H. E. Bates

ITV Playhouse

ITV Playhouse is a British comedy-drama TV series that ran from 1967 to 1983, which featured contributions from playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Rhys Adrian and Alan Sharp. The series began in black and white, but was later shot in colour and was produced by various companies for the ITV network, a format that would inspire Dramarama. Actors appearing in the series included Leslie Anderson, Gwen Nelson, Ricky Alleyne, Pat Heywood, Michael Elphick, Ian Hendry, Edward Woodward, Margaret Lockwood, Jessie Matthews and Lloyd Peters.

Release Date1967-09-25

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Episode Count1

Vote Count2

The Darling Buds of May

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, 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, as they deal with growing up and discovering the joys and sorrows of young love.

Release Date1991-04-07

DepartmentWriting

JobNovel

Episode Count20

Vote Count22

The Larkins

Set in the late 1950’s, The Larkins follows the golden-hearted wheeler dealer Pop Larkin and his wife Ma, together with their six children, including the beautiful Mariette, as they bask in their idyllic and beautiful patch of paradise in Kent.

Release Date2021-10-10

DepartmentWriting

JobNovel

Episode Count7

Vote Count11

My Uncle Silas

In 1901, a middle-class schoolboy whose parents are working abroad spends his summer in Bedfordshire with his great-uncle Silas. Though sixty years old, Silas relishes life—he’s a womaniser, drinker, and a poacher. At the prompting of his long-suffering housekeeper, Mrs Betts, he takes on the occasional odd job.

Release Date2001-10-28

DepartmentWriting

JobShort Story

Episode Count12

Vote Count1

Country Matters

An anthology series adapted from plays and short stories by A.E Coppard and H.E. Bates, depicting English country life and rural romance at the turn of the 20th-century. It presents unsentimental stories of human relationships and raw emotions – heartfelt passions, crippling frustrations, unspoken love and destructive jealousy.

Release Date1972-08-20

DepartmentWriting

JobStory

Episode Count7

Vote Count4

Summertime

Middle-aged Ohio secretary Jane Hudson has never found love and has nearly resigned herself to spending the rest of her life alone. But before she does, she uses her savings to finance a summer in romantic Venice, where she finally meets the man of her dreams, the elegant Renato Di Rossi.

Release Date1955-06-21

DepartmentWriting

JobScreenplay

Vote Count167

A Month by the Lake

For 16 years Miss Bentley has been spending April at an elegant hillside villa on Lake Como. This year, 1937, her London society artist father has recently died and the only other English-speaking guests are brash Americans. Then Major Wilshaw arrives. He suggests they meet for cocktails and Miss Bentley stands him up -- not even thinking about it -- as she helps the new nanny of an Italian family settle in. Miss Beaumont, a tall, young American who has dropped out of finishing school in Switzerland, is bored and finds some amusement in flirting with the major, whose libido is awakened for the first time since before the great war. And Miss Bentley now finds more about the major to admire than his ears.

Release Date1995-09-11

DepartmentWriting

JobNovel

Vote Count42

Feast of July

After an abandoned young woman in late 19th Century England is taken in by a rural couple with three handsome sons, tragic consequences result.

Release Date1995-10-12

DepartmentWriting

JobNovel

Vote Count11

Under the Sun

Olof lives alone on his family's farm after the death of his mother. Unable to read and write, he is dependent on his younger friend, Erik, who helps him in the afternoons. Once a sailor, Erik brags of having known hundreds of women. Out of the blue, Olof advertises in the local paper for a young lady housekeeper, and Ellen, a middle-class city woman, arrives to take over the house and, as the summer goes on, Olof's heart and Erik's desire as well.

Release Date1998-12-25

DepartmentWriting

JobNovel

Vote Count38

The Mating Game

Tax collector Lorenzo Charlton comes to the Larkins' farm to ask why Pop Larkins hasn't paid his back taxes. Charlton has to stay for a day to try to estimate the income from the farm, but it isn't easy to calculate when the farmer has such a lovely daughter.

Release Date1959-04-29

DepartmentWriting

JobNovel

Vote Count13

The Purple Plain

An RAF airfield in Burma in 1945, during World War II. Canadian bomber pilot Bill Forrester is a bitter man who lives haunted by a tragic past. He has became a reckless warrior, and is feared by his comrades, who consider him a madman. Dr. Harris, the squadron physician, is determined to help him heal his tormented soul.

Release Date1954-09-14

DepartmentWriting

JobNovel

Vote Count64

The Triple Echo

After her husband is captured during WWII, homesteader Alice is forced to maintain their land herself. One day, a wandering soldier named Barton stops by the farm and the pair begin a relationship. When the military police pass through the area looking for deserters, Barton is forced to disguise himself as a woman to stay with Alice. But he soon catches the eye of a sergeant posted nearby.

Release Date1972-11-16

DepartmentWriting

JobNovel

Vote Count23

Missing Person

Attia (Yehia al-Fakharani) works as a simple employee, after his mother-in-law threatens to break his engagement from her daughter because of his delay in getting an apartment. He travels to his hometown to sell his inheritance. There he falls in love with Kharyia (Leila Alawi) daughter of Kamal Bey (Farid Shawki) who bought his land.

Release Date1984-04-08

DepartmentWriting

JobNovel

Vote Count10

Dulcima

Dulcima, treated as a drudge by her family, becomes a housekeeper to Parker, a curmudgeonly widower living in drunken disarray on a neighbouring farm. When she sees the amount of money he has stashed around the place, Dulcima is happy enough to indulge his growing desire for her, and a strange, yet mutually beneficial, relationship develops. But a handsome young gamekeeper, newly arrived on a nearby estate, also catches Dulcima's eye...

Release Date1971-12-01

DepartmentWriting

JobStory

Vote Count14

The Four Beauties

Henry Batley, a bored young journalist in a small town is attracted to both Christie Davenport and her sister Sophie, whilst younger sister Tina is determined to make him hers.

Release Date1973-03-11

DepartmentWriting

JobStory

The Loves of Joanna Godden

Joanna Godden falls heir to a farm when her father dies.

Release Date1947-06-08

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Vote Count3

Breeze Anstey

Two woman pursue an idyllic herb-farming life in the country, forming a bond that for Breeze, the younger woman, is romantically and sexually imbued.

Release Date1972-09-24

DepartmentWriting

JobNovel

A Moment in Time

Young Elizabeth's quiet village life in Kent changes in the summer of 1940 with the arrival of a group of RAF officers. Adaptation of the novel by H E Bates.

Release Date1979-09-04

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

The Mill

At 17 years of age, Leslie Hartop's parents decide the time has come for her to move out and make her way in the world. She moves in with the Hollands who live in a old mill.

Release Date1972-08-27

DepartmentWriting

JobStory

The Ring of Truth

After his father's death, George Pickard has a strange dream where his father tells him he's traveling to the small town of Skelby Moor. His father, Albert, was a traveling salesman who worked a large territory but the name is familiar to him. He takes his holiday there staying at the same hotel his father used.

Release Date1973-03-04

DepartmentWriting

JobStory

The Little Farm

A farmer who lives alone decides to advertise for a companion-housekeeper to come and live with him.

Release Date1973-01-28

DepartmentWriting

JobStory

An Aspidistra in Babylon

Summer in Dover 1919: Christine's mother runs a boarding house, in which Christine feels like the dull aspidistras which clutter the rooms, until Captain Blaine arrives to find rooms for his rich aunt.

Release Date1973-02-25

DepartmentWriting

JobNovel

Death and the Cherry Tree

Three children play games on a deserted beach.

Release Date1968-01-01

DepartmentWriting

JobOriginal Story

Vote Count2

The Simple Life

A country cottage is the cause of marital strife.

DepartmentWriting

JobStory