Ian Talbot Movies

Peter Greenaway wrote and directed this typically surreal and iconoclastic black comedy. Three generations of women who share the same name -- 63-year-old Cissie Colpitts (Joan Plowright), her daughter Cissie Colpitts II (Juliet Stevenson), and granddaughter Cissie Colpitts III (Joely Richardson) -- have all discovered the same way of dealing with their marital problems. The senior Cissie has drowned her husband Jake (Bryan Pringle) in the bathtub, her daughter sent her spouse Hardy (Trevor Cooper) to a watery grave in the ocean, and the youngest Cissie sent her husband Bellamy (David Morrissey) down in a swimming pool. Needless to say, local coroner Henry Madgett (Barnard Hill) has some questions about this sudden rash of drownings among the Colpitts husbands, and again all three women respond in the same way: they promise to sleep with Henry in exchange for recording the deaths as accidental (though none of the Cissies make good on this promise). When the local gossip mill begins working overtime about this sudden rash of water-related deaths, Henry's teenage son Smut (Jason Edwards) comes to the aid of the Cissies and organizes a tug-of-war, with he and the Colpitts women on one side and the doubting townspeople on the other (and, of course, a river in the middle). Along the way, Greenaway often stops to contemplate his obsessions with literature, astronomy, and numbers. Drowning by Numbers was released in Europe in 1988, but didn't find its way to American screens until 1991, following the success of Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The 18th season of Doctor Who was inaugurated August 30, 1980, with episode one of the four-part "The Leisure Hive." The Doctor (Tom Baker) and Romana (Lalla Ward) arrive on Argolis, a tourist planet run by the survivors of a nuclear holocaust. The time travelers soon learn that it isn't all fun and games on Argolis, thanks to some diabolical experiments conducted by something called the Tachyon Recreation Generator. "The Leisure Hive, Episode 1" was written by David Fisher. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the third episode of the four-part story "The Leisure Hive," the Doctor (Tom Baker) and Romana (Lalla Ward), visiting a recreational facility on the war-ravaged planet Argolis, have been arrested for the murder of Earth scientist Hardin (Nigel Lambert). It turns out the actual culprit is Pagnol (David Haig), a humanoid creation of the Tachyon Recreation Generator, who intends to generate an army of duplicates of himself to attack Argolis' arch-enemy, the Foamasi. Though Pagnol's motivations are (relatively) pure, they may have devastating consequences for the few survivors of the Argolis-Foamasi nuclear war. Originally telecast September 13, 1980, "The Leisure Hive, Episode 3" was written by David Fisher. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Zany British comedian Frankie Howerd, who'd previously laid waste to Ancient Rome in Up Pompeii, does same with World War II in Up the Front. Howerd plays a timorous servant who undergoes hypnosis. While thus entranced, he imagines himself a fearless warrior, and makes a beeline to the recruiting office. The laughs come fast and furious when Howerd finds himself the recipient of the enemy's war plans--tattooed on his tush. As was customary, Frankie Howerd took several opportunities in Up the Front to directly address the audience and crack wise about the situation at hand. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide