met in sanatorium.
Vigo
1998
8.0Award winning director Lindsay Anderson subverts the mockumentary genre and presents to the audience a detailed and humored account of what truly means to be Lindsay Anderson.
Is That All There Is?
1992
7.2A curtain raiser for the 1995-6 football season and a state of the Premiership comedy drama about the corrupt world of football. Sir Bob is a football club chairman and megalomaniac. As the season draws to a climax his club are staring into the abyss of relegation. Can new manager Ted save City from the drop?
Eleven Men Against Eleven
1995
Lenny has some perplexing dreams.
In Dreams
1992
1980s · 10 titles
8.0Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Salzburger composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Amadeus
1984
7.5Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.
A Christmas Carol
1984
NRFor Govan resident Rab C. Nesbitt, there’s little magic in Christmas when there’s no money to spare. While his long-suffering wife Mary and teenage sons Burney and Gash throw themselves into the festive spirit, Rab remains stubbornly cynical, delivering his usual caustic observations to camera about the commercial excesses of the season. The final insult comes when he discovers that his neighbour and best friend, Jamesie Cotter, has taken a job as a department-store Santa. A confrontation follows, landing Rab in gaol. Although he manages to make it home in time for Christmas, the atmosphere is so miserable that he decides he’d rather spend the holiday back inside.
Rab C. Nesbitt: Seasonal Greet
1988
6.2Britannia 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
5.5Allied prisoners tunnel out of a stalag, then return to avenge fellow escapees executed by the Nazis.
The Great Escape II: The Untold Story
1988
6.4Amy Dorrit spends her days earning money for the family and looking after her proud father who is a long term inmate of Marshalsea debtors' prison in London. Amy and her family's world is transformed when her employer's son, Arthur Clennam, returns from overseas to solve his family's mysterious legacy and discovers that their lives are interlinked.
Little Dorrit
1987
5.4Mickey Almon is a sports star turned reporter covering the athletics in Moscow. Framed by the KGB and forced to confess that he was spying for America, he is sentenced to detention in a Gulag, a barbaric prison camp in the wilds of Siberia. Unable to prove his innocence, Mickey must either put up with the inhuman conditions or engineer an escape.
Gulag
1985
7.2Vic Mathews teaches a remedial class at the Blessed Edith Semple School in Scotland. Some at the school are trying to discover the two more miracles that would promote the late Edith Semple to sainthood; Mathews, a non-believer, wishes the school would concentrate on teaching the children. He becomes confused, however, when he is involved in possibly miraculous events himself! Written by George S. Davis
Heavenly Pursuits
1986
7.0Young, handsome and alone in London at the start of a great career. But will Sunil's luck hold out against the seductions of pretty girls, the wiles of con-men and a hundred temptations of the great city?
Lucky Sunil
1988
NRA lone survivor in post-apocalyptic Scotland desperately seeks company.
Happy the Man
1986
1970s · 6 titles
9.0The 1972 BBC adaptation of Ibsen’s epic dramatic fantasy about a man in search of his soul.
Peer Gynt
1972
7.0A school story with a noticeable difference – the adults regress to children.
The Right Prospectus
1970
Follows a PE teacher, whose attempt to impress the need for self-control on his pupils verges on the sadistic.
Is That Your Body, Boy
1970
NRWhat was it like to go to school 100 years ago?
Let There Be Light
1970
Albert has to chose between his wife Ursula and Molly, the cook in his factory. One empties his wallet regularly, the other other feeds him heartily.
Warm Feet, Warm Heart
1970
When Alison unexpectedly falls pregnant after a brief encounter with Alex (David Hayman's first TV role) they decide to marry. The joining of two seemingly different families opens into a witty and audacious tale, which caused uproar after its first broadcast in 1972. An early triumph for Peter McDougall, when it was proclaimed the most exciting writing debut since John Osborne's Look Back in Anger.
Just Your Luck
1972
Series credits
8.2The story of Claire Randall, a married combat nurse from 1945 who is mysteriously swept back in time to 1743, where she is immediately thrown into an unknown world where her life is threatened. When she is forced to marry Jamie, a chivalrous and romantic young Scottish warrior, a passionate affair is ignited that tears Claire's heart between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.
Outlander
2014
8.3Twisted tales run wild in this mind-bending anthology series that reveals humanity's worst traits, greatest innovations and more.
Black Mirror
2011
6.6Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.
Play for Today
1970
7.1Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.
Heartbeat
1992
7.2Unencumbered by wives, jobs or any other responsibilities, three senior citizens who've never really grown up explore their world in the Yorkshire Dales. They spend their days speculating about their fellow townsfolk and thinking up adventures not usually favored by the elderly. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse in 1973. The show ran for 295 episodes until 2010. It is the longest running comedy Britain has produced and the longest running sitcom in the world.
Last of the Summer Wine
1973
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
8.1The early days of a young Endeavour Morse, whose experiences as a detective constable with the Oxford City Police will ultimately shape his future.
Endeavour
2013
7.7A motley group of London con artists pull of a series of daring and intricate stings.
Hustle
2004
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
6.8Brighton based Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is a hard-working police officer who has given his life to the job, but his career is currently at rock bottom. He’s fixated by the disappearance of his beloved wife, Sandy, and running enquiries into long forgotten cold cases with little prospect of success. Following another reprimand for his unorthodox police methods, Grace is walking a career tightrope and risks being moved from the job he loves most.
Grace
2021
7.0Anthology series of dramatic works.
ITV Saturday Night Theatre
1969
7.3Archie MacDonald, a young restaurateur is called back to his childhood home of Glenbogle where he is told he is the new Laird of Glenbogle.
Monarch of the Glen
2000
7.4The adventures of the eponymous Lovejoy, a likeable but roguish antiques dealer based in East Anglia. Within the trade, he has a reputation as a “divvie”, a person with an almost supernatural powers for recognising exceptional items as well as distinguishing genuine antique from clever fakes or forgeries.
Lovejoy
1986
7.0Follow the swashbuckling exploits of Simon Templar, a modern-day Robin Hood of sorts.
Return of the Saint
1978
7.7Hamish Macbeth is a comedy-drama series made by BBC Scotland and first aired in 1995. It is loosely based on a series of mystery novels by M. C. Beaton. The series concerns a local police officer, Constable Hamish Macbeth in the fictitious town of Lochdubh on the west coast of Scotland. The titular character was played by Robert Carlyle. It ran for three series from 1995 to 1997, with the first two series having six episodes and the third having eight.
Hamish Macbeth
1995
7.7The true tale of pioneering 18th century barrister William Garrow, who acted as counsel for the accused, introducing the concept of 'innocent until proved guilty' at London's Old Bailey.
Garrow's Law
2009
7.4With magic long since lost to England, two men are destined to bring it back; the reclusive Mr. Norrell and daring novice Jonathan Strange. So begins a dangerous battle between two great minds.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
2015
NRIn the fictional Scottish Highlands town of Glenntannoch, Dr Gordon Urquhart leads a mountain rescue team, whose major missions and incidents are based on real life ones conducted by the Lochaber Mountain Rescue service.
Rockface
2002
This Man Craig was a TV drama series produced by BBC Scotland and screened over 52 episodes in 1966 and 1967. It was set in a secondary school in the fictional Scottish town of Strathaird. Episodes were filmed at Glasgow’s Bellahouston Academy and Glenwood School. The series dealt with the everyday issues affecting both staff and pupils at Strathaird School, and in particular the titular character, idealistic science teacher and housemaster Ian Craig. The first series was shown over 26 episodes between January 7 1966 and July 1 1966. The second series was shown over 26 episodes between September 17 1966 and March 21 1967. Only one episode is known to be still in existence in the BBC archives. The opening sequence showed him driving over the Forth Road Bridge, which at the time was newly built and a Scottish cultural icon.
This Man Craig
1966
7.5Adaptation of the classic novel by Henry Fielding chronicling the life, loves and adventures of the charming Tom.
The History of Tom Jones: A Foundling
1997
7.5Follows the linked fates of nine bank robbers, led by George. It begins with the nine men meeting in prison during their appeal and traces each individual after the group escape from custody.
Villains
1972
6.0Clayhanger is a British television drama based on Arnold Bennett's novel series of the same name, published between 1910 and 1918, dramatised by Douglas Livingstone for ITV. Produced by Associated Television, the 26-episode programme is a coming-of-age story set in 19th century England. Edwin Clayhanger aspires to be an architect but is expected to join his father's printing business. His personal growth, eventual acceptance of the family business, and his romantic entanglement with Hilda Lessways are explored. Clayhanger was ITV's longest-ever drama at the time. While some found the pacing slow, it was nonetheless praised for its faithful adaptation, excellent acting, and atmospheric sets.
Clayhanger
1976
6.1From Nobel Laureate William Golding's (Lord of the Flies) epic sea-voyage trilogy comes the story of an ambitious British aristocrat, humbled by the lives of his fellow passengers, as he embarks on an ocean voyage for Australia where he is to be an official in the colonial government.
To the Ends of the Earth
2005
NRLife Support is a 1999 British medical drama series aired across six episodes on BBC Scotland. Katherine Doone works as a clinical ethicist at Glasgow's Caledonian hospital. Her job is to make the big decisions about what's best for the patient's long-term treatment.
Life Support
1999
NRAn anthology of six plays, contemporary twists on well-loved tales with dark endings.
Bedtime Stories
1974
6.8Get Some In! is a British comedy series set in the 1950's that focused on the Royal Air Force National Service. The show was broadcast between 1975 and 1978 by Thames Television. Scripts were by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, the team behind the BBC TV sitcom The Good Life. The programme drew its inspiration from late 1950s/early 1960s National Service situation-comedy The Army Game, and from nostalgic BBC TV sitcom Dad's Army, but the RAF setting gave it enough originality not to seem formulaic. Thirty-four half-hour episodes were made. The series has never been repeated in full on terrestrial TV, although the UKTV Gold cable channel has aired the episodes uncut.
Get Some In!
1975
7.2Hapless bank clerk Willie Melvin dreams of being a successful writer but is held back by his own incompetence, the dodgy dealings of his best friend Chancer, and lack of support from his mother, the bank's manager Adam McLelland and his obsequious fellow teller, Brian.
City Lights
1986
6.3Adaptation of Denise Mina's thriller set in 1982. When the story of a murder has huge implications for her family, newspaper copy boy Paddy Meehan battles prejudices to get to the truth. As she inches closer to revealing the truth, her investigations place her in mortal danger.
The Field of Blood
2011
A young man on a council estate becomes suspicious of his mother's employer and, with help from a friend and an Inland Revenue investigator, starts a tax fraud investigation, using the nickname 'Ghostbusters' ror their undercover work.
The Ghostbusters of East Finchley
1995
6.0Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series of single plays that ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation, and later by Thames Television from mid-1968.
Armchair Theatre
1956
7.5Farrington of the F.O. is a British sitcom created and written by Dick Sharples, broadcast on ITV from 1986 to 1987. The two series programme focuses on the chaotic life of a British consulate in a fictional Latin American country, described as 'one of the armpits of Latin America', led by the new Consul-General, Harriet Farrington.
Farrington of the F.O.
1986
6.5In the western isles of 1930s Scotland, Peter 'Para Handy' MacFarlane, captain of the puffer Vital Spark, treks around the coastal waters of west Scotland and variously schemes himself and his crew into mischief.
The Vital Spark
1965
Turning Year Tales is a British television drama anthology series produced by the BBC, which originally premiered in the United Kingdom on June 24, 1979. The show consisted of a single season with seven distinct episodes, blending localized stories with British cultural and historical settings.
Turning Year Tales
1979
NRDramatisation of the second part of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's 'Scots Quair' trilogy, in which Chris is now married to the minister of a small industrial town.
Cloud Howe
1982
Snoddy was a Scottish television sitcom that aired for only six episodes in 2002. It starred Gregor Fisher from the recently finished Rab C Nesbitt. It was not particularly successful and was never aired outside of Scotland.
Snoddy
2002

