A Beast With Two Backs
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A Beast With Two Backs
"A Beast With Two Backs" is a television play by Dennis Potter, first broadcast on BBC1 on 20 November 1968''Radio Times looks at 14 years of distinguished contributions to BBCtv Drama'', Radio Times, 27 January-2 February 1979. as part of '' The Wednesday Play'' strand. The play is a fictional account of an event that happened in the Forest of Dean in the 1890s when four Frenchmen came over the border from Gloucester with dancing bears, who were subsequently killed by miners coming off the late shift in retaliation for an unrelated attack on a young local girl. Synopsis In the 1890s, Joe – a travelling Italian showman – and his dancing bear Gina make their way over the border from Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ... to the Forest of Dean; hu ...
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The Wednesday Play
''The Wednesday Play'' is an anthology series of United Kingdom, British television plays which ran on BBC One, BBC1 for six seasons from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually original works written for television, although dramatic adaptations of fiction (and occasionally stage plays) also featured. The series gained a reputation for presenting contemporary social dramas, and for bringing issues to the attention of a mass audience that would not otherwise have been discussed on screen. Some of British television drama's most influential, and controversial, plays were shown in this slot, including ''Up the Junction (The Wednesday Play), Up the Junction'' and ''Cathy Come Home''. The earliest television plays of Dennis Potter were featured in this slot. History Origins and early seasons The series was suggested to the BBC's Head of Drama, Sydney Newman, by the corporation's director of television Kenneth Adam after his cancellation of the two previous series of sin ...
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Dennis Potter
Dennis Christopher George Potter (17 May 1935 – 7 June 1994) was an English television dramatist, screenwriter and journalist. He is best known for his BBC television serials '' Pennies from Heaven'' (1978), ''The Singing Detective'' (1986), and the BBC television plays '' Blue Remembered Hills'' (1979) and '' Brimstone and Treacle'' (1976). His television dramas mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social, and often used themes and images from popular culture. Potter is widely regarded as one of the most influential and innovative dramatists to have worked in British television. Born in Gloucestershire and graduating from Oxford University, Potter initially worked in journalism. After standing for parliament as a Labour candidate at the 1964 general election, his health was affected by the onset of psoriatic arthropathy which necessitated Potter to change career and led to him becoming a television dramatist. He began with contributions to BBC1's regular serie ...
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Patrick Barr
Patrick David Barr (13 February 1908 – 29 August 1985) was an English actor. In his career spanning over half a century, he appeared in about 144 films and television series. Biography Born in Akola, British India in 1908, Barr was educated at Radley College and Trinity College, Oxford, where he rowed in the 1929 Boat Race and achieved a Blue. He went from stage to screen with ''The Merry Men of Sherwood'' (1932). He spent the 1930s playing various beneficent authority figures and "reliable friend" types. As a conscientious objector during the Second World War, Barr helped people in the Blitz in London's East End before serving with the Friends' Ambulance Unit in Africa. There he met his wife Anne "Jean" Williams, marrying her after ten days; it would have been sooner, but they needed permission from London. In 1946, he picked up where he had left off, and in the early 1950s he began working in British television, attaining a popularity greater than he had while playing ...
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Graeme MacDonald
Graeme Patrick David MacDonald (30 July 1930 – 30 September 1997), sometimes credited as Graeme McDonald or Graham McDonald, was a British television producer and executive. Early life MacDonald was educated at St Paul's School, London and Jesus College, Cambridge, where he initially studied geology and physics, but changed to an arts degree. While at Cambridge he was vice-president of the Footlights and president of the University Players, but left without a degree. Career MacDonald began his career in 1960 as a trainee director at Granada Television. In 1966 he joined the BBC, becoming a producer in the drama department, working particularly on anthology play series such as ''The Wednesday Play'' (for which he produced some of Dennis Potter's early work), ''Thirty-Minute Theatre'', and ''Theatre 625''. In the 1970s he became the producer of the single play strand ''Play for Today'', the successor to ''The Wednesday Play'', during which he worked on many acclaimed piece ...
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BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, primetime drama and entertainment, and live BBC Sport events. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution. It was renamed BBC TV in 1960 and used this name until the launch of the second BBC channel, BBC2, in 1964. The main channel then became known as BBC1. The channel adopted the current spelling of BBC One in 1997. The channel's annual budget for 2012–2013 was £1.14 billion. It is funded by the television licence fee together with the BBC's other domestic television stations and shows uninterrupted programming without commercial advertising. The television channel had the highest reach share of any broadcaster in th ...
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Forest Of Dean
The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. It forms a roughly triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and northwest, Herefordshire to the north, the River Severn to the south, and the City of Gloucester to the east. The area is characterised by more than of mixed woodland, one of the surviving ancient woodlands in England. A large area was reserved for royal hunting before 1066, and remained as the second largest crown forest in England, after the New Forest. Although the name is used loosely to refer to the part of Gloucestershire between the Severn and Wye, the Forest of Dean proper has covered a much smaller area since the Middle Ages. In 1327, it was defined to cover only the royal demesne and parts of parishes within the hundred of St Briavels, and after 1668 comprised the royal demesne only. The Forest proper is within the civil parishes of West Dean, Lydbrook, Cin ...
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Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east of the border with Wales. Including suburban areas, Gloucester has a population of around 132,000. It is a port, linked via the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal to the Severn Estuary. Gloucester was founded by the Romans and became an important city and '' colony'' in AD 97 under Emperor Nerva as '' Colonia Glevum Nervensis''. It was granted its first charter in 1155 by Henry II. In 1216, Henry III, aged only nine years, was crowned with a gilded iron ring in the Chapter House of Gloucester Cathedral. Gloucester's significance in the Middle Ages is underlined by the fact that it had a number of monastic establishments, including: St Peter's Abbey founded in 679 (later Gloucester Cathedral), the nearby St Oswald's Priory, Glo ...
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Dancing Bear
A tame bear, often called a dancing bear, is a wild bear captured when young, or born and bred in captivity, and used to entertain people in streets or taverns. Dancing bears were commonplace throughout Europe and Asia from the Middle Ages to the 19th century, and can still be found in the 21st century in some countries. Dancing bears History In Ancient Rome, bears and monkeys were led to dance and perform tricks for the public. Dancing bears were commonplace in the Indian subcontinent for centuries. The last of them were freed in 2009. In Russia and Siberia, cubs were for centuries captured for being used as dancing bears accompanying tavern musicians (''skomorokhi''), as depicted in the ''Travels'' of Adam Olearius. Dancing bears were widespread throughout Europe from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. They were still present on the streets of Spain in 2007, and in Eastern Europe. Recently, organizations and animal rights activists have worked to outlaw or eliminate tame be ...
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Berry Hill, Gloucestershire
Berry Hill is a village in Gloucestershire, England, 1.5 miles north of the town of Coleford. Berry Hill includes the settlements of Five Acres to the east, Christchurch in the centre, Shortstanding to the north, and Joyford to the north-east. Berry Hill is within the civil parish of West Dean. History There has been scattered building on Berry Hill since the 16th century.Coleford
A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 5 (1996), pp. 117-138. Accessed: 17 April 2013
The settlement is situated on the edge of the , and in 1836 the extraparochial part was called Upper Berry Hill to dist ...
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1968 Television Plays
The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide. Events January–February * January 5 – " Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. * January 10 – John Gorton is sworn in as 19th Prime Minister of Australia, taking over from John McEwen after being elected leader of the Liberal Party the previous day, following the disappearance of Harold Holt. Gorton becomes the only Senator to become Prime Minister, though he immediately transfers to the House of Representatives through the 1968 Higgins by-election in Holt's vacant seat. * January 15 – The 1968 Belice earthquake in Sicily kills 380 and injures around 1,000. * January 21 ** Vietnam War: Battle of Khe Sanh – One of the most publicized and controversial battles of the war begins, ending on April 8. ** 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash: A U.S. B-52 Stratofortress crashes in Greenland, discharging 4 nuclear bombs. * ...
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BBC Television Dramas
#REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ... ...
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
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Television Shows Written By Dennis Potter
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, entertainment, news, and sports. Television became available in crude experimental forms in the late 1920s, but only after several years of further development was the new technology marketed to consumers. After World War II, an improved form of black-and-white television broadcasting became popular in the United Kingdom and the United States, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses, and institutions. During the 1950s, television was the primary medium for influencing public opinion.Diggs-Brown, Barbara (2011''Strategic Public Relations: Audience Focused Practice''p. 48 In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting was introduced in the U.S. and most other developed countries. The availability of various types of archival storag ...
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