Pam Ferris

Dickens was the master of Victorian social satire, ruthlessly exposing the cruelty and absurdity that supported the strictly hierarchical class-structure of the day. This superb production of Our Mutual Friend does full justice to his darkest, most complex novel, fleshing out the satirical bones of the plot with performances that eschew caricature in favour of psychological depth. Anna Friel's Bella is wonderfully complex, her innate goodness struggling with her love of money and desire for advancement. Paul McGann, as the lawyer Wrayburn, is also superb, wrestling with the implications of his feelings for Lizzie. And of course, this being Dickens and the BBC, there's a terrific supporting cast, including Timothy Spall as the melancholy articulator of skeletons, Mr Venus. As the fortunes of the characters rise and fall, the river Thames flows eternally.

This gripping new adaptation by Andrew Davies brings to life Dickens' powerful story of love, honour, debt and hope in 1820s London. The kind-hearted Amy, the Little Dorrit of the title, looks after her proud father, William, who is a long-term inmate of Marshalsea debtors' prison in London. But their fate is transformed by the unexpected arrival from overseas of the benevolent Arthur Clennam, who is determined to solve the mystery of his father's dying words, "Naprav to, Arthure."

Jessica's extraordinarily strong will and heart enables her to rebel against her fanatical, cult-like upbringing.

The widowed Elizabeth Peacock lives at Arlington Grange with her step-daughter, the gorgeous (and fast) Vivienne Scarlet. Mrs White is their housekeeper. Three friends, Professor Peter Plum, Colonel Michael Mustard, and the Reverend Jonathan Green, often come to visit, and someone new is always around - someone everyone will have reasons for wanting dead. But Cluedo is a game show, not a drama series: a film of this week's murderous events is shown to two celebrity teams, who question the suspects and try to work out who did the deed. Members of the cast improvise their answers, and each season has a new cast. Outside the UK, the series was sometimes called Clue.

A young governess falls in love with her brooding and complex master. However, his dark past may destroy their relationship forever.

Family tensions are unearthed when a middle-aged writer has an affair with his friend's teenage daughter.

Meet Rosemary Boxer and Laura Thyme, two amateur green-fingered sleuths who came together through a mutual love of plants and troubled social lives. Together they start a new life as a gardening business, tackling horticultural problems for anybody who requires help. Mystery however is never very far behind them, and as soon as they start a new assignment they soon discover plots and conspiracies in-between the herbaceous borders. Nevertheless the dynamic and inquisitive duo tries to solve the murderous goings on, whilst dealing with problems a little closer to their profession. Welcome to the world of Rosemary and Thyme.

We're Going on a Bear Hunt follows the intrepid adventures of siblings Stan, Katie, Rosie, Max, the baby and Rufus the dog, who decide one day to go on an adventure in search of bears. Coming up against a host of obstacles the family ventures through whirling snowstorms, thick oozing mud and dark forests on their ambitious quest. But when Rosie and Rufus become detached from the rest of the party it looks like bear-hunting might not be such fun after all...

Drama series following the lives and loves of two community nurses in a small Yorkshire town. Sisters-in-law Peggy Snow and Ruth Goddard deal with life's trials and tribulations realistically.

"The Darling Buds of May" paints an idyllic picture of 1950's rural England as seen through the lives of the Larkins, a farm family living in Kent. The show revolves around Pa Larkin (David Jason), a man of a kind and mischievous nature with a penchant for getting into scrapes and talking his way out of them with equal equanimity; and his daughters (including Catherine Zeta-Jones, in the role that launched her career), as they deal with growing up and discovering the joys and sorrows of young love.

Chronicles the lives of a group of midwives living in East London in the late-1950s to mid-1960s.

Darkly comic murder mystery adapted from Bernice Rubens 's Booker Prize-winning bestseller. Luke Wakefield is not so much a knight in shining armour as an oddball in a suit. And his crusade is more of a "who ami" than a "whodunit".

This sequel to the popular British comedy sees a new teacher (David Tennant) take over. When he enters his school in the National 'Song for Christmas' Competition, he and his pregnant wife, and the schoolchildren, embark on an epic road trip that ends up with a birth and a donkey, where he must embrace his fears and become a hero.

Offbeat sword-and-sandals comedy-adventure about three unlikely heroines (Doon Mackichan, Fiona Allen and Sally Phillips) who set out to thwart a Roman invasion and save Celtic Britain in their own unique and outrageous style.

Based on a little known 1848 novel by Anne Bronte, Tara Fitzgerald stars as an enigmatic young woman who moves to 19th Century Yorkshire with a young son. Distancing herself from everyone in the village and their prying questions, she remains totally aloof until a charming neighbor farmer gets her to reveal her past through his persistence. Only then does she reveal she is hiding away from a womanizing, belittling husband.

Adaptation of the Dickens novel.

A satirical alternative history of World War II where the Nazis seize London and England must band together to prevent a full on invasion.

During Stalin's reign of terror, Evgenia Ginzburg, a literature professor, was sent to 10 years hard labor in a gulag in Siberia. Having lost everything, and no longer wishing to live, she meets the camp doctor and begins to come back to life.

A lowly stable elf finds that he is the only one who can stop an invasion of the North Pole by using the secret of Santa's Sleigh, a TimeGlobe, to travel back in time to Save Santa - twice.

The story of a husband who suspects his wife of adultery, and sets out to track down the other man in her life.

Detective Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson join forces to investigate a murder at Buckingham Palace. They soon learn that they have only four days to solve the case, or the queen will become the next victim.

A new Christmas Special and the conclusion to the TV show ‘Gavin & Stacey’.

A working-class family in London's East End is struggling to stay afloat during the recession under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's premiership. Only the mother Mavis is working; father Frank and the couple's two sons Colin, a timid, chronically shy individual and Mark, an outspoken, headstrong young man, are on the dole. This situation is contrasted by the presence of Mavis's sister Barbara, and her husband John, whose financial and social loftiness appears to be a comfortable facade over the unspoken soreness of a lackluster marriage.

A modern take on the classic fairytale, Alice in Wonderland, set in South East England.An American law student in London. Knocked down by a black cab, she wakes with amnesia in a world that's a million miles from home - Wonderland. We follow her adventures as she's dragged through an underworld filled with twisted individuals and the lowest low-lifers, by the enigmatic cab driver, Whitey. She needs to find out who she is, where she's from and use what wits she has left to get back home in one piece. As her journey progresses she discovers nothing is what it seems, realizes that fate and life are terminally entwined, and finds true love lurking in the unlikeliest place.

The assistant manager of a seaside hotel is left to run the building over the Christmas period.

Set in 1884, and based on the assumption that Britain is one of the Baltic states between Russia and Latvia, making it part of Europe instead of an off-shore island. It is winter 1884. To gain access to the sea, England has declared war on Latvia and believes herself to be winning. But Russia has sided with Latvia and England is doomed. The action takes place on New Year’s Eve in a country house on the Anglo-Latvian border. The guests are a cross section of the ruling classes.

Martin Freeman is lovelorn teacher Mr Maddens, a former am-dram star whose girlfriend (Ashley Jensen) dumped him over Christmas five years ago and upped sticks, inexplicably, to La-La Land. Yuletide cheer is not his forte, but he's forced to drum some up when Pam Ferris's headmistress earmarks him to direct the Nativity play.

When a shy young man arrives on her doorstep, Alice Hartley grabs the chance to escape from her loveless marriage. She and Michael open a Growth Centre with a difference - offering sex, drugs and personalised water births.

How much do you know about the person working next to you? From the outside, life at Mackintosh Textiles appears to run smoothly, but in a community with so many secrets to hide, things are far from straightforward. In six powerful, self-contained dramas, everyday life is fractured by tumultuous marriages, snatched passions, disappearing husbands and gang harassment.

An extraordinarily intelligent young girl from a cruel and uncaring family discovers she possesses telekinetic powers and is sent off to a school headed by a tyrannical principal.