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Alan Webb (actor)
Alan Norton Fletcher Webb (2 July 1906 – 22 June 1982) was an English actor. He was principally known as a stage performer, but made several film and television appearances. He seldom played leading roles, but was frequently cast in important character parts. He created roles in plays by A. A. Milne, Noël Coward, T. S. Eliot and other contemporary playwrights. Life and career Early years Webb was born in York on 2 July 1906, the elder of the two sons of Major Thomas Francis Albertoni Webb (1862–1955) and his wife Lili, ''née'' Fletcher."Alan Norton Fletcher Webb" Ancestry UK. Retrieved 17 June 2021 Herbert, pp. 1537–1539 He was educated at |
Lease Of Life
''Lease of Life'' is a 1954 British drama film made by Ealing Studios and directed by Charles Frend. The film was designed as a star-vehicle for Robert Donat, representing his return to the screen after an absence of over three years during which he had been battling the chronic asthma which plagued his life and career. It was a prestige production which was generally respectfully, if not over-enthusiastically, received and gained Donat a nomination as 'Best British Actor' at the 1955 British Academy Film Awards. In common with a number of other Ealing films of the era, ''Lease of Life'' focuses on a specific English milieu – in this case a Yorkshire village and its nearby cathedral city – and examines the nuances, quirks and foibles of its day-to-day life. The film is unique in the Ealing canon in having religion as its dominant theme. It bears several parallels to the 1952 Japanese film Ikiru ("to live") but with a much lighter tone. Plot Rev William Thorne (R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uncle Vanya
''Uncle Vanya'' ( rus, Дя́дя Ва́ня, r=Dyádya Ványa, p=ˈdʲædʲə ˈvanʲə) is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1898, and was first produced in 1899 by the Moscow Art Theatre under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski. The play portrays the visit of an elderly professor and his glamorous, much younger second wife, Yelena, to the rural estate that supports their urban lifestyle. Two friends—Vanya, brother of the professor's late first wife, who has long managed the estate, and Astrov, the local doctor—both fall under Yelena's spell, while bemoaning the ''ennui'' of their provincial existence. Sonya, the professor's daughter by his first wife, who has worked with Vanya to keep the estate going, suffers from her unrequited feelings for Astrov. Matters are brought to a crisis when the professor announces his intention to sell the estate, Vanya and Sonya's home, with a view to investing the proceeds to achieve a higher inco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Winslow Boy
''The Winslow Boy'' is an English play from 1946 by Terence Rattigan based on an incident involving George Archer-Shee in the Edwardian era. The incident took place at the Royal Naval College, Osborne. Background Set against the strict codes of conduct and manners of the age, ''The Winslow Boy'' is based on a father's fight to clear his son's name after the boy is expelled from Osborne Naval College for allegedly stealing a five-shilling postal order. To clear the boy's name was imperative for the family's honour; had they not done so, they would have been shunned by their peers and society. Similarly, the boy's life would have been wrecked by an indelible stain on his character which would have followed him throughout adulthood. The play was inspired by an actual event, which set a legal precedent: the case of Stonyhurst College alumnus George Archer-Shee, a cadet at Osborne in 1908, who was accused of stealing a postal order from a fellow cadet. His elder brother, Major ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan (10 June 191130 November 1977) was a British dramatist and screenwriter. He was one of England's most popular mid-20th-century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background.Geoffrey Wansell. ''Terence Rattigan'' (London: Fourth Estate, 1995); He wrote ''The Winslow Boy'' (1946), '' The Browning Version'' (1948), '' The Deep Blue Sea'' (1952) and ''Separate Tables'' (1954), among many others. A troubled homosexual who saw himself as an outsider, Rattigan wrote a number of plays which centred on issues of sexual frustration, failed relationships, or a world of repression and reticence. Early life Terence Rattigan was born in 1911 in South Kensington,Wansell, p. 13. London, of Irish extraction. He had an elder brother, Brian. They were the grandsons of Sir William Henry Rattigan, a notable India-based jurist and later a Liberal Unionist Member of Parliament for North-East Lanarkshire. His father was Frank Rattigan CMG, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George And Margaret
''George and Margaret'' is a comedy play by British writer Gerald Savory, which was first staged in 1937. It had a very successful run in the West End, beginning at Wyndham's Theatre before transferring to the Piccadilly Theatre, lasting for over seven hundred performances. The cast was headed by Nigel Patrick, Jane Baxter, Ann Casson and Joyce Barbour. The ''New Statesman'' critic singled out Irene Handl's brief appearance as a maid as a highlight. The new monarch George VI and his wife Elizabeth attended a performance of the show. Following its London success, Noël Coward directed the work for its transfer to Broadway. Plot The play portrays a day in the lives of a middle-class London family and their servants. They are thrown into chaos by the suddenly-announced arrival of their old friends George and Margaret for dinner that evening. The snobbish and domineering mother forces all family members to attend, despite the resentment of her children. However, the anticipated arri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerald Savory
Gerald Douglas Savory (17 November 1909 – 9 February 1996) was an English writer and television producer specialising in comedies. Biography The son of Kenneth Douglas Savory and actress Grace Lane (1877–1956), he was educated at Bradfield College and worked as a stockbroker's clerk before turning to the stage ( Hull Repertory Theatre Company 1931–33), first as an actor then a writer. His play ''George and Margaret'', written while out of work as an actor, ran for two years at Wyndham's Theatre and a year at the Piccadilly. It then transferred to Broadway, where it ran for 86 performances, and was later filmed. His earliest work in the film industry was as a dialogue writer for director Alfred Hitchcock's ''Young and Innocent'' (1937). He lived in the USA in the 1940s and 50s writing for film and television, and became an American citizen. After returning to England in the mid 1950s he became a writer, producer and production manager for Granada Television, producing five ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Broadway Theatre
Broadway theatre,Although ''theater'' is generally the spelling for this common noun in the United States (see American and British English spelling differences), 130 of the 144 extant and extinct Broadway venues use (used) the spelling ''Theatre'' as the proper noun in their names (12 others used neither), with many performers and trade groups for live dramatic presentations also using the spelling ''theatre''. or Broadway, are the theatrical performances presented in the 41 professional theatres, each with 500 or more seats, located in the Theater District and the Lincoln Center along Broadway, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Broadway and London's West End together represent the highest commercial level of live theater in the English-speaking world. While the thoroughfare is eponymous with the district and its collection of 41 theaters, and it is also closely identified with Times Square, only three of the theaters are located on Broadway itself (namely the Broadwa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Sea Bubble (play)
''South Sea Bubble'' is a play by the English actor and dramatist Noël Coward. It was written in 1949 but not performed until 1951, and not in its final form until 1956. The play was moderately successful in 1956 but failed to match the popularity of Coward's pre-war hits. Background The play is named after the South Sea Bubble, an economic bubble that arose from speculation in the South Sea Company. The play was originally written as a vehicle for Gertrude Lawrence, titled ''Home and Colonial''. Coward intended her to open in it after the conclusion of her run in ''The King and I'', but her unexpected death meant that she never played it. The play was retitled ''Island Fling'', which opened in 1951 with Claudette Colbert in the lead. It ran for eight performances in Westport, Connecticut, US. The final version of the play opened as ''South Sea Bubble'', at the Lyric Theatre in the West End, on 25 April 1956."Lyric Theatre", ''The Times'', 26 April 1956, p. 3 It was directe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blithe Spirit (play)
''Blithe Spirit'' is a comic play by Noël Coward, described by the author as "an improbable farce in three acts". The play concerns the socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric Mediumship, medium and clairvoyant Madame Arcati to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to gather material for his next book. The scheme backfires when he is haunted by the ghost of his wilful and temperamental first wife, Elvira, after the séance. Elvira makes continual attempts to disrupt Charles's marriage to his second wife, Ruth, who cannot see or hear the ghost. The play was first seen in the West End theatre, West End in 1941 and ran for 1,997 performances, a new record for a non-musical play in London. It also did well on Broadway theatre, Broadway later that year, running for 657 performances. The play was Blithe Spirit (1945 film), adapted for the cinema in 1945; a Blithe Spirit (2020 film), second film version followed in 2020. Coward directed a musical theatre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicholas Phipps
William Nicholas Foskett Phipps (23 June 1913 – 11 April 1980) was a British actor and writer who appeared in stage roles between 1932 and 1967 and more than thirty films between 1940 and 1970. He wrote West End plays, songs and sketches for revues, and film scripts. Life and career Early years Phipps was born in London on 23 June 1913, the son of the civil servant Sir Edmund Bampfylde Phipps and his wife Margaret, née Percy. He was educated at Winchester College.Herbert, pp. 1282–1283 He made his first appearance on the stage at the Old Vic on 25 January 1932, walking-on ''Julius Caesar''. In 1933 he played in Anew McMaster's Shakespearian season at the Chiswick Empire, and at Christmas, appeared at the Embassy in ''Aladdin ''. At the St Martin's in March 1934 he played Henry in ''Love in a Mist,'' subsequently joining the Northampton repertory company. During 1934–35 he was co-director of the Imperial Institute Theatre. He toured in 1934 in P. G. Wodehouse's '' Good M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
