An electic mix of edgy dramas

From the late 60s and early 70s, LWT's output was eclectic, ranging from If There Weren't Any Blacks (left) to The Talking Head with a young John Thaw. LWT delivered on its promise to produce thought-provoking programmes but some failed to find favour with viewers.

Budgie, starring Adam Faith, was an early soaraway success for London Weekend, as was the political satire Mrs Wilson's Diary (Mrs Wilson was the wife of Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister of the time).

Upstairs, Downstairs, 1971-1975

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Upstairs, Downstairs was one of London Weekend Television's most popular and highest-rated drama series. It ran from 1971 to 1975 and charted the ups and downs of an upper-class Edwardian family and their staff of loyal servants. ITV1's Downton Abbey certainly owes a debt of gratitude to the series, although the latter is more of a rural take on the original. Upstairs, Downstairs was often repeated, sometimes regionally on LWT and also quite often across the ITV network.

The Professionals, screened in the late 70s and early 80s, was produced for LWT by Mark One Productions and made stars of Martin Shaw (Doyle) and Lewis Collins (Bodie).

Within These Walls was a sort of mid-70s version of Bad Girls, starring Googie Withers as the governor of a women's prison who ruled the roost with a rod of iron. Frank Findlay played the lead in A Bouquet of Barbed Wire in 1976 - a rather dark drama series focusing on infidelity and the dysfunctional relationship of a father and his daughter.

Francesca Annis was the star of Lillie, the story of the turn-of-the-20th-centry courtesan of Edward VII, Mrs Lillie Langtree. The series also featured Anton Rodgers as Lillie's put-upon husband.

The Gentle Touch, 1980-1984

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Jill Gascoigne broke new ground for LWT from 1980 to 1984 in The Gentle Touch, the first UK TV series to have a female detective as its hero

LWT for Channel Four and the ITV network

Made by LWT for Channel Four, Mapp and Lucia, featured two rather eccentric 1920s mesdames playing games of oneupmanship on each other. Life in an English public school was the setting for the period drama, Drummonds.

Piece of Cake followed in the footsteps of successful LWT period dramas, this time following the lives and loves of wartime flying aces. Paul Nicholas played the lead role in the hit 1988 drama Bust.

LWT built on its credentials in the genre of all-action adventure series with Dempsey and Makepeace. To Have and To Hold was a serious drama charting the lives of a middle-aged couple who are forced to split-up.

Rites of passage drama Dutch Girls, made by LWT for Channel Four and then shown on the ITV network, followed the adventures of a young stag party on a trip to Amsterdam. Duty Free's Keith Barron teamed up with suave Nigel Havers in LWT's Operation Good Guys.

Francesca Annis returned in LWT's Partners In Crime in the early 1980s and Blue Money was a one-off film drama made by London Weekend for the ITV network in 1985.

LWT found success with its re-hash of Agatha Christie's famous Belgian detective, Poirot, played by David Suchet. London's Burning was one of big draws throughout the 1990s, due to its big-budget realism, great acting anITV'sd impressive special effects.

Nigel Havers is the perfect English cad in LWT's The Charmer, left, and Jane Asher braves the Second World War in another classic period drama, Wish Me Luck.

Upstairs Downstairs stars John Alderton and Pauline Collins were reunited in LWT's Forever Green, a drama about a family who leave the rat race for the good life. Right, Nigel Havers gets bandaged up for his role in the wartime drama A Perfect Hero.

LWT's 1988 drama Come Home Charlie and Face Them, based on a book by R F Delderfield, was set in North Wales during the 1930s depression. Filmed on location on the Isle of Man, the plot revolves around a hapless bank clerk who falls under the spell of a latin american beauty and then gets embroiled in a bank robbery plan, which can only end in trouble.