Richard Beckinsale

Richard Beckinsale

Born: July 6, 1947
Died: March 19, 1979
in Carlton, Nottinghamshire, UK
Richard Beckinsale was an English actor, best known for his roles as Lennie Godber in the popular BBC sitcom Porridge and Alan Moore in the British ITV sitcom Rising Damp. He is the father of actresses Samantha Beckinsale and Kate Beckinsale. He died of a congenital heart defect at the age of just thirty one in 1979

Movies for Richard Beckinsale...

Comedy Classics: Porridge
Title: Comedy Classics: Porridge
Character: (archive footage)
Released: December 16, 2022
Type: Movie
An homage to the prison comedy series Porridge, created by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. This documentary examines how Ronnie Barker’s Fletch influenced Slade Prison’s characters. There is also a look at 1978’s Going Straight, Porridge: The Movie, the US remake On the Rocks, and the 2017 reboot starring Kevin Bishop and Ricky Grover.
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Title: Bloomers
Released: September 27, 1979
Type: TV
Bloomers was a short-lived British sitcom starring Richard Beckinsale that was aired in 1979. It was in production in 1979 but only five episodes were made before Beckinsale died suddenly from a heart attack just before a planned rehearsal for the sixth and final episode of the first series. Bloomers was immediately shelved, though the five completed episodes were broadcast later in the same year.
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Porridge
Title: Porridge
Character: Lennie Godber
Released: August 12, 1979
Type: Movie
Times are hard for habitual guest of Her Majesty Norman Stanley Fletcher. The new prison officer, Beale, makes MacKay look soft and what's more, an escape plan is hatching from the cell of prison godfather Grouty and Fletcher wants no part of it.
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Title: Going Straight
Character: Lenny Godber
Released: February 24, 1978
Type: TV
Going Straight is a BBC sitcom which was a direct spin-off from Porridge, starring Ronnie Barker as Norman Stanley Fletcher, newly released from the fictional Slade Prison where the earlier series had been set. It sees Fletcher trying to become an honest member of society, having vowed to stay away from crime on his release. The title refers to his attempt, 'straight' being a slang term meaning being honest, in contrast to 'bent', i.e., dishonest. Also re-appearing was Richard Beckinsale as Lennie Godber, who was Fletcher's naïve young cellmate and was now in a relationship with his daughter Ingrid. Her brother Raymond was played by a teenage Nicholas Lyndhurst. Only one series, of six episodes, was made in 1978. It attracted an audience of over 15 million viewers and won a BAFTA award in March 1979, but hopes of a further series had already been dashed by Beckinsale's premature death earlier in the same month.
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Last Summer
Title: Last Summer
Character: Johnny
Released: July 22, 1977
Type: Movie
A 1976 play concerning an unemployed school leaver becomes involved with professional car thieves. Part of the ITV Playhouse strand.
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Porridge: The Desperate Hours
Title: Porridge: The Desperate Hours
Character: Godber
Released: December 24, 1976
Type: Movie
Fletcher and Godber are in trouble for brewing liquor in the lead-up to Christmas, but are caught up in a hostage situation in the Governor's office.
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Porridge: No Way Out
Title: Porridge: No Way Out
Character: Godber
Released: December 24, 1975
Type: Movie
Fletcher discovers that his fellow inmates are planning to escape.
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The Floater
Title: The Floater
Character: Michael Robson
Released: May 29, 1975
Type: Movie
A comedy about the law - seen from the inside. All formality and procedure on the surface but not quite so convincing when you see the works.
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Three for All
Title: Three for All
Character: Jet Bone
Released: May 1, 1975
Type: Movie
A pop band and their girlfriends have fun in Spain
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Title: Porridge
Character: Lennie Godber
Released: September 5, 1974
Type: TV
Porridge is a British situation comedy broadcast on BBC1 from 1974 to 1977, running for three series, two Christmas specials and a feature film also titled Porridge. Written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, it stars Ronnie Barker and Richard Beckinsale as two inmates at the fictional HMP Slade in Cumberland. "Doing porridge" is British slang for serving a prison sentence, porridge once being the traditional breakfast in UK prisons. The series was followed by a 1978 sequel, Going Straight, which established that Fletcher would not be going back to prison again. Porridge was voted number seven in a 2004 BBC poll of the 100 greatest British sitcoms.
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Title: Rising Damp
Character: Alan
Released: September 2, 1974
Type: TV
Set in a seedy bedsit, the cowardly landlord Rigsby has his conceits debunked by his long suffering tenants.
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If There Weren't Any Blacks You'd Have to Invent Them
Title: If There Weren't Any Blacks You'd Have to Invent Them
Character: The Young Man
Released: March 3, 1974
Type: Movie
Set in a cemetery, the film tells the story of a young man whom a blind man wrongly imagines to be black, and explores the nature of human prejudice.
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The Lovers!
Title: The Lovers!
Character: Geoffrey Scrimshaw
Released: January 1, 1973
Type: Movie
Reprising the television series roles which first made them household names, Richard Beckinsale and Paula Wilcox star as Geoffrey Scrimshaw and Beryl Battersby, a hesitant, inexperienced, young couple attempting to negotiate the sexual minefield of the ‘permissive’ society. This big-screen transfer of Jack Rosenthal’s hugely likeable sitcom sees old-fashioned girl Beryl continuing to slap down the advances of her frustrated boyfriend, whose clumsy attempts to initiate ‘Percy Filth’ suggest he’s not quite up to speed himself! Like everyone else, Geoffrey and Beryl want to fall in love – or they think they do; like everyone else, since Adam and Eve. But Adam and Eve didn’t live in Manchester in 1972…
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Rentadick
Title: Rentadick
Character: Hobbs
Released: December 31, 1972
Type: Movie
Armitage runs a chemical company that is on the verge of producing a gas that causes temporary disability. Clearly the military want it but it is also sought by a group of Japanese. Both Armitage and Madam Greenfly hire different people in the same detective agency to guard the gas and steal it respectively... confusion, double crosses and hilarity ensue...
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Title: Justice
Character: Terry Watson
Released: October 8, 1971
Type: TV
Justice is a British drama television series which originally aired on ITV in 39 hour-long episodes between 8 August 1971 and 16 October 1974. Margaret Lockwood stars as Harriet Peterson a female barrister in the North of England. It was made by Yorkshire Television and was based loosely on Justice Is a Woman, an episode of ITV Playhouse broadcast in 1969 in which Lockwood had previously also played a barrister. The theme music was Crown Imperial by William Walton.
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Title: The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes
Character: Richard Frobisher
Released: September 20, 1971
Type: TV
Adaptations of mystery stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's contemporary rivals in the genre.
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Detective Waiting
Title: Detective Waiting
Character: Lewis
Released: September 14, 1971
Type: Movie
A cat and mouse game develops between a big man of crime and a young detective constable. But the big man doesn't realize, that this mouse roars.
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Title: The Lovers
Released: October 27, 1970
Type: TV
The ups-and-downs of a young courting couple's relationship.
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Title: Play for Today
Released: October 15, 1970
Type: TV
Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.
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Title: Armchair Theatre
Character: Lewis
Released: July 8, 1956
Type: TV
Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series of single plays that ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation, and later by Thames Television from mid-1968.