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Life And Beth
''Life and Beth'' is a 2008 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. It was written as a third part of a trilogy named '' Things That Go Bump'', uniting the cast of the first two plays: '' Haunting Julia'' (1994) and ''Snake in the Grass'' (2002). It is about a recently bereaved widow, Beth, troubled by her family's misguided support and a late husband who won't leave her alone. Background The history of this play dates back to 1994, when '' Haunting Julia'' was premièred. The cast was three men, but the play was dominated by Julia, once a gifted musician, now a ghost. In 2002, a female companion piece was premièred, named ''Snake in the Grass'', with a cast of three women in a play dominated by the ghost of the father of two of them (and a much less savoury character than Julia). For some time, Alan Ayckbourn had considered writing a third play with a supernatural that combined the casts of these plays, but it was only after Susie Blake – Miriam in the original ''Snake i ...
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Alan Ayckbourn
Sir Alan Ayckbourn (born 12 April 1939) is a prolific British playwright and director. He has written and produced as of 2021, more than eighty full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their first performance. More than 40 have subsequently been produced in the West End, at the Royal National Theatre or by the Royal Shakespeare Company since his first hit '' Relatively Speaking'' opened at the Duke of York's Theatre in 1967. Major successes include ''Absurd Person Singular'' (1975), ''The Norman Conquests'' trilogy (1973), '' Bedroom Farce'' (1975), ''Just Between Ourselves'' (1976), '' A Chorus of Disapproval'' (1984), ''Woman in Mind'' (1985), ''A Small Family Business'' (1987), '' Man of the Moment'' (1988), ''House'' & ''Garden'' (1999) and ''Private Fears in Public Places'' (2004). His plays have won numerous awards, includi ...
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Proscenium
A proscenium ( grc-gre, προσκήνιον, ) is the metaphorical vertical plane of space in a theatre, usually surrounded on the top and sides by a physical proscenium arch (whether or not truly "arched") and on the bottom by the stage floor itself, which serves as the frame into which the audience observes from a more or less unified angle the events taking place upon the stage during a theatrical performance. The concept of the fourth wall of the theatre stage space that faces the audience is essentially the same. It can be considered as a social construct which divides the actors and their stage-world from the audience which has come to witness it. But since the curtain usually comes down just behind the proscenium arch, it has a physical reality when the curtain is down, hiding the stage from view. The same plane also includes the drop, in traditional theatres of modern times, from the stage level to the "stalls" level of the audience, which was the original meaning of t ...
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Ian Shuttleworth
Terence Ian Shuttleworth (born 6 July 1963 in Belfast, UK) is a Northern Irish theatre critic and author. He was joint senior theatre critic for the ''Financial Times'' from May 2007 until March 2019. He was editor and publisher of ''Theatre Record'' magazine from 2004 until 2016. In March 2019 he left the UK for Germany. Shuttleworth was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. He received a master's degree in English literature from Queens' College, Cambridge. His reviews have appeared, in addition to the ''Financial Times'', in publications including ''The Sunday Times'', ''The Guardian'', ''London Evening Standard'', ''The Observer'', ''The Independent'', ''Daily Mail'', '' The Sun'', ''The Scotsman'', ''The Stage'', ''Stagebill'', '' Plays & Players'', ''Screen International'', ''Broadcast'', ''OK!'', and '' City Life''. Shuttleworth is the author of the book ''Ken & Em'' (Headline Books, 1994), which is an unauthorised biography of Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thomp ...
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Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nikkei, with core editorial offices across Britain, the United States and continental Europe. In July 2015, Pearson sold the publication to Nikkei for £844 million (US$1.32 billion) after owning it since 1957. In 2019, it reported one million paying subscriptions, three-quarters of which were digital subscriptions. The newspaper has a prominent focus on financial journalism and economic analysis over generalist reporting, drawing both criticism and acclaim. The daily sponsors an annual book award and publishes a " Person of the Year" feature. The paper was founded in January 1888 as the ''London Financial Guide'' before rebranding a month later as the ''Financial Times''. It was first circulated around metropolitan London by James Sherid ...
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The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (founded in 1821) are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, in turn wholly owned by News Corp. ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'', which do not share editorial staff, were founded independently and have only had common ownership since 1966. In general, the political position of ''The Times'' is considered to be centre-right. ''The Times'' is the first newspaper to have borne that name, lending it to numerous other papers around the world, such as ''The Times of India'', ''The New York Times'', and more recently, digital-first publications such as TheTimesBlog.com (Since 2017). In countries where these other titles are popular, the newspaper is often referred to as , or as , although the newspaper is of nationa ...
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The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was founded by Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855 as ''The Daily Telegraph & Courier''. Considered a newspaper of record over ''The Times'' in the UK in the years up to 1997, ''The Telegraph'' generally has a reputation for high-quality journalism, and has been described as being "one of the world's great titles". The paper's motto, "Was, is, and will be", appears in the editorial pages and has featured in every edition of the newspaper since 19 April 1858. The paper had a circulation of 363,183 in December 2018, descending further until it withdrew from newspaper circulation audits in 2019, having declined almost 80%, from 1.4 million in 1980.United Newspapers PLC and Fleet Holdings PLC', Monopolies and Mergers Commission (1985), pp. 5–16. Its si ...
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The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main news ...
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Michael Billington (critic)
Michael Keith Billington OBE (born 16 November 1939) is a British author and arts critic. He writes for ''The Guardian'', and was the paper's chief drama critic from 1971 to 2019. Billington is "Britain's longest-serving theatre critic" and the author of biographical and critical studies relating to British theatre and the arts. He is the authorised biographer of the playwright Harold Pinter (1930–2008). Early life and education Billington was born on 16 November 1939, in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England, and attended Warwick School, an independent boys' school in Warwick. He attended St Catherine's College, Oxford, from 1958 to 1961, where he studied English and was appointed theatre critic of '' Cherwell''. He graduated with a BA degree. As a member of Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), in 1959, Billington played the Priest in '' The Birds'', by Aristophanes, his only appearance as an actor, and, in 1960, he directed a production of Eugène Ionesco's ''The Ba ...
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Theatre In The Round
A theatre in the round, arena theatre or central staging is a space for theatre in which the audience surrounds the stage. Theatre-in-the-round was common in ancient theatre, particularly that of Greece and Rome, but was not widely explored again until the latter half of the 20th century. The Glenn Hughes Penthouse Theatre in Seattle, Washington was the first theatre-in-the-round venue built in the United States. It first opened on May 19, 1940 with a production of ''Spring Dance'', a comedy by playwright Philip Barry. The 160-seat theatre is located on the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle and is on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1947, Margo Jones established America's first professional theatre-in-the-round company when she opened her Theater '47 in Dallas. The stage design as developed by Margo Jones was used by directors in later years for such well-known shows as the Tony Award-winning musical ''Fun Home'', the original stage production of ...
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Ruth Gibson
Ruth Gibson is a British actress, most notable for voicing Little My in the English version of the ''Moomins on the Riviera'' animated film, Sabrina Glevissig in '' The Witcher'' series and Polly Grey in Peaky Blinders: The King's Ransom. She has also appeared in ''Babylon (TV series)'', ''Doctors (2000 TV series)'' and '' Call The Midwife'' as well as numerous stage plays including '' Blood Brothers (musical)'' in West End theatre and ''The Kitchen'' at the Royal National Theatre. She has worked extensively with Alan Ayckbourn including being original cast in Life and Beth and My Wonderful Day which was nominated for a Drama Desk Award after an off Broadway run in New York. In 2010 she won 'Best Actress in a Leading Role' in the Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards. She is the Voice of EE Limited EE is a British national mobile network operator and internet service provider, which is a brand within the BT Group. EE is the second-largest mobile network operator in th ...
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Ian Hogg (actor)
Alexander Ian Hogg (born 1 August 1937) is an English actor. Early life Hogg was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, the son of Ena Mary (Robinson) and Walter Alexander Hogg, a doctor. He was educated at Durham School and Durham University ( St John's College), where he graduated in 1959 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He then studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama under the direction of Yat Malmgren and later joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has an older sister called Thelma Hogg (Hoggie). Television, stage and film He is best known for his lead role in the BBC1 television series ''Rockliffe's Babies'' and its follow-up ''Rockliffe's Folly'', playing Detective Sergeant Alan Rockliffe. However, he has played many television roles, appearing as Purishkevich in the film '' Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny'' (1996), as Mike Cherry in ''EastEnders'' (1999) and as Alois Hitler in '' Hitler: The Rise of Evil'' (2003). Hogg played a chechaquo (newcomer) ...
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Liza Goddard
Louise Elizabeth Goddard (born 20 January 1950) professionally known as Liza Goddard, is an English television and stage actress, best known for her work in the 1970s and 1980s. Early life Goddard was born in Smethwick, Staffordshire.Before 1 April 1974 Smethwick was in Staffordshire She is the daughter of David Goddard (1925–1992), who produced and directed numerous TV shows and programmes. She attended Farnham Girls' Grammar School, before her father moved the family to Australia, when she was 15, upon his appointment as Head of Drama at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Career Goddard made early television appearances in Australia, including episode 100 of ''Homicide'' ("The Traveller", 1966), and the ABC drama play ''Romanoff & Juliet'' (1967), and a brief (non-speaking, uncredited) appearance in the feature film ''They're A Weird Mob'' (1966). However, she is best remembered in Australia for her role as Clarissa "Clancy" Merrick in '' Skippy the Bush Kangaroo'', ...
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