Two-part Arena special celebrating the life and distinguished career of one of Britain's best-loved public figures. Lord Attenborough's film CV as actor stretches from Brighton Rock to Jurassic Park, while as director he has been responsible for Oh! What a Lovely War, Shadowlands and Gandhi. He has also been integral to the work of many charities, while his support for minority groups has led to the building of a Centre for Disability and the Arts. Part one examines his early career and follows Attenborough as he visits his childhood home, travels to Brighton and Hove, and reminisces with brothers John and Sir David. Part two explores his other lives as chancellor of Sussex University and vice-president of Chelsea FC, and examines the political commitment behind films such as Cry Freedom and 10 Rillington Place.
Naive Stanley Windrush returns from the war, his mind set on a successful career in business. Much to his own dismay, he soon finds he has to start from the bottom and work his way up, and also that the management as well as the trade union use him as a tool in their fight for power.
British Air Marshal Hardie is attending a party in Hong Kong when he hears of a dream, told by a pilot, in which Hardie's flight to Tokyo on a small Dakota propeller plane crashes on a Japanese beach. Hardie dismisses the dream as pure fantasy, but while he is flying to Tokyo the next day, circumstances start changing to align with the pilot's vivid vision, and it looks like the dream disaster may become a reality.
Game warden Bob Payton (Anthony Steel) tracks a ivory smuggling ring through some of the most treacherous passages of the Zanzibar territory.
Now old, ill, poor, and largely forgotten, William Freise-Greene was once very different. As young and handsome William Green he changed his name to include his first wife's so that it sounded more impressive for the photographic portrait work he was so good at. But he was also an inventor and his search for a way to project moving pictures became an obsession that ultimately changed the life of all those he loved.
Pandora Reynolds is a woman who has never fallen in love – but one who men kill and die for. When she meets dashing and mysterious ship's captain Hendrik van der Zee, he pushes her to commit the ultimate act of love.
A modern-day retelling of Arnold Bennett's novel, in which a Treasury official with a reputation for fiscal prudence is left a great deal of money and has no idea how to cope with sudden personal wealth.