Ian Davidson (scriptwriter)
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Ian Davidson (scriptwriter)
Ian Davidson is a British scriptwriter who also acted, directed and produced in television and the theatre from the 1960s. After performing and writing with Michael Palin and Terry Jones at Oxford University - his first BBC writing credit was for ''That Was the Week That Was'' in 1963 - he became an actor at The Second City in Chicago. Returning to the UK, he worked for Ned Sherrin (as a film director) and David Frost, and then began a lifelong association with Barry Humphries as a writer and director. He appears, briefly, in many of the ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' episodes - notably as a Dead Indian On a Pile of Dung, and as a news reporter who interrupts a sketch to say that it's his first time appearing on television. He was Script Editor of ''The Two Ronnies'' from 1978 to 1983 and with Peter Vincent wrote seven series of the sitcom '' Sorry!'' With Vincent he also wrote for Dave Allen, '' The Brittas Empire'' and ''Comrade Dad''. With John Chapman, he wrote ''French Fie ...
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Michael Palin
Sir Michael Edward Palin (; born 5 May 1943) is an English actor, comedian, writer, television presenter, and public speaker. He was a member of the Monty Python comedy group. Since 1980, he has made a number of travel documentaries. Palin wrote most of his comedic material with fellow Python member Terry Jones. Before Monty Python, they had worked on other shows including the ''Ken Dodd Show'', ''The Frost Report'', and ''Do Not Adjust Your Set''. Palin appeared in some of the most famous Python sketches, including "Argument Clinic", "Dead Parrot sketch", "The Lumberjack Song", "The Spanish Inquisition", " Bicycle Repair Man" and "The Fish-Slapping Dance". He also regularly played a Gumby. Palin continued to work with Jones away from Python, co-writing ''Ripping Yarns''. He has also appeared in several films directed by fellow Python Terry Gilliam and made notable appearances in other films such as '' A Fish Called Wanda'' (1988), for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Ac ...
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The Brittas Empire
''The Brittas Empire'' is a British sitcom created and originally written by Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen. Chris Barrie played titular character Gordon Brittas, the well-intended but hugely incompetent manager of the fictional Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre. The show ran for seven series and 52 episodes – including two Christmas specials – from 1991 to 1997 on BBC1. Creators Norriss and Fegen co-wrote the first five series. The series peaked at 10 million viewers. In 2022, the series was described by Daily Mirror as "fondly-remembered". ''The Brittas Empire'' enjoyed a long and successful run throughout the 1990s, and gained large mainstream audiences. In 2004 the show came 47th on the BBC's ''Britain's Best Sitcom'' poll, and all series have been released on DVD both individually as series and as a complete boxset. ''Best of the Britcoms'' noted the series has been hailed as "the Fawlty Towers of the 1990s" due to its "fast-paced, outrageous omedyfull of inventive gag ...
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British Male Television Actors
British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, the English language as spoken and written in the United Kingdom or, more broadly, throughout the British Isles * Celtic Britons, an ancient ethno-linguistic group * Brittonic languages, a branch of the Insular Celtic language family (formerly called British) ** Common Brittonic, an ancient language Other uses *''Brit(ish)'', a 2018 memoir by Afua Hirsch *People or things associated with: ** Great Britain, an island ** United Kingdom, a sovereign state ** Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1800) ** United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922) See also * Terminology of the British Isles * Alternative names for the British * English (other) * Britannic (other) * British Isles * Brit (other) * Briton ...
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Living People
Related categories * :Year of birth missing (living people) / :Year of birth unknown * :Date of birth missing (living people) / :Date of birth unknown * :Place of birth missing (living people) / :Place of birth unknown * :Year of death missing / :Year of death unknown * :Date of death missing / :Date of death unknown * :Place of death missing / :Place of death unknown * :Missing middle or first names See also * :Dead people * :Template:L, which generates this category or death years, and birth year and sort keys. : {{DEFAULTSORT:Living people 21st-century people People by status ...
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Year Of Birth Missing (living People)
A year or annus is the orbital period of a planetary body, for example, the Earth, moving in its orbit around the Sun. Due to the Earth's axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by change in weather, the hours of daylight, and, consequently, vegetation and soil fertility. In temperate and subpolar regions around the planet, four seasons are generally recognized: spring, summer, autumn and winter. In tropical and subtropical regions, several geographical sectors do not present defined seasons; but in the seasonal tropics, the annual wet and dry seasons are recognized and tracked. A calendar year is an approximation of the number of days of the Earth's orbital period, as counted in a given calendar. The Gregorian calendar, or modern calendar, presents its calendar year to be either a common year of 365 days or a leap year of 366 days, as do the Julian calendars. For the Gregorian calendar, the average length of the calendar year (the ...
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BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasting House, London. The station controller is Mohit Bakaya. Broadcasting throughout the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands on FM, LW and DAB, and on BBC Sounds, it can be received in the eastern counties of Ireland, northern France and Northern Europe. It is available on Freeview, Sky, and Virgin Media. Radio 4 currently reaches over 10 million listeners, making it the UK's second most-popular radio station after Radio 2. BBC Radio 4 broadcasts news programmes such as ''Today'' and ''The World at One'', heralded on air by the Greenwich Time Signal pips or the chimes of Big Ben. The pips are only accurate on FM, LW, and MW; there is a delay on digital radio of three to five seconds and ...
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Thames Television
Thames Television, commonly simplified to just Thames, was a Broadcast license, franchise holder for a region of the British ITV (TV network), ITV television network serving Greater London, London and surrounding areas from 30 July 1968 until the night of 31 December 1992. Thames Television broadcast from 9:25 Monday morning to 5:15 Friday afternoon (7:00 Friday night until 1982) at which time it would hand over to London Weekend Television (LWT). Formed as a joint company, it merged the television interests of British Electric Traction (trading as Associated-Rediffusion) owning 49%, and Associated British Picture Corporation—soon taken over by EMI—owning 51%. Like all ITV franchisees, it was a broadcaster, a producer and a commissioner of television programmes, making shows both for the local region it covered and, as one of the History of ITV#The Big Four and Big Five, "Big Five" ITV companies, for networking nationally across the ITV regions. After its loss of franchise i ...
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French Fields
''French Fields'' is a British television sitcom. It is a sequel/continuation of the series ''Fresh Fields'' and ran for 19 episodes from 5 September 1989 to 8 October 1991. It was written by John T. Chapman (who created and wrote all the episodes of ''Fresh Fields'') and Ian Davidson and was produced by Thames Television for ITV. Cast The series stars Anton Rodgers and Julia McKenzie as middle-aged, middle-class husband and wife William and Hester Fields and follows the series ''Fresh Fields'', which ran from 1984 to 1986. ''French Fields'' resumes the story three years later as William accepts a position with a French company and the series follows Hester and William as they move from London to Calais. The pair are regularly visited by their daughter Emma (Sally Baxter and Karen Ascoe) and son-in-law Peter (Philip Bird). Bird is the only other ''Fresh Fields'' actor to appear regularly, as Emma only "appeared" via voiceover by Debby Cummings in the original show. Other re ...
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John Chapman (screenwriter)
John Roy Chapman (27 May 1927 – 3 September 2001) was a British actor, playwright and screenwriter, known for his collaborations with Ray Cooney. Biography Early life Born in Acton, John Chapman was the nephew of the actor Edward Chapman; his own father was an engineer. His brother, Paul Chapman, became an actor. John Chapman trained at RADA, and made his acting debut in Enid Bagnold's ''National Velvet'' in 1946.Obituary: John Chapman
telegraph.co.uk, 7 September 2001


Early career

Initially a stage manager and understudy at the for the first two years of ''Reluctant Heroes'', the first

Comrade Dad
''Comrade Dad'' is a BBC satirical sitcom set in 1999 in Londongrad, the capital of the USSR-GB, after the United Kingdom has been invaded by the Soviet Union and turned into a communist state. The programme focussed on the Dudgeon family (starring George Cole as Reg Dudgeon) and their attempts to adapt to the new order. History Pilot The pilot episode explains how the Soviets have managed a remarkable bloodless coup – the revolution took place on 27 June 1987, when, upon learning that thousands of Russian missiles were approaching, the government and all the other "important" members of British society took refuge in nuclear fallout shelters. But the "missiles" turned out to be aeroplanes full of paratroopers who parachuted to land and calmly sealed off the entrances to the shelters, so removing all the powerful people from the picture at a single stroke and enabling the Russians to take control. (This explanatory pilot was remade as the opening episode of the series which b ...
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Dave Allen (comedian)
David Tynan O'Mahony (6 July 193610 March 2005), known professionally as Dave Allen, was an Irish comedian, satirist, and actor. He was best known for his observational comedy. Allen regularly provoked indignation by highlighting political hypocrisy and showing disdain for religious authority. His technique and style have influenced young British comedians. Initially becoming known in Australia in 1963 and 1964, Allen made regular television appearances in the United Kingdom from the late 1960s until the mid-1980s. The BBC aired his ''Dave Allen Show'' from 1971 to 1986, which was also exported to several other European countries. He had a major resurgence during the late 1980s and early 1990s. His television shows were also broadcast in the United States, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Yugoslavia, Australia, and New Zealand. Early life David Tynan O'Mahony was born in the Firhouse suburb of Dublin on 6 July 1936, the son of an Irish father and English mother. His father, Ger ...
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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 ...
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