Jesse Birdsall Movies

As in its past three seasons, the ribald British drama series Footballers' Wives continues to be propelled forward by the spectacular sexcapades of its leading character, the coke-sniffing, bed-hopping Tanya Turner (Zoe Lucker), who has already married two members of the Earls Park Sparks football team and has also managed to ensare several others in her well-manicured clutches. Arrested for drug possession at the end of Season Three, Tanya returns for more deviltry at the outset of Season Four, having spent the "interim" period as a supporting character on the British "women in prison" melodrama Bad Girls. Conrad Gates (Ben Price) is the new captain of the Sparks, and the latest prospect on Tanya's "must have sex with" list; he has also divorced his wife, the ruthlessly ambitious Bollywood starlet Amber (Laila Rouass). However, Conrad and Amber get back together again (maybe!) when he finds out that his baby son Troy is Amber's and not Tanya's. In other news, the Sparks' manager Roger Webb (Jesse Birdsall), has married Jackie Pascoe (Gillian Taylforth]), the mother of ex-team member Kyle Pascoe, who has degenerated into a life of crime. Later on, Roger's son Seb (Tom Swire), who also happens to play on the team, will make an entirely different type of play for his sexy stepmom. Elsewhere, second-year team member Harley Lawson (Jamie Davis) finds that he can't trust his cosmetic surgery-addicted bride Shannon (Sarah Barrand) any farther than he can throw her when she hops in the sack with teenaged hotshot player Darius Fry (Peter Ashe). And finally, new Sparks teammate Bruno Milligan (Ben Richards) ruminates over the impending end of his career, while his wife Lucy (Helen Latham), determined to emerge from behind the shadow of her famous husband, inaugurates an affair with an internet acquaintance named Giles. All this, plus a nasty charge of "team rape" in Sunny Spain as a bonus! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Beyond Bedlam is an ambitious British horror shocker, incorporating elements familiar from Nightmare On Elm Street and the work of such authors as Thomas Harris and Clive Barker. Terry Hamilton (Craig Fairbrass) is a detective haunted by the maniac he captured seven years ago, known as the Bone Man (Keith Allen). The Bone Man, whose real name is Gilmour, is the top patient of a scientist (Elizabeth Hurley), who has been using Gilmour in experiments to test a new mind-calming drug called BFND. But the drug also enables Gilmour to bring his hallucinations to life, and his monstrous creations menace Hamilton and the doctor during the film's second half as they attempt to put Gilmour down for good. Shot mostly in an abandoned sanitarium, the film puts its eerie location to good effect and has a lot of visual style, but the initially promising premise breaks down as the long final pursuit kicks in. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

The British Wish You Were Here served as the auspicious film debut for 16-year-old Emily Lloyd. The scene is a British seaside community of the 1950s, where the local adults are shocked and embarrassed by the libertine Lynda (Lloyd), who dresses provocatively, behaves outrageously, and swears like a sailor (her favorite epithet is "Up your bum"). Lynda's mother is dead, and her father has given up trying to do anything with her. She attempts to hold down several jobs, but messes them all up through insolence and carelessness. Excessively promiscuous, Lynda has an affair with a middle-aged friend of her father's. She becomes pregnant, only to use her "fallen" state to gleefully shock and annoy her elders even more. Despite her bravado, there's an underlying sadness about Lynda: the title Wish You Were Here refers to her feelings concerning her late mother. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The mid-'80s disco revival resulted in a number of children's programs on both sides of the Atlantic. One of Britain's contributions to this trend was the six-week "musical drama" series Jangles. Aimed primarily at a preteen audience, the series was predicated on the notion that a schoolgirl was capable of running a disco club after school hours with the help of her hunky boyfriend. Maybe the premise was nonsensical, but who cared with all that music and all those flashing lights? Jangles originally aired in 1985. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this slice-of-life film shot in 1981 for British television, a wide-ranging group of Royal Navy men -- very young men -- try to have one last reprieve on land before they take off for NATO duty. Each sailor is confronted with a unique challenge: Mark (David John) tries to help out a victim of a severe beating, Malcolm (Martin Barrass) is enjoying more than a nip or two from the bottle as he barrels toward the embarkation point on a passenger train, and a few other recruits have their love lives high on a list of priorities. Steve (John Altman) has some personal adventures as he tries to advance a romantic liaison, and Douglas (Timothy Spall) worries over leaving his pregnant wife behind, knowing she will give birth while he is gone. At times a bit slow, this drama won first prize at the 1983 Taormina Film Festival. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide