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Blandings (radio Series)
The ''Blandings'' radio series is a series of radio dramas based on the Blandings Castle stories by British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. The stories were dramatised by Wodehouse biographer Richard Usborne. The series ran between 1985 and 1992 on BBC Radio 4. The 1985 episodes are based on six short stories. The first five of these short stories were featured in the collection ''Blandings Castle and Elsewhere'' (1935), while the sixth, "The Crime Wave at Blandings", was collected in ''Lord Emsworth and Others'' (1937). The later episodes are based on four novels published between 1929 and 1965. Production The short story episodes broadcast in 1985 were produced by Bobby Jaye. Martin Fisher produced the episodes based on ''Summer Lightning'', ''Pigs Have Wings'' and ''Heavy Weather'', and Gareth Edwards produced the episodes based on ''Galahad at Blandings''. Main cast * Narrator – Nigel Anthony (short stories), Ronald Fletcher (''Summer Lightning''), Moray Watson (the other nov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasting House, London. The station controller is Mohit Bakaya. Broadcasting throughout the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands on FM, LW and DAB, and on BBC Sounds, it can be received in the eastern counties of Ireland, northern France and Northern Europe. It is available on Freeview, Sky, and Virgin Media. Radio 4 currently reaches over 10 million listeners, making it the UK's second most-popular radio station after Radio 2. BBC Radio 4 broadcasts news programmes such as ''Today'' and ''The World at One'', heralded on air by the Greenwich Time Signal pips or the chimes of Big Ben. The pips are only accurate on FM, LW, and MW; there is a delay on digital radio of three to five seconds and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harold Innocent
Harold Sidney Innocent (18 April 1933 – 12 September 1993) was an English actor who appeared in many film and television roles. After attending Broad Street Secondary Modern School in Coventry, Innocent worked for a short time as an office clerk. Realising quickly that he was not suited to this career, he turned instead to acting, studying at the Birmingham School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art. After National Service in the RAF, Innocent went into repertory theatre. Later he moved to Hollywood where he appeared in ''Alfred Hitchcock Presents'' in 1959, as well other television series such as ''The Barbara Stanwyck Show''. On his return to the United Kingdom he appeared at the Nottingham Playhouse, the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, the Young Vic, the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Bristol Old Vic. In 1984 with the RSC he appeared in ''Richard III'' and ''Love's Labour's Lost''. With the same company he appeared in ''Henry V'', playing both ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helen Atkinson-Wood
Helen Atkinson-Wood (born 14 March 1955) is an English actress and comedian born in Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire. She studied fine art at the Ruskin School, Oxford University, where she performed with Rowan Atkinson (no relation). She also performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where she met Ben Elton. Whilst at Oxford, she took part in an OUDS production of ''Richard II''. Also in this production was Tim McInnerny, who played the lead. She later appeared together with McInnerny in an episode of ''Blackadder the Third''. Biography Atkinson-Wood was a regular presenter of Central Television's controversial '' O.T.T.'' and had a small role in the 1984 '' Young Ones'' episode "Nasty". She is known for her role as Mrs Miggins in ''Blackadder the Third'' (co-written by Ben Elton and Richard Curtis). She was the only regular female cast member on the radio comedy programme '' Radio Active'', where she played Anna Daptor and other roles, and also participated in the programme's tel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicholas Courtney
William Nicholas Stone Courtney (16 December 1929 – 22 February 2011) was an Egyptian-born British actor. He was known for his long-running role as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in the BBC science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. Early life Courtney was born in Cairo, Egypt, the son of a British diplomat father and half-American mother. His paternal grandfather was the journalist William Leonard Courtney. He was educated in France, Kenya and Egypt. On his maternal side, Courtney was descended from New Zealand politician John Cuff. He did his national service in the British Army, leaving after 18 months as a private, not wanting to pursue a military career. He moved to England to join London's Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. After two years doing repertory theatre in Northampton, he became resident in London in 1961. Courtney's first television work was in the 1957 series ''Escape''. He made guest appearances in several cult television series, including '' Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sheila Keith
Sheila Keith (9 June 1920 – 14 October 2004) was a British character actress, active in theatre, films and TV. She was born to Scottish parents in London while they were visiting the city and brought up in Aberdeen, Scotland. Longing to act, she trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Her stage career took her from repertory theatre at the Bristol Old Vic and Pitlochry, to West End appearances including Noël Coward's Present Laughter, Mame with Ginger Rogers, An Italian Straw Hat, Anyone for Denis?, and Deathtrap. The Scotsman wrote: "In the Sixties, she was often seen in series such as '' The Saint'', '' Public Eye'' and '' Sherlock Holmes''. But she gained a national popularity when she went into '' Crossroads'' in 1967 as Mrs Cornet. It was the era when the soap was hugely popular and Noelle Gordon ruled the motel with a rod of iron...She played Lady Rosina in the BBC’s mammoth production of The Pallisers, Aunt Morag (keen on her whisky) in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Tuddenham
Peter Tuddenham (27 November 1918 – 9 July 2007) was a British actor. He was well known for his voice work, and provided the contrasting voices of the computers in the science-fiction series Blake's 7 (BBC, 1978–1981). Life and career Tuddenham was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, and raised in the nearby seaside town of Felixstowe. He made his professional debut before the Second World War, in repertory at Hastings. In the wartime Royal Army Service Corps, he appeared in Stars in Battledress.Gaughan, Gavin"Obituary: Peter Tuddenham" ''The Guardian'', 2 August 2007 After the war he joined a production of Ivor Novello's ''The Dancing Years''; later, in 1959, BBC productions of this and another Novello musical, '' Perchance to Dream'', were among his early television appearances. In 1950 he appeared in Noël Coward's '' Ace of Clubs'', which had a moderate run in the West End. Tuddenham's first appeared on television in an early ITV production ''The Granville Melodramas'' (19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Goldie
Michael Goldie (26 February 1932, Edmonton, London – 17 June 2013, France) was a British character actor active between 1963 and 1996. He starred or appeared in numerous television serials including ''Coronation Street'' (as Bob Statham, owner of the Weatherfield Recorder, 1987/88), ''Doctor Who'' (in the serials ''The Dalek Invasion of Earth'' and ''The Wheel in Space''), '' Wycliffe'', ''Inspector Morse'', ''The Bill'' and ''Z-Cars''. His films included '' Doctor in Distress'' (1963), ''Where the Bullets Fly'' (1966), ''The Body Stealers'' (1969), ''The Horror of Frankenstein'' (1970), ''The Pied Piper'' (1972), '' Lady Jane'' (1986) and '' Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves'' (1991). His stage work included various roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reginald Marsh (actor)
Reginald Albert Saltmarsh, known by the stage name Reginald Marsh (17 September 1926 – 9 February 2001), was an English actor who is best remembered for supporting roles in many British sitcoms from the 1970s onwards. Early life and career Marsh was born in London in 1926 and he grew up on the Sussex coast at Worthing. After he left school he worked in a bank. After realising how serious he was about acting, his father introduced him to a retired actress, who introduced him to an agent who got his first acting role, at the age of 16, as a juvenile in ''Eden End'' by J.B. Priestley. He then worked in rep. In 1958, he started working behind the scenes of Granada Television, but he soon went back to acting. From the 1960s he appeared in many films, including ''The Day the Earth Caught Fire'' (1961), '' Jigsaw'' (1962), ''Berserk!'' (1967), '' The Ragman's Daughter'' (1972), ''Young Winston'' (1972) and ''The Best Pair of Legs in the Business'' (1973), and on television, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe
Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, 7th Baronet (usually called Sir Gregory Parsloe) is a fictional character from the Blandings Castle short stories and novels of British author P. G. Wodehouse. In the stories, Parsloe resides at Matchingham Hall, near Blandings Castle, and is the rival and enemy of Lord Emsworth. Appearances Parsloe first appears in the short story " The Custody of the Pumpkin" (included in the 1935 collection ''Blandings Castle and Elsewhere'', but written over ten years earlier). He later shows up in several other Blandings tales, including ''Summer Lightning'' (1929), '' Heavy Weather'' (1933) and ''Pigs Have Wings'' (1953). Wild youth While Emsworth's brother Gally is preparing his reminiscences in ''Summer Lightning'', he reveals quite a lot about the Baronet's black past. Although the first twenty years or so of his life were relatively blameless, he went off the rails to a considerable degree, and was considered a dangerous type by his contemporaries. When Ga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve Hodson
Steve Hodson (born Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, 5 November 1947) is a British actor who played the role of Steve Ross in ''Follyfoot''. Hodson was working as a civil servant in Bradford when he won a place at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. From then-on he began appearing in roles on stage and later in television, appearing in ''The Grievance'' and '' The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes''. In 1971, he auditioned for role of Steve in ''Follyfoot'', but was initially unsuccessful. Another actor was employed, but later dismissed and Hodson was recruited to the part. He appeared in all three series of its run, from 1971 to 1973. During this period, there was a Steve Hodson fan club. In January 1973, he released a single called "Crystal Bay", written by Maurice Gibb and Billy Lawrie. Hodson appeared in a number of television series over the next few years, including '' All Creatures Great and Small'' and a six-episode children's series, ''Break in the Sun''. Hodso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freddie Threepwood
The Honourable Frederick Threepwood is a fictional character in the Blandings stories by P. G. Wodehouse. A member of the Drones Club affectionately known as "Freddie", he is the second son of Lord Emsworth, and a somewhat simple-minded youth who brings his father nothing but trouble. Freddie has one brother, George, and a sister, Mildred. Life and character Freddie's youth was a rather wild and reckless time. He was expelled from Eton for "breaking out at night and roaming the streets of Windsor in a false moustache", and was sent down from Oxford, where he had been good friends with "Beefy" Bingham, for "pouring ink from a second-storey window on the junior dean of his college". Despite two years at an expensive London crammer's, he failed to qualify for the army. During this time he gathered a wide circle of shady and dubious friends, mostly involved in the turf, including the unpleasant Mr. R Jones, and an equally broad set of gambling debts. When Lord Emsworth is requir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joan Sanderson
Joan Sanderson (24 November 1912 – 24 May 1992) was a British television and stage actress born in Bristol. During a long career, her tall and commanding disposition led to her playing mostly dowagers, spinsters and matrons, as well as intense Shakespearean roles. Her television work included the sitcoms ''Please Sir!'' (1968–72), ''Fawlty Towers'' (1979) and '' Me and My Girl'' (1984–88). Theatre Born and educated in Bristol, Sanderson trained at RADA. She had teaching diplomas in elocution. She appeared in repertory theatres, on the West End stage and at the Stratford Memorial Theatre, where she made her début in 1939 playing Amelia in ''The Comedy of Errors'', a phase in her career that culminated in 1953 when she played both Goneril to Michael Redgrave's King Lear, and Queen Margaret in ''Richard III''. During the Second World War she gained experience in repertory and toured North Africa and Italy entertaining the troops. In 1948, she married fellow actor Gregory ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
