John Fortune was an English satirist, comedian, writer, and actor, best known for his work with John Bird and Rory Bremner on the TV series Bremner, Bird and Fortune. He was educated at Bristol Cathedral School and King's College, Cambridge, where he was to meet and form a lasting friendship with John Bird.
Comedy about an inept American placed in charge of sales at his company's London branch. He has no experience with British culture, knows nothing about sales, and has only one employee, Dave. Each episode begins with a scene of Margaret appearing in dire circumstances.
Release Date:2010-10-01
Character:Magistrate
Episode Count:1
Vote Count:81
Rory Bremner takes a satirical look at the 2008 'credit crunch'. He spoofs politicians and other public figures to tell the story of the US and UK financial markets.
Release Date:2008-11-02
Character:Various
Episode Count:4
Comedy Showcase is a series of one-off comedy specials featuring some of Britain's fledgling comedy talent. Its format is reminiscent of the much earlier Comedy Playhouse. The format was replaced in 2012 by 4Funnies.
Release Date:2007-10-05
Character:Magistrate
Episode Count:1
Vote Count:1
Dramatisation of the abortive real-life attempt by Simon Mann to organise a coup to take over Equatorial Guinea in 2004. The case achieved notoriety because one of the financial backers of the project was Sir Mark Thatcher, son of British ex-PM 'Margaret Thatcher'.
Release Date:2006-06-30
Department:Writing
Job:Writer
Chris, a former tennis player, looks for work as an instructor. He meets Tom Hewett, a wealthy young man whose sister Chloe falls in love with Chris. But Chris has his eye on Tom's fiancee Nola.
Release Date:2005-10-26
Character:John the Chauffeur
Vote Count:4100
Bittersweet comedy drama about the eternal search for the perfect partner.
Release Date:2005-09-27
Episode Count:1
Vote Count:5
New 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.
Release Date:2004-01-01
Character:Mel Simons
Episode Count:1
Vote Count:54
Members of a Yorkshire branch of the Women's Institute cause controversy when they pose nude for a charity calendar.
Release Date:2003-09-02
Character:Frank
Vote Count:385
Anthology series of black comedies, which sets out to deliver excellent stories with a darkly comic twist.
Release Date:2003-06-23
Character:Frank
Episode Count:1
The impressionist Rory Bremner and comedians Bird and Fortune take a look at the history of Iraq through a series of sketches, monologues and jokes. They begin with the formation of Iraq by the British in the early 20th Century, through the bombing of villages to control the tribes, the establishment of a king in the area through to the modern day trade meetings with Saddam Hussein.
Release Date:2003-01-05
TV documentary tracing the life of the comedian and satirist from his school days, through the Cambridge Footlights, to Beyond the Fringe and his partnership with Dudley Moore. With contributions from Cook's school friends Peter Rabey and Jonathan Harlow; Cook's first wife Wendy Cook; Cambridge University friends Tim Harrold and Roger Law; Adrian Slade (ex-president of Cambridge Footlights); Jonathan Miller; Sir David Frost; Ned Sherrin; John Bassett (creator, Beyond The Fringe); Willie Donaldson (producer, Beyond The Fringe); John Cleese; Eric Idle; Michael Parkinson; Brenda Vaccaro; John Fortune; Nicholas Luard (co-owner with Cook of The Establishment club); actress Gaye Brown; Christopher Booker; Ian Hislop; Victor Lownes and Michael Bawtree (friends of Cook); Joe McGrath; Dick Clement; Mel Smith; Clive Anderson; tv producer and executive Paul Jackson; Harry Enfield, radio presenter Clive Bull, and archival interview footage of both Cook and Dudley Moore.
Release Date:2002-01-12
Character:Self
A British spy is banished to Panama after having an affair with an ambassador's mistress. Once there he makes connection with a local tailor with a nefarious past and connections to all of the top political and gangster figures in Panama. The tailor also has a wife, who works for the Panamanian president and a huge debt. The mission is to learn what the President intends to do with the Canal.
Release Date:2001-03-30
Character:Maltby
Vote Count:493
Sam and Lucie Bell are a married couple who seem to have it all: good looks, successful careers, matching motorbikes, and an enthusiastic love life. The only thing they lack is the one thing they want more—a baby.
Release Date:2000-06-02
Character:Acupuncturist
Vote Count:96
Release Date:1993-10-09
Episode Count:62
A parody of the long running radio show "The Archers", an everyday story of country-folk based in the fictional village of Umbridge.
Release Date:1973-01-01
Department:Writing
Job:Writer
Character:Phil Cobbler
Rory Bremner looks back on the first year of Tony Blair's premiership through a series of sketches.
Department:Writing
Job:Writer
Character:George Parr
Vote Count:1
Unexpectedly widowed, prim and proper housewife Grace Trevethyn finds herself in dire financial straits when she inherits massive debts her late husband had been accruing for years. Faced with losing her house, she decides to use her talent for horticulture and hatches a plan to grow potent marijuana which can be sold at an astronomical price, thus solving her financial crisis.
Release Date:2000-01-24
Character:Melvyn
Vote Count:416
Bremner, Bird and Fortune is an award-winning satirical British television programme produced by Vera Productions for Channel Four, uniting the longstanding satirical team of John Bird and John Fortune with the satirical impressionist Rory Bremner, and to date has 16 series.
Release Date:1999-10-17
Department:Writing
Job:Writer
Character:
Episode Count:1
Vote Count:1
In 1945, the new Polish government asked for the heart of Chopin previously buried in Paris. A woman called Paulina Czernika approached the government claiming to have some love letters from the composer to her great-grandmother, the Countess Delfina Potocka.
Release Date:1999-01-01
Character:2nd Official
Jessie Fielding is a young MP who is trying to get an anti-hunting bill through the two Houses of Parliament, which is a little surprising as she hunted as a teenager with friend Barb Gale. Matters are complicated when she rekindles her friendship with Barb, who still works for a hunt. The plot thickens further when it becomes aparent that the House of Lords is likely break with convention and block the bill, an event which the Prime Minister hopes to use for his own ends.
Release Date:1996-09-01
Vote Count:1
The Home Secretary has his eye on the Prime Minister's job. But an experiment in the way the prisons are run leads to embarrassment - and escaped murderers! The fore runner of Crossing The Floor
Release Date:1995-12-09
Character:Prime Minister
Vote Count:1
The story of Henry Purcell.
Release Date:1995-01-01
Character:Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon
Vote Count:1
British academics Loretta and Bridget run into Sandra, an old school friend at a book launch. Although Sandra appears to be gay and carefree, Loretta notices an undercurrent of tension while Sandra stays with her for a few days. Loretta is saddened to learn her friend was killed in a car accident, and comforts Sandra's estranged husband Tom, her daughter Lizzie, and emotionally disturbed son Felix. While doing so she becomes to believe the accident may not be what it seems, spurred on by the information a local policeman provides her.
Release Date:1993-05-30
Character:George Saunders
Vote Count:1
A comedy that started in 1991 as a pilot, Murder Most Horrid stars Dawn French as various characters, as she embarks on a different mystery every episode. In one way or another she is involved with murder - either committing the crime herself or even getting bumped off herself!
Release Date:1991-11-14
Character:Squire Thorpe
Episode Count:1
Vote Count:13
A 70 year old man gets shunned into a retirement home.
Release Date:1990-12-30
Character:Detective Inspector Curtin
Hilarious, totally-irreverent, near-slanderous political quiz show, based mainly on news stories from the last week or so, that leaves no party, personality or action unscathed in pursuit of laughs.
Release Date:1990-09-28
Character:Self
Episode Count:2
Vote Count:65
Release Date:1989-05-31
Episode Count:24
Campion is a television show made by the BBC, adapting the Albert Campion mystery novels written by Margery Allingham. Two series were made, in 1989 and 1990, starring Peter Davison as Campion, Brian Glover as his manservant Magersfontein Lugg and Andrew Burt as his policeman friend Stanislaus Oates. A total of eight novels were adapted, four in each series, each of which was originally broadcast as two separate hour-long episodes. Peter Davison sang the title music for the first series himself; in the second series, it was replaced with an instrumental version.
Release Date:1989-01-22
Character:Dr. Brian Kingston
Episode Count:2
Vote Count:8
When young Kathleen makes a promise to Keith Cameron during World War One, that no matter what happens they will meet again one day, she little realises what the consequences could be.
Release Date:1986-06-21
Character:Eric Farnham
The daily lives of the men and women at Sun Hill Police Station as they fight crime on the streets of London. From bomb threats to armed robbery and drug raids to the routine demands of policing this ground-breaking series focuses as much on crime as it does on the personal lives of its characters.
Release Date:1984-10-16
Episode Count:1
Vote Count:38
Six scientists arrive at the creepy Headstone Manor to investigate a strange phenomena which was the site of a mysterious massacre years earlier where 18 guests were killed in one night. It turns out that the house is the place of a satanic cult lead by a sinister monk who plans to kill the scientists who are inhabiting this house of Satan.
Release Date:1984-03-29
Character:John Harrison
Vote Count:72
Following the success of the 1979 show and the financial benefits accruing to Amnesty from the spin-off movie, TV special and record albums – Cleese, Lewis and Walker planned the next show to be a more spectacular event. Cleese focused on broadening the comedic talent to be presented at the show. In addition to the Amnesty show stalwarts drawn from the Oxbridge/Monty Python/Beyond The Fringe orbit, he invited newcomers such as Rowan Atkinson’s colleagues from the BBC TV show Not the Nine O'Clock News including Pamela Stephenson and Griff Rhys Jones; comedian Victoria Wood and regional comic Jasper Carrott. Lewis secured a return appearance by Billy Connolly and a debut appearance by "alternative" comedian Alexei Sayle who Lewis had recently discovered and was managing. Building on the success of Pete Townshend's 1979 appearance Lewis recruited other rock musicians to perform at the 1981 show including Sting, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Donovan and Bob Geldof.
Release Date:1982-03-01
Character:Self - Various Roles
Vote Count:4
Timon loves to give parties and objects to friends, but when he cannot pay his creditors, his "friends" refuse to help him, and he becomes a misanthropic hermit.
Release Date:1981-04-16
Character:Poet
Vote Count:1
Hi-de-Hi! is a British sitcom set in Maplins, a fictional holiday camp, during 1959 and 1960, and was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, who also wrote Dad's Army and It Ain't Half Hot Mum amongst others. It aired on the BBC from 1980 to 1988. The series revolved around the lives of the camp's management and entertainers, most of them struggling actors or has-beens. The inspiration was the experience of writers Perry and Croft: after being demobilised from the army, Perry was a Redcoat at Butlin's, Pwllheli during the holiday season. The series gained large audiences and won a BAFTA as Best Comedy Series in 1984. In 2004, it came 40th in Britain's Best Sitcom and in a 2008 poll on Channel 4, 'Hi-de-Hi!" was voted the 35th most popular comedy catchphrase.
Release Date:1981-02-19
Character:Max Tewkesbury
Episode Count:1
Vote Count:16
Satirical sitcom set in the office of a UK Cabinet minister, Jim Hacker MP, who struggles with Civil Service bureaucracy and political machinations as he tries to get on with government business.
Release Date:1980-02-25
Episode Count:1
Vote Count:145
Based on a short story by George MacDonald, a princess experiences constant weightlessness.
Release Date:1978-12-24
Character:Prince
Vote Count:1
The BBC Television Shakespeare is a series of British television adaptations of the plays of William Shakespeare, created by Cedric Messina and produced by BBC Television. It was transmitted in the UK from 3 December 1978 to 27 April 1985 and spanned seven series. Development of the series began in 1975 when Messina saw that Glamis Castle would make a perfect location for an adaptation of Shakespeare's play As You Like It. On returning to London, he envisioned an entire series devoted exclusively to the dramatic works of Shakespeare. After encountering numerous problems trying to produce the series, Messina eventually pitched the idea to the BBC’s departmental heads and the series was greenlighted. The series as a whole received generally negative reviews from critics.
Release Date:1978-12-03
Episode Count:1
Vote Count:5
Release Date:1976-09-24
Episode Count:7
"1975 was the year of the disaster movie, yeah? So what stops 1976 being the year of the disastrous disaster movie?"
Release Date:1976-05-14
Character:Dick Thompson
A series of benefit shows staged initially in the United Kingdom to raise funds for the human rights organisation Amnesty International. The shows started in 1976 featuring popular British comedians but later included leading musicians and actors. The Secret Policeman's Ball shows are credited by many prominent entertainers with having galvanised them to become involved with Amnesty and other social and political causes in succeeding years.
Release Date:1976-04-01
Character:Self
Episode Count:15
Vote Count:1
Armitage runs a chemical company that is on the verge of producing a gas that causes temporary disability. Clearly the military want it but it is also sought by a group of Japanese. Both Armitage and Madam Greenfly hire different people in the same detective agency to guard the gas and steal it respectively... confusion, double crosses and hilarity ensue...
Release Date:1972-12-31
Department:Crew
Job:Additional Dialogue
Vote Count:9
Young Jenny heads to the South of England to start a new career as a school teacher. Even before she has had a chance to settle in she meets Patrick, one of the local "lads". Within a short time she has her hands full when a number of the local boys take a liking to her. But who will be the lucky one who wins her affections?
Release Date:1970-12-16
Character:Sir Gerald
Vote Count:15
Release Date:1967-10-03
Department:Writing
Job:Writer
Character:
Episode Count:8
In this off-beat musical – a satire that combines fantasy, social observation and songs – a working class man goes to put a deposit on a new house only to find he prefers spending to saving and is happy to spend his money on a few hours of happiness rather than a lifetime's conventionality.
Release Date:1965-11-17
Character:Server
Vote Count:5
An interpretation of Plato's Symposium as a picnic organised by a University don for his students. Each guest is asked to explain the nature of love before the Don, through a series of questions, reaches a unifying conclusion.
Release Date:1965-11-14
Character:Phaedrus
Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life is a BBC-TV satire programme produced by Ned Sherrin, which aired during the winter of 1964–1965, in an attempt to continue and improve on the successful formula of his That Was The Week That Was, which had been taken off by the BBC because of the coming General Election. It too featured David Frost as compère, with two others, William Rushton and the poet P. J. Kavanagh joining him in the role. In addition to Saturdays, there were also editions on Fridays and Sundays. It saw the first appearances on television of John Bird, Eleanor Bron, Roy Hudd, Patrick Campbell and John Fortune. Michael Crawford also featured as 'Byron'. Whereas TWTWTW had had a dark nightclub atmosphere, the new programme used predominantly white sets. The programme lacked the impact of TW3 and lasted only one season before being replaced by the Robert Robinson-fronted BBC-3.
Release Date:1964-11-13
Episode Count:62