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N.F. Simpson
Norman Frederick Simpson (29 January 1919 – 27 August 2011) was an English playwright closely associated with the Theatre of the Absurd. To his friends he was known as Wally Simpson, in comic reference to the abdication crisis of 1936. Early years Born in London, Simpson studied at Emanuel School before taking a job as a bank clerk. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Artillery and Intelligence Corps, travelling to Italy, Palestine and Cyprus. Following studies at Birkbeck College for a degree in English Literature from the University of London after the war,Louis Barf"N F Simpson: Absurdist playwright who influenced and inspired Britain's comic surrealists of the 1960s and '70s" ''The Independent'', 12 September 2011 Simpson taught English in adult education for almost 20 years. Theatre debut The turning point in Simpson’s life came in 1957 when he won third prize in ''The Observer'' newspaper’s quest for new writers, headed by theatre critic Kenneth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theatre Of The Absurd
The Theatre of the Absurd (french: théâtre de l'absurde ) is a post–World War II designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s. It is also a term for the style of theatre the plays represent. The plays focus largely on ideas of existentialism and express what happens when human existence lacks meaning or purpose and communication breaks down. The structure of the plays is typically a round shape, with the finishing point the same as the starting point. Logical construction and argument give way to irrational and illogical speech and to the ultimate conclusion—silence. Etymology Critic Martin Esslin coined the term in his 1960 essay "The Theatre of the Absurd", which begins by focusing on the playwrights Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, and Eugène Ionesco. Esslin says that their plays have a common denominator — the "absurd", a word that Esslin defines with a quotation from Ionesco: "absurd is t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tony Richardson
Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson (5 June 1928 – 14 November 1991) was an English theatre and film director and producer whose career spanned five decades. In 1964, he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film ''Tom Jones (1963 film), Tom Jones''. Early life Richardson was born in Shipley, West Yorkshire, Shipley, West Riding of Yorkshire in 1928, the son of Elsie Evans (Campion) and Clarence Albert Richardson, a chemist. He was head girl and head boy, Head Boy at Ashville College, Harrogate and attended Wadham College, University of Oxford. His Oxford contemporaries included Rupert Murdoch, Margaret Thatcher, Kenneth Tynan, Lindsay Anderson and Gavin Lambert. He had the unprecedented distinction of being the President of both the Oxford University Dramatic Society and the Experimental Theatre Club (the ETC), in addition to being the theatre critic for the university magazine ''Isis magazine, Isis''. Those he cast in his student productions included Shirley William ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kenneth Williams
Kenneth Charles Williams (22 February 1926 – 15 April 1988) was an English actor of Welsh heritage. He was best known for his comedy roles and in later life as a raconteur and diarist. He was one of the main ensemble in 26 of the 31 Carry On (franchise), ''Carry On'' films, and appeared in many British television programmes and radio comedies, including series with Tony Hancock and Kenneth Horne, as well as being a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4's comedy panel show ''Just a Minute'' from its second series in 1968 until his death 20 years later. Williams grew up in Central London in a working-class family; he claimed his father spoke cockney. He served in the Royal Engineers during World War II, where he first became interested in becoming an entertainer. After a short spell in repertory theatre as a serious actor, he turned to comedy and achieved national fame in ''Hancock's Half Hour''. He sustained continued success throughout the 1960s and 1970s with his regular app ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beryl Reid
Beryl Elizabeth Reid, (17 June 1919 – 13 October 1996), was a British actress of stage and screen. She won the 1967 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for ''The Killing of Sister George'', the 1980 Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance for '' Born in the Gardens'', and the 1982 BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for ''Smiley's People''. Her film appearances included '' The Belles of St. Trinian's'' (1954), ''The Killing of Sister George'' (1968), ''The Assassination Bureau'' (1969), and ''No Sex Please, We're British'' (1973). Early life Born in Hereford in 1919,Jonathan Cecil, "Reid, Beryl Elizabeth (1919–1996)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, Sept 200available online Retrieved 30 August 2020. Reid was the daughter of Scottish parents and grew up in Manchester, where she attended Withington and Levenshulme High Schools. As a child, she established a lifelong friendship with Nancy Wrigley, the daughter of the prominent classica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter (; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include '' The Birthday Party'' (1957), ''The Homecoming'' (1964) and ''Betrayal'' (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include ''The Servant'' (1963), ''The Go-Between'' (1971), ''The French Lieutenant's Woman'' (1981), ''The Trial'' (1993) and ''Sleuth'' (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television and film productions of his own and others' works. Pinter was born and raised in Hackney, east London, and educated at Hackney Downs School. He was a sprinter and a keen cricket player, acting in school plays and writing poetry. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art but did not complete the course. He was fined for refus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Mortimer
Sir John Clifford Mortimer (21 April 1923 – 16 January 2009) was a British barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author. He is best known for novels about a barrister named Horace Rumpole. Early life Mortimer was born in Hampstead, London, the only child of Kathleen May (née Smith) and (Herbert) Clifford Mortimer (1884–1961), a divorce and probate barrister who became blind in 1936 when he hit his head on the door frame of a London taxi but still pursued his career. Clifford's loss of sight was not acknowledged openly by the family.Helen T. Verongo"John Mortimer, barrister and creator of Rumpole, is dead" ''International Herald Tribune'', 16 January 2009. This obituary was also carried by ''The New York Times''; a more complete version than the version on the ''IHT'' website is onlin John Mortimer was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford, and Harrow School, where he joined the Communist Party, [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arts Theatre
The Arts Theatre is a theatre in Great Newport Street, in Westminster, Central London. History It opened on 20 April 1927 as a members-only club for the performance of unlicensed plays, thus avoiding theatre censorship by the Lord Chamberlain's office. It was one of a small number of committed, independent theatre companies, including the Hampstead Everyman, the Gate Theatre Studio and the Q Theatre, which took risks by producing a diverse range of new and experimental plays, or plays that were thought to be commercially non-viable on the West End. The theatrical producer Norman Marshall referred to these as 'The Other Theatre' in his 1947 book of the same name. The theatre opened with a revue by Herbert Farjeon entitled ''Picnic'', produced by Harold Scott and with music by Beverley Nichols. Its first important production was '' Young Woodley'' by John Van Druten, staged in 1928, which later transferred to the Savoy Theatre when the Lord Chamberlain's ban was lifted. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Goons
''The Goon Show'' is a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme. The first series, broadcast from 28 May to 20 September 1951, was titled ''Crazy People''; subsequent series had the title ''The Goon Show''. The show's chief creator and main writer was Spike Milligan, who performed the series alongside Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers and (for the first two series) Michael Bentine. The scripts mixed ludicrous plots with surreal humour, puns, catchphrases and an array of bizarre sound effects. There were also light music interludes. Some of the later episodes feature electronic effects devised by the fledgling BBC Radiophonic Workshop, many of which were reused by other shows for decades. Elements of the show satirised contemporary life in 1950s Britain, parodying aspects of show business, commerce, industry, art, politics, diplomacy, the police, the military, educ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering the majority of musical genres, as well as local radio stations covering local news, affairs and interests. It also oversees online audio content. Of the national radio stations, BBC Radio 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 Live are all available through analogue radio ( AM or FM (with BBC Radio 4 LW on longwave) as well as on DAB Digital Radio and BBC Sounds. The Asian Network broadcasts on DAB and selected AM frequencies in the English Midlands. BBC Radio 1Xtra, 4 Extra, 5 Sports Extra, 6 Music and the World Service broadcast only on DAB and BBC Sounds, while Radio 1 Dance and Relax streams are available only online. All of the BBC's national radio stations broadcast from bases in London and Manchester, usually in or near to Broadcasting House ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Thurber
James Grover Thurber (December 8, 1894 – November 2, 1961) was an American cartoonist, writer, humorist, journalist and playwright. He was best known for his cartoons and short stories, published mainly in ''The New Yorker'' and collected in his numerous books. Thurber was one of the most popular humorists of his time and celebrated the comic frustrations and eccentricities of ordinary people. His works have frequently been adapted into films, including ''The Male Animal'' (1942), ''The Battle of the Sexes'' (1959, based on Thurber's " The Catbird Seat"), and ''The Secret Life of Walter Mitty'' (adapted twice, in 1947 and in 2013). Life Thurber was born in Columbus, Ohio, to Charles L. Thurber and Mary Agnes "Mame" (née Fisher) Thurber on December 8, 1894. Both of his parents greatly influenced his work. His father was a sporadically employed clerk and minor politician who dreamed of being a lawyer or an actor. Thurber described his mother as a "born comedian" and "one o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ''Through the Looking-Glass'' (1871). He was noted for his facility with word play, logic, and fantasy. His poems ''Jabberwocky'' (1871) and ''The Hunting of the Snark'' (1876) are classified in the genre of literary nonsense. Carroll came from a family of high-church Anglicanism, Anglicans, and developed a long relationship with Christ Church, Oxford, where he lived for most of his life as a scholar and teacher. Alice Liddell, the daughter of Christ Church's dean Henry Liddell, is widely identified as the original inspiration for ''Alice in Wonderland'', though Carroll always denied this. An avid puzzler, Carroll created the word ladder puzzle (which he then called "Doublets"), which he published in his weekly column for ''Vanity Fair ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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