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Ron Pember
Ronald Henry Pember (11 April 1934 – 8 March 2022) was an English actor, stage director and dramatist. In a career stretching over thirty years, he was a character actor in British television productions in the 1970s – 1980s, usually in bit-parts, or as a support playing a worldly-wise everyman. He played the role of Alain Muny in the 1970s BBC drama series '' Secret Army'', and wrote a stage musical entitled ''Jack the Ripper'' (1974), about the Victorian murder spree in London in the late 1880s, which is regularly produced by amateur theatre groups and companies around the globe. Early life Pember was born in Plaistow, then in the county of Essex, on 11 April 1934, the son of Gladys and William Pember. He received his formal education at Eastbrook Secondary Modern School, in Dagenham. In the mid-1950s, he enlisted as an Aircraftman with the Royal Air Force as part of the United Kingdom's National Service military training system, being stationed in Egypt. In the lat ...
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Plaistow, Newham
Plaistow ( or ) is a suburban town in East London, England, within the London Borough of Newham. It adjoins Upton Park to the north, East Ham to the east, Beckton to the south, Canning Town to the south-west and West Ham to the west. It was originally a ward in the parish of West Ham, hundred of Becontree, and part of the historic county of Essex. Since 1965, Plaistow has been part of the London Borough of Newham, a local government district of Greater London. The town forms the majority of the London E13 postcode district. Plaistow North and Plaistow South are two of the ten electoral wards making up the UK parliamentary constituency of West Ham. The main roads are the A112; Prince Regent Lane, Greengate Street, The Broadway, High Street and Plaistow Road, which is a former Roman road; and the A124 (Barking Road), which passes south west/ north east through Plaistow and past the former West Ham United football ground. Commercial and retail premises are on the A ...
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Repertory Company
A repertory theatre is a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation. United Kingdom Annie Horniman founded the first modern repertory theatre in Manchester after withdrawing her support from the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Horniman's Gaiety Theatre opened its first season in September of 1908. The opening of the Gaiety was followed by the Citizens' Theatre in Glasgow and the Liverpool Repertory Theatre. Previously, regional theatre relied on mostly London touring ensembles. During the time the theatre was being run by Annie Horniman, a wide variety of types of plays were produced. Horniman encouraged local writers who became known as the Manchester School of playwrights. They included Allan Monkhouse, Harold Brighouse, writer of ''Hobson's Choice'', and Stanley Houghton, who wrote '' Hindle Wakes''. Actors who performed at the Gaiety early in their careers included Sybil Thorndike and Basil Dean. From the 19 ...
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Oh, What A Lovely War
''Oh, What a Lovely War!'' is an epic musical developed by Joan Littlewood and her ensemble at the Theatre Workshop in 1963. It is a satire on World War I, and by extension on war in general. The title is derived from the "somewhat satirical" music hall song "Oh! It's a Lovely War!", which is one of the major numbers in the production. Development The idea for the production started on Armistice Day 1962 when Gerry Raffles heard the repeat of the second version of Charles Chilton's radio musical for the BBC Home Service, called ''The Long Long Trail'' about World War I. Written and produced by Chilton in memory of his father''The Show to End All Wars'', Simon Russell Beale, BBC Radio 4 2013-09-1/ref> whose name was inscribed on the Arras Flying Services Memorial, memorial at Arras, the piece was a radio documentary that used facts and statistics, juxtaposed with reminiscences and versions of songs of the time, as an ironic critique of the reality of the war.
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Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Its southern and western border with the United States, stretching , is the world's longest binational land border. Canada's capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Indigenous peoples have continuously inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years. Beginning in the 16th century, British and French expeditions explored and later settled along the Atlantic coast. As a consequence of various armed conflicts, France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces an ...
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New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the List of United States cities by population density, most densely populated major city in the United States, and is more than twice as populous as second-place Los Angeles. New York City lies at the southern tip of New York (state), New York State, and constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban area, urban landmass. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous Megacity, megacities, and over 58 million people live within of the city. New York City is a global city, global Culture of New ...
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Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London, commonly known as the National Theatre (NT), is one of the United Kingdom's three most prominent publicly funded performing arts venues, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Opera House. Internationally, it is known as the National Theatre of Great Britain. Founded by Laurence Olivier in 1963, many well-known actors have performed at the National Theatre. Until 1976, the company was based at The Old Vic theatre in Waterloo. The current building is located next to the Thames in the South Bank area of central London. In addition to performances at the National Theatre building, the National Theatre tours productions at theatres across the United Kingdom. The theatre has transferred numerous productions to Broadway and toured some as far as China, Australia and New Zealand. However, touring productions to European cities was suspended in February 2021 over concerns about uncertainty over work permits, additional costs and ...
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Poor Cow
''Poor Cow'' is a 1967 British kitchen sink drama film directed by Ken Loach and based on Nell Dunn's 1967 novel of the same name. It was Ken Loach's first feature film, after a series of TV productions. The film was re-released in the UK in 2016. Plot 18-year-old Joy, who comes from a big family with a heavy drinking mother and womanising father, leaves home to marry Tom and they have a son, Johnny. Tom mentally and physically abuses Joy and shows little interest or affection. He has been in prison for four years and, when he is jailed again after being caught attempting a big robbery, Joy and her very young son are left on their own. After briefly sharing a room with her Aunt Emm, an aging prostitute, Joy moves in with Dave, one of Tom's criminal associates. Dave is tender and understanding, but the idyll is shattered when he is sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment for leading a robbery which results in a woman being blinded, and given his long criminal record, early release ...
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Pilgrim's Progress
''The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come'' is a 1678 Christian allegory written by John Bunyan. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of theological fiction in English literature and a progenitor of the narrative aspect of Christian media. It has been translated into more than 200 languages and never been out of print. It appeared in Dutch in 1681, in German in 1703 and in Swedish in 1727. The first North American edition was issued in 1681.Lyons, M. (2011). Books: A Living History. Getty Publications. It has also been cited as the first novel written in English. According to literary editor Robert McCrum, "there's no book in English, apart from the Bible, to equal Bunyan's masterpiece for the range of its readership, or its influence on writers as diverse as C. S. Lewis, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, George Bernard Shaw, William Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck a ...
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The Pumpkin Eater
''The Pumpkin Eater'' is a 1964 British drama film starring Anne Bancroft as an unusually fertile woman and Peter Finch as her philandering husband. The film was adapted by Harold Pinter from the 1962 novel of the same title by Penelope Mortimer and was directed by Jack Clayton. The title is a reference to the nursery rhyme "Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater". Plot The film's narrative revolves around Jo Armitage (Anne Bancroft), a woman with an ambiguous number of children from three marriages, who becomes negative and withdrawn after discovering that her third (and current) husband, Jake (Peter Finch), has been unfaithful to her. After a series of loosely related events in which Jake's infidelity is balanced by his reliability as a breadwinner and a father, Jo and Jake take a first tentative step toward reconciliation. Thematically, there are two issues: Jo's frequent childbearing and Jake's extramarital affairs. The question of Jo's fertility is first broached by her psychiatrist. ...
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Dixon Of Dock Green
''Dixon of Dock Green'' was a BBC police procedural television series about daily life at a fictional London police station, with the emphasis on petty crime, successfully controlled through common sense and human understanding. It ran from 1955 to 1976. The central character, George Dixon, first appeared in the film ''The Blue Lamp''. Dixon is a mature and sympathetic police constable, played by Jack Warner in all of the 432 episodes. Dixon is the embodiment of a typical "bobby" who would be familiar with the area in which he patrolled and its residents and often lived there himself. The series contrasted with later programmes such as ''Z-Cars'', which reflected a more aggressive policing culture. It retained a faithful following throughout its run and was voted second-most popular programme on British television in 1961. Jack Warner Warner's success as Dixon was well received by police forces. He was made an honorary member of both the Margate and Ramsgate Police Forces in ...
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Adelphi Theatre
The Adelphi Theatre is a West End theatre, located on the Strand in the City of Westminster, central London. The present building is the fourth on the site. The theatre has specialised in comedy and musical theatre, and today it is a receiving house for a variety of productions, including many musicals. The theatre was Grade II listed for historical preservation on 1 December 1987. History 19th century It was founded in 1806 as the Sans Pareil ("Without Compare"), by merchant John Scott, and his daughter Jane (1770–1839). Jane was a British theatre manager, performer, and playwright. Together, they gathered a theatrical company and by 1809 the theatre was licensed for musical entertainments, pantomime, and burletta. She wrote more than fifty stage pieces in an array of genres: melodramas, pantomimes, farces, comic operettas, historical dramas, and adaptations, as well as translations. Jane Scott retired to Surrey in 1819, marrying John Davies Middleton (1790–186 ...
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Blitz!
''Blitz!'' is a musical by Lionel Bart. The musical, described by Steven Suskin as "massive", was set in the East End of London during the Blitz (the aerial bombings during World War II). The story drew on Bart's childhood memories of London's Jewish East End during the Blitz and, like most musicals, centred on a romance between a young couple, in this case a Jewish woman and a Cockney man, although the largest role and main point-of-view character is that of Mrs Blitztein, the young woman's mother.Suskin 2005, Mandelbaum 2005. Steven Suskin describes it as "''Abie's Irish Rose'' set against the burning of Atlanta." Bart himself described the play as "…three human stories inside an epic canvas; the major human conflictthe major plotpersonifies the spirit of London and how that spirit developed during the period of the piece."Mandelbaum 2005 Production history ''Blitz!'' opened in London on 8 May 1962 at the Adelphi Theatre, while Bart's enormous West End success ''Oliver!'' wa ...
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