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Daphne Oxenford
Daphne Margaret du Grivel Oxenford (31 October 1919 – 21 December 2012) was an English actress, known for her early stage roles, and later her radio and television work. She was the voice (''"Are you sitting comfortably ...?"'') of BBC radio's ''Listen with Mother'' from its inception in 1950 to 1971. As spinster Esther Hayes, she was part of the original cast of ''Coronation Street''. Other notable roles include Mrs Plummer in ''Man About the House'' (1973), Alice Dutton in ''EastEnders'' (1990), and Mrs. Oldknow in the mini-series ''The Children of Green Knowe'' (1986). Early life and early career Born in Barnet, Hertfordshire, to chartered accountant Dudley Oxenford and his wife Marie (née du Grivel), a writer of historical fiction, Oxenford first appeared on stage at the age of thirteen and trained at the Embassy School of Acting in Swiss Cottage, North London. She was briefly employed by a bank before working in censorship during World War II while performing in rev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chipping Barnet
Chipping Barnet or High Barnet is a suburban market town in north London, forming part of the London Borough of Barnet, England. It is a suburban development built around a 12th-century settlement, and is located north-northwest of Charing Cross, east from Borehamwood, west from Enfield and south from Potters Bar. Its population, including its localities East Barnet, New Barnet, Hadley Wood, Monken Hadley, Cockfosters and Arkley, was 47,359 in 2011. Its name is very often abbreviated to just Barnet, which is also the name of the borough of which it forms a part; the town has been part of Greater London since 1965 after the abolition of Barnet Urban District then in Hertfordshire. Chipping Barnet is also the name of the Parliamentary constituency covering the local area – the word "Chipping" denotes the presence of a market, one that was established here at the end of the 12th century and persists to this day. Chipping Barnet is one of the highest urban settlements in Lond ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swiss Cottage
Swiss Cottage is an area of Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden, England. It is centred on the junction of Avenue Road and Finchley Road and includes Swiss Cottage tube station. Swiss Cottage lies north-northwest of Charing Cross. The area was named after a public house in the centre of it, known as "Ye Olde Swiss Cottage". History Toponymy According to the ''Dictionary of London Place Names'' (2001), the district is named after an inn called ''The Swiss Tavern'' that was built in 1804 in the style of a Swiss chalet on the site of a former tollgate keeper's cottage, and later renamed ''Swiss Inn'' and in the early 20th century ''Swiss Cottage''. Urban development The district formed part of the ancient parish of Hampstead. It developed following the Finchley Road Act 1826, which authorised construction of Finchley New Road and Avenue Road, with ''The Swiss Tavern'' built at the junction of the new roads. The former Swiss Cottage station was opened by the Metr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Duchess Of Duke Street
''The Duchess of Duke Street'' is a BBC television drama series set in London between the late 1800s and 1925. It was created by John Hawkesworth, previously the producer of the ITV period drama '' Upstairs, Downstairs''. It starred Gemma Jones as Louisa Leyton Trotter, the eponymous "Duchess" who works her way up from servant to renowned cook to proprietor of the upper-class Bentinck Hotel in Duke Street, St. James's, in London. The story is loosely based on the real-life career of Rosa Lewis (née Ovenden), the "Duchess of Jermyn Street", who ran the Cavendish Hotel in London, at the corner of Duke St, St. James's. When the show first aired, there were many people who still remembered her, as she lived until 1952. According to census returns, she was born in Leyton, Essex, to a watchmaker. In the series, Louisa's family name is Leyton, and her father is a clockmaker. The programme lasted for two series totalling 31 episodes, shown in 1976 and 1977. Shown later on PBS in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sweeney
''The Sweeney'' is a 1970s British television police drama focusing on two members of the Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police specialising in tackling armed robbery and violent crime in London. It stars John Thaw as Detective Inspector Jack Regan and Dennis Waterman as his partner, Detective Sergeant George Carter. It was produced by the Thames Television subsidiary Euston Films for broadcast on the ITV network in the UK between 2 January 1975 and 28 December 1978. The programme's title comes from the real-world Cockney rhyming slang nickname "Sweeney Todd" used to refer to the Flying Squad by London's criminal fraternity in the mid 20th Century. The popularity of the series in the UK led to two feature films, '' Sweeney!'' (1977) and ''Sweeney 2'' (1978), both starring Thaw and Waterman, and a later film, '' The Sweeney'' (2012), starring Ray Winstone as Regan and Ben Drew as Carter. Background ''The Sweeney'' was developed from a one-off TV drama entitled ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Clitheroe Kid
''The Clitheroe Kid'' was a BBC Radio comedy show featuring diminutive Northern comic Jimmy Clitheroe in the role of a cheeky schoolboy, who lived with his family at Lilac Avenue in an unnamed town in the North of England. The pilot show, pilot series, and 16 subsequent series, totalling 290 episodes in all, were originally broadcast between April 1957 and August 1972. Cast In addition to Clitheroe himself, the show's stars included Peter Sinclair playing his Scottish granddad, Patricia Burke as his mother (in some early shows the part was played by Renée Houston), and Diana Day as his long-suffering sister, Susan (the sister, originally called Judith Clitheroe, was played in the earliest episodes by Judith Chalmers). Jimmy's father never appeared, and his absence was never addressed. Oldham comedian Danny Ross played Alfie Hall, Susan's half-witted, tongue-tied boyfriend, who was often drawn into Jimmy's reckless schemes. He joined the show in 1960, replacing Susan's origi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Listen To Les
''Listen to Les'' was a long-running comedy sketch show on BBC Radio 2 starring Les Dawson. Dawson performed various deadpan monologues and played in a number of recurring character sketches including'' "At Home with the Desponds"'', ''"The Sophisticates"'' and ''"Cissy and Ada"'' supported by other performers including Daphne Oxenford, Colin Edwynn and Roy Barraclough Roy Senior Barraclough (12 July 1935 – 1 June 2017) was an English comic actor. He was best known for his role as Alec Gilroy, the devious, mournful landlord of the Rovers Return in the long-running British TV soap '' Coronation Street'', .... Every show ended with Dawson calling upon the studio audience to join him in a singalong with a popular or classic song, which he would deliberately play badly at the piano, to great comic effect. BBC Radio comedy programmes {{BBC-radio-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
To The Manor Born
''To the Manor Born'' is a BBC television sitcom that first aired on BBC1 from 1979 to 1981. A special one-off episode was produced in 2007. Starring Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles, the first 20 episodes and the 2007 special were written by Peter Spence, the creator, while the final episode in 1981 was written by script associate Christopher Bond. The title is a play on the phrase "to the manner born," from Shakespeare's ''Hamlet'' ("Though I am a native here and to the manner born, it is a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance".) In ''To the Manor Born'', Penelope Keith (who was previously best known for her role as Margo Leadbetter in the suburban sitcom '' The Good Life''), plays upper-class Audrey fforbes-Hamilton. Upon the death of her husband, Audrey is forced to sell her vast country estate, Grantleigh Manor. However, she then moves into the estate's small, modest lodge house (where she can keep an eye on the estate's new owner) and manages to keep h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Sitcom
A British sitcom or a Britcom is a situational comedy programme produced for British television. Most British sitcoms are recorded on studio sets, while some have an element of location filming. A handful are made almost exclusively on location (for example, '' Last of the Summer Wine'') and shown to a studio audience prior to final post-production. A subset of British comedy consciously avoids traditional situation comedy themes, storylines, and home settings to focus on more unusual topics or narrative methods. ''Blackadder'' (1983–1989) and '' Yes Minister'' (1980–1988, 2013) moved what is often a domestic or workplace genre into the corridors of power. A later development was the mockumentary genre exemplified by series such as ''The Office'' (2001–2003). Early years ;''Pinwright's Progress'' Written by Rodney Hobson, '' Pinwright's Progress'' (1946–1947) was the world's first regular half-hour televised sitcom. Broadcast live by the BBC from Alexandra Palace, it wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
What The Papers Say
''What The Papers Say'' is a British radio and television series. It consists of quotations from headlines and comment pages in the previous week's newspapers, read in a variety of voices and accents by actors. The quotes are linked by a script read by a studio presenter, usually a prominent journalist. The show did not have a regular host, and was intended as a wry look at how British broadsheets and tabloids covered the week's news stories. The programme was most recently broadcast on BBC Radio 4. ''What The Papers Say'' originally ran for many years on television – its first incarnation (1956–2008) was the second longest-running programme on British television after ''Panorama''. Having begun in 1956 on Granada Television and ITV, the television series moved to Channel 4 and then to BBC2 before being discontinued in 2008. The programme was revived on Radio 4 in the run-up to the 2010 general election, and continued until 27 March 2016, when it was announced that that w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online news coverage. The service maintains 50 foreign news bureaus with more than 250 correspondents around the world. Deborah Turness has been the CEO of news and current affairs since September 2022. In 2019, it was reported in an Ofcom report that the BBC spent £136m on news during the period April 2018 to March 2019. BBC News' domestic, global and online news divisions are housed within the largest live newsroom in Europe, in Broadcasting House in central London. Parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in London. Through BBC English Regions, the BBC also has regional centres across England and national news c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joyce Grenfell
Joyce Irene Grenfell OBE (''née'' Phipps; 10 February 1910 – 30 November 1979) was an English diseuse, singer, actress and writer. She was known for the songs and monologues she wrote and performed, at first in revues and later in her solo shows. She never appeared as a stage actress, but had roles, mostly comic, in many films, including Miss Gossage in '' The Happiest Days of Your Life'' (1950) and Police Sergeant Ruby Gates in the St Trinian's series (from 1954). She was a well-known broadcaster on radio and television. As a writer, she was the first radio critic for ''The Observer'', contributed to ''Punch'' and published a volume of memoirs. Born to an affluent Anglo-American family, Grenfell had abandoned early hopes of becoming an actress when she was invited to perform a comic monologue in a West End revue in 1939. Its success led to a career as an entertainer, giving her creations in theatres in five continents between 1940 and 1969. Life and career Early years Born ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Exchange Theatre
The Royal Exchange is a grade II listed building in Manchester, England. It is located in the city centre on the land bounded by St Ann's Square, Exchange Street, Market Street, Cross Street and Old Bank Street. The complex includes the Royal Exchange Theatre and the Royal Exchange Shopping Centre. The Royal Exchange was heavily damaged in the Manchester Blitz and in the 1996 Manchester bombing. The current building is the last of several buildings on the site used for commodities exchange, primarily but not exclusively of cotton and textiles. History, 1729 to 1973 The cotton industry in Lancashire was served by the cotton importers and brokers based in Liverpool who supplied Manchester and surrounding towns with the raw material needed to spin yarns and produce finished textiles. The Liverpool Cotton Exchange traded in imported raw cotton. In the 18th century, the trade was part of the slave trade in which African slaves were transported to America where the cotton was gro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
