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Left Right And Centre
''Left Right and Centre'' is a 1959 British satirical comedy film directed by Sidney Gilliat and starring Ian Carmichael, Patricia Bredin, Richard Wattis, Eric Barker and Alastair Sim. It was produced by Frank Launder. A political comedy, it follows the events of a by-election in a small English town. Plot Robert Wilcot, a popular television personality, is selected as the Conservative candidate for the provincial town of Earndale in the upcoming by-election. His selection is mostly due to the influence of his uncle, Lord Wilcot, a powerful local figure. His opponent is to be Stella Stoker, a fishmonger's daughter with a degree from the London School of Economics who has been chosen to stand for the Labour Party. Travelling up on the train to Earndale, the two candidates meet and while she quickly works out who he is, he remains ignorant of her true identity. To try to show off he begins to tell her about his selection for the seat and how he expects to win. He describes his o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sidney Gilliat
Sidney Gilliat (15 February 1908 – 31 May 1994) was an English film director, producer and writer. He was the son of George Gilliat, editor of the ''Evening Standard'' from 1928 to 1933. Sidney was born in the district of Edgeley in Stockport, Cheshire. In the 1930s he worked as a scriptwriter, most notably with Frank Launder on ''The Lady Vanishes'' (1938) for Alfred Hitchcock, and ''Night Train to Munich'' (1940), directed by Carol Reed. He and Launder made their directorial debut co-directing the home front drama ''Millions Like Us'' (1943). From 1945 he also worked as a producer, starting with ''The Rake's Progress'', which he also wrote and directed. He and Launder made over 40 films together, founding their own production company Individual Pictures. While Launder concentrated on directing their comedies, most famously the four St Trinian's School films, Gilliat showed a preference for comedy-thrillers and dramas, including ''Green for Danger'' (1946), '' London Bel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party and also known colloquially as the Tories, is one of the Two-party system, two main political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party. It is the current Government of the United Kingdom, governing party, having won the 2019 United Kingdom general election, 2019 general election. It has been the primary governing party in Britain since 2010. The party is on the Centre-right politics, centre-right of the political spectrum, and encompasses various ideological #Party factions, factions including One-nation conservatism, one-nation conservatives, Thatcherism, Thatcherites, and traditionalist conservatism, traditionalist conservatives. The party currently has 356 Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Members of Parliament, 264 members of the House of Lords, 9 members of the London Assembly, 31 members of the Scottish Parliament, 16 members of the Senedd, Welsh Parliament, 2 D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gordon Harker
William Gordon Harker (7 August 1885 – 2 March 1967) was an English stage and film actor. Harker was one of the sons of Sarah Elizabeth Harker, née Hall, (1856–1927), and Joseph Harker (1855–1927), a much admired set painter for the theatre for whom the ''Dracula'' character Jonathan Harker was named. Harker had a long career on the stage, from 1902 to the 1950s. In addition, he appeared in 68 films between 1921 and 1959, including three silent films directed by Alfred Hitchcock and in several scenes in ''Elstree Calling'' (1930), a revue film co-directed by Hitchcock. He was known for his performance as Inspector Hornleigh in a trilogy of films produced between 1938 and 1940, as well in ''Saloon Bar'' (1940), based on a stage play he had starred in and another one of his stage successes The Poltergeist made into the film ''Things Happen at Night'' (1947), a poltergeist comedy he co-starred in with Alfred Drayton and Robertson Hare. His last major screen role was as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Hedley
Jack Snowdon Hawkins (28 October 1929 – 11 December 2021), better known as Jack Hedley, was an English film, voice, radio, stage, character, theater, screen and television actor best known for his performances on television. His birth name necessitated a change to avoid confusion with his namesake who was already registered with the British actors' trade union Equity. Personal life Hedley was born in London in 1929. His mother, Dorothy Withill, was 19 when she gave birth to him, and later married Albert Hawkins in 1936, although this man was not his father. He never knew the identity of his biological father. He came from humble beginnings, and used to earn money by collecting sacks of horse manure from the streets and selling them as fertiliser. However, he won a Beaverbrook scholarship to Downleas prep school, then won another scholarship to Bryanston, and then another to Dartmouth. He took a degree in history in 18 months. On leaving school, he became a cadet at the Roya ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moyra Fraser
Moyra Fraser (3 December 1923 – 13 December 2009) was an Australian-born English actress and ballet dancer, who is best known for playing Penny in the long-running sitcom '' As Time Goes By''. Her sister was the actress Shelagh Fraser. She married author Douglas Sutherland, with whom she had a daughter, and Roger Lubbock, by whom she had two sons. Early life Moyra Fraser was born in Sydney, Australia to John Newton Mappin Fraser, a director of Mappin & Webb, and Vera Eleanor (née Beardshaw)Who's who in theatre, John Parker, 12th ed., 1957, p. 526 on 3 December 1923 and with her family emigrated to the United Kingdom in June 1924. Educated at St Christopher's, Kingswood, and Eversfield, Sutton, she left school at 14 to take up a scholarship with Sadler's Wells Ballet, where she was befriended by Robert Helpmann. Stage career Fraser joined the Sadler's Wells Ballet after training, dancing the title role in ''Giselle'', the Lilac Fairy in '' The Sleeping Princess'' and creating ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maze
A maze is a path or collection of paths, typically from an entrance to a goal. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that lead unambiguously through a convoluted layout to a goal. The term "labyrinth" is generally synonymous with "maze", but can also connote specifically a unicursal pattern. The pathways and walls in a maze are typically fixed, but puzzles in which the walls and paths can change during the game are also categorised as mazes or tour puzzles. Construction Mazes have been built with walls and rooms, with hedges, turf, corn stalks, straw bales, books, paving stones of contrasting colors or designs, and brick, or in fields of crops such as corn or, indeed, maize. Maize mazes can be very large; they are usually only kept for one growing season, so they can be different every year, and are promoted as seasonal tourist attractions. Indoors, mirror ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hustings
A husting originally referred to a native Germanic governing assembly, the thing. By metonymy, the term may now refer to any event (such as debates or speeches) during an election campaign where one or more of the candidates are present. Development of the term The origin of the term comes from the Old English ''hūsting'' and Old Norse ''hūsþing'' (literally "house thing"), an assembly of the followers or household retainers of a nobleman,hustings (n.) '' Online Etymology Dictionary''.Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). |
Shouting Match
A shouting match is an argument or debate characterized by the loud volume or intensity of the participants. Parliamentary procedures Large assemblies may easily degenerate into shouting matches as the participants raise their voices just in order to be heard. To control this tendency towards chaos, rules of conduct such as Robert's Rules of Order, Robert's Rules are often used. Productive confrontation Some assemblies may choose this form of discourse deliberately so that creative contributions are not stifled by formal rules. The Nicolas Bourbaki, Bourbaki working parties to establish a definitive new reference work for mathematics were conducted in this way, being described as “''Two or three monologues shouted at top voice, seemingly independently of one another''” by Armand Borel, who attributed the success of this process to the commitment and hard work of the members. At the General Electric company, the successful chief executive, Jack Welch, forced his managers to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stump Speech (politics)
A political stump speech is a standard speech used by a politician running for office. Typically a candidate who schedules many appearances prepares a short standardized stump speech that is repeated verbatim to each audience, before opening to questions. Etymology The term derives from the early American custom in which candidates campaigned from town to town and stood upon a sawed off tree stump to deliver their speech. U.S. campaigns In presidential campaigns in the United States, a candidate's speech at his or her party's presidential nominating convention usually forms the basis for the stump speech for the duration of the national campaign. Stump speeches are not meant to generate news, outside of local media covering a candidate's appearance. National media usually ignore their contents in their daily news coverage. The predictability of stump speeches gives reporters a general indication that the candidate will soon conclude his speech. An example of this comes from N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Country House
An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these people, the term distinguished between town and country. However, the term also encompasses houses that were, and often still are, the full-time residence for the landed gentry who ruled rural Britain until the Reform Act 1832. Frequently, the formal business of the counties was transacted in these country houses, having functional antecedents in manor houses. With large numbers of indoor and outdoor staff, country houses were important as places of employment for many rural communities. In turn, until the agricultural depressions of the 1870s, the estates, of which country houses were the hub, provided their owners with incomes. However, the late 19th and early 20th centuries were the swansong of the traditional English country house lifest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rotten And Pocket Boroughs
A rotten or pocket borough, also known as a nomination borough or proprietorial borough, was a parliamentary borough or constituency in England, Great Britain, or the United Kingdom before the Reform Act 1832, which had a very small electorate and could be used by a patron to gain unrepresentative influence within the unreformed House of Commons. The same terms were used for similar boroughs represented in the 18th-century Parliament of Ireland. The Reform Act 1832 abolished the majority of these rotten and pocket boroughs. Background A parliamentary borough was a town or former town that had been incorporated under a royal charter, giving it the right to send two elected burgesses as Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons. It was not unusual for the physical boundary of the settlement to change as the town developed or contracted over time, for example due to changes in its trade and industry, so that the boundaries of the parliamentary borough and of the physic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bluestocking
''Bluestocking'' is a term for an educated, intellectual woman, originally a member of the 18th-century Blue Stockings Society from England led by the hostess and critic Elizabeth Montagu (1718–1800), the "Queen of the Blues", including Elizabeth Vesey (1715–1791), Hester Chapone (1727–1801) and the classicist Elizabeth Carter (1717–1806). In the following generation came Hester Lynch Piozzi (1741–1821), Hannah More (1745–1833) and Frances Burney (1752–1840). The term now more broadly applies to women who show interest in literary or intellectual matters. Until the late 18th century, the term had referred to learned people of both sexes. It was later applied primarily to intellectual women and the French equivalent ''bas bleu'' had a similar connotation. The term later developed negative implications and is now often used in a derogatory manner. The reference to blue stockings may arise from the time when woollen worsted stockings were informal dress, in contrast ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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