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Pavilion Theatre, Torquay
The Pavilion Theatre was a theatre in Torquay, Devon, England. It was one of the three main auditoriums in Torbay, and during the 1970s differed from the Princess Theatre, Torquay, and the Festival Theatre, Paignton, in that it had plays rather than variety shows during the lucrative summer seasons. Building From 1890 to 1930, the Borough Engineer of Torbay, Henry Augustus Garrett, laid out the Princess Gardens, the Terrace Walk, Pier Pavilion and Torquay Pavilion on Torquay seafront. The Pavilion's architect was Edward Rogers, who drew up the final plans with HC Goss. The plans were passed in 1903, but construction did not start until 1911 due to Rogers’ death, and the work was taken over by Garrett. Part of its site is on land reclaimed from the sea, and it was built on a concrete raft on which a steel framework was erected. It is faced with white tiles made of Doulton's Carrara-enamelled stoneware. Its central copper-covered dome is topped with a life-size figure of Brit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shopping Arcade
A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre (Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known collections of retailers under one roof are public markets, dating back to ancient times, and Middle Eastern covered markets, bazaars and souqs. In Paris, about 150 covered passages were built between the late 18th century and 1850, and a wealth of shopping arcades were built across Europe in the 19th century. In the United States, the widespread use of the automobile in the 1920s led to the first shopping centers of a few dozen shops that included parking for cars. Starting in 1946, larger, open air centers anchored by department stores were built (sometimes as a collection of adjacent retail properties with different owners), then enclosed shopping malls starting with Victor Gruen's Southdale Center near Minneapolis in 1956. A shopping mal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy Edwards
James Keith O'Neill Edwards, DFC (23 March 19207 July 1988) was an English comedy writer and actor on radio and television, best known as Pa Glum in ''Take It from Here'' and as headmaster "Professor" James Edwards in ''Whack-O!''. Early life Edwards was born in Barnes, Surrey, the son of a professor of mathematics. He had four brothers and four sisters. He was educated at St Paul's Cathedral School, at King's College School in Wimbledon and as a choral scholar at St John's College, Cambridge, where he sang in the college choir. Second World War Edwards served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, was commissioned in April 1942, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and ended the war as a flight lieutenant. He served with No. 271 Squadron RAF, based in Doncaster, who took part in the D-Day landings. His Dakota was shot down at Arnhem in 1944, resulting in facial injuries requiring plastic surgery, that he disguised with a large handlebar moustache that b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norman Evans
Norman Evans (11 June 1901 – 25 November 1962) was an English stage and radio comedian, best remembered for his sketches and programmes entitled "Over the Garden Wall". Biography He was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, and started his working life as a commercial traveller, while also taking part in amateur dramatic groups. He gained a local reputation for his after-dinner speeches, and decided to become an entertainer, initially appearing at local functions and concert parties. In 1934 he was reportedly discovered by fellow Rochdale entertainer Gracie Fields, though in fact he had already been seen by impresario Oswald Stoll. He had his first London appearance alongside a young Betty Driver, and gained a place on national variety tours, where he was an immediate success.Roy Hudd and Philip Hindin, ''Roy Hudd's Cavalcade of Variety Acts'', Robson Books, 1998, , p.54-55 According to writer Michael Kilgarriff, his "broad boisterous comedy and warmth of personality swiftly el ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Formby
George Formby, (born George Hoy Booth; 26 May 1904 – 6 March 1961) was an English actor, singer-songwriter and comedian who became known to a worldwide audience through his films of the 1930s and 1940s. On stage, screen and record he sang light, Novelty song, comic songs, usually playing the ukulele or banjolele, and became the UK's highest-paid entertainer. Born in Wigan, Lancashire, he was the son of George Formby Sr, from whom he later took his stage name. After an early career as a stable boy and jockey, Formby took to the music hall stage after the early death of his father in 1921. His early performances were taken exclusively from his father's act, including the same songs, jokes and characters. In 1923 he made two career-changing decisions – he purchased a ukulele, and married Beryl Ingham, a fellow performer who became his manager and transformed his act. She insisted that he appear on stage formally dressed, and introduced the ukulele to his performance. He ... [...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] |
Il Trovatore
''Il trovatore'' ('The Troubadour') is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto largely written by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play ''El trovador'' (1836) by Antonio García Gutiérrez. It was García Gutiérrez's most successful play, one which Verdi scholar Julian Budden describes as "a high flown, sprawling melodrama flamboyantly defiant of the Aristotelian unities, packed with all manner of fantastic and bizarre incident." The premiere took place at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on 19 January 1853, where it "began a victorious march throughout the operatic world," a success due to Verdi's work over the previous three years. It began with his January 1850 approach to Cammarano with the idea of ''Il trovatore''. There followed, slowly and with interruptions, the preparation of the libretto, first by Cammarano until his death in mid-1852 and then with the young librettist Leone Emanuele Bardare, which gave the composer the opportunity to propose signifi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Madam Butterfly
''Madama Butterfly'' (; ''Madame Butterfly'') is an opera in three acts (originally two) by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It is based on the short story "Madame Butterfly" (1898) by John Luther Long, which in turn was based on stories told to Long by his sister Jennie Correll and on the semi-autobiographical 1887 French novel '' Madame Chrysanthème'' by Pierre Loti.Chadwick Jenna"The Original Story: John Luther Long and David Belasco" on columbia.edu Long's version was dramatized by David Belasco as the one-act play '' Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan'', which, after premiering in New York in 1900, moved to London, where Puccini saw it in the summer of that year. The original version of the opera, in two acts, had its premiere on 17 February 1904 at La Scala in Milan. It was poorly received, despite having such notable singers as soprano Rosina Storchio, tenor Giovanni Zenatello and baritone Giuseppe De Luca in lead roles ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The Faust legend has been the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works that have reinterpreted it through the ages. "Faust" and the adjective "Faustian" imply sacrificing spiritual values for power, knowledge, or material gain. The Faust of early books—as well as the ballads, dramas, movies, and puppet-plays which grew out of them—is irrevocably damned because he prefers human knowledge over divine knowledge: "he laid the Holy Scriptures behind the door and under the bench, refused to be called doctor of theology, but preferred to be styled doctor of medicine". Plays and comic puppet theatre loosely based on this legend were popular throughout ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Das Dreimäderlhaus
''Das Dreimäderlhaus'' (''House of the Three Girls''), adapted into English-language versions as ''Blossom Time'' and ''Lilac Time'', is a Viennese pastiche operetta with music by Franz Schubert, rearranged by Heinrich Berté (1857–1924), and a libretto by Alfred Maria Willner and . The work gives a fictionalized account of Schubert's romantic life, and the story was adapted from the 1912 novel ''Schwammerl'' by Rudolf Hans Bartsch (1873–1952). Originally the score was mostly Berté, with just one piece of Schubert's ("Ungeduld" from ''Die schöne Müllerin''), but the producers required Berté to discard his score and create a pasticcio of Schubert music. The original production opened at the Raimundtheater in Vienna on 15 January 1916 and ran for over 650 performances in its original run in Austria and for hundreds more in Germany, followed by many successful revivals. It starred Fritz Schrödter as Schubert and Anny Rainer as Hannerl. Schrödter was already 60 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sexton Blake
Sexton Blake is a fictional character, a detective who has been featured in many British comic strips, novels and dramatic productions since 1893. Sexton Blake adventures were featured in a wide variety of British and international publications (in many languages) from 1893 to 1978, comprising more than 4,000 stories by some 200 different authors. Blake was also the hero of numerous silent and sound films, radio serials, and a Sexton Blake (TV series), 1960s ITV television series. Publication history The first decades The first Sexton Blake story was "The Missing Millionaire". Written by Harry Blyth (using the pseudonym Hal Meredeth), it was published in the story paper ''The Halfpenny Marvel'' number 6, on 20 December 1893. He featured thereafter also in a few more stories by Meredeth. His adventures were published subsequently in a variety of publications, primarily the magazine ''Union Jack (magazine), Union Jack'', published first in April 1894. Blake featured in Issue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charley's Aunt
''Charley's Aunt'' is a farce in three acts written by Brandon Thomas. The story centres on Lord Fancourt Babberley, an undergraduate whose friends Jack and Charley persuade him to impersonate the latter's aunt. The complications of the plot include the arrival of the real aunt and the attempts of an elderly fortune hunter to woo the bogus aunt. The play concludes with three pairs of young lovers united, along with an older pair – Charley's real aunt and Jack's widowed father. The play was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds in February 1892. It then opened in London at the Royalty Theatre on 21 December 1892 and quickly transferred to the larger Globe Theatre on 30 January 1893. The production broke the historic record for longest-running play worldwide, running for 1,466 performances. It was produced by the actor W. S. Penley, a friend of Thomas, who appeared as Babberley. The play was also a success on Broadway in 1893, and in Paris, where it had further ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
