Michael Billington (critic)
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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 ''T ...
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Order Of The British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established on 4 June 1917 by King George V and comprises five classes across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two of which make the recipient either a knight if male or dame if female. There is also the related British Empire Medal, whose recipients are affiliated with, but not members of, the order. Recommendations for appointments to the Order of the British Empire were originally made on the nomination of the United Kingdom, the self-governing Dominions of the Empire (later Commonwealth) and the Viceroy of India. Nominations continue today from Commonwealth countries that participate in recommending British honours. Most Commonwealth countries ceased recommendations for appointments to the Order of the British Empire when they ...
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Cherwell (newspaper)
''Cherwell'' is a weekly student newspaper published entirely by students of Oxford University. Founded in 1920 and named after a local river, ''Cherwell'' is a subsidiary of independent student publishing house Oxford Student Publications Ltd. Receiving no university funding, the newspaper is one of the oldest student publications in the UK. History ''Cherwell'' was conceived by two Balliol College students, Cecil Binney and George Adolphus Edinger, on a ferry from Dover to Ostend during the summer vacation of 1920 while the students were travelling to Vienna to do relief work for the Save the Children charity. Edinger recalls the early newspaper having a radical voice: "We were feeling for a new Oxford …. We were anti-convention, anti-Pre War values, pro-feminist. We did not mind shocking and we often did." The publication was independent of the University of Oxford and it was entirely financed, staffed, and owned by students. Early editions combine this seriousness ...
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Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north-west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders Northamptonshire in the south for just , England's shortest county boundary. The county town is Lincoln, where the county council is also based. The ceremonial county of Lincolnshire consists of the non-metropolitan county of Lincolnshire and the area covered by the unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. Part of the ceremonial county is in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and most is in the East Midlands region. The county is the second-largest of the English ceremonial counties and one that is predominantly agricultural in land use. The county is fourth-larg ...
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Theatre Royal, Lincoln
The New Theatre Royal Lincoln is a theatre in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England. The present theatre, initially called the ''New Theatre Royal'', was built in 1893 to the designs of Bertie Crewe and W.G.R. Sprague. After an explosion and fire in 1892 had destroyed the previous ''Theatre Royal'' on the site, built in 1806. The 1806 theatre was, in turn, a rebuild of an earlier theatre of 1764 on Butchery Street, now called Clasketgate. The structure of the building remained the same until 1907, when the present frontage, foyer, and lounge were added,"New Theatre Royal Lincoln"
''lincsprt.com''; retrieved 5 April 2011
spinning the orientation of the entrance to face Clasketgate. A 2010 refurbishment of public non-auditorium space restructured and modernised the foyer and bar areas. The building is

Liverpool Daily Post & Echo
The ''Liverpool Echo'' is a newspaper published by Trinity Mirror North West & North Wales – a subsidiary company of Reach plc and is based in St Paul's Square, Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is published Monday to Sunday, and is Liverpool's daily newspaper. Until 13 January 2012 it had a sister morning paper, the ''Liverpool Daily Post''. It has an average daily circulation (Jul – Dec 2021) of 23,414. Historically the newspaper was published by the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo Ltd. Its office is in St Paul's Square Liverpool, having downsized from Old Hall Street in March 2018. The editor is Maria Breslin. In 1879 the ''Liverpool Echo'' was published as a cheaper sister paper to the ''Liverpool Daily Post''. From its inception until 1917 the newspaper cost a halfpenny. It is now 85p Monday to Friday, £1.20 on Saturday and 90p on Sunday. The limited company expanded internationally and in 1985 was restructured as Trinity International Holdings Plc. The two original ...
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National Student Drama Festival
The UK based National Student Drama Festival (NSDF) was founded in 1956 with the purpose of creating new art, new artists and new communities. It also runs a charity aimed at empowering young artists. The NSDF is targeted towards people aged 16–25 years old (in 2021-22 they extended the age bracket to include 26-year olds). NSDF is a year-round organization whose work peaks at its annual festival: for one week, in one chosen city. There is a daily magazine, Noises Off, written by a team of writers and participants at the festival. History The NSDF was founded in 1956 by the ''Sunday Times'' arts columnist Kenneth Pearson, ''Sunday Times'' theatre critic Harold Hobson, and National Union of Students (United Kingdom) president Frank Copplestone. Pearson went on to become the organization's first artistic director. Early supporters also included ''Sunday Times'' Editor Harry Hodson and Professor Glynne Wickham, a pioneer of the academic discipline of drama based at the ...
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The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, which is owned by News Corp. Times Newspapers also publishes ''The Times''. The two papers were founded independently and have been under common ownership since 1966. They were bought by News International in 1981. ''The Sunday Times'' has a circulation of just over 650,000, which exceeds that of its main rivals, including ''The'' ''Sunday Telegraph'' and ''The'' ''Observer'', combined. While some other national newspapers moved to a tabloid format in the early 2000s, ''The Sunday Times'' has retained the larger broadsheet format and has said that it would continue to do so. As of December 2019, it sells 75% more copies than its sister paper, ''The Times'', which is published from Monday to Saturday. The paper publishes ''The Sunday Ti ...
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Harold Hobson
Sir Harold Hobson CBE, (4 August 1904 – 12 March 1992) was an English drama critic and author. Early life and education Hobson was born in Thorpe Hesley near Rotherham then in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. He attended Sheffield Grammar School, from where he gained a scholarship to Oriel College at Oxford University, graduating with a second-class degree in Modern History in 1928. Career In 1931, he began to write London theatre reviews for ''The Christian Science Monitor''. In 1935, he was employed on the paper's staff, remaining its London drama critic until 1974. He was an assistant literary editor for ''The Sunday Times'' from 1944 and later became its drama critic (1947–76). Hobson was the only drama critic to recognise the early Harold Pinter's talent as a dramatist and wrote of '' The Birthday Party'': "I am willing to risk whatever reputation I have as a judge of plays by saying ... that Mr Pinter, on the evidence of this work, possesses the most original, ...
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The Bald Soprano
''La Cantatrice chauve '' – translated from French as ''The Bald Soprano'' or ''The Bald Prima Donna'' – is the first play written by Romanian-French playwright Eugène Ionesco. Nicolas Bataille directed the premiere on 11 May 1950 at the Théâtre des Noctambules, Paris. Since 1957 it has been in permanent showing at the Théâtre de la Huchette, which received a ''Molière d'honneur'' for its performances. It holds the world record for the play that has been staged continuously in the same theatre for the longest time. Although it went unnoticed at first, the play was eventually championed by a few established writers and critics and, in the end, won critical acclaim. By the 1960s, ''The Bald Soprano'' had already been recognized as a modern classic and an important seminal work in the Theatre of the Absurd. With a record number of interpretations, it has become one of the most performed plays in France. Origin The idea for the play came to Ionesco while he was trying to ...
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Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco (; born Eugen Ionescu, ; 26 November 1909 – 28 March 1994) was a Romanian-French playwright who wrote mostly in French, and was one of the foremost figures of the French avant-garde theatre in the 20th century. Ionesco instigated a revolution in ideas and techniques of drama, beginning with his "anti play", ''The Bald Soprano'' which contributed to the beginnings of what is known as the Theatre of the Absurd, which includes a number of plays that, following the ideas of the philosopher Albert Camus, explore concepts of absurdism. He was made a member of the Académie française in 1970, and was awarded the 1970 Austrian State Prize for European Literature, and the 1973 Jerusalem Prize. Biography Ionesco was born in Slatina, Romania, to a Romanian father belonging to the Orthodox Christian church and a mother of French and Romanian heritage, whose faith was Protestant (the faith into which her father was born and to which her originally Greek Orthodox Christ ...
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Guardian
Guardian usually refers to: * Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another * ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper (The) Guardian(s) may also refer to: Places * Guardian, West Virginia, United States, an unincorporated community in Webster County * Guardian Nunatak, a landform on Antarctica's Dufek Coast * Guardian Rock, an islet off the Antarctic Peninsula in Bigourdan Fjord * Guardian telephone exchange, Manchester, England * Wonder Mountain's Guardian, a roller coaster at Canada's Wonderland, Vaughan, Ontario People * GuardiaN (Ladislav Kovács; born 1991), Slovak professional video-game player * Angel Guardian (born 1998), Filipina actress and singer * Don Guardian (born 1953), mayor of Atlantic City, New Jersey, United States Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Guardian (comics), characters from various comics * Guardian (DC Comics), a DC Comics superhero * Guardian (Highlander), Guardian (''Highlande ...
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Aristophanes
Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme In Ancient Greece, a deme or ( grc, δῆμος, plural: demoi, δημοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Athens and other city-states. Demes as simple subdivisions of land in the countryside seem to have existed in the 6th century BC and ear ... Kydathenaion ( la, Cydathenaeum), was a comedy, comic playwright or comedy-writer of Classical Athens, ancient Athens and a poet of Ancient Greek comedy, Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete. These provide the most valuable examples of a genre of comic drama known as Ancient Greek comedy, Old Comedy and are used to define it, along with fragments from dozens of lost plays by Aristophanes and his contemporaries. Also known as "The Father of Comedy" and "the Prince of Ancient Comedy", Aristophanes has been said to recreate the life of ancient Athens more convincingly than any other author. His pow ...
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