Latest reviews

When teenager Abigail throws a party for her friends, her next-door neighbour, Beverly Moss, does likewise for the adults. But Beverly is the hostess from hell.

Early British television series fronted by Richard Dimbleby who, with an outside film camera crew, would visit some of the more interesting and unusual parts of the capitol city and the people around them. For the first time the TV cameras could introduce viewers to London's life, customs and traditions.

A series of 12 unconnected half-hour sitcoms, all written by different writers, created as a starring vehicle for Maureen Lipman

Developed from a sketch in the TV series French and Saunders in which Saunders played a baseball capped parent berated by her prim and proper daughter (French), the pilot episode was greeted by one TV executive with the comment, "I don't think women being drunk is funny."

Absolutely drew together a new breed of relatively unknown (mainly Scottish) comics and pretty much gave them free licence to create a collection of surreal and silly sketches and songs.

When Alun Owen's play 'After the Funeral' was read by Sydney Newman, head of drama for ABC Television, and William Kotcheff, the television director, they were so taken by his conception of Wales and the Welsh, they decided to see for themselves.

Although slammed by the critics The Abbott and Costello Show became a firm favourite with the viewing audience as the comic twosome brought to the small screen the same brand of slapstick humour that had pulled in theatre patrons for years.

The brainchild of Patrick Dowling and devised with the help of Ian Oliver, The Adventure Game was inspired by the early text-based computer game of Dungeons and Dragons and had elements of Douglas Adams' radio comedy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The publicity for this ITC show read "travel the world with The Adventurer, in a series of vital, new and dynamic situations in which every turn brings the zing of danger, drama and originality". Most viewers ended up wishing the hero of this particular television outing had stayed at home.

Sitcom following the adventures of a retired Army Brigadier, Garnet Wellington-Bull, a widowed career soldier who, now retired, is trying to come to terms with life on civvy street but not finding it very easy.

Cervantes in space: Don Quick (Ian Hendry), astronaut, is the anti-hero of this science fiction satire.

The Adventures of Hiram Holliday appeared on British television screens in 1960, three years after it had been cancelled by the US network NBC.

Australian series filmed in colour but only available to the UK viewing public of 1957 in black and white, The Adventures of Long John Silver was based very loosely on Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 novel Treasure Island.

Portland Bill is the keeper of the Trinity House lighthouse, on Guillermot Rock in a children's stop-motion animated series.

TV series based on one of Hollywood's biggest stars of the 1920s, Rin Tin Tin was one of two survivor of an Apache assault on a wagon train, a scenario that wasn't a million miles from the dog's true origins.

Richard Greene starred as the legendary 12th century outlaw who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. ITV's first adventure series managed to maintain a high standard of writing, employing blacklisted Hollywood writers who wrote under various aliases.

Australian series about a widowed father travelling the Southern Pacific seas with his two sons, daughter and a deckhand.

Another in the series of ITC's 'Adventures Of...' historicals. Sir Lancelot was lavishly filmed, being the first British series to be shot in colour with a view to the American market.

Animated tales from the same stable that produced Captain Pugwash

Classic US television series shot at a rapid rate with four episodes being turned out every ten days at a cost of $15,000 each.

'ABC Armchair Thriller', although sometimes listed alongside the later 'Armchair Thriller' series (1978 & 1980), is a separate series from the later Thames productions, which it preceded by 11 years.

According to Dora, subtitled A Bryan's Eye View on the World, was a starring vehicle for Southport born actress/comedienne Dora Bryan who had made her showbiz debut as a child in pantomime in Manchester.

An oddity - a British made sitcom from the 1950s starring a US actress so it could be sold to America.

Anglo-Canadian sitcom about Annie Brennan, the fog-horn voiced captain of the Narcissus, a tugboat based in a harbour on the Pacific North West of America.

A shining example of a near flawlessly faithful adaptation of a canon of classic literary genius, Granada television's stylishly lavish series redefined the established film and TV image of the world renowned inhabitants of 221B Baker Street.

Gerry Anderson's new production company was ailing and in desperate need of a cash boost when, in 1957, they were approached by children's writer Roberta Leigh and her colleague Suzanne Warner to make a series of 52 thirteen-minute episodes of a children's puppet series.

Now recognised as a classic science fiction series, A for Andromeda was developed for television by writer and BBC producer John Elliot from an original storyline by Cambridge astronomer and novelist Fred Hoyle.

Billed as a 20th century Robin Hood with a bit of Merlin and Houdini thrown in, this superior children's series concerned the adventures of Tarot (Michael MacKenzie), who used his skills to solve a series of bizarre crimes by a number of 'supervillians' who would not have been out of place in Batman.