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Drowning On Dry Land (play)
''Drowning on Dry Land'' is a 2004 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, his 66th to be produced. Exploring the culture of B-list celebrities, it is a comedy about the rise and fall of Charlie Conrad, a man apparently famous for being a failure. Background Alan Ayckbourn's previous play about the celebrity culture was '' Man of the Moment'', with one of the main characters a megastar, even though the publicity that triggered his celebrity career was his involvement in a horrific bank robbery. In the few years before ''Drowning on Dry Land'' was written, celebrity culture (propagated by a deluge of tabloid images and celebrity magazine gossip, and helped along by the emergence of reality TV shows such as ''Big Brother'') rose to a point where people were becoming famous for no particular reason at all. As Dame Edna Everage once remarked: "celebrity is the new nonentity". The incident that led to the inspiration for the play was a moment in the 2003 Piers Morgan documentar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Ayckbourn
Sir Alan Ayckbourn (born 12 April 1939) is a prolific British playwright and director. He has written and produced as of 2021, more than eighty full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their first performance. More than 40 have subsequently been produced in the West End, at the Royal National Theatre or by the Royal Shakespeare Company since his first hit '' Relatively Speaking'' opened at the Duke of York's Theatre in 1967. Major successes include ''Absurd Person Singular'' (1975), ''The Norman Conquests'' trilogy (1973), '' Bedroom Farce'' (1975), ''Just Between Ourselves'' (1976), '' A Chorus of Disapproval'' (1984), ''Woman in Mind'' (1985), ''A Small Family Business'' (1987), '' Man of the Moment'' (1988), ''House'' & ''Garden'' (1999) and ''Private Fears in Public Places'' (2004). His plays have won numerous awards, includi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Bill
''The Bill'' is a British police procedural television series, first broadcast on ITV from 16 August 1983 until 31 August 2010. The programme originated from a one-off drama, '' Woodentop'', broadcast in August 1983. The programme focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work. ''The Bill'' was the longest-running police procedural television series in the United Kingdom, and among the longest running of any British television series at the time of its cancellation. The title originates from "Old Bill", a slang term for the police. Although highly acclaimed by fans and critics, the series attracted controversy on several occasions. An episode broadcast in 2008 was criticised for featuring fictional treatment for multiple sclerosis. The series has also faced more general criticism concerning its levels of violence, particularly prior to 2009, when it occupied a pre-watershed slot. ''The Bill'' won several ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theatre Record
''Theatre Record'' is a periodical that reprints reviews, production photographs, and other information about the British theatre. Overview ''Theatre Record'' was founded in 1981 by Ian Herbert and has been published fortnightly since January 1981 until January 2019, when it became an online publication. Previously it was printed and published in England every two weeks. It reprints unabridged all the national drama critics' reviews of productions in and out of London, with full casts and credits. It also lists early information of forthcoming shows all over the country, including box office and press contact numbers. Production photographs are published whenever possible, to provide a visual as well as verbal record of the ongoing history of British theatre. Before 2019, all productions, their casts, author and full production credits were indexed annually; from 2019, the website provides a search engine functionality to browse through all of these listings. ''Theatre Record'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (founded in 1821) are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, in turn wholly owned by News Corp. ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'', which do not share editorial staff, were founded independently and have only had common ownership since 1966. In general, the political position of ''The Times'' is considered to be centre-right. ''The Times'' is the first newspaper to have borne that name, lending it to numerous other papers around the world, such as ''The Times of India'', ''The New York Times'', and more recently, digital-first publications such as TheTimesBlog.com (Since 2017). In countries where these other titles are popular, the newspaper is often referred to as , or as , although the newspaper is of nationa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lynne Walker (critic)
Lynne Walker (24 October 1956 – 10 February 2011) was a British music and theatre critic. Walker was a regular broadcaster for the BBC. Born in Edinburgh, she attended the Mary Erskine School. She won a medal at the end of her time at Napier College in 1976,Kenneth Walto"Obituary: Lynne Walker, journalist" ''The Scotsman'', 23 Febryaru 2011 and gained a degree from the Huddersfield School of Music (now part of Huddersfield University).Conrad Wilso"Lynne Walker; Critic and broadcaster" ''The Herald'' (Glasgow), 22 February 2011 At the Huddersfield School, she studied oboe, the piano and conducting. It was at this time that Walker became drawn to the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and gained a scholarship to study choral conducting in France under Arthur Oldham. Her early career was as a musician, but she migrated to marketing and publicity in the early 1980s working for the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in Glasgow being involved in the RSNO's Music Nova (New Mu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only the online edition. The newspaper was controlled by Tony O'Reilly's Irish Independent News & Media from 1997 until it was sold to the Russian oligarch and former KGB Officer Alexander Lebedev in 2010. In 2017, Sultan Muhammad Abuljadayel bought a 30% stake in it. The daily edition was named National Newspaper of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards. The website and mobile app had a combined monthly reach of 19,826,000 in 2021. History 1986 to 1990 Launched in 1986, the first issue of ''The Independent'' was published on 7 October in broadsheet format.Dennis Griffiths (ed.) ''The Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422–1992'', London & Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992, p. 330 It was produc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nikkei, with core editorial offices across Britain, the United States and continental Europe. In July 2015, Pearson sold the publication to Nikkei for £844 million (US$1.32 billion) after owning it since 1957. In 2019, it reported one million paying subscriptions, three-quarters of which were digital subscriptions. The newspaper has a prominent focus on financial journalism and economic analysis over generalist reporting, drawing both criticism and acclaim. The daily sponsors an annual book award and publishes a " Person of the Year" feature. The paper was founded in January 1888 as the ''London Financial Guide'' before rebranding a month later as the ''Financial Times''. It was first circulated around metropolitan London by James Sherid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian Shuttleworth
Terence Ian Shuttleworth (born 6 July 1963 in Belfast, UK) is a Northern Irish theatre critic and author. He was joint senior theatre critic for the ''Financial Times'' from May 2007 until March 2019. He was editor and publisher of ''Theatre Record'' magazine from 2004 until 2016. In March 2019 he left the UK for Germany. Shuttleworth was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. He received a master's degree in English literature from Queens' College, Cambridge. His reviews have appeared, in addition to the ''Financial Times'', in publications including ''The Sunday Times'', ''The Guardian'', ''London Evening Standard'', ''The Observer'', ''The Independent'', ''Daily Mail'', '' The Sun'', ''The Scotsman'', ''The Stage'', ''Stagebill'', '' Plays & Players'', ''Screen International'', ''Broadcast'', ''OK!'', and '' City Life''. Shuttleworth is the author of the book ''Ken & Em'' (Headline Books, 1994), which is an unauthorised biography of Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thomp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Posh And Becks
Posh and Becks is a widely used nickname for the British celebrity supercouple Victoria Beckham (née ''Adams'', "Posh Spice" of the Spice Girls) and David Beckham (a footballer and former England captain). ''Posh & Becks'' is also the title of a book about the couple by Andrew Morton. As a phrase "Posh and Becks" as a phrase was included in the Collins ''Concise English Dictionary'' in 2001. The term "Posh and Becks" is commonly used by newspapers and other media, especially in headlines, and has become an expression that is widely used and recognised within popular culture in the United Kingdom. The term "Posh and Becks" has also found its way into rhyming slang, referring to "sex". As a couple Posh and Becks started dating in 1997, which led to the use of the term by the popular media. Their celebrity wedding took place on 4 July 1999, and the home in Hertfordshire, England, that they bought shortly afterwards has been nicknamed by the media as "Beckingham Palace" (a portman ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salisbury
Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wiltshire, near the edge of Salisbury Plain. Salisbury Cathedral was formerly north of the city at Old Sarum. The cathedral was relocated and a settlement grew up around it, which received a city charter in 1227 as . This continued to be its official name until 2009, when Salisbury City Council was established. Salisbury railway station is an interchange between the West of England Main Line and the Wessex Main Line. Stonehenge is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is northwest of Salisbury. Name The name ''Salisbury'', which is first recorded around the year 900 as ''Searoburg'' ( dative ''Searobyrig''), is a partial translation of the Roman Celtic name ''Sorbiodūnum''. The Brittonic suffix ''-dūnon'', meaning "fortress" (in reference ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Damsels In Distress (plays)
''Damsels in Distress'' is a trilogy of plays written in 2001 by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. The three plays, '' GamePlan'', ''FlatSpin'' and ''RolePlay'', were originally performed as a set by the Stephen Joseph Theatre Company (SJT). The plays were written to be performed by the same seven actors using the same set. Although the plays loosely shared some common themes, the three stories were independent of each other and unconnected. This trilogy is considered Alan Ayckbourn's first major success of the 21st century. It also began a dispute between Ayckbourn and the West End. Background ''Damsels in Distress'' began as an experiment to revive the Stephen Joseph Theatre's repertory system. Throughout the theatre's time at its first two venues, plays had largely been staged on a repertory basis, with plays being chosen and written around the actors available. After the move to the theatre's current venue in 1996, however, the system largely ended (apart from the ''10× ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Petra Letang
Petra Letang (born 4 May 1979 in Plaistow, London, England) is a British actress, probably best known for her role as Naomi Julien in the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'' and Adele Effanga in ''Holby City''. Biography Letang grew up in east London, and attended the Anna Scher Theatre school in Islington, London. She has played Donna Lewis in the Channel 5 soap ''Family Affairs'' in 1999, and the character Pauline in the BBC2 drama '' Babyfather'' in 2002. Other television credits have included ''Jonathan Creek'' (2004), ''The Bill'' (2005) and ''The Last Detective'' (2005). She also appeared in the British film ''Wondrous Oblivion'' in 2003. In 2005, Letang was cast as Naomi Julien — the lesbian lover of Sonia Fowler (Natalie Cassidy) — in BBC's ''EastEnders''. She left the role in 2007, reportedly because scriptwriters had "run out of ideas for her". Prior to this, Letang had gone public with her fears that her character would be axed following a "bad public reaction" to t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
