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Experimental Theatre Club
__NOTOC__ :''This club should not be confused with the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club of New York.'' The Experimental Theatre Club (ETC) is a student dramatic society at the University of Oxford, England. It was founded in 1936 by Nevill Coghill as an alternative company to the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), and produces several productions a year. The club has staged the first productions of many new works, including ''Epitaph for George Dillon'', written by John Osborne in 1957 and directed by Don Taylor (English director and playwright), Don Taylor. Etceteras ETC was home to Oxford's student revue company, the Etceteras – by the early 1970s a rather poor relation of the Cambridge Footlights. Then, in 1975, two figures who would together become major players in TV and film comedy met after answering an advert to join the Etceteras revue-writing team. They were Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson – a graduate engineering student who made his memorable Oxford debu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club (La MaMa E.T.C.) is an Off-Off-Broadway theatre founded in 1961 by Ellen Stewart, African-American theatre director, producer, and fashion designer. Located in Manhattan's East Village, the theatre began in the basement boutique where Stewart sold her fashion designs. Stewart turned the space into a theatre at night, focusing on the work of young playwrights. La MaMa has evolved during its fifty-year history into a world-renowned cultural institution. Background Stewart started La MaMa as a theatre dedicated to the playwright and primarily producing new plays, including works by Paul Foster, Jean-Claude van Itallie, Lanford Wilson, Sam Shepard, Adrienne Kennedy, Harvey Fierstein, and Rochelle Owens. La MaMa also became an international ambassador for Off-Off-Broadway theatre by touring downtown theatre abroad during the 1960s.Bottoms, Steven J. ''Playing Underground: A Critical History of the 1960s Off-Off-Broadway Movement''. Ann Arbor: Univers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Rissik
Andrew Rissik (born 23 April 1955) is a British scriptwriter, journalist and critic best known for the BBC Radio 3 trilogy, ''Troy'' and the five-part thriller serial for Radio 4, ''The Psychedelic Spy''. He was theatre critic at ''The Independent'' from 1986 to 1988, and a book reviewer for ''The Guardian'' from 1999 to 2001. His full-time writing and journalistic career came to an end in early 1988 when he was diagnosed with Myalgic encephalomyelitis (M.E.), from which he still suffers. Early life The son of a company lawyer, Rissik grew up in Buckinghamshire and was educated at St George's School, Windsor Castle (where his contemporaries included the counter tenor Michael Chance and the composer Francis Grier), Harrow School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated with a Congratulatory First in English in 1977. He was elected to a junior academic position at Christ Church in 1978, but left a year later to pursue a career in drama and journalism. His student theatre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John McGrath (playwright)
John Peter McGrath (1 June 1935 – 22 January 2002) was a British playwright and theatre theorist who took up the cause of Socialism in his plays. Early life and career From an Irish Catholic background, McGrath was born in Birkenhead, and educated in Mold and, after his National Service, at St John's College, Oxford.Michael BillingtoObituary: John McGrath ''The Guardian'', 24 January 2002 During the early 1960s he worked for the BBC, and wrote and directed many of the early episodes of the corporation's police series ''Z-Cars'' which began in 1962. Theatrical career McGrath is best remembered as a playwright and for his theoretical formulation of the principles of a radical, popular theatre. The 7:84 Theatre Company was established in 1971 by McGrath, his wife (Elizabeth MacLennan) and her brother ( David MacLennan),Ewan Davidso"''Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil, The'' (1974)" BFI screenonline and ''The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black Black Oil'' (1973), his best- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ken Loach
Kenneth Charles Loach (born 17 June 1936) is a British film director and screenwriter. His socially critical directing style and socialist ideals are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as poverty (''Poor Cow'', 1967), homelessness ('' Cathy Come Home'', 1966), and labour rights ('' Riff-Raff'', 1991, and '' The Navigators'', 2001). Loach's film '' Kes'' (1969) was voted the seventh greatest British film of the 20th century in a poll by the British Film Institute. Two of his films, '' The Wind That Shakes the Barley'' (2006) and ''I, Daniel Blake'' (2016), received the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, making him one of only nine filmmakers to win the award twice. Early life Kenneth Charles Loach was born on 17 June 1936 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, the son of Vivien (née Hamlin) and John Loach. He attended King Edward VI Grammar School and at the age of 19 went to serve in the Royal Air Force. He read law at St Peter's College, Oxford< ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terry Jones
Terence Graham Parry Jones (1 February 1942 – 21 January 2020) was a Welsh comedian, director, historian, actor, writer and member of the Monty Python comedy team. After graduating from Oxford University with a degree in English, Jones and writing partner Michael Palin wrote and performed for several high-profile British comedy programmes, including ''Do Not Adjust Your Set'' and ''The Frost Report'', before creating '' Monty Python's Flying Circus'' with Cambridge graduates Graham Chapman, John Cleese, and Eric Idle and American animator-filmmaker Terry Gilliam. Jones was largely responsible for the programme's innovative, surreal structure, in which sketches flowed from one to the next without the use of punch lines. He made his directorial debut with the Python film ''Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Holy Grail'', which he co-directed with Gilliam, and also directed the subsequent Python films ''Monty Python's Life of Brian, Life of Brian'' and ''Monty Python's The Meanin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Hooper (director)
Thomas George Hooper (born 5 October 1972)''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005''. 5d: 2485. is a British-Australian filmmaker. Hooper began making short films as a teenager and had his first professional short, ''Painted Faces'', broadcast on Channel 4 in 1992. At Oxford University, Hooper directed plays and television commercials. After graduating, he directed episodes of ''Quayside'', ''Byker Grove'', ''EastEnders'', and '' Cold Feet'' on British television. In the 2000s, Hooper directed the major BBC costume dramas ''Love in a Cold Climate'' (2001) and ''Daniel Deronda'' (2002), as well as the 2003 revival of ITV's ''Prime Suspect'' series, starring Helen Mirren. Hooper made his feature film debut with '' Red Dust'' (2004), a British drama starring Hilary Swank and Chiwetel Ejiofor, before directing Helen Mirren again in the Company Pictures/HBO Films historical drama ''Elizabeth I'' (2005). He continued working for HBO on the television film ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howard Goodall
Howard Lindsay Goodall (; born 26 May 1958) is an English composer of musicals, choral music and music for television. He also presents music-based programmes for television and radio, for which he has won many awards. In May 2008, he was named as a presenter and "Composer-in-Residence" with the UK radio channel Classic FM. In May 2009, he was named "Composer of the Year" at the Classic BRIT Awards. Personal life Born in Bromley, Kent, Goodall was educated at New College School, where he was a chorister in the Choir of New College, Oxford. He then went on to Stowe School and Lord Williams's School. He read music at Christ Church, Oxford, where he gained a first-class degree. He is married to Val Fancourt, who is a classical music agent, and they have two daughters. Works Popular music In the late 1970s, Goodall was a member of the band Half Brother with his friend Jonathan Kermode. They produced an eponymous LP album, ''Half Brother'', in 1978. Musical theatre Goodall' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Franks
Philip Franks (born 2 February 1956) is an English actor and director, known to the public chiefly for his roles in English television series, such as '' The Darling Buds of May'' and '' Heartbeat''. Early life Franks was born on 2 February 1956 in London and is the only child of Patricia and Robert Franks. His father was a squadron leader pilot in the Royal Air Force. Franks maintains that he first fell in love with theatre at age six, when his parents took him along to see a production of '' The Tempest''. The following year, his parents were going to a production of ''Hamlet'', and Franks insisted on going with them; at age seven, he was hooked for life. Career Franks is best known for his role as the tax inspector Cedric "Charley" Charlton in the English comedy drama '' The Darling Buds of May'', and also as Sgt. Raymond Craddock in '' Heartbeat''. He has also been a guest star in ''Absolutely Fabulous'', ''Pie in the Sky'', '' Midsomer Murders'', '' Foyle's War'', ''Ble ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piers Fletcher
Piers Fletcher is a television producer and researcher, mainly working for the British panel game '' QI'', broadcast on the BBC. Before working in television, Fletcher served in the British Army, where he was in charge of the northernmost Observation Post in Hong Kong, meaning that if China invaded, he would have been one of the first soldiers to have faced them. After leaving the army he went to study at Balliol College, Oxford, and then left to become a commodity broker in the City of London specialising in potato futures, where he worked for twenty-two years. Fletcher then left his job and began working for ''QI'', where he became one of the show's "Question Wranglers" at the beginning of the second series, where he was involved in writing the questions. He was also given the post of "Health and safety, retractions and compliances officer", which involves dealing with complaints from viewers over questions, answers or statements that were broadcast which may be wrong. By the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Flanders
Michael Henry Flanders (1 March 1922 – 14 April 1975) was an English actor, broadcaster, and writer and performer of comic songs. He is best known for his stage partnership with Donald Swann. As a young man Flanders seemed to be heading for a successful acting career. He contracted polio in 1943 while serving in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and for the rest of his life was reliant on a wheelchair. He made a career as a prolific broadcaster on radio and later television, and together with his old schoolfriend, the composer Donald Swann, he wrote successful songs in the late 1940s and early and mid-1950s for revues in the West End of London. In 1956 they themselves performed some of these songs, along with new songs, in a two-man revue, ''At the Drop of a Hat''. This show, and its successor, ''At the Drop of Another Hat'', ran with occasional short breaks from 1956 to 1967 and played in theatres throughout the British Isles, the US, Australia and elsewhere. During and af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett (born 9 May 1934) is an English actor, author, playwright and screenwriter. Over his distinguished entertainment career he has received numerous awards and honours including two BAFTA Awards, four Laurence Olivier Awards, and two Tony Awards. He also earned an Academy Award nomination for his film ''The Madness of King George'' (1994). In 2005 he received the Society of London Theatre Special Award. Bennett was born in Leeds and attended Oxford University, where he studied history and performed with the Oxford Revue. He stayed to teach and research medieval history at the university for several years. His collaboration as writer and performer with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook in the satirical revue '' Beyond the Fringe'' at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival brought him instant fame and later a Special Tony Award. He gave up academia, and turned to writing full time, his first stage play, '' Forty Years On'', being produced in 1968. He also became known ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lindsay Anderson
Lindsay Gordon Anderson (17 April 1923 – 30 August 1994) was a British feature-film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading-light of the Free Cinema movement and of the British New Wave. He is most widely remembered for his 1968 film '' if....'', which won the ''Palme d'Or'' at Cannes Film Festival in 1969 and marked Malcolm McDowell's cinematic debut. He is also notable, though not a professional actor, for playing a minor role in the Academy Award-winning 1981 film ''Chariots of Fire''. McDowell produced a 2007 documentary about his experiences with Anderson, '' Never Apologize''. Early life Lindsay Gordon Anderson was born in Bangalore, South India, where his father had been stationed with the Royal Engineers, on 17 April 1923. His father Captain (later Major General) Alexander Vass Anderson was a British Army officer who had been born in North India, and his mother Estelle Bell Gasson was born in Queenstown, South Africa, the daughter of a wool merch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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