Maxine Peake (born 14 July 1974) is an English stage, radio, film and television actress, playwright, producer, director and political activist, who made her name as Twinkle in Victoria Wood's sitcom Dinnerladies. She has since played Veronica in Channel 4's Manchester-based drama series Shameless, barrister Martha Costello in the BBC legal drama Silk and Grace Middleton in The Village. She is also an accomplished stage actress, having played the title role in Hamlet, and had a role in the 2014 film The Theory of Everything. In 2018 she played the lead in the film Funny Cow and had a starring role in Mike Leigh's epic Peterloo, a film very close to her heart.
Drama · Romance
Once a healthy, active young man, Hawking received an earth-shattering diagnosis at 21 years of age. With Jane fighting tirelessly by his side, Stephen embarks on his most ambitious scientific work, studying the very thing he now has precious little of – time.
7.82014
Sci-Fi & Fantasy · Drama
Twisted tales run wild in this mind-bending anthology series that reveals humanity's worst traits, greatest innovations and more.
8.32011
Drama · History
Diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome at 15, John Davidson navigates his way against the odds through troubled teenage years and into adulthood, finding inspiration in the kindness of others to discover his true purpose in life.
8.32025
Animation · Sci-Fi & Fantasy
This anthology of animated shorts from around the world celebrates the mythos of Star Wars through unique cultural lenses.
7.12021
Animation · Comedy
Two scheming demons strike a deal with a punk rock-loving teen so they can leave the Underworld and live out their dreams in the Land of the Living.
6.62022
Comedy · Talk
Each week celebrity guests join Irish comedian Graham Norton to discuss what's being going on around the world that week. The guests poke fun and share their opinions on the main news stories. Graham is often joined by a band or artist to play the show out.
7.22007
Comedy · Mystery
An anthology of darkly comic twisted tales, each one taking place behind a door marked 'number 9'.
8.12014
Drama · Mystery
England, 1969. The fascinating Abbie and the troubled Lydia are great friends. After an unexpected tragedy occurs in the strict girls' school they attend, a mysterious epidemic of fainting breaks out that threatens the mental sanity and beliefs of the tormented people involved, both teachers and students.
5.12015
Drama
Penny works at a supermarket and Phil is a gentle taxi-driver. Penny’s love for Phil has run dry and they lead joyless lives with their two children, Rachel, a cleaner, and Rory, who is unemployed and aggressive.
7.12002
History · Drama
An epic portrayal of the events surrounding the infamous 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where a peaceful pro-democracy rally at St Peter’s Field in Manchester turned into one of the bloodiest and most notorious episodes in British history. The massacre saw British government forces charge into a crowd of over 60,000 that had gathered to demand political reforms and protest against rising levels of poverty.
6.72018
Comedy · Drama
The story of a young group of siblings pretty much abandoned by their parents, surviving by their wits - and humor - on a rough Manchester council estate. Whilst they won't admit it, they need help and find it in Steve, a young middle class lad who falls for Fiona, the oldest sibling, and increasingly finds himself drawn to this unconventional and unique family. Anarchic family life seen through the eyes of an exceptionally bright fifteen year old, who struggles to come of age in the context of his belligerent father, closeted brother, psychotic sister and internet porn star neighbors.
7.62004
Drama · Romance
Once a healthy, active young man, Hawking received an earth-shattering diagnosis at 21 years of age. With Jane fighting tirelessly by his side, Stephen embarks on his most ambitious scientific work, studying the very thing he now has precious little of – time.
7.82014
Drama · History
Diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome at 15, John Davidson navigates his way against the odds through troubled teenage years and into adulthood, finding inspiration in the kindness of others to discover his true purpose in life.
8.32025
Animation · Comedy
Two scheming demons strike a deal with a punk rock-loving teen so they can leave the Underworld and live out their dreams in the Land of the Living.
6.62022
Thriller · Crime
After 6 years of brutal murders, the West Yorkshire Police fear that they may have already interviewed The Ripper and let him back into the world to continue his reign of terror upon the citizens of Yorkshire. Assistant Chief Constable of the Manchester Police, Peter Hunter, is called in to oversee the West Yorkshire Police's Ripper investigation and see what they could have missed.
Drama · Mystery
England, 1969. The fascinating Abbie and the troubled Lydia are great friends. After an unexpected tragedy occurs in the strict girls' school they attend, a mysterious epidemic of fainting breaks out that threatens the mental sanity and beliefs of the tormented people involved, both teachers and students.
5.12015
Drama
Penny works at a supermarket and Phil is a gentle taxi-driver. Penny’s love for Phil has run dry and they lead joyless lives with their two children, Rachel, a cleaner, and Rory, who is unemployed and aggressive.
7.12002
History · Drama
An epic portrayal of the events surrounding the infamous 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where a peaceful pro-democracy rally at St Peter’s Field in Manchester turned into one of the bloodiest and most notorious episodes in British history. The massacre saw British government forces charge into a crowd of over 60,000 that had gathered to demand political reforms and protest against rising levels of poverty.
6.72018
Drama · Action
An underworld drama set in the early 1980s, about a lonely factory worker whose life is transformed when he becomes a nightclub doorman.
6.72008
Drama · Mystery
A mysterious — and suspicious — run of ill fortune plagues a teenage girl and her mother and sister on their hillside farm in this folk story set in the dark hills of Wales during the industrial revolution.
5.42018
Drama · History
On an isolated English farm in 1657, Fanny lives a quiet life with her oppressive husband John and their young son. One day their life is rocked with the arrival of young couple Thomas and Rebecca who claim to have been robbed and need a place to stay. But are these strangers really who they say they are?
6.32019
Drama · Romance
A lesbian in the 1800s who keeps a detailed account of her life written in coded diaries attempts to live independently while juggling an affair with a married woman.
Drama · Romance
Set in the fields of Devon and the WW1 battlefields of Flanders, two brothers fall for the same girl while contending with the pressures of their feudal family life, the war, and the price of courage and cowardice.
6.62012
Sci-Fi & Fantasy · Drama
Twisted tales run wild in this mind-bending anthology series that reveals humanity's worst traits, greatest innovations and more.
8.32011
Animation · Sci-Fi & Fantasy
This anthology of animated shorts from around the world celebrates the mythos of Star Wars through unique cultural lenses.
7.12021
Comedy · Talk
Each week celebrity guests join Irish comedian Graham Norton to discuss what's being going on around the world that week. The guests poke fun and share their opinions on the main news stories. Graham is often joined by a band or artist to play the show out.
7.22007
Comedy · Mystery
An anthology of darkly comic twisted tales, each one taking place behind a door marked 'number 9'.
8.12014
Comedy · Drama
The story of a young group of siblings pretty much abandoned by their parents, surviving by their wits - and humor - on a rough Manchester council estate. Whilst they won't admit it, they need help and find it in Steve, a young middle class lad who falls for Fiona, the oldest sibling, and increasingly finds himself drawn to this unconventional and unique family. Anarchic family life seen through the eyes of an exceptionally bright fifteen year old, who struggles to come of age in the context of his belligerent father, closeted brother, psychotic sister and internet porn star neighbors.
7.62004
Drama · Crime
Through the eyes of various Irish Republican Army (IRA) members, explore the extremes some people will go to in the name of their beliefs, the way a deeply divided society can suddenly tip over into armed conflict, the long shadow of radical violence for both victims and perpetrators, and the emotional and psychological costs of a code of silence.
7.52024
Drama · History
A series of British television films featuring William Shakespeare's History Plays.
7.42012
Drama
Amy Dorrit spends her days earning money for the family and looking after her proud father who is a long term inmate of Marshalsea debtors' prison in London. Amy and her family's world is transformed when her employer's son, Arthur Clennam, returns from overseas to solve his family's mysterious legacy and discovers that their lives are interlinked.
7.92008
Mystery · Comedy
Working from his home in a converted windmill, Jonathan Creek is a magician with a natural ability for solving puzzles. He soon puts this ability to the use of solving impossible crimes and mysterious murders.
7.61997
Drama
Passionate defence barrister Martha Costello faces challenging cases and surprising clients, which test her faith in the criminal justice system. Gifted colleague Clive Reader is called to the bar with her. They work hard with pupils, Nick Slade and Niamh Cranitch, but ultimately only one can eventually be taken on as a member of chambers.
7.52011
Drama · Thriller
World-renowned journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya went from being a local print journalist to braving the Chechen killing fields and exposing Russian state corruption under Vladimir Putin. She refused to give up reporting on the war in Chechnya despite numerous acts of intimidation and violence, including being poisoned. She was ultimately murdered in the elevator of her block of flats and it remains unclear who paid for the contract killing.
6.82025
Comedy · Drama
A comedian uses her troubled past as material for her stand-up routine, trying to rise up through the comedy circuit by playing Northern England's working men's clubs.
6.32018
Comedy
Svengali tells the story of Dixie, a postman from South Wales, and a music fanatic. All his life he’s dreamed of discovering a great band and then one day, trawling through YouTube, he finds them… ‘The Premature Congratulations’. He hunts them down and offers them his management services. They are young, arrogant, sexy and utterly magnificent. Putting their demo on a cassette tape, Dixie heads out onto the streets of London…
5.42013
Thriller · Drama
David Blair directs this powerful British Drama, loosely inspired by John Steinbeck's novel 'Of Mice and Men'. Set in Nottingham, the film revolves around the relationship between the thuggish Danny (Stephen Graham) and Joseph (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), a giant of a man with a mental age of seven. When Danny finds himself in debt to a local crime boss, he feels he is left with no choice but to manipulate Joseph into participating in a series of underground cage fights from which Danny can pay his debts.
5.52012
Sci-Fi · Horror
Anna wakes to kind faces she doesn’t recognize and a remote island she has no memory of. She is forced to re-learn everything about herself, her husband and the baby she is carrying. But when two disfigured people arrive on the island and there is a violent altercation she discovers that the human race is close to extinction and goes searching for the truth about herself.
5.42024
Drama
After a stroke leaves her husband disabled and fundamentally changed, a spirited Irish wife struggles to keep her family members together. All the while they are under the microscope of an American researcher documenting their recovery process.
5.92014
History · Drama
Parisian bon vivant, World War II Resistance fighter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, philandering husband and recluse…Samuel Beckett lived a life of many parts. Titled after Beckett’s famous ethos “Dance first, think later”, the film is a sweeping account of the life of this 20th-century icon.
6.62023
Thriller
It's two years since the mysterious disappearance of Kath Swarbrick's older sister Annie, but Kath remains haunted by a need to know what happened. When police investigations wind down, Kath continues the search herself. She gets nowhere until she steals some CCTV footage of her sister on her final day. Visiting the spot where Annie was filmed, Kath becomes convinced she has found a portal to another reality and from this portal Kath is trying to say something.
5.92005
Thriller
A woman becomes enraged after being passed over for a promotion at her job.
5.42014
Comedy · Fantasy
At the tyrannical court of Athens, pitiless dictator Theseus plans his wedding to Hippolyta, a prisoner of war, while young Hermia is sentenced to death by her own father for loving the wrong man. Meanwhile, in the town below, an amateur theatre group rehearses. And beyond Athens, in the wild woods, dark forces are stirring...
5.32016
Comedy · Drama
Two British best friends and in-laws Dawn and Jackie work together at a factory. When Dawn is diagnosed with a brain tumor Jackie shares $100,000 she's got from her secret lover with Dawn to fulfil her dream - a visit to Las Vegas. They buy two tickets and fly there...
6.81998
Comedy · Drama
Robson Green and Mark Benton co-star in Christmas Lights, a one-off comedy drama for ITV1 centred on two lifelong friends who have always competed with each other. The festive season brings on new challenges and takes their rivalry to extremes resulting in the two friends forgetting what Christmas is really about. Can anything bring them to their senses?
5.62004
Adventure · Animation
Sludger the aardvark tries to make it big as a drummer in the big city.
6.82002
Drama
From its sell-out run at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre comes a film version of this unique and critically acclaimed production of Hamlet with BAFTA-nominee Maxine Peake in the title role. This ground-breaking stage production, directed by Sarah Frankcom, was the Royal Exchange's fastest-selling show in a decade.
8.22015
Drama
The Devil's Whore is a four-part television drama serial produced by Company Pictures for Channel 4, broadcast from 19 November to 10 December 2008. As the English Civil War rages, when both politics and religion divide the nation, spirited aristocrat Angelica Fanshawe is drawn to the anti-monarchist cause. She tells the story as England dares to execute its king and search for an alternative means of government.
6.82008
Drama · Crime
The story of three of the children who were victims in the 2012 grooming and sex trafficking case in Rochdale, for which nine men were convicted and sentenced. The drama explores how these girls were groomed, how they were ignored by the authorities directly responsible for protecting them, and how they eventually made themselves heard.
7.32017
Drama · Comedy
Shah Latif is a struggling actor on the cusp of landing the role of a lifetime, only to find himself thrust into a full blown existential crisis and trippy conspiracy thriller all at the same time.
6.62026
Crime · Drama
When emergency dispatcher Ian Ridley receives a frantic call from a teenager he believes could be his long-missing daughter, he stops at nothing to find her.
7.62026
Comedy
Mandy is a woman with dreams. Big dreams. Most of all she dreams of breeding Doberman Pinchers. But there are hurdles to overcome before that dream can become a reality. In the series we'll see her go on a health kick, rent out her small back bedroom on Airbnb and attempt a series of short-lived jobs in the modern gig economy.
7.52020
Comedy
Dinnerladies is a BBC sitcom written by and starring Victoria Wood that chronicles the antics of a group of workers in a canteen in the north of England. Bren tries to maintain a semblance of order in amongst the chaos, while dealing with the canteen supervisor, slightly sex-obsessed cancer sufferer Tony. Dolly and Jean are the bickering menopausal older women, always at odds but best friends beneath it all. Then there's thick-as-two-short-planks Anita, and the terminally uninterested Twinkle, more concerned with having a good time than anything else. Making up the motley crew are military man handyman Stan, all rules and regulations, and ditzy Philippa, who never seems to get anything right.
7.51998
Comedy · Drama
New Yorker Leila lives in London in a seemingly perfect decade-long relationship with her girlfriend and business partner Sadie. However, Leila discovers that she is actually bisexual and begins to explore her orientation. Though she struggles to come out to her friends, Leila makes a drastic decision with unexpected consequences.
6.42018
Talk
A topical magazine-style daily television programme broadcast live on BBC One.
4.32006
Crime · Drama
Thriller by Peter Moffat about the challenges and politics of the criminal justice system seen through the eyes of the accused.
7.62008
Mystery · Crime
In the fictional Yorkshire town of Wetherton, the unlikely duo of politically incorrect elephant-in-a-China-shop-copper DS Andrew Dalziel (pronounced Dee-ell) and his more sensitive and university educated sidekick DS, later DI, Peter Pascoe is always on hand to solve the classic murder mystery, while maintaining down-to-Earth wit and humour.
6.41996
