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Jean Boht, the beloved star of long-running BBC sitcom “Bread” (1986-1991) died on Sept. 12. She was 91.

Boht’s family issued a statement on social media, saying: “It is with overwhelming sadness that we must announce that Jean Boht passed away yesterday Tuesday 12 September. Jean had been battling Vascular Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease with the indefatigable spirit for which she was both beloved and renowned.” She was a resident at Denville Hall, the home for members of the theatrical profession.

Boht’s husband Carl Davis, the BAFTA-winning composer of “The French Lieutenant’s Woman,” died in August.

Boht trained at the Liverpool Playhouse and embarked on a career as a theater actor. Her television credits include “Softly, Softly” (1971), “Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em” (1978), “Grange Hill” (1978), “Last of the Summer Wine” (1978), “Boys from the Blackstuff” (1982), “Scully” (1984) and “Juliet Bravo” (1981-83). In 1993, Boht was one of the stars in “Brighton Belles,” the British remake of hit U.

British screenwriter Ray Jenkins, who wrote on some of the UK’s biggest TV hits across several decades, has died aged 87. Jenkins died last month and leaves behind his two children, Pascale and Ceri.

Across a successful and lengthy career, Jenkins wrote for numerous highly acclaimed British police and justice-related drama series including Z Cars, The Outsiders, The Brothers, This Man Craig, Callan, The Sweeney, Special Branch, Juliet Bravo, Gentle Touch, The Chief and The Brief. This is to name but a few.

Jenkins also adapted Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White starring Ian Richardson and Jenny Seagrove for the BBC, along with Tom Hart’s novel The Aura and The Kingfisher as The Innocent for the silver screen, starring Liam Neeson and Miranda Richardson, with cinematography by Roger Deakins.

His most recent project was TV movie Circles of Deceit: Kalon, which he wrote in the mid-1990s, and he...

Ray Jenkins, the British screenwriter behind shows including “The Woman in White” and “The Sweeney,” has died. He was 87.

Jenkins died on Jan. 16, his agent confirmed to Variety. No cause of death was given.

Jenkins was an accomplished dramatist who wrote for TV, radio and film. He was known especially for his work on British police and justice-related series throughout the 1960s and 80s, including “The Sweeney,” which starred John Thaw and Dennis Waterman, and “Juliet Bravo” in which Stephanie Turner played Inspector Jean Darblay.

Other shows Jenkins worked on included “Z Cars,” “The Brothers,” “This Man Craig,” “Callan,” “Special Branch” and “The Gentle Touch.”

He was also known for his 1980s adaptations of Wilkie Collins’ mystery novel “The Woman in White,” which aired on the BBC and starred Ian Richardson, Diana Quick and Jenny Seagrove, and Tom Hart’s novel “The Aura and The Kingfisher,” which was adapted as feature film “The Innocent,...

Louisa Mellor Apr 13, 2017

We may be barking up an entirely specious tree, but did you notice this suspicious-looking man at the crime scene in episode one?

LIne Of Duty episode 4.1 spoilers.

See related  Celebrating Deadwood Timothy Olyphant interview: Justified, Deadwood & more...

Watching a crime thriller in the age of online streaming, the DVR and the freeze-frame is an entirely different game than it used to be. Time was that your theory on whoever stole the groundskeeper's whistle on Juliet Bravo that week would be mere supposition.

Even if you owned a video recorder, you didn't routinely tape everything you watched, nor could you screengrab a salient frame to support your suspicions and share it at the touch of a button.

For better or for worse, now we can. And do. And have. 

Your honour, we'd like to draw the court's attention to exhibit A, a series of three screengrabs taken...

News Louisa Mellor 10 Feb 2014 - 10:28

Christopher Barry, noted director of classic Doctor Who and countless other series, has passed away at the age of 88...

We're sad to learn that director Christopher Barry, who directed over forty episodes of Doctor Who between 1963 and 1979 alongside a great deal of much-loved television work, has passed away at the age of 88.

Christopher Barry was one of the rare Doctor Who directors whose work on the show spanned four Doctors, including stories with William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker. His first Who episode was 1963's The Dead Planet, part of the first Dalek serial that famously introduced the planet Skaro and the Thals. Sixteen years later, Barry's final Who serial was 1979's The Creature From The Pit featuring Tom Baker.

In addition to Doctor Who, Barry took the helm on over thirty episodes of Z-Cars, as well as several instalments of All Creatures Great And Small,...

Prime Suspect

Created by Lynda La Plante and Alexandra Cunningham

Based on the ITV series Prime Suspect created by Lynda La Plante

imdb, NBC, Thursdays at 10 Pm

1.01 Pilot

Directed by Peter Berg

Written by Alexandra Cunningham

1.02 Carnivorous Sheep

Directed by Jonas Pate

Written by Alexandra Cunningham

1.03 Bitch

Directed by Michael Waxman

Written by Liz Heldens

1.04 Great Guy, Yet: Dead

Directed by Jonas Pate

Written by John McNamara

*****

The U.S. Prime Suspect has one terrible, undeniable problem: its title. Even though the U.S. Prime Suspect is closely based on the U.K. Prime Suspect, the title just doesn’t work. The reason for this has everything to do with the structural difference between U.S. broadcast network prime-time and U.K. broadcast network prime-time.

The original Prime Suspect is one of the best TV shows of all time. In bringing us the adventures of Dci Jane Tennison, Lynda La Plante...

Stalwart of the TV police series Juliet Bravo

Noel Collins, who has died of cancer aged 74, was a linchpin of the police series Juliet Bravo throughout its entire six-series run. As Sergeant George Parrish, he was familiar for his "Yes, ma'am" response to consecutive uniformed inspectors Jean Darblay (Stephanie Turner) and Kate Longton (Anna Carteret). Parrish and his male colleagues were seen adjusting to working with a female boss in the BBC programme, which was launched a decade before the more hard-edged Prime Suspect – although four months after ITV's The Gentle Touch, which starred Jill Gascoine as a detective inspector.

The pace of life was slow in Juliet Bravo, whose title came from a police call-sign. The series (1980-85), set in the fictional Lancashire town of Hartley and described by one television critic as "Dixon in skirts", was also notable for being the flipside to its creator Ian Kennedy-Martin's previous,...

Vera

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Kieran Kinsella

ITV’s detective drama series Vera comes to the United States on 30 August. The show which has yet to air on American network TV, is being released on DVD by Acorn Media. The drama starring Brenda Blethyn is being released on the same day as Doc Martin: The Movies, but this show is as serious as those films are funny. Unlike, Marple, Poirot and Midsomer Murders, Vera is not set in small-town idyllic Britain where every episode seems to somehow involve a vicar, a butler or a thatched roof. Instead, this show is set in the North of England, a real and gritty place.

The 4-disc set being released by Acorn Media contains four feature length self-contained episodes. The first of the four began with a shot of Gina McKee riding...

The Manchester-born actor on why she has played truants, schemers and tearaways all her life

"Am I blind or are you ­hiding?" I get this text from Joanne Whalley as I'm looking directly at her, eye to eye, at a coffeeshop near her home in West Hollywood. She's the one who seems to be hiding: slender and on the small side, wearing sombre colours and ­sunglasses on a gloomy winter's day. She might be a suburban mother ­picking up the kids, or one of those ­quietly dangerous film-noirish women – in shades, dressed to blend in – she has played on more than one occasion.

After the release of Scandal in 1989, in which she played Christine Keeler, Whalley seemed on the verge of ­something huge. She had recently ­married the Hollywood star Val Kilmer and moved to the Us. But the ­marriage lasted eight years, and the career did not. Some people...