The Rat Catcher

The Rat Catcher 2023

6.61

In an English village, a reporter and a mechanic listen to a ratcatcher explain his clever plan to outwit his prey.

2023

The Orchard End Murder

The Orchard End Murder 1981

6.20

Charthurst Green, Kent, 1966. Pauline Cox accompanies Mike Robins to a village cricket match in which he is playing, but becomes bored and wanders away. She fetches up at the local railway station, where she is first entertained to tea by the garrulous, hunchbacked station master, then upset by the intrusion of the latter's assistant Ewen, who proceeds to kill a rabbit in her presence. Making her way back to the match, Pauline is waylaid by the simple-minded Ewen as she crosses an apple orchard; when his advances become violent, she tries to fight him off and he strangles her. The station master helps in covering up the murder, burying the corpse in the orchard.

1981

Here We Come A-Wassailing

Here We Come A-Wassailing 1977

1

A documentary on the surviving syncretic pagan midwinter customs of the British Isles, focusing on nine ritual celebrations ranging from the Moray Firth in the north, the Somerset Levels in the south, Humberside in the east, and County Kerry in the west. Featuring music by the Albion Band and narration by John Tams.

1977

All Five Eyes

All Five Eyes 1970

1

Set in a small English village in 1967, liberated Marion is exploring the new social freedoms enjoyed by women in the late 1960s while conscientious and self-conscious Cecily runs the local girls school and is Willa’s main carer. Their differences reach a boiling point over their relationship with Willa, which leads to each sister making their own decision on what it means to have a life worth living.

1970

The Screaming Woods

The Screaming Woods 1970

1

In 2020, three filmmakers visited Britain’s most haunted village - Pluckley, in Kent - to shoot a documentary about its many legendary ghosts, and to conduct their own paranormal investigation. The three soon discover that the stories and legends are all true, and that the notorious "screaming woods" hold a very sinister past.

1970

Constable: A Country Rebel

Constable: A Country Rebel 2014

1

The Haywain by John Constable is such a comfortingly familiar image of rural Britain that it is difficult to believe it was ever regarded as a revolutionary painting, but in this film, made in conjunction with a landmark exhibition at the V&A, Alastair Sooke discovers that Constable was painting in a way that was completely new and groundbreaking at the time. Through experimentation and innovation, he managed to make a sublime art from humble things and, though he struggled in his own country during his lifetime, his genius was surprisingly widely admired in France.

2014

The Rector's Wife

The Rector's Wife 1994

8.00

Three-part dramatization of the novel by Joanna Trollope. A clergyman's wife shocks the church establishment and infuriates her husband by taking a job in a supermarket. She attracts the passionate interest of three very different men: a newly-appointed archdeacon; his younger brother, a philosopher and academic; and a wealthy businessman new to the village.

1994

The Village

The Village 2013

7.47

The Village tells the story of life in a Derbyshire village through the eyes of a central character, Bert Middleton.

2013