The Unforgettable

A profile of the comedy actress, best remembered for playing Jennifer Saunders' mother in Absolutely Fabulous and Terry Scott's wife in long-running sitcom Terry and June. With contributions from June's family, friends including Rory Bremner, fans and co-stars like Jane Horrocks and Stephanie Beacham, this documentary examines how she was able to keep working well into her nineties.

A profile of the actress, best known for her sitcom roles as Margo Leadbetter in The Good Life and Audrey fforbes-Hamilton in To the Manor Born. Colleagues and co-stars including Felicity Kendal and Judy Cornwell paint a portrait of her as a giggling, joke-loving, green-fingered, warm-hearted and nurturing personality, far removed from the TV characters that made her famous.

Nearly 40 years after Rossiter's death, his friends, co-stars and fans have reunited for a celebration of his life and career, among them Don Warrington, Sue Nicholls and Mark Lester. This 90-minute documentary includes a never-before-seen interview with Rossiter himself and brings new perspectives on one of Britain's best-loved actors, from his upbringing in Liverpool to his remarkable, late-blossoming TV career. Rossiter was a complex and private individual who never sought public acclaim for his performances, yet he sought perfection in every aspect of his life, whether performing comedy gold in TV studios or winning countless victories over his friends during tennis matches. He kept his private life out of the spotlight as much as possible, and was a loving husband and father who enjoyed fine wines and family dinner parties. But his family were stunned to learn of the affair he had with a BBC radio presenter, which had remained a secret until the publication of her memoirs 18 years after his death. Rossiter's devotion to tennis and football had kept him at the peak of fitness, but he died from a heart attack in 1984 at the age of 57, while waiting to appear on stage in London. David John, a member of the cast from his last production, shares a moving tribute to a remarkable talent taken too soon.

Wendy was born in County Durham in 1934 as Anne Gwendolyn Craig. She reveals that she first set her sights on an acting career at the age of three after seeing a pantomime in Newcastle. At drama school in London in the early 1950s, a performance she gave alongside fellow trainee and future Sherlock Holmes star Jeremy Brett was so impressive that she picked up both her first professional acting job and an agent in the same evening. By the 1960s, Wendy was carving out a career playing fragile and vulnerable women in British movie classics such as The Servant and The Nanny, and sharing the screen with luminaries such as Dirk Bogarde, Bette Davis and Oliver Reed. After 1967, her shift into TV sitcoms such as Not in Front of the Children and And Mother Makes Three marked a sea change in her career. Her friends and fans agree that 1978's Butterflies is her greatest success, giving her an opportunity to blend the fragility and daffiness of her previous screen work to create an exciting new character: the bored housewife Ria Parkinson — famously unlucky in the kitchen and tempted to have an affair to spice up her unfulfilled home life. Wendy soon found herself receiving sackloads of fan mail from viewers who believed that their own unhappy lives were being charted on screen, in what series creator Carla Lane described as a ‘situation tragedy'. Few realized that Lane was initially overwhelmed by memories of Craig's earlier work as ditzy mothers and unhappy about the idea of casting her as Ria. Fortunately, BBC comedy executive John Howard Davies changed her mind. Wendy's work on comedies such as Butterflies, and dramas like Nanny and The Royal, earned her a reputation for playing sympathetic characters with a strong maternal streak. But in 2017, the creators of ITV's Unforgotten drama series turned that on its head by casting her as a mother who had allowed her husband to abuse their children in one of the year's most upsetting TV moments. Wendy is joined by her family, friends and co-stars such as Michael Starke, David Parfitt and Bruce Montague sharing affectionate memories from their time on set with an actor they describe as being very like Ria Parkinson — except that she really can cook.