Here are some more one-offs, pilots, and films.****************************************
Disc 4
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The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film is an 11 minute film shot in 1959 by
(Philadelphian) Richard Lester and Peter Sellers and starring Spike Milligan. In addition to Lester, Sellers and Milligan, Leo McKern (Rumpole) and Mario Fabrizi are seen in this. This film is often credited as an inspiration to the future personnel of Monty Python, The Goodies, etc. It also led The Beatles to select Lester to be the director of A Hard Day's Night although I think his 1962 musical-comedy film It's Trad, Dad! (starring Helen Shapiro) probably also had something to do with that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Running_Jumping_&_Standing_Still_Film
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That's Your Funeral was originally a 7-episode BBC sitcom in 1971 starring Bill Fraser (The Army Game, Bootsie & Snudge). This is the 1972 That's Your Funeral: The Movie.
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Grand Slam is a 1978 BBC Wales film with Windsor Davies (It Ain't Half Hot Mum, Never The Twain). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Slam_%281978_film%29
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Anyone For Denis? Angela Thorne (To The Manor Born, Three Up Two Down, Noah's Ark) starred as Margaret Thatcher in this one, a 1982 film concerning the public perception of her husband, Denis. (Angela is the mother-in-law of popular Irish actress Dervla Kirwan).
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The Wimbledon Poisoner, a 1994 BBC film, starred Robert Lindsay (Get Some In!, Citizen Smith, My Family, etc.) and Alison Steadman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wimbledon_Trilogy
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Margery And Gladys (2003) starred Penelope Keith (The Good Life, To The Manor Born, Executive Stress, No Job For A Lady, Law And Disorder, Sweet Sixteen, Next Of Kin) and June Brown (EastEnders, Ain't Misbehavin', Duchess Of Duke Street, Minder, Gormenghast). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margery_and_Gladys
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Disc 5
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It's Awfully Bad For Your Eyes, Darling was a 1971 sitcom about 4 female flatmates, one of whom was played by Joanna Lumley (Absolutely Fabulous, Sapphire And Steel, The New Avengers). The male lead was played by Jeremy Lloyd (at the time very well known in the USA for his appearances on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In) who is best known as being the co-writer and co-creator of two huge comedy programs: Are You Being Served? and 'Allo 'Allo!
Jeremy has another claim very few can match: he appeared in both A Hard Days Night and Help!, the Beatles films. Little is known about it It's Awfully Bad For Your Eyes, Darling but this episode (1 of 7) is titled: A New Lease
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The Tea Ladies was a 1978 BBC pilot written by Ray Galton (Hancock's Half Hour, Steptoe And Son) and Johnny Speight (Till Death Us Do Part, Curry And Chips) starring Mollie Sugden (Coronation Street, Are You Being Served?, That's My Boy, My Husband And I), Dandy Nichols (Till Death Us Do Part) and Patricia Hayes (Hancock's Half Hour, Hugh And I).
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Ffizz was a Thames Television sitcom of 12 episodes in the late 80's about a couple of wine merchants struggling with an economic downturn following the good life years of the pre-recession. Sickness And Health was the final episode (by which time they were employed by a supermarket).
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The Office has nothing to do with the Ricky Gervais sitcom. This was a 1996 pilot written by Stephen Moffat (The Press Gang, Joking Apart, and the very successful Coupling) and starred Robert Lindsay (here we go again: Get Some In!, Citizen Smith, Nightingales, My Family, Seconds Out, Jerico, Hornblower) and Rebecca Front (Knowing Me Knowing You, Fist Of Fun, Kavanagh QC, Time Gentlemen Please, Big Train, The Day Today, Nighty Night, Catherine Tate Show, Lewis, The Thick Of It, Stressed Eric {voice}).
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Lost For Words was a 1999 ITV film directed by Alan Bell (Last of the Summer Wine) and is a sequel to writer Deric Longden's Wide Eyed And Legless. It starred Thora Hird and she won the 2000 BAFTA Best Actress award for her performance. Obviously anything dealing with dementia is not going to be a roll-on-the-floor-laughing comedy. More of a comedy-drama film.
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All About Me was a BBC sitcom that ran for 22 episodes between 2002 and 2004 starring Jasper Carrott. This is the first episode and I've yet been able to find any others.
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Sweet Charity was a 2001 pilot (oh man, too bad the BBC didn't pick this up!) starring Anne Reid and Thelma Barlow. Where do I begin? Of course, Reid and Barlow are well know for their bickering roles as Dolly and Jean on dinnerladies and they both were also Coronation Street stars (Reid in the 60's, Barlow in the 70's/80's/90's). Anne Reid.......maybe back in the early days of TV you saw her on the Adventures of Robin Hood or Hancock's Half Hour? In April she'll be in the new Ricky Gervais movie Cemetery Junction. In the 50+ years in between she has a mind-blowing list of credits but I'm not going to spend the rest of my day trying to detail that.
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Welcome To Strathmuir was a 2007 BBC Scotland pilot.
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The Bike Squad was either a one-off or a pilot starring Maxine Peake (dinnerladies, Early Doors, Shameless, Crimianl Justice, Little Dorrit, Marple) and Mark Addy (Bonkers, Thin Blue Line). The jury seems to be out as to whether this was a comedy or drama or comedy-drama or drama-comedy or...http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1152384/
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Admin was a 2008 BBC pilot about a group of mail room workers at a big TV-marketed ambulance-chaser law firm.
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Rock & Chips, the recently aired John Sullivan feature-length prequel to Only Fools And Horses starring Nicholas Lyndhurst as Freddie "The Frog" Robdal (Rodney's biological father in Only Fools And Horses). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_&_Chips
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