awwatchedthese's - Rented List

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Known as the father of English literature, Geoffrey Chaucer's literary eminence was achieved despite having lived in one of the most troubled centuries the world has known, and one particularly fraught for England. Chaucer may have suffered accordingly.

It has been proposed that he was murdered! He was born as England had entered into a war of conquest which was to last over 100 years, he survived the Black Death, and would witness the first revolutionary rising to challenge the status quo to date. He would be a soldier, a prisoner, a spy, a top civil servant, and a courtier. Throughout and despite all this, he would lead what was a brief golden age of English literature. Ultimately, he may have fallen foul of an English Inquisition. Monty Python's Terry Jones, writer, film director, actor and historian contributes an interview to the programme during which he presents his view of Chaucer and his society with wit, charm and passion and vigorously supports his theory that the poet became a victim of the political upheaval caused by the regime change from Richard II to Henry IV.

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When her ex-husband's new wile is murdered, Laurel Vega (Patricia Richardson) emerges as the prime suspect. She laces the death penalty. Her only hope is her brother-in-law, Paul Madriani. But Laurel mysteriously refuses to co-operate - and Paul's investigations raise some disturbing questions.

What has happened to Laurel's neighbours, who have vanished? Is her ex-husband, a powerful US senator, everything he seems? And as Paul begins to expose the truth, how much is he putting his own life in deadly danger?

Working in secret for the Air Ministry at his remote country house laboratory, John Barrington (Leslie Banks) is key to the ongoing war effort against the Nazis. Barrington's household, however, has been infiltrated by enemy agents who plan to take him back to Berlin as prisoner.

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When they were twelve years old, Mark, Pru, Danny and Slade were out together in the woods. Mark's five-year-old brother Jesse was bothering them, so they told him to get lost. Jesse ran away. He was never seen again.

Twenty years later, Danny - now a detective - learns that Jesse's DNA has been found at a murder scene. Is Jesse alive? The four friends must reunite to discover the shocking truth. 'The Five' is a thrilling ten-part series with twists, turns and dark secrets.

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Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell and Max von Sydow star in director Steven Spielberg' action-packed foretelling vision of the future.

When Precrime detective John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is identified as a future murderer, he must race against his own specialized police department and time itself to prove his innocence of a crime he has yet to commit.

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Doctor Gemma Foster's life is about to be torn apart. She's a talented family doctor at the heart of her community, a loving wife and mother, a woman people can trust. But her world is fractured the moment she suspects her husband, Simon, of having an affair. Determined to discover the truth.

Gemma (Suranne Jones) unearths dark secrets that threaten everything she loves. As her life and the lives of her patients and family are thrown into chaos, only one thing is certain - Gemma will find herself behaving in ways she could never have imagined...

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After an extensive talent search, producer-director Otto Preminger selected a 17-year-old unknown from Iowa, Jean Seberg, to play Joan of Arc, a role traditionally portrayed by actresses twice to three times Seberg's age.

Seberg is cast opposite such venerable pros as Richard Todd (as Dunois), Anton Walbrook (the Bishop of Beauvais), John Gielgud (Earl of Warwick) and Felix Aylmer (The Inquisitor). Cast as the vacillating Dauphin is Richard Widmark. Graham Greene's screenplay refashions the original Shaw text in the form of a flashback. Seberg eventually became an accomplished actress by virtue of her appearances in such nouvelle vague films as Breathless, but it was too late to salvage Saint Joan, which was figuratively burned at the stake by critics and filmgoers alike.

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Returning after a near-five-year pause, Hyvvel Bennett stars once again as James Shelley, the erudite, philosophically inclined idler who elevated work-avoidance to an art form through an initial, massively popular six-series run in the early 1980's.

These further series (initially titled 'The Return of Shelley') see the graduate and 'freelance layabout' returning to the UK after a stint teaching English abroad. When he left, the social landscape was changing fast -and now he's shocked to see by how much. Middle-aged slobs have been banned from their origins, Yuppiedom is the name of the new game, and the only thing that's 'real' is 'estate'; an unforgiving new world personified by Shelley's frighteningly energetic new landlords, Carol and Graham...Featuring guest appearances from James Grout, John Woodnutt, Stephen Tompkinson, Clive Swift and John Cater among many others, this set contains every episode screened between 1988 and 1992, including the 1991 New Year special.

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Written by award-winning screen-writer and novelist Frederic Raphael, "The Glittering Prizes" is the critically acclaimed series of six teleplays chronicling the changing lives of friends who first meet at Cambridge University.

Tom Conti (Shirley Valentine) stars as would-be novelist Adam Morris with Mark Wing-Davey and Nigel Havers among his college peers. Barbara Kellerman, Malcolm Stoddard, Connie Booth, Miriam Margolyes and Tim Pigott-Smith also feature among the cast. Meeting as undergraduates in the early fifties, the drama explores the hopes and dreams of a group of idealistic young students, following their intertwining lives into the turbulent sixties, and on through the successes and disillusionments of the seventies as they achieve contrasting levels of worldly success.

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Terrorism, kidnap, hijacking and espionage are the daily dangers faced by David Barber (Christian Burgess) and Tom Duffy (Patrick James Clarke), chief operatives for Saracen Systems - a private security firm whose clients are governments, industry and individual contractors worldwide.

Their backgrounds and personalities are radically different: Barber, tall, dark and with typically English reserve, left the SAS when a mission went tragically wrong; the blonde, rugged Duffy is a relaxed, relentlessly charming American trained in the elite Delta Force. Their contradictory qualities make for a volatile friendship but a highly professional partnership. Under Saracen's founder and director, retired army officer Colonel Patrick Ansell (Michael Byrne), the agents take on high-risk tasks too sensitive or unpredictable for other agencies to handle. Recalling the classic action series of the 1970', this fast-paced, no-expense-spared series features exotic locations and breathtaking action sequences...

Super sleuth Inspector Morse (John Thaw) has an ear for music, a taste for beer and a nose for crime. He sets out with Sergeant Lewis (Kevin Whatley) to solve each intriguing case.

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Beautifully and faithfully adapted for the big screen from Arthur Ransome's classic novel, 'Swallows and Amazons' is a treat for children and adults alike.

Holidaying with their mother in the Lake District in the 1920s, four children set sail for a nearby island in their boat, Swallow, but soon realise that the island is also the territory of two other girls, whose vessel is named the Amazon. Boasting beautiful period detail, Claude Whatham's film is an idyllic tale that brings all the excitement and camaraderie of Arthur Ransome's book to life with wit and humour.

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Sherlock Holmes is the greatest of all fictional detectives, as famous for his deerstalker and pipe, as his legendary powers of observation and deduction. He is an aloof and private man driven by a fierce intellect that gives him astounding brilliance and unfathomable eccentricity in equal measure.

Jeremy Brett, the definitive Holmes, stars in two beautiful adaptations taken from the classic ITV series.

Shoscombe Old Place
Shoscombe Prince is the best colt in England. So why is his owner, Sir Robert (Robin Ellis), behaving so strangely in the run up to the Derby? When one of Sir Robert's creditors disappears, and a human bone is discovered in the furnace of his house, it is time for Holmes and Watson to investigate.
The Boscombe Valley Mystery
Australian-born farmer Charles McCarthy is found murdered following a violent row with his son James (James Purefoy), who now stands accused of his father's murder. The case seems clear-cut until Holmes receives an urgent telegram from Alice Turner (Joanna Roth), the daughter of a former highway robber who knew Charles in Australia. Alice is convinced of James's innocence and Holmes decides to delve a little deeper...

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Alec Callendar is a small-town solicitor at Semple, Callendar and Henry with big-time dreams. His suburban legal practice is a far cry from the life of his hero, Perry Mason, with whom he has frequent imaginery conversations.

Romance has changed Alec's life and when Zoe's divorce is finalised she asks Alec to move in with her. Alec's son and daughter, however, aren't thrilled with the news. The age gap still plays a large part in their relationship.

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The Girl in the Train
George Rowland, a bored playboy, disowned for the seventh time by his wealthy uncle, is on the train to London. When a beautiful girl bursts into his compartment frantically begging to be hidden, his life changes dramatically.
The Fourth Man

A canon, a lawyer and a psychiatrist find themselves together on a train bound for Newcastle. There is a fourth man in the compartment, who apparently pays no attention to his companions' animated conversation. But do they have something to learn from this stranger?