Lost and forgotten dramas

[Floogal]

A few weeks ago I started a thread about hard to find documentaries. A few people brought up Cathy Comes Home and Play for today. They're a bit before my time but I remember things like Screen One and Two in late 80s to mid 90s. Like the documentaries, they are difficult to find on YouTube and has no DVD release (as far as I know).
The ones I remember are:

1. Alive and Kicking (1991) where Lenny Henry plays a reformed yardie who forms a football team for recovering drug addicts with the help of tough social worker played by Robbie Coltrane (similar to his Cracker character). Apparently it's based on a true story. I specifically remember this one as they showed it to us in social studies at school.
2. Somewhere to run (1989) about two teenage runaways. Stars the lady who plays Simon's mum in Inbetweeners.
3. On the 8 ball (1998). Also about Yardies.
4. On the edge of the razor blade (1998- I think that's what it was called). About these two women who hide in a public toilet to get away from rapacious drug dealers. There's a bit when one turns on the other because she was left to be assaulted while the other one was too high. It was on a gay film season on channel 4.
5. Dancing in the dark. Set in Liverpool. A woman bumps into her ex boyfriend on her hen do
6. Letter to Breshnev. Sometime in the 80s. Also set in Liverpool where this girl falls in love with a Russian sailor and tries to join him in the USSR.

Does anyone else remember these. Or where to find them, or do you remember any hard to find dramas?

Philippa’s personal story line, the events that happened in the USA, (no spoiler here) was radically changed in the film though, it was not nearly as good as it should have been.
When I read in the news a couple of days ago, that there was a recent invention of a ‘bacteria-eating plastic’, it reminded me of the ‘Doomwatch’ series on TV in the 1970’s - the one with the plastic-bacteria on a passenger aeroplane, starring a very young Robert Powell (before he was Jesus).

I’ve got Ultraviolet on DVD. I didn’t realise it was Idris Elba! Will have to watch it again!

Boys from the Blackstuff

Bumping the Odds - Scottish film about loan sharks

i recently found Survivors on YouTube

Luke’s Kingdom - Australian settler series with a young Oliver Tobias. watched it when I was 17. Managed to get it on DVD recently

What was that show about the French resistance? The serious one, not the comedy..

Have just checked, need to do a 7 day free trial to view the film via BFI player. Will give it a miss for now.

Another one from the late 80s; Thin Air. Starred Kate Hardie, Nicky Henson and Kevin McNally and was about a radio reporter uncovering some big corruption scandal.

Also, there was a thriller series that I had in my head starred John Sessions but I can’t see it on his imdb at all if so. It was about a guy investigating his brothers death, it was set in Scotland I think and he ended up dying because he’d fallen into a loch that had been polluted with something deadly,,possibly radiation? His brother’s girlfriend didn’t trust him at all at first but later on she felll for him. I think it was 90s but could have been a bit earlier.

I wonder if this thread might identify a mystery drama for me?

I have partial memories of a series (or maybe a film) about a woman who gets fed up of the sexual harassment and abuse she gets from men and goes on the rampage. There was a disturbing scene with a dentist. And I have a vague memory of her singing 'beautiful hammer, hammer for me' at one point. She may have been called Bella.

I think it was probably late nineties but I'm not sure. It definitely stuck in mind and I've searched for it before, not because it was stunningly good but because I think it was probably one of the first disturbing things I'd seen on TV.

Wish Me Luck, maybe?

Bangkok Hilton

@Talisin Ive just remembered! It was Secret Army - late 70s I think.

I might give it a go then, thank you.

A few years ago I watched Tenko on one of the freeview channels. Incredible TV, if you haven't seen it, seek it out. I bought the dvds. I was particularly impressed with the post war episodes showing the struggle to adjust.

This Life

It was the Belgian resistance. It was repeated recently on Talking Pictures TV and it was more brutal than my memory suggested. The cast was excellent.

That was really good, it appears to be on YouTube, though it's only hour and half long I thought I recalled it being longer, it must have been 3 x 30 minutes episodes.

It's just genius isn't it

The episode where Dexter tells the workman to destroy a painting cos he thinks Tina is having an affair but he has dialled the wrong number.

North and South with Patrick Swayze and Kirstie Alley, series about the American civil war

I had this on video and transferred it to dvd. An absolute delight

Apparently that’s the Russian bootleg version that was cut down to one third of the original runtime. I wonder if it makes any sense - that’s a heck of a lot of story lost.

Our Friends in the North.

Ah, right, I thought it was a lot longer like probably 3 x 2 hour episodes, at first I thought the one on YouTube was a film of the same name as it was so short, loads must be missing.

I remember Maelstrom it must have been around 1985/6

Margi Clarke was in Letter to Brezhnev
and also in Making Out which was about the women working in a factory in a run down area. I remember enjoying both

Yes, Rock Follies..1976..Julie Covington. Loved it as a teenager.

Answering my own question - it was called Jute City (which rings zero bells) and while John Sessions was in it, he wasn’t the lead.

And Wiedersehen Pet - was reminded of it because it is currently showing on ITV3.
The Beiderbecke Affair
The One Game
Heimat
Das Boot

Loved Rock Follies. I though Julie Covington's Don't Cry For Me Argentina was the best version.
I remember watching The Duchess of Duke Street that was on at around the same time - late 1970s.

Bluebell - set during WW2 about a dancer in Paris with a Jewish husband

Life and Loves of a she devil

Secret Army, it did reappear on some obscure Sky channel about 5 years ago and I rewatched it.