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Inspector Alleyn Mysteries
''The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries'' is a British detective television series, broadcast on BBC1, which was adapted from nine of the novels by Dame Ngaio Marsh, featuring the character Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn. The pilot episode was shown in 1990, with Simon Williams playing the part of Alleyn. Two series followed in 1993 and 1994, with Patrick Malahide replacing Williams in the title role. Premise In the pilot episode, the character of Alleyn was played by Simon Williams. William Simons was cast as Alleyn's right-hand man and "Dr Watson", Detective Inspector Fox, and Belinda Lang starred as painter Agatha Troy, Alleyn's love interest. When a full series finally came to screen three years later, Simon Williams was unavailable, and the role of Alleyn was filled by Patrick Malahide, while Simons and Lang reprised their roles. Over the course of two series, eight episodes were broadcast, each focusing on a separate novel in the series. Both Malahide series were released ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crime Fiction
Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, often a murder. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as historical fiction or science fiction, but the boundaries are indistinct. Crime fiction has multiple subgenres, including detective fiction (such as the whodunit), courtroom drama, hard-boiled fiction, and legal thrillers. Most crime drama focuses on crime investigation and does not feature the courtroom. Suspense and mystery are key elements that are nearly ubiquitous to the genre. History The '' One Thousand and One Nights'' (''Arabian Nights'') contains the earliest known examples of crime fiction. One example of a story of this genre is the medieval Arabic tale of "The Three Apples", one of the tales narrated by Scheherazade in the ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a Megadiverse countries, megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with Deserts of Australia, deserts in the centre, tropical Forests of Australia, rainforests in the north-east, and List of mountains in Australia, mountain ranges in the south-east. The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south east Asia approximately Early human migrations#Nearby Oceania, 65,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Period, last i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Death In A White Tie
''Death in a White Tie'' is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh. It is the seventh novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1938. The plot concerns the murder of a British lord after a party. It was adapted for television in a 1993 episode of '' The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries'', a BBC production. The director was John Woods, the screenwriter Ken Jones, and Alleyn was played by Patrick Malahide. Plot Summary Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn is on the hunt of Colombo Dmitri, a well-known London caterer who blackmails his wealthy clients. Mrs. Halcut-Hackett tells Alleyn about her "friend" who is being blackmailed and is instructed to leave a purse full of money in a sofa at a concert hall. Alleyn sends his friend, Lord Robert "Bunchy" Gospell to keep an eye on the purse in order to secure the evidence against Dmitri. However, Bunchy falls asleep and misses the pickup and Mrs. Halcut-Hackett begins to suspect Bunchy is the blackmailer. Lady Evelyn Carrados th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Shaughnessy
Alfred James Shaughnessy (19 May 1916 – 2 November 2005) was an English scriptwriter, film director and producer best known for being the script editor of '' Upstairs, Downstairs''. Early life Alfred Shaughnessy was born in London, his father, the Hon Alfred Thomas Shaughnessy, having died while serving with the Canadian army in France two months before. His grandfather Thomas Shaughnessy was an American-born Canadian railway administrator, who was created Baron Shaughnessy in 1916, and his mother was a second cousin of James K. Polk, the 11th US President. He spent his early years living in Tennessee, and in 1920 his mother, Sarah Polk Bradford, married The Hon Sir Piers Legh who then became Equerry to the Prince of Wales, and the family moved to Norfolk Square in London. The family had a butler, cook, footman, two housemaids, a kitchen maid and a lady's maid. The Prince of Wales later visited the house for dinner, and he drew on this when writing the ''Upstairs, Downsta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom (born 29 March 1961) is an English film director. He began his career working in British television before moving into features. Three of his films—''Welcome to Sarajevo'', ''Wonderland'' and ''24 Hour Party People''—have competed for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Winterbottom often works with the same actors; many faces can be seen in several of his films, including Shirley Henderson, Paul Popplewell, John Simm, Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Raymond Waring and Kieran O'Brien. His production company is Revolution Films and the company signed a first look deal with Fremantle. Early life Winterbottom was born in Blackburn, Lancashire. He went to Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Blackburn, and then studied English at Balliol College, Oxford, before going to film school at Bristol University, where his contemporaries included Marc Evans. Career Early television career Winterbottom's television directing career began with a documentary abo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Death At The Bar
''Death at the Bar'' is a crime novel by Ngaio Marsh, the ninth to feature her series detective Chief Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard. Published in 1940 by Collins (UK) and Little, Brown (USA), it was adapted for television in 1993 as part of the '' Inspector Alleyn Mysteries''. The episode was directed by Michael Winterbottom and starred Patrick Malahide as Roderick Alleyn. The novel's title is a pun on the legal term the bar, and the public house as the plot concerns the murder of a leading KC (King's Counsel, or barrister-at-law) during a game of darts in the bar of a pub in a small South Devon village. The novel is (unusually) dated on its final page 'May 3, 1939, New Zealand'; so despite its publication after the start of World War Two, the story is clearly set before the war, in Spring 1939. Plot Luke Watchman, a top London barrister and King's Counsel, holidays in the fictional village of Ottercombe, South Devon, staying for a second year at the v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugh Leonard
Hugh Leonard (9 November 1926 – 12 February 2009) was an Irish dramatist, television writer, and essayist. In a career that spanned 50 years, Leonard wrote nearly 30 full-length plays, 10 one-act plays, three volumes of essay, two autobiographies, three novels, numerous screenplays and teleplays, and a regular newspaper column. Life and career Leonard was born in Dublin as John Joseph Byrne, but was put up for adoption. Raised in Dalkey, a suburb of Dublin, by Nicholas and Margaret Keyes, he changed his name to John Keyes Byrne."Playwright with full mastery of his craft" ''The Irish Times'', obituary section, 14 February 2009, retrieved 16 February 2009Weber, Bruc [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Final Curtain (novel)
''Final Curtain'' is a 1947 crime novel by the New Zealand author Ngaio Marsh, the fourteenth in her series of mysteries featuring Scotland Yard detective Roderick Alleyn. It was published in Britain by Collins and in the USA by Little, Brown. Although set in a large English country house, immediately after the 2nd World War, it is effectively one of Ngaio Marsh's crime stories with a theatrical setting, given that it concerns Alleyn's wife Agatha Troy accepting a commission to paint a portrait of the great actor Sir Henry Ancred in the role of Macbeth, onstage at the theatre of his ancestral home, Ancreton Manor, to be unveiled at his 70th birthday party, amongst his family, most of whom are actively involved in the London theatre, one way or another. The novel was well received and reviewed. Plot In 1946 England, with World War Two finally ended, the painter Agatha Troy awaits (not without trepidation, after a lengthy wartime separation) the return of her husband Roderick Alle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kevin Laffan
Kevin Barry Laffan (24 May 1922 – 11 March 2003) was a British playwright, screenwriter, author, actor and stage director. Laffan is best known for creating the ITV soap opera ''Emmerdale Farm'', now titled ''Emmerdale''. Raised in a family of fourteen children, Laffan's Catholic upbringing formed the inspiration for many of his plays. Laffan's theatrical career began with a position as a call boy at the Theatre Royal in Bilston, and would eventually lead to him founding a repertory company in Reading. In later life, Laffan also branched out into fiction, publishing his début novel, ''Virgins are in Short Supply'', in 2001. Early life and theatre career Laffan was the third of fourteen children of a disabled Irish photographer. The family moved to Walsall while he was a child. When he was twelve, they were sent to the workhouse and he claimed to have escaped by jumping off the lorry as it drove through the gates. An elderly actress allowed him to sleep in her kitchen and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Nursing Home Murder
''The Nursing Home Murder'' ( 1935) is a work of detective fiction by New Zealand author Ngaio Marsh. Synopsis The British Home Secretary, Sir Derek O'Callaghan MP, has received several death threats from anarchists affiliated with Stalinist Communism - and a pleading letter threatening suicide from Jane Harden, a nurse with whom he had a short affair some months earlier. O'Callaghan's old friend and family physician, Sir John Phillips, visits to ask about O'Callaghan's relationship with Jane. She is Phillips's scrub nurse and Phillips has loved her from afar for years. O'Callaghan brutally informs Phillips that Jane is "easy" and not worth his regard; he and Phillips almost come to blows before Phillips threatens his life in front of a servant. One week later, O'Callaghan is introducing a bill in the House of Commons to deal with anarchism when he doubles over, incapacitated by acute appendicitis. His wife, unaware of the fight or of Phillips's threats, has her husband moved ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarah Pia Anderson
Sarah Pia Anderson (born 1952) is an English born television and theatre director, and Professor of Cinema and Digital Media at University of California, Davis.Sarah Pia Anderson Biography (1952-) Film Reference Her career in the theatre included work for the National Theatre: '''', the [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Man Lay Dead
''A Man Lay Dead'' is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the first novel to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published in 1934. The plot concerns a murder committed during a detective game of murder at a weekend party in a country house. Although there is a side-plot focused on Russians, ancient weapons, and secret societies, the murder itself concerns a small group of guests at Sir Hubert Handesley's estate. The guests include Angela North (Sir Hubert's niece), Charles Rankin (a 46- or 47-year-old man about town), Nigel Bathgate (Charles's cousin and a gossip reporter), Rosamund Grant, and Mr and Mrs Arthur Wilde. Also in attendance are an art expert and a Russian butler. Unlike later novels, this novel is more focused on Nigel Bathgate and less so on Alleyn. During the detective game of murder, one of the guests is secretly selected to be the murderer, with a victim of his own choosing. At the time of the murderer's choice, he taps the victim on the shoulder, i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
