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Christmas At The Riviera
''Christmas at the Riviera'' is a 2007 British comedy drama starring Reece Shearsmith, Pam Ferris, Barbara Flynn, Warren Clarke, Alexander Armstrong, Anna Chancellor, Sam Kelly and Darren Boyd. It was written and directed by Mark Bussell and Justin Sbresni, and debuted on ITV at 9pm on Christmas Eve 2007. Plot summary A star-studded cast check in for Christmas at the fictional Riviera Hotel in Eastbourne. The leading role is taken by Shearsmith, who plays Ashley Dodds, the assistant manager of the Riviera, who can barely hide his excitement at finally being given the opportunity to take charge of the hotel over the festive period. Consequently, he's determined to make it the establishment's best Christmas ever, but he doesn't count on the guests – a hotchpotch of individuals with an array of problems. These include man-eating divorcee Avril (Ferris), who is looking for love; long-suffering Rita (Flynn) and her cantankerous husband Maurice (Clarke); the Reverend Miles Roger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reece Shearsmith
Reeson Wayne "Reece" Shearsmith (born 27 August 1969) is an English actor, writer and comedian. He is best known for being a member of ''The League of Gentlemen'', alongside Steve Pemberton, Mark Gatiss, and Jeremy Dyson. With Pemberton, he later created, wrote and starred in the sitcom ''Psychoville'', as well as the dark comedy anthology series, ''Inside No. 9''. He has also had notable roles in ''Spaced'' and '' The World's End''. Early life Shearsmith was born in Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, as Reeson Wayne Shearsmith. He attended Andrew Marvell High School and then Bretton Hall College of Education where he met Mark Gatiss and Steve Pemberton. Career 1995–2005: Career beginnings and ''The League of Gentlemen'' ''The League of Gentlemen'' began as a stage act in 1995, transferred to Radio 4 as ''On the Town with The League of Gentlemen'' in 1997 and then arrived on television on BBC Two in 1999. The latter saw Shearsmith and his colleagues awarded a British Acad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anna Chancellor
Anna Theodora Chancellor (born 27 April 1965) is a British actress who has received nominations for BAFTA and Olivier Awards. Background and early life Chancellor was born in Richmond, England to barrister John Paget Chancellor, eldest son of Sir Christopher Chancellor, and Mary Jolliffe, a daughter of Lord Hylton. The Chancellor family were Scottish gentry who had owned land at Quothquan since 1432. Chancellor was brought up in Somerset and educated at St Mary's School, Shaftesbury, which was a Roman Catholic boarding school for girls in Dorset, but left at sixteen to live in London, later describing her early years there as "quite wild".Tim LewisAnna Chancellor: 'My life was chaotic. But it's turned out OK'dated 21 August 2011 at theguardian.com. Retrieved 23 October 2016 In her early twenties she married the poet Jock Scot (1952–2016), with whom she had a daughter in 1988 while still studying at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She separated from Scot a fe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pam Ferris
Pamela Ferris (born 11 May 1948) is a Welsh actress. She has starred in numerous British television series, including ''Connie'' (1985), '' The Darling Buds of May'' (1991–1993), '' Where the Heart Is'' (1997–2000), ''Rosemary & Thyme'' (2003–2006), and ''Call the Midwife'' (2012–2016). For her role as Peggy Snow in ''Where the Heart Is'' she was nominated three times for Most Popular Actress at the National Television Awards. In film, Ferris played Miss Agatha Trunchbull in ''Matilda'' (1996), Aunt Marge in ''Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban'' (2004), Miriam in '' Children of Men'' (2006), Mrs. Bevan in ''Nativity!'' (2009), voiced Mrs. Bennett / Aunty Betty in '' Ethel & Ernest'' (2016) and played Mrs. Faulkner in ''Tolkien'' (2019). In theatre, her performance as Phoebe Rice in '' The Entertainer'' at The Old Vic in London saw her nominated for the 2007 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role. Early life Ferris was born on 11 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbara Flynn
Barbara Flynn (born Barbara Joy McMurray, 5 August 1948) is an English actress. She first came to prominence playing Freda Ashton in the ITV drama series '' A Family at War'' (1970–1972). She went on to play the milk woman in the BBC comedy ''Open All Hours'' (1981–1985), Jill Swinburne in ''The Beiderbecke Trilogy'' (1985–1988), Dr. Rose Marie in the BBC series ''A Very Peculiar Practice'' (1986–1988), Judith Fitzgerald in the ITV drama '' Cracker'' (1993–1995), and Mrs. Jamieson in '' Cranford'' (2007–2009). In her own words, she tends to play "feisty, strong women". Personal life Flynn was born in St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex. Her Irish father, Dr James McMurray, was a pathologist. Her mother was Joy (or Joyce) Crawford Hurst. Flynn attended St Mary's Convent School, Hastings. She then trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (where she was awarded the Gold Medal in 1968) before appearing in repertory theatre. Flynn married television producer and sci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warren Clarke
Warren Clarke (born Alan James Clarke; 26 April 1947 – 12 November 2014) was an English actor. He appeared in many films after a significant role as Dim in Stanley Kubrick's ''A Clockwork Orange''. His television appearances included ''Dalziel and Pascoe'' (as Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel), ''The Manageress'' and ''Sleepers''. Early life Clarke was born in Oldham, Lancashire. His father worked as a stained-glass maker and his mother as a secretary. He left Barlow Hall Secondary Modern School, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, aged 15 and began work at the ''Manchester Evening News'' as a copy boy. He later moved on to amateur dramatics and performed at Huddersfield Rep before working as an actor full-time. During this period he also decided to change his first name to Warren, a name he chose as his girlfriend of the time had a crush on Warren Beatty. Career Clarke's first television appearance was in the long-running Granada soap opera ''Coronation Street'', initially ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ITV (TV Network)
ITV is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network. It was launched in 1955 as Independent Television to provide competition to BBC Television (established in 1936). ITV is the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, it has been legally known as Channel 3 to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time, BBC1, BBC2 and Channel 4. ITV was for four decades a network of separate companies which provided regional television services and also shared programmes between each other to be shown on the entire network. Each franchise was originally owned by a different company. After several mergers, the fifteen regional franchises are now held by two companies: ITV plc, which runs the ITV1 channel, and STV Group, which runs the STV channel. The ITV network is a separate entity from ITV plc, the company that resulted from the merger of Granada plc and Carlton Communications in 2004. ITV plc holds the Channel 3 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carnival Films
Carnival Films is a British production company based in London, UK, founded in 1978. It has produced television series for all the major UK networks including the BBC, ITV (TV network), ITV, Channel 4, and Sky (United Kingdom), Sky, as well as international broadcasters including PBS, A&E (TV channel), A&E, HBO and NBC. Productions include single dramas, long-running television dramas, feature films, and stage productions. History Carnival Films was founded in 1978 by feature film producer Brian Eastman. As of 2014, Carnival has produced over 500 hours of drama and comedy for television, cinema and stage. This included 70 episodes of ''Agatha Christie's Poirot'' starring David Suchet and 22 episodes of ''Rosemary & Thyme'', starring Felicity Kendal and Pam Ferris. In the action/adventure genre it produced ''Bugs (TV series), BUGS'', ''Oktober'' and ''The Grid (TV miniseries), The Grid'', in comedy drama it produced ''Jeeves and Wooster'' starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comedy Drama
Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and Drama (film and television), drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical hour-long legal or medical drama, but exhibit far fewer jokes-per-minute as in a typical half-hour sitcom. In the United States Examples from United States television include: ''M*A*S*H (TV series), M*A*S*H'', ''Moonlighting (TV series), Moonlighting'', ''The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd'', ''Northern Exposure'', ''Ally McBeal'', ''Sex and the City'', ''Desperate Housewives'' and ''Scrubs (TV series), Scrubs''. The term "dramedy" was coined to describe the late 1980s wave of shows, including ''The Wonder Years'', ''Hooperman'', ''Doogie Howser, M.D.'' and ''Frank's Place''. See also *List of comedy drama television series *Black comedy *Dramatic structure *Melodrama *Seriousness *Tragicomedy *Psychological ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Armstrong (comedian)
Alexander Henry Fenwick Armstrong (born 2 March 1970) is an English actor, comedian, radio personality, television presenter and singer. He is the host of the BBC One game show ''Pointless'', as well as the morning show on Classic FM. He is one half of the comedy duo Armstrong and Miller. Armstrong's television credits include ''Armstrong and Miller'', '' Beast'', '' Life Begins'', ''Hunderby'' and '' Danger Mouse''. He is also known as the voice of Mr Smith, Sarah Jane Smith's alien (Xylok) supercomputer in ''The Sarah Jane Adventures'' and the series 4 finale of ''Doctor Who''. Armstrong is a bass-baritone and has released three studio albums. Early life Alexander Henry Fenwick Armstrong was born in Rothbury, Northumberland, on 2 March 1970, the youngest of three children, to physician Henry Angus Armstrong and Emma Virginia Peronnet (née Thompson-McCausland). The Armstrongs are a North East landowning family distantly related to The 1st Baron Armstrong. Armstrong's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sam Kelly
Roger Michael Kelly (19 December 1943 – 14 June 2014), known by the stage name Sam Kelly, was an English actor who appeared in film, television, radio and theatre. He is best known for his roles as Captain Hans Geering in '' 'Allo 'Allo!'', Warren in ''Porridge'', Sam in '' On the Up'', and Ted Liversidge in '' Barbara''. Early life Kelly was born in Salford, Lancashire on 19 December 1943 and abandoned; he was adopted by a couple who moved to Liverpool. There he attended the Liverpool Collegiate School and was a chorister at Liverpool Cathedral, where he showed early acting talent by reciting monologues. He worked for three years in the Civil Service in Liverpool before training as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. After graduating in 1967, he appeared in repertory theatres around the UK. Career His early roles included playing a film director in '' Tiffany Jones'' (1973) and appearances in two of the later ''Carry On'' films, ''Carry On Dick'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Darren Boyd
Darren John Boyd (born 30 January 1971) is a British actor who starred in the Sky 1 series ''Spy'', for which he won a BAFTA Award. His work in television and film spans comedy and drama. Early life Boyd began acting at age 17 in amateur theatre and performed in local productions from 1989 to 1995. Boyd moved to London in his mid-20s, where he continued to work in theatre until being cast in ''Kiss Me Kate'' for the BBC in 1998. Career Television Boyd co-starred in the BBC comedy ''Kiss Me Kate'' (1998), which ran for three years. This led to starring roles in British comedies such as '' Hippies'' (1999) and ''Smack the Pony'' (1999). In 2001, he worked with Victoria Pile on a new series ''Los Dos Bros'', an off-beat sitcom exploring physical comedy and the relationship between Boyd and Cavan Clerkin as the titular (half-)brothers. Boyd was co-creator and co-writer. The show won a silver rose at Montreux in 2002. During this time Boyd was cast in the American NBC series, ''Wat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eastbourne
Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. Eastbourne is immediately east of Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain and part of the larger Eastbourne Downland Estate. The seafront consists largely of Victorian hotels, a pier, theatre, contemporary art gallery and a Napoleonic era fort and military museum. Though Eastbourne is a relatively new town, there is evidence of human occupation in the area from the Stone Age. The town grew as a fashionable tourist resort largely thanks to prominent landowner, William Cavendish, later to become the Duke of Devonshire. Cavendish appointed architect Henry Currey to design a street plan for the town, but not before sending him to Europe to draw inspiration. The resulting mix of architecture is typically Victorian and remains a key feature of Eastbourne. As a seaside resort, Eastbourne derives a large and increasing income from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
