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Rhodes (TV Series)
''Rhodes'' is an eight-part British television drama series about the life of Cecil Rhodes, a 19th century British adventurer, empire-builder and politician. It starred Martin Shaw as Rhodes, and was written by Antony Thomas. ''Rhodes'' received its British television debut on 15 September 1996, and concluded on 3 November. It was produced by Scott Meek and Charles Salmon, and directed by David Drury. Background At the time of its production, ''Rhodes'' was the most expensive project ever undertaken by a British television broadcaster, costing £10 million to make, and was seen as a huge gamble by the BBC. In addition, development, filming and production took a decade to complete, and the series employed over 10,000 extras. Forming part of BBC1's Autumn 1996 television programming, its opening episode was preceded by a high-profile publicity campaign. However, it quickly began to attract relatively poor viewing figures. Although 7.6 million tuned in for the first episode, by the ...
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Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been contrasted with the epic and the lyrical modes ever since Aristotle's '' Poetics'' (c. 335 BC)—the earliest work of dramatic theory. The term "drama" comes from a Greek word meaning "deed" or " act" (Classical Greek: , ''drâma''), which is derived from "I do" (Classical Greek: , ''dráō''). The two masks associated with drama represent the traditional generic division between comedy and tragedy. In English (as was the analogous case in many other European languages), the word ''play'' or ''game'' (translating the Anglo-Saxon ''pleġan'' or Latin ''ludus'') was the standard term for dramas until William Shakespeare's time—just as its creator was a ''play-maker'' rather than a ''dramatist'' and the building was a ''play-house'' r ...
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Gormenghast (series)
''Gormenghast'' is a fantasy series by British author Mervyn Peake, about the inhabitants of Castle Gormenghast, a sprawling, decaying, Gothic structure. Originally conceived as a single on-going novel, the series was ended by Peake's death and comprises three novels: ''Titus Groan'' (1946), ''Gormenghast'' (1950) and ''Titus Alone'' (1959); and a novella, ''Boy in Darkness'' (1956), whose canonical status is debated. Peake was writing a fourth novel, ''Titus Awakes'', at the time of his death in 1968. The book was completed by Peake's widow Maeve Gilmore in the early 1970s. After it was discovered by their family, it was published in 2009. Although the first two instalments do not contain any overtly fantastical elements, ''Gormenghast'' is almost unanimously categorised as fantasy because of the atmosphere and pseudo-medieval setting. The series has received widespread acclaim from the speculative fiction community and mainstream literary critics. The series has been include ...
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Frederick Selous
Frederick Courteney Selous, DSO (; 31 December 1851 – 4 January 1917) was a British explorer, officer, professional hunter, and conservationist, famous for his exploits in Southeast Africa. His real-life adventures inspired Sir Henry Rider Haggard to create the fictional Allan Quatermain character. Selous was a friend of Theodore Roosevelt, Cecil Rhodes and Frederick Russell Burnham. He was pre-eminent within a group of big game hunters that included Abel Chapman and Arthur Henry Neumann. He was the older brother of the ornithologist and writer Edmund Selous. Early life and exploration Frederick Courteney Selous was born on 31 December 1851 at Regent's Park, London, as one of the five children of an aristocratic family, third generation of part-Huguenot heritage. His father, Frederick Lokes Slous (original spelling) (1802–1892), was Chairman of the London Stock Exchange and his mother, Ann Holgate Sherborn (1827–1913), was a published poet. One of his uncles was a pai ...
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Alfred Beit
Alfred Beit (15 February 1853 – 16 July 1906) was a Anglo-German gold and diamond magnate in South Africa, and a major donor and profiteer of infrastructure development on the African continent. He also donated much money to university education and research in several countries, and was the "silent partner" who structured the capital flight from post-Boer War South Africa to Rhodesia, and the Rhodes Scholarship, named after his employee, Cecil Rhodes. Beit's assets were structured around the so-called Corner House Group, which through its holdings in various companies controlled 37 per cent of the gold produced at the Witwatersrand's goldfields in Johannesburg in 1913.See chapter 12 in Rönnbäck & Broberg (2019) Capital and Colonialism. The Return on British Investments in Africa 1869-1969 (Palgrave Studies in Economic History)


Life and career

Born and brought up in

Edward Arthur Maund
Edward Arthur Maund (1851 – 17 March 1932, Hampstead) was an African explorer and Rhodesian pioneer. He was educated at Hurstpierpoint College, where he later acted as Assistant Master between 1872 and 1873, and matriculated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, in 1873. He emigrated to South Africa where he played an active role in establishing British settlement in Rhodesia. He served with the Bechuanaland Field Force under Sir Charles Warren during the Warren Expedition in Bechuanaland in 1884 and 1885, and in Mashonaland between 1889 and 1896. Maund was one of three officers sent to inform Lobengula that Britain had declared Bechuanaland a protectorate. He realised the commercial potential of Mashonaland and interested George Cawston, a London financier, in procuring mining rights and Lord Gifford who had obtained substantial mineral rights in Northern Bechuanaland, and sought to extend his mining concessions to Mashonaland. Maund left for Bulawayo to negotiate terms. Rhodes had got ...
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Ron Smerczak
Ron Smerczak (3 July 1949 – 12 May 2019) was a British-born South African actor who had appeared in South African telenovelas and contributed to South African cinema. Early life Smerczak was born on 3 July 1949 in the UK. Smerczak attended the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain from 1965-1970 and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art London from 1969-1971. Thereafter, Smerczak completed his graduation from University of Cardiff.Film crew nab theft suspect
DispatchLive. Siya Boya. January 16, 2014


Acting career

Smerczak appeared in numerous South African television shows. Plus worked in several films including American Ninja 4: The Annihilation,
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Joseph Chamberlain
Joseph Chamberlain (8 July 1836 – 2 July 1914) was a British statesman who was first a radical Liberal, then a Liberal Unionist after opposing home rule for Ireland, and eventually served as a leading imperialist in coalition with the Conservatives. He split both major British parties in the course of his career. He was the father, by different marriages, of Nobel Peace Prize winner Austen Chamberlain and of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Chamberlain made his career in Birmingham, first as a manufacturer of screws and then as a notable mayor of the city. He was a radical Liberal Party member and an opponent of the Elementary Education Act 1870 on the basis that it could result in subsidising Church of England schools with local ratepayers' money. As a self-made businessman, he had never attended university and had contempt for the aristocracy. He entered the House of Commons at 39 years of age, relatively late in life compared to politicians from more privileged backg ...
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Oliver Cotton
Oliver Charles Cotton (born 20 June 1944) is an English actor, comedian and playwright, known for his prolific work on stage, TV and film. He remains best known for his role as Cesare Borgia in the BBC's 1981 drama series '' The Borgias''. Early life Cotton was born in London on 20 June 1944, the son of Ester and Robert Norman Cotton. He trained at the Drama Centre, London. Career Cotton worked extensively at the National Theatre Company during the period when Sir Laurence Olivier was its artistic director. Cotton played leading roles in many productions including ''The Royal Hunt of the Sun'', ''Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead'', '' Much Ado in About Nothing'', ''As You Like It'', Peter Brook’s ''Oedipus'', ''In His Own Write'' and many others. At the Royal Court in London, Cotton has played leads in many productions including ''The Local Stigmatic'', ''The Duchess of Malfi'', ''Man is Man'', '' The Tutor'' by Bertholt Brecht, ''Lear'' and ''Bingo'' by Edward Bond. He ...
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Leander Starr Jameson
Sir Leander Starr Jameson, 1st Baronet, (9 February 1853 – 26 November 1917), was a British colonial politician, who was best known for his involvement in the ill-fated Jameson Raid. Early life and family He was born on 9 February 1853, of the Jameson family of Edinburgh, the son of Robert William Jameson (1805–1868), a Writer to the Signet, and Christian Pringle, daughter of Major-General Pringle of Symington House. Robert William and Christian Jameson had twelve children, of whom Leander Starr was the youngest, born at Stranraer, Wigtownshire (now part of Dumfries and Galloway), in the south-west of Scotland, a great-nephew of Professor Robert Jameson, Regius Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh. Fort's biography of Jameson notes that Starr's "chief Gamaliel, however, was a Professor Grant, a man of advanced age, who had been a pupil of his great-uncle, the Professor of Natural History at Edinburgh." Leander Starr Jameson's somewhat unusual name ...
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Princess Catherine Radziwill
Princess Catherine Radziwiłł ( pl, Katarzyna Radziwiłłowa; 30 March 1858 – 12 May 1941)Olive_Schreiner.html" ;"title="n response to Olive Schreiner">Schreiner’s book ''Trooper Peter Halkett of Mashonaland'' (1897) * ''My Recollections'', 1904 * ''Behind the Veil at the Russian Court'', 1914. * ''The Royal Marriage Market of Europe'', 1915. * ''The Austrian Court From Within'', 1916 * ''Sovereigns and Statesmen of Europe'', 1916 * ''Because it was Written'', 1916 [fiction] * ''The Black Dwarf of Vienna, and other weird stories'', 1916 * ''Germany under Three Emperors'', 1917 * ''Russia's Decline and Fall: The Secret History of a Great Debacle'', 1918 ''Rasputin and the Russian Revolution'', 1918 * ''Cecil Rhodes, man and empire-maker'', 1918 * ''Confessions of the Czarina'', 1918 * ''The Firebrand of Bolshevism; The True Story of the Bolsheviki and the Forces That Directed Them'', 1919 * ''Secrets of Dethroned Royalty'', 1920 * ''Those I Remember'', 1924 * ' ...
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Barney Barnato
Barney Barnato (21 February 1851 – 14 June 1897), born Barnet Isaacs, was a British Randlord, one of the entrepreneurs who gained control of diamond mining, and later, gold mining in South Africa from the 1870s up to World War I. He is perhaps best remembered as being a rival of Cecil Rhodes. Early life Barney Barnato claimed that he had the same birthday as Cecil Rhodes (5 July 1853). Most biographies give his date of birth as 5 July 1852. However, his birth certificate (supported by census data) shows he was born Barnet Isaacs in Aldgate, London on 21 February 1851, the son of Isaac and Leah Isaacs. He was educated by Moses Angel at the Jews' Free School. He had a hard life, and is reputed to have begged pass-outs (re-entry tickets) from theatre-leavers at the Garrick Theatre in Leman Street, to sell them on to others for a halfpenny. For a while he became a prizefighter and music-hall turn.Stephen Inwood (2005). ''City of cities: The birth of modern London''. London: Pan ...
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Ken Stott
Kenneth Campbell Stott (born 19 October 1954) is a Scottish stage, television and film actor who won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 1995 in the play '' Broken Glass'' at Royal National Theatre. He portrayed the dwarf Balin in ''The Hobbit'' film trilogy (2012–2014). His most notable roles in UK television include the title character DI John Rebus in the crime fiction-mystery series ''Rebus'' (2000–2007) and DCI Red Metcalfe in ''Messiah'' (2001–2005). He played Edward 'Eddie' McKenna in the Scottish BBC miniseries ''Takin' Over The Asylum'' (1994) co-starring with David Tennant, and Ian Garrett in the 2014 BBC TV mini-series '' The Missing'' alongside James Nesbitt. Early life Stott was born in Edinburgh. His mother, Antonia (née Sansica), was a Sicilian lecturer whose own father had previously been a priest. His father, David Stott, was a Scottish teacher and educational administrator. Stott was educated at George Heriot's School ...
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