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Michael Mills (British Producer)
Michael Mills (13 May 1919 – 7 January 1988) was an English television producer and director who served as the BBC's Head of Comedy from 1967 until 1972. Early life and career Mills was born in Prestwich, Lancashire (now part of Greater Manchester), England. He joined the BBC before the Second World War as a sound effects operator, and served in the Free French Navy (on secondment from the Royal Navy) during hostilities, where he undertook revue-type shows. In 1947, he returned to the BBC, as a light entertainment producer. Yvonne Littlewood, at the time his personal assistant, recalled one live production of the three act Vivian Ellis musical ''Jill Darling'' in February 1949 which used both studios at Alexandra Palace, the set being changed in one while the second act was being broadcast. Mills served as the BBC's Head of Comedy from 1967 to 1972. According to creator Jimmy Perry, it was Mills who in 1968 suggested that a forthcoming series should be titled ''Dad's Army' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prestwich
Prestwich ( ) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, Greater Manchester, England, north of Manchester city centre, north of Salford and south of Bury. Historically part of Lancashire, Prestwich was the seat of the ancient parish of Prestwich-cum-Oldham, in the hundred of Salfordshire. The Church of St Mary the Virgin—a Grade I listed building—has lain at the centre of the community for centuries. The oldest part of Prestwich, around Bury New Road, is known as Prestwich Village. There is a large Jewish community in Prestwich which, together with neighbouring Whitefield, Cheetham Hill, Crumpsall and Broughton Park, forms the second-largest in the United Kingdom. History Toponymy Prestwich is possibly of Old English origin, derived from ''preost'' and ''wic'', which translates to the priest's farm. Another possible derivation is priest's retreat. Wic was a place-name element derived from the Latin vicus, place. Its most common meaning is dairy-farm. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clive Dunn
Clive Robert Benjamin Dunn (9 January 19206 November 2012) was an English actor. Although he was only 48 and one of the youngest cast members, he was cast in a role many years his senior, as the elderly Lance Corporal Jones in the BBC sitcom ''Dad's Army,'' which ran for nine series and 80 episodes between 1968 and 1977.Clive Dunn Telegraph (7 November 2012). Retrieved on 4 February 2013. Dunn started his acting career in 1935, but this was interrupted by the Second World War, in which he served as a trooper in the 4th Queen's Own Hussars. In 1941 the regiment ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Get Some In!
''Get Some In!'' is a British television sitcom about National Service life in the Royal Air Force, broadcast between 1975 and 1978 by Thames Television. Scripts were by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, the team behind sitcoms such as '' The Good Life''. The programme drew its inspiration from late 1950s – early 1960s National Service situation-comedy ''The Army Game'' and from nostalgic BBC TV sitcom ''Dad's Army'' but the RAF setting gave it enough originality not to seem formulaic. Thirty-four (commercial) half-hour episodes were made. The title is a contraction of "Get some service in!", which was a piece of Second World War-era military slang sometimes shouted by conscripted soldiers at civilians of conscription age whom the conscripts may have believed were avoiding call-up. By the 1960s the expression had a clear and self-evident sexual connotation which replaced the original meaning and resulted in a convenient double entendre for the programme. The series has never been ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wodehouse Playhouse
''Wodehouse Playhouse'' is a British television comedy series based on the short stories of P. G. Wodehouse. From 1974 to 1978, a pilot and three series were made, with 21 half-hour episodes altogether in the entire series. The series has been released on home video. Production P. G. Wodehouse introduced the episodes in the first series. These introductions were filmed in January 1975, shortly before his death. The pilot episode aired in the anthology series ''Comedy Playhouse''. The first and second series of ''Wodehouse Playhouse'' initially aired on BBC1. Reruns of these episodes aired on BBC2 in 1977, and the third series first aired on BBC2. The episodes were broadcast in the US on PBS television stations. In 2003, the series was released on home video. David Climie adapted all the episodes, including the pilot. The first series was produced by David Askey, the second series was produced by Michael Mills, and the third series was produced by Gareth Gwenlan. With the exc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only the online edition. The newspaper was controlled by Tony O'Reilly's Irish Independent News & Media from 1997 until it was sold to the Russian oligarch and former KGB Officer Alexander Lebedev in 2010. In 2017, Sultan Muhammad Abuljadayel bought a 30% stake in it. The daily edition was named National Newspaper of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards. The website and mobile app had a combined monthly reach of 19,826,000 in 2021. History 1986 to 1990 Launched in 1986, the first issue of ''The Independent'' was published on 7 October in broadsheet format.Dennis Griffiths (ed.) ''The Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422–1992'', London & Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992, p. 330 It was produc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barry Took
Barry Took (19 June 192831 March 2002) was an English writer, television presenter and comedian. His decade-and-a-half writing partnership with Marty Feldman led to the television series ''Bootsie and Snudge'', the radio comedy ''Round the Horne'' and other projects. He is also remembered in the UK for presenting ''Points of View (TV series), Points of View'', a BBC Television programme featuring viewers' letters on the BBC's output, and the BBC Radio 4 programme ''The News Quiz''. Early life and education The son of a manager at the Danish Bacon Company, Took was born in Victoria Road, Muswell Hill, north London, and lived in Winton Avenue, Bounds Green. When Evacuations of civilians in Britain during World War II, evacuated to Wisbech in Cambridgeshire during the Second World War, he ran away from his assigned home there, cycling 20 miles to Peterborough in order to get a train back to London. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Cleese
John Marwood Cleese ( ; born 27 October 1939) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. Emerging from the Cambridge Footlights in the 1960s, he first achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on ''The Frost Report''. In the late 1960s, he co-founded Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show '' Monty Python's Flying Circus.'' Along with his Python co-stars Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Graham Chapman, Cleese starred in Monty Python films, which include '' Monty Python and the Holy Grail'' (1975), ''Life of Brian'' (1979) and ''Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, The Meaning of Life'' (1983). In the mid-1970s, Cleese and first wife Connie Booth co-wrote the sitcom ''Fawlty Towers'', in which he starred as hotel owner Basil Fawlty, for which he won the 1980 British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance. In 2000 the show topped the British Film Inst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monty Python's Flying Circus
''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' (also known as simply ''Monty Python'') is a British surreal sketch comedy series created by and starring Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam, who became known as "Monty Python", or the "Pythons". The first episode was recorded at the BBC on 7 September 1969 and premiered on 5 October on BBC1, with 45 episodes airing over four series from 1969 to 1974, plus two episodes for German TV. The series stands out for its use of absurd situations, mixed with risqué and innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines. Live action segments were broken up with animations by Gilliam, often merging with the live action to form segues. The overall format used for the series followed and elaborated upon the style used by Spike Milligan in his groundbreaking series '' Q...'', rather than the traditional sketch show format. The Pythons play the majority of the series' character ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Liver Birds
''The Liver Birds'' is a British sitcom, set in Liverpool, North West England, which aired on BBC1 from April 1969 to January 1979, and again in 1996. The show was created by Carla Lane and Myra Taylor. The two Liverpudlian housewives had met at a local writers club and decided to pool their talents. Having been invited to London by Michael Mills, the BBC's then Head of Comedy, and asked to write about two women sharing a flat, Mills brought in sitcom expert Sydney Lotterby to work with the writing team. Lotterby had previously worked with Eric Sykes and Sheila Hancock, and on ''The Likely Lads''. For the Liver Birds, Carla Lane wrote most of the episodes, Taylor co-writing only the first two series. The pilot was shown on 14 April 1969 as an episode of ''Comedy Playhouse'', the BBC's breeding ground for sitcoms at the time.BBC ''Comedy Connections'' Outline The series charted the ups and downs of two "dolly birds" sharing a flat on Liverpool's Huskisson Street, concentrati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johns Hopkins University Press
The Johns Hopkins University Press (also referred to as JHU Press or JHUP) is the publishing division of Johns Hopkins University. It was founded in 1878 and is the oldest continuously running university press in the United States. The press publishes books and journals, and operates other divisions including fulfillment and electronic databases. Its headquarters are in Charles Village, Baltimore. In 2017, after the retirement of Kathleen Keane who is credited with modernizing JHU Press for the digital age, the university appointed new director Barbara Pope. Overview Daniel Coit Gilman, the first president of the Johns Hopkins University, inaugurated the press in 1878. The press began as the university's Publication Agency, publishing the ''American Journal of Mathematics'' in its first year and the ''American Chemical Journal'' in its second. It published its first book, ''Sidney Lanier: A Memorial Tribute'', in 1881 to honor the poet who was one of the university's first writers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Up Pompeii!
''Up Pompeii!'' is a British television comedy series broadcast between 1969 and 1970, starring Frankie Howerd. The first series was written by Talbot Rothwell, a scriptwriter for the ''Carry On'' films, and the second series by Rothwell and Sid Colin. Two later specials were transmitted in 1975 and 1991 and a film adaptation was released in 1971. Background ''Up Pompeii!'' first appeared in the Comedy Playhouse series, after Michael Mills and Tom Sloan from BBC Comedy and Light Entertainment visited the ruins of Pompeii. Since Mills had recently seen Frankie Howerd in the stage musical '' A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum'' he casually remarked to Sloan that he half expected Howerd to suddenly appear round the corner. Sloan had replied 'Why not?', and the idea took root. Talbot Rothwell was invited to write a script and the designer Sally Hulke visited Pompeii with a sketch book and camera to ensure realism and authenticity. A slight variation of this is re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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