Great West End Theatres
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Great West End Theatres
''Great West End Theatres'' is a documentary series detailing the history, architecture and theatrical anecdotes of the 40 West End Theatres of London (as covered by the monthly Society of London Theatre list), released individually as All-Region DVDs and also as digital downloads and the first 10 episodes were broadcast from 3 August 2013 in the UK by the BSkyB digital satellite channel Sky Arts 2 and were chosen as "Pick of the Day" by the London edition of '' Time Out'' magazine. Production Presented by Sir Donald Sinden and described by ''The Stage'' newspaper as "Promises to be the most definitive guide to Theatreland", it features many of the West End's star actors, actresses and practitioners discussing the theatres that they are associated with, such as Anthony Andrews, Steven Berkoff, Simon Callow, Charles Dance, Roy Hudd, Gillian Lynne, Cameron Mackintosh, Sir Cameron Mackintosh, Ian McKellen, Sir Ian McKellen, Martin Shaw and Samuel West. Directed and narrate ...
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Marc Sinden Productions
Marcus Andrew Sinden (born 9 May 1954) is an English actor and film & theatre director and producer. Sinden has worked in film and theatre (mainly in London's West End Theatre, West End) as both actor and producer and directed the documentary series ''Great West End Theatres'', detailing the history of the 40 major playhouses in London. He was artistic director of the Mermaid Theatre and inaugurated the British Theatre Season in Monaco, which was awarded a Royal warrant of appointment, Royal Warrant by Albert II, Prince of Monaco, Prince Albert of Monaco. His first West End production was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment#Award winners and nominations, Laurence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment and another won the Stage Awards for Acting Excellence#Best Ensemble, Stage Award for Best Ensemble work at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He is also the director and co-author of the touring anthology ''Seven Deadly Sins Four Deadly Sinners'' and was nomina ...
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London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Roman Empire, Romans as ''Londinium'' and retains its medieval boundaries.See also: Independent city#National capitals, Independent city § National capitals The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national Government of the United Kingdom, government and Parliament of the United Kingdom, parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the Counties of England, counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which largely comprises Greater London ...
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Martin Shaw
Martin Shaw (born 21 January 1945) is an English actor. He came to national recognition as Doyle in ITV crime-action television drama series '' The Professionals'' (1977–1983). Further notable television parts include the title roles in '' The Chief'' (1993–1995), ''Judge John Deed'' (2001–2007) and '' Inspector George Gently'' (2007–2017). He has also acted on stage and in film, and has narrated numerous audiobooks and presented various television series. Early life Shaw was born in Birmingham. His childhood was spent in Alleyne Grove in Erdington and Sutton Coldfield. Shaw attended Great Barr School, where he excelled in English literature and drama lessons. At sixteen, he was offered a scholarship to a Birmingham drama school but declined. In his youth, Shaw was involved in a drunken brawl with a friend, suffering broken teeth, injuries to his face and a fractured skull, and needed cheekbone surgery. At age eighteen, Shaw moved to London to attend the London ...
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Ian McKellen
Sir Ian Murray McKellen (born 25 May 1939) is an English actor. His career spans seven decades, having performed in genres ranging from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. Regarded as a British cultural icon, he has received various accolades, including six Laurence Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, and a Golden Globe Award. The BBC states that his "performances have guaranteed him a place in the canon of English stage and film actors". McKellen began his professional career in 1961 at the Belgrade Theatre as a member of their highly regarded repertory company. In 1965, McKellen made his first West End appearance. In 1969, he was invited to join the Prospect Theatre Company to play the lead parts in Shakespeare's ''Richard II'' and Marlowe's ''Edward II'', and he firmly established himself as one of the country's foremost classical actors. In the 1970s, McKellen became a stalwart of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre of ...
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Cameron Mackintosh
Sir Cameron Anthony Mackintosh (born 17 October 1946) is a British theatrical producer and theatre owner notable for his association with many commercially successful musicals. At the height of his success in 1990, he was described as being "the most successful, influential and powerful theatrical producer in the world" by the ''New York Times''. He is the producer of shows including ''Les Misérables'', ''The Phantom of the Opera'', ''Cats'', ''Miss Saigon'', ''Mary Poppins'', ''Oliver!,'' and ''Hamilton.'' Mackintosh was knighted in 1996 for services to musical theatre. Two of his productions, ''Les Misérables'' and ''The Phantom of the Opera'', are the two longest-running musicals in West End history. In 2008, ''The Daily Telegraph'' ranked him number 7 in their list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture". In the ''Sunday Times Rich List'' of 2021, Mackintosh was estimated to have a net worth of £1.2 billion. Early life Mackintosh was born in Enfield, Londo ...
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Gillian Lynne
Dame Gillian Barbara Lynne (née Pyrke; 20 February 1926 – 1 July 2018) was an English ballerina, dancer, choreographer, actress, and theatre-television director, noted for her theatre choreography associated with two of the longest-running shows in Broadway history, ''Cats'' and ''The Phantom of the Opera''. At age 87, she was made a DBE (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2014 New Year Honours List. The New London Theatre, where the original West End production of ''Cats'' played, was officially renamed the Gillian Lynne Theatre in 2018. This made Lynne the first non-royal woman to have a West End theatre named after her. Early life and education Gillian Barbara Pyrke was born in Bromley, Kent, and was a precocious dance talent from an early age, teaming with her childhood friend Beryl Grey while still at school, and dancing to blot out the tragedy of the violent death of her mother on 8 July 1939 in Coventry (as a result of a car crash along w ...
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Roy Hudd
Roy Hudd, OBE (16 May 1936 – 15 March 2020) was an English comedian, actor, presenter, radio host, author and authority on the history of music hall entertainment. Early life Hudd was born in Croydon on 16 May 1936 to Evalina "Evie" (née Barham) and Harry Hudd. His father was a carpenter who left the family shortly after the Second World War, and his mother, who had a history of mental health problems, commited suicide by gas when Hudd was 9 years old. Hudd was primarily brought up by his grandmother, and attended Tavistock Secondary Modern School in Croydon and Croydon Secondary Technical School. After completing his national service in the Royal Air Force, he studied commercial art at the Regent Street Polytechnic. He then worked as a messenger for an advertising agency, a window dresser and a commercial artist working under Harry Beck. He made his professional debut as a comedian at the Streatham Hill Theatre on 27 October 1957, in a show in aid of the Sir Philip Ga ...
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Charles Dance
Walter Charles Dance (born 10 October 1946) is an English actor. He is known for playing strict, authoritarian characters and villains. His most notable film roles include Sardo Numspa in '' The Golden Child'' (1986), Dr. Jonathan Clemens in ''Alien 3'' (1992), Benedict in ''Last Action Hero'' (1993), Lord Havelock Vetinari in ''Terry Pratchett's Going Postal'' (2010), the Master Vampire in ''Dracula Untold'' (2014), Alastair Denniston in ''The Imitation Game'' (2014), Alan Jonah in '' Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' (2019), and William Randolph Hearst in ''Mank'' (2020). On television, Dance played Guy Perron in '' The Jewel in the Crown'' (1984), Mr Tulkinghorn in Bleak House (2005), Tywin Lannister in '' Game of Thrones'' (2011–2015), and Lord Mountbatten in the third and fourth seasons of '' The Crown'' (2019–2020). For his role in the latter, he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. Early life Walter Charles Danc ...
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Simon Callow
Simon Phillip Hugh Callow (born 15 June 1949) is an English film, television and voice actor, director, narrator and writer. He was twice nominated for BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his roles in ''A Room with a View'' (1985), and '' Four Weddings and a Funeral'' (1994). He has also starred in '' Amadeus'' (1984), '' Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls'' (1995), '' Shakespeare in Love'' (1998) and ''Victoria & Abdul'' (2017). His television work includes '' Chance in a Million'' (1984) and '' Outlander'' (2014). Early years Callow was born on 15 June 1949 in Streatham, south London, the son of Yvonne Mary (née Guise), a secretary, and Neil Francis Callow, a businessman. His father was of French descent and his mother was of Danish and German ancestry. He was raised as a Roman Catholic. Callow was a student at the London Oratory School in west Brompton, and then went on to study briefly at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland, where he was active in t ...
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Steven Berkoff
Steven Berkoff (born Leslie Steven Berks; 3 August 1937) is an English actor, author, playwright, theatre practitioner and theatre director. As a theatre maker he is recognised for staging work with a heightened performance style eponymously known as "Berkovian theatre", which combines elements of physical theatre, total theatre and expressionism. His work has sometimes been viewed as an example of in-yer-face theatre, due to the intense presentation and taboo-breaking material in a number of his plays. As a film actor, he is known for his performances in villainous roles, including the portrayals of General Orlov in the ''James Bond'' film ''Octopussy'' (1983), Victor Maitland in '' Beverly Hills Cop'' (1984), Lt. Col. Podovsky in '' Rambo: First Blood Part II'' (1985) and Adolf Hitler in the TV mini-series '' War and Remembrance'' (1988–89). Early life Berkoff was born Leslie Steven Berks on 3 August 1937, in Stepney in the East End of London, the son of Pa ...
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Anthony Andrews
Anthony Colin Gerald Andrews (born 12 January 1948) is an English actor. He played Lord Sebastian Flyte in the ITV miniseries '' Brideshead Revisited'' (1981), for which he won Golden Globe and BAFTA television awards, and was nominated for an Emmy. His other lead roles include ''Operation Daybreak'' (1975), '' Danger UXB'' (1979), ''Ivanhoe'' (1982) and '' The Scarlet Pimpernel'' (1982), and he played UK Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin in ''The King's Speech'' (2010). Early life and career Andrews was born in London, the son of Geraldine Agnes (née Cooper), a dancer, and Stanley Thomas Andrews, an arranger and conductor for the BBC. He grew up in North Finchley, London. At the age of eight, he took dancing lessons, making his stage debut as the White Rabbit in a stage adaptation of Lewis Carroll's ''Alice in Wonderland''. He attended the Royal Masonic School for Boys in Bushey, Hertfordshire. After a series of jobs that included catering, farming and journalism, he secu ...
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The Stage
''The Stage'' is a British weekly newspaper and website covering the entertainment industry and particularly theatre. It was founded in 1880. It contains news, reviews, opinion, features, and recruitment advertising, mainly directed at those who work in theatre and the performing arts. History The first edition of ''The Stage'' was published (under the title ''The Stage Directory – a London and Provincial Theatrical Advertiser'') on 1 February 1880 at a cost of three old pence for twelve pages. Publication was monthly until 25 March 1881, when the first weekly edition was produced. At the same time, the name was shortened to ''The Stage'' and the publication numbering restarted at number 1. The publication was a joint venture between founding editor Charles Lionel Carson and business manager Maurice Comerford. It operated from offices opposite the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Carson, whose real name was Lionel Courtier-Dutton, was cited as the founder. His wife Emily Courtier ...
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