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French And Saunders
''French and Saunders'' is a British sketch comedy television series written by and starring comedy duo and namesake Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders that originally broadcast on BBC2 from 1987 to 1993, and later on BBC One until 2017. It is also the name by which the performers are known on the occasions when they appear elsewhere as a double act. The show was given one of the highest budgets in BBC history to create detailed spoofs and satires of popular culture, movies, celebrities, and art. French and Saunders continued to film holiday specials for the BBC, and both have been individually successful starring in other shows. In a 2005 poll to find ''The Comedian's Comedian'', the duo were voted among the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. Their last special, ''French and Saunders Christmas Celebrity Special'', aired on 27 December 2005 on BBC One. In 2006, both French and Saunders announced their sketch show was now dead, and that they had moved ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dawn French
Dawn Roma French (born 11 October 1957) is a British actress, comedian, presenter and writer. French is known for writing and starring on the BBC comedy sketch show ''French and Saunders'' with her best friend and comedy partner, Jennifer Saunders, and played the lead role as Geraldine Granger in the BBC sitcom ''The Vicar of Dibley''. She has been nominated for seven BAFTA TV Awards and won a BAFTA Fellowship with Saunders in 2009. Early life Dawn Roma French was born on 11 October 1957 in Holyhead, Wales, to English parents Felicity Roma (''née'' O'Brien; 1934 – 2012) and Denys Vernon French (5 August 1932 – 11 September 1977), who married in their home town of Plymouth in 1953. French has an older brother, Gary. Her father served in the Royal Air Force, stationed at RAF Valley and later RAF Leconfield, where Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother went to tea at French's home when French was three years old. An RAF archive footage of this event was included in French's comedy t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Tube (TV Series)
''The Tube'' was a United Kingdom music television programme, which ran for five series, from 5 November 1982 to 24 April 1987. It was filmed in Newcastle upon Tyne and produced for Channel 4 by Tyne Tees Television, which had previously produced the similar music show '' Alright Now'' and the music-oriented youth show '' Check it Out'' for ITV; production of the latter ended in favour of ''The Tube''. ''The Tube'' was presented live by hosts including Jools Holland, Paula Yates, Leslie Ash, Muriel Gray, Gary James, Mark Miwurdz (Mark Hurst), Michel Cremona, Felix Howard, Tony Fletcher, Nick Laird-Clowes and Mike Everitt. The show was directed by Gavin Taylor; Geoff Wonfor directed some of the insert videos along with other staff programme director of Tyne Tees Television Martin Cairns. Many other specials were made, including one for the eve of the millennium. The brand name was relaunched by Channel 4 as an online radio station in November 2006. Showcase for contemporary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Viking Press
Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim and then acquired by the Penguin Group in 1975. History Guinzburg, a Harvard graduate and former employee of Simon and Schuster and Oppenheimer, a graduate of Williams College and Alfred A. Knopf, founded Viking in 1925 with the goal of publishing nonfiction and "distinguished fiction with some claim to permanent importance rather than ephemeral popular interest." B. W. Huebsch joined the firm shortly afterward. Harold Guinzburg's son Thomas became president in 1961. The firm's name and logo—a Viking ship drawn by Rockwell Kent—were meant to evoke the ideas of adventure, exploration, and enterprise implied by the word "Viking." In August 1961, they acquired H.B. Huesbsch, which maintained a list of backlist titles from authors such as James Joyce an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Light Entertainment
Light entertainment encompasses a broad range of television and radio programming that includes comedies, variety shows, game shows, quiz shows and the like. In Great Britain In the early days of the BBC virtually all broadcast entertainment would be considered light by today's standards, as great pains were taken not to offend audiences—which is not to say that they always succeeded in this. Singers, magicians and comedians were drafted from the music hall circuit to fill the schedules. Stage acts were transferred directly to screen and in the case of productions such as ''Sunday Night at the London Palladium'' the broadcasts actually came from large theatres. Many future household names, including The Beatles, were given their first public airings during these programmes, which attempted to cater for varying tastes through staging variety acts. Bruce Forsyth was one of several hosts for the show and went on himself to present the studio-based '' Generation Game'' which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joan Armatrading
Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading, (, born 9 December 1950) is a Kittitian-English singer-songwriter and guitarist. A three-time Grammy Award nominee, Armatrading has also been nominated twice for BRIT Awards as Best Female Artist. She received an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contemporary Song Collection in 1996. In a recording career spanning nearly 50 years, Armatrading has released 20 studio albums, as well as several live albums and compilations. Early life Joan Armatrading, the third of six children, was born in 1950 in the town of Basseterre in what was then the British colony Saint Christopher and Nevis. Her father was a carpenter and her mother a housewife. When she was three years old, her parents moved with their two eldest boys to Birmingham in England, sending Joan to live with her grandmother on the Caribbean island of Antigua. In early 1958, at the age of seven, she joined her parents in Brookfields, then a district of Birmingham. (The area, now mostly demoli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alison Moyet
Geneviève Alison Jane Ballard ( ; born 18 June 1961) is an English singer noted for her powerful bluesy contralto voice. She came to prominence as half of the duo Yazoo (also known as Yaz), but has since mainly worked as a solo artist. Her worldwide album sales have reached a certified 23 million, with over two million singles sold. All nine of her studio albums and three compilation albums have charted in the top 30 of the UK Albums Chart, with two of them reaching number one. She has also achieved nine top 30 singles and six top 10 hits on the UK Singles Chart. Her most recent album, her ninth, ''Other'', was released 16 June 2017. Early life Geneviève Alison Jane Moyet was born in Billericay, Essex, to a French father and English mother. She grew up in the nearby town of Basildon, where she attended Janet Duke Junior School and then Nicholas Comprehensive at secondary level. She was involved in a number of punk rock, pub rock and blues bands in the South East E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rowland Rivron
Rowland John Rivron (born 28 September 1958) is a British writer, comedic actor and television personality. Early career Rivron played the comic character "Dr Martin Scrote" on the Jonathan Ross chat show ''The Last Resort'', and also played Scrote on Night Network's ''Bunker Show''. This became a series for Channel 4 called ''Set of Six'' about Scrote and his brothers. In 1989 he and Jools Holland starred in ''The Groovy Fellers''. In the early 1990s he presented his own chat show, ''Rivron'', in which Rivron, his guests and the entire set floated in the River Thames. He also made an appearance in the children's schools series ''Cats' Eyes''. Music Rivron played drums on Fat Les's 1998 single "Vindaloo". As one half of the band "Raw Sex" (with Simon Brint) he also featured regularly on BBC TV's ''French and Saunders'' show. Rivron featured on drums in the "Sophisticated Fool" song and "All We've Got To Do Is..." song from ''A Bit of Fry and Laurie'', also on BBC TV. He was a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simon Brint
Simon Tracey Brint (26 September 1950 – 29 May 2011) was a British musician, best known for his role as part of the comedy duo Raw Sex with Rowland Rivron. He also composed for many British TV comedy and drama programmes. Early life Son of Stephen Brint and Anne Tracey (née Watts), Simon Brint was born in High Ham, Somerset, one of five brothers. His father, from a large working-class family, had lied about his age to join the army; his mother was the St Anne's College, Oxford-educated daughter of a high court judge. The Brint family moved to Hythe in Kent when he was 16, and he developed an interest in eccentric musical projects. Brint studied at Reading University, graduating in English literature in 1972, before taking part in various artistic collaborations as both a musician and prop designer. He worked with the artist Anthony Benjamin, the singer and tightrope walker Hermine Demoriane, and theatre director Ken Campbell, as well as helping to disguise elephants as mammot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bongo Drum
Bongos ( es, bongó) are an Afro-Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of small open bottomed hand drums of different sizes. They are struck with both hands, most commonly in an eight-stroke pattern called ''martillo'' (hammer). The larger drum is called a hembra (Spanish for female) and the smaller drum is called the macho (Spanish for male). They are mainly employed in the rhythm section of son cubano and salsa ensembles, often alongside other drums such as the larger congas and the stick-struck timbales. This brought bongos into our cultural vocabulary, from Beatniks to Mambo to the current revival of Cuban folkloric music. Bongo drummers (''bongoseros'') emerged as the only drummers of son cubano ensembles in eastern Cuba toward the end of the 19th century. It is believed that Bongos evolved from the Abakua Drum trio 'Bonko' and its lead drum 'Bonko Enmiwewos'. These drums are still a fundamental part of the Abakua Religion in Cuba. If joined with a wooden peck in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comic Relief (charity)
Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene, or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension. Definition Comic relief usually means a releasing of emotional or other tension resulting from a comic episode interposed in the midst of serious or tragic elements in a drama. Comic relief is often seen but is not limited to, taking the form of a bumbling, wisecracking sidekick of the hero or villain in a work of fiction. A sidekick used for comic relief will usually comment on the absurdity of the hero's situation and make comments that would be inappropriate for a character who is to be taken seriously. Other characters may use comic relief as a means to irritate others or keep themselves confident. Application Sometimes comic relief characters will appear in fiction that is comic. This generally occurs when the work enters a dramatic moment, but the character continues to be comical regardless. External comic reliefs and internal comic reli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruby Wax
Ruby Wax (; born 19 April 1953) is an American-British actress, comedian, writer, television personality, and mental health campaigner. A classically-trained actress, Wax was with the Royal Shakespeare Company for five years and co-starred on the ITV sitcom '' Girls on Top'' (1985–1986). She came to prominence as a comic interviewer, playing up to British perceptions of the strident American style, on television shows including ''The Full Wax'' (1991–1994), ''Ruby Wax Meets...'' (1994–1998), ''Ruby'' (1997–2000), and ''The Ruby Wax Show'' (2002). She was a script editor for the BBC sitcom ''Absolutely Fabulous'' (1992–2012), also appearing in two episodes. Wax holds both American and British citizenship and has resided in the United Kingdom since the 1970s. In 2013, she gained a master's degree in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy from Kellogg College, Oxford. Wax was appointed an honorary Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2015 Special Honours ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
