John Bowen
John Griffith Bowen (5 November 1924 – 18 April 2019) was a British playwright and novelist.
Works
Freedom to Love
A sex education film dedicated to all forms of human sexuality.
Release Date1969-08-29
Charactersd Self
Vote Count16
Screen Two
Series of single made-for-television dramas.
Release Date1985-01-06
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Episode Count1
Vote Count7
Play for Today
Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.
Release Date1970-10-15
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Episode Count3
Vote Count10
ITV Saturday Night Theatre
Anthology series of dramatic works.
Release Date1969-01-11
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Episode Count2
Vote Count3
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 Count3
Vote Count3
Thirty-Minute Theatre
An anthology of short plays shown on BBC Television between 1965 and 1973, used in part at least as a training ground for new writers, on account of its short length, and which therefore attracted many writers who later became well known.
Release Date1965-10-07
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Episode Count2
Vote Count8
Hetty Wainthropp Investigates
Instead of spending her golden years lying down, the indomitable Hetty Wainthropp found her calling late in life. Combining common sense, her husband, and her pocketbook, this senior sleuth takes on all the cases the police deem too minor.
Release Date1996-01-03
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Episode Count11
Vote Count20
Wilde Alliance
Wilde Alliance is a 1978 British television programme created by Ian Mackintosh and produced by Yorkshire Television for l ITV. The light-hearted mystery series follows husband-and-wife amateur detectives Rupert and Amy Wilde.
Release Date1978-01-17
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Episode Count1
Vote Count3
Mystery and Imagination
Mystery and Imagination is a British television anthology of classic horror and supernatural dramas. Five series were broadcast from 1966 to 1970 on ITV and produced by ABC and Thames Television.
Release Date1966-01-29
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Episode Count1
Vote Count5
A Ghost Story for Christmas
A strand of annual British short television adaptations of classic ghost stories, referencing the oral tradition of telling supernatural tales at Christmas. First broadcast on BBC One from 1971 to 1978, and revived in 2005 on BBC Four.
Release Date1971-12-24
DepartmentWriting
JobAdaptation
Episode Count1
Vote Count7
Villains
Follows the linked fates of nine bank robbers, led by George. It begins with the nine men meeting in prison during their appeal and traces each individual after the group escape from custody.
Release Date1972-07-22
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Episode Count1
Vote Count4
W. Somerset Maugham
An anthology series based on the varied stories by W. Somerset Maugham divided into three categories: "Rule Britannia" about colonial life, "Women of the World" which focus on female characters, and "Victims of Fate".
Release Date1969-06-03
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Episode Count1
The Power Game
The Power Game is an ITV drama spin-off from The Plane Makers (1963–65), created by Wilfred Greatorex. Broadcast for three 13-episode series, Patrick Wymark reprised his role as Sir John Wilder, who here ruthlessly pursues boardroom machinations and tangled relationships.
Release Date1965-12-13
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Episode Count2
Vote Count1
The Guardians
In a near-future 1980s, England is under autocratic rule by a government that uses a paramilitary force known as The Guardians to maintain control, while a fragmented resistance group tries to provoke the state into revealing its true brutality.
Release Date1971-07-10
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Episode Count7
Vote Count3
Heartland
A series of plays concerning the theme of love.
Release Date1979-07-27
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Episode Count1
Six Days of Justice
Six Days of Justice is a British television drama anthology series of single plays created by Thames Television and shown on ITV from 1972 to 1975, over four seasons of six episodes apiece.
Release Date1972-04-10
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Episode Count1
Vote Count1
Between the Wars
Six plays adapted from English short stories written in the nineteen-twenties and thirties.
Release Date1973-05-11
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Episode Count1
Vote Count1
Heil Caesar
The growing ambition of Julius Caesar is a source of major concern to his close friend Brutus. Cassius persuades him to participate in his plot to assassinate Caesar but they have both sorely underestimated Mark Antony.
Release Date1973-11-12
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Episode Count3
Vote Count1
Sunday Night Thriller
This thriller was shot in the most beautiful location by a lake in the Cotswolds, England.
Release Date1981-01-18
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Episode Count1
Dead of Night
Dead of Night is a British television anthology of supernatural fiction, produced by the BBC and broadcast on BBC2 in 1972. It ran for a single series; of its seven 50-minute episodes, only three—'The Exorcism', 'Return Flight', and 'A Woman Sobbing'—are known to survive in the Archives. Another programme made by the same production team under Innes Lloyd, 'The Stone Tape', intended to be the eighth episode, does survive in the Archives but was not broadcast under the Dead of Night banner.
Release Date1972-11-05
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Episode Count1
Vote Count6
Bedtime Stories
An anthology of six plays, contemporary twists on well-loved tales with dark endings.
Release Date1974-03-03
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Episode Count1
A Dog's Ransom
A quiet, middle-aged couple living in Chelsea start to receive threatening letters through the post - and then things take a sinister turn as their beloved poodle, Tina, is kidnapped. A smart young copper from the local force decides to investigate -
Release Date1978-03-07
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Vote Count1
Brief Encounter
Two strangers, both married to others, meet in a railway station and soon find themselves in a brief but intense affair.
Release Date1976-01-04
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Vote Count13
Kiss and Tell
Quin and Sophie are happily married but haven't been abroad since their honeymoon. When Quin is sent to Paris on business he finds the experience unsettling - and decides to look up an old flame.
Release Date1980-08-05
DepartmentProduction
JobProducer
Looking for Vicky
A woman is alone in an isolated house. She receives constant phone calls for Vicky, but she doesn't know who Vicky can be.
Release Date1980-07-29
DepartmentProduction
JobProducer
Can I Help You?
Can I Help You? is a 28-minute British short film released in 1981, directed by Claude Whatham and written by the celebrated author and playwright John Bowen. The film primarily stars veteran British actors Freddie Jones and Miriam Karlin. It is an obscure but well-regarded piece of British television drama from that era, exploring character-driven stories in a conversational, theatrical format typical of John Bowen's work
Release Date1981-01-01
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
The McGuffin
Paul Hatcher has a habit of spying on the neighbors across the way, something that gets him into deep trouble. Hatcher is a movie critic, and for awhile it looks like his main problem is keeping reality and the silver screen separate. But then a double murder occurs across the street after some mobsters cannot find an incriminating negative. After Hatcher discovers where the negative is hidden, he is bumped to the top on the assassins' hit list.
Release Date1986-01-12
DepartmentWriting
JobNovel
Vote Count2
The Emergency Channel
Dean has a rare talent. He can be made happy. He exudes happiness and confidence like a rare blossom. Both Sarah in the past, and Julia now, could do this for him. But where are they now that he is alone in Battersea Park with two suitcases and no memory?
Release Date1973-11-08
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
The Specialist
A small boy runs away from home for no apparent reason. The police find his body in London having died of exposure. Why did he leave home?
Release Date1980-07-12
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Robin Redbreast
After the break-up of a long-term relationship, urban sophisticate Norah seeks refuge in a remote house in the country.
Release Date1970-12-10
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Vote Count18
Dark Secret
An ex-scientist has prepared a report on a carcinogenic baby milk formula. She now runs a restaurant in the Cotswolds. The management of the manufacturer despatches an undercover operative to silence her.
Release Date1981-01-18
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Dying Day
A lonely man with punctilious habits listens to a tape cassette of ambient barroom sounds, which include the hushed tones of two men plotting to kill him; but when a policeman listens, all the sounds are there except those of the two men. Later, Skipling receives an unwanted visit from a doctor and a welcome visit from his "befriender
Release Date1980-02-12
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Vote Count1
Hands
Pam receives an unusual birthday present from her 23 year old daughter, `The Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality'.
Release Date1980-08-20
DepartmentProduction
JobProducer
A Photograph
A man's life is turned upside down when he receives a mysterious photograph in the post.
Release Date1977-03-22
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
One Chance in Four
Play which examines the conflict between the generations of a Greek-Cypriot family. Dimitri and Trulla are to be married. All seems well for the newly-weds, but there is a mystery surrounding Trulla's cousin Janni. An element of the play concerns the genetically-inherited disease thalassaemia. One effect of the disease is that survivors continue to have the appearance of 14-year-olds, even in their 20s. Due to the impossibility of simulating this, thalassaemic patients take part in the play.
Release Date1980-08-26
DepartmentProduction
JobProducer
Vote Count1
Lindsey
Mary and Barry Case's second child, Lindsey, has spina bifida. They must decide whether to allow an operation which would save her life but leave her permanently crippled, or leave her fate to nature.
Release Date1980-07-22
DepartmentProduction
JobProducer
The Treasure of Abbot Thomas
The Reverend Justin Somerton, a scholar of medieval history, and his protégé Lord Peter Dattering are visiting an abbey library. While studying a stained glass window, they uncover clues leading to a treasure hidden by a disgraced abbot.
Release Date1974-12-23
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Vote Count13
The Ice House
After his wife leaves him, Paul seeks solace at a sophisticated health spa run by a pair of sinister siblings. Strangely attracted by the scent of a vine that grows on the old ice house in the spa's grounds, Paul is drawn ever deeper into a horrifying mystery.
Release Date1978-12-24
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Vote Count12
Armchair Thriller – Rachel in Danger
A political assassin murders a man and assumes his identity, not knowing that the man’s estranged daughter is coming by train to meet him that afternoon.
Release Date1978-02-21
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter