Double Dare (play)
"Double Dare" is a television play in the British BBC anthology TV series ''Play for Today''. The episode was first broadcast on 6 April 1976. "Double Dare" was written by Dennis Potter, directed by John Mackenzie and produced by Kenith Trodd. The play explores the link between author and viewer, one of Potter's major themes, and is referenced several times in his later work. The play's title is taken from the 1938 Al Bowlly song "I Double Dare You", which is featured in both the opening and closing credits. Synopsis Martin Ellis (Dobie) is a blocked screenwriter who invites Helen, an actress (Markham), to a hotel in central London to discuss an idea for a play he is writing with her in mind. As he waits for her to arrive he picks up the telephone in his room and considers calling an escort agency. Thinking better of it, he decides to call his wife instead. He goes to meet Helen at the hotel bar and they start discussing his project. He explains that the play he intends to wri ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Play For Today
''Play for Today'' is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were (with a few exceptions noted below) between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration. A handful of these plays, including '' Rumpole of the Bailey'', subsequently became television series in their own right. History The strand was a successor to ''The Wednesday Play'', the 1960s anthology series, the title being changed when the day of transmission moved to Thursday to make way for a sport programme. Some works, screened in anthology series' on BBC2, like Willy Russell's ''Our Day Out'' (1977), were repeated on BBC1 in the series. The producers of ''The Wednesday Play'', Graeme MacDonald and Irene Shubik, transferred to the new series. Shubik continued with the series until ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Precognition
Precognition (from the Latin 'before', and 'acquiring knowledge') is the purported psychic phenomenon of seeing, or otherwise becoming directly aware of, events in the future. There is no accepted scientific evidence that precognition is a real effect, and it is widely considered to be pseudoscience. Precognition violates the principle of causality, that an effect cannot occur before its cause. Precognition has been widely believed in throughout history. Despite the lack of scientific evidence, many people believe it to be real; it is still widely reported and remains a topic of research and discussion within the parapsychology community. Precognitive phenomena Precognition is sometimes treated as an example of the wider phenomenon of prescience or foreknowledge, to understand by any means what is likely to happen in the future. It is distinct from premonition, which is a vaguer feeling of some impending disaster. Related activities such as predictive prophecy and fortune ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pennies From Heaven (1981 Film)
''Pennies from Heaven'' is a 1981 American musical romantic drama film directed by Herbert Ross, based on the 1978 BBC television drama of the same name. Dennis Potter adapted his screenplay from the BBC series for American audiences, changing its setting from London and the Forest of Dean to Depression-era Chicago and rural Illinois. The film stars Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Christopher Walken and Jessica Harper. Choreographed by Danny Daniels,McCarthy, Todd (December 9, 1981). "Film Reviews: Pennies From Heaven". ''Variety''. 20. the film includes musical numbers consisting of actors lip-syncing and dancing to popular songs of the 1920s–30s, such as " Let's Misbehave", "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries", "Let's Face the Music and Dance" and the title song. While positively received by critics, it was a box office bomb, grossing just a fraction of its budget. Potter received a nomination for the 1981 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, but lost to '' On Golden Po ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Herbert Ross
Herbert David Ross (May 13, 1927 – October 9, 2001) was an American actor, choreographer, director and producer who worked predominantly in theater and film. He was nominated for two Academy Awards and a Tony Award. He is known for directing musical and comedies such as ''Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969 film), Goodbye, Mr. Chips'' (1969), ''The Owl and the Pussycat (film), The Owl and the Pussycat'' (1970), ''Play It Again, Sam (film), Play It Again, Sam'' (1972), '' The Sunshine Boys (1975 film), The Sunshine Boys'', ''Funny Lady'' (both 1975), ''The Goodbye Girl'' (1977), ''California Suite (film), California Suite'' (1978), and ''Pennies from Heaven (1981 film), Pennies From Heaven'' (1981). His later films include ''Footloose (1984 film), Footloose'' (1984), and ''Steel Magnolias'' (1989). For the drama ''The Turning Point (1977 film), The Turning Point'' (1977) he received two Academy Award nominations for Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Picture and Academy Award for Best D ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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BBC Four
BBC Four is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002"Culture, controversy and cutting edge documentary: BBC FOUR prepares to launch" BBC Press Office, 14 February 2002. Retrieved 2 April 2010. and shows a wide variety of programmes including arts, documentaries, music, international film and drama, and current affairs. It is required by its licence to air at least 100 hours of new arts and music programmes, 110 hours of new factual programmes, and to premiere twenty foreign films each year. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Russian Doll
Matryoshka dolls ( ; rus, матрёшка, p=mɐˈtrʲɵʂkə, a=Ru-матрёшка.ogg), also known as stacking dolls, nesting dolls, Russian tea dolls, or Russian dolls, are a set of wooden dolls of decreasing size placed one inside another. The name ''matryoshka'', mainly known as "little matron", is a diminutive form of ''Matryosha'' (), in turn a diminutive of the Russian female first name ''Matryona'' (). A set of matryoshkas consists of a wooden figure, which separates at the middle, top from bottom, to reveal a smaller figure of the same sort inside, which has, in turn, another figure inside of it, and so on. The first Russian nested doll set was made in 1890 by wood turning craftsman and wood carver Vasily Zvyozdochkin from a design by Sergey Malyutin, who was a folk crafts painter at Abramtsevo. Traditionally the outer layer is a woman, dressed in a sarafan, a long and shapeless traditional Russian peasant jumper dress. The figures inside may be of any gender ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Martin Amis
Martin Louis Amis (born 25 August 1949) is a British novelist, essayist, memoirist, and screenwriter. He is best known for his novels ''Money'' (1984) and ''London Fields'' (1989). He received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his memoir ''Experience'' and has been listed for the Booker Prize twice (shortlisted in 1991 for ''Time's Arrow'' and longlisted in 2003 for '' Yellow Dog''). Amis served as the Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester until 2011. In 2008, ''The Times'' named him one of the fifty greatest British writers since 1945. Amis's work centres on the excesses of " late-capitalist" Western society, whose perceived absurdity he often satirises through grotesque caricature; he has been portrayed as a master of what ''The New York Times'' called "the new unpleasantness".Stout, Mira"Martin Amis: Down London's mean streets" ''The New York Times'', 4 February 1990. Inspired by Saul Bellow and Vladimir Nabokov, as we ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main news ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Father And Son (book)
''Father and Son'' (1907) is a memoir, initially published anonymously in both England and America, by poet and critic Edmund Gosse, subtitled "a study of two temperaments". A biography of his father appeared under Edmund's name in 1890. The book describes Edmund's early years in an exceptionally devout Plymouth Brethren home. His mother, Emily Gosse, who died at the age of 50 of breast cancer, was a writer of Christian tracts. His father, Philip Henry Gosse, was an influential, largely self-taught, invertebrate zoologist and student of marine biology who, after his wife's death, took Edmund to live in Devon. The book focuses on the relationship between a stern, religious father who rejects the new evolutionary theories of his scientific colleague Charles Darwin and the son's gradual coming of age and rejection of his father's fundamentalist religion. Although Gosse used pseudonyms throughout the book, the identities of many of the people depicted are now known. Michael N ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Edmund Gosse
Sir Edmund William Gosse (; 21 September 184916 May 1928) was an English poet, author and critic. He was strictly brought up in a small Protestant sect, the Plymouth Brethren, but broke away sharply from that faith. His account of his childhood in the book ''Father and Son'' has been described as the first psychological biography. His friendship with the sculptor Hamo Thornycroft inspired a successful career as a historian of late-Victorian sculpture. His translations of Henrik Ibsen helped to promote that playwright in England, and he encouraged the careers of W. B. Yeats and James Joyce. He also lectured in English literature at Cambridge University. Early life Gosse was the son of Philip Henry Gosse and Emily Bowes. His father was a naturalist and his mother an illustrator who published a number of books of poetry. Both were deeply committed to a small Protestant sect, the Plymouth Brethren. His childhood was initially happy as they spent their summers in Devon where his ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Where Adam Stood
''Where Adam Stood'' is a television play by Dennis Potter, first broadcast on BBC 2 in 1976. It is a free adaptation, wholly shot on film, of Edmund Gosse's autobiographical book ''Father and Son'' (1907). Synopsis Philip Gosse, naturalist and Minister of the Plymouth Brethren, and his young son Edmund are in mourning for the recent death of Mrs Gosse; the household held together by religious piety and strict bible study. Despite the claustrophobic environment, Edmund experiences brief moments of joy when his father allows him to view the exotic flora and fauna he keeps in his aquarium as part of his studies. Edmund, however, is troubled by nightmares of a Christ-like figure on a beach beckoning towards him. Confiding in his father about these terrible dreams, he reveals that his recent prayers have been to ask God for a toy sailing boat he has seen for sale in the window of a village shop. Gosse forces Edmund to pray and manipulates him into saying that God will not grant ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |