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Ronald Fraser (actor)
Ronald Fraser (11 April 1930 – 13 March 1997) was a British character actor, who appeared in numerous British plays, films and television shows from the 1950s to the 1990s. An unusual appearance and unique delivery made him a natural comedic actor. Fraser was a familiar figure in West End clubs during the sixties, and despite a long-standing reputation as one of the hardest drinking of British actors he was still working in his last years. He was perhaps best known as Basil "Badger" Allenby-Johnson in the 1970s television series '' The Misfit''. Background Ronald Fraser was born in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, the son of an interior decorator and builder from Scotland. He attended Ashton Grammar School. He was educated in Scotland and did national service as a lieutenant in the Seaforth Highlanders. While serving in Benghazi in North Africa, he appeared in the comic play ''French Without Tears'' by Terence Rattigan. He trained as an actor at RADA until 1953 and soon appe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crooks In Cloisters
''Crooks in Cloisters'' is a 1964 British comedy film directed by Jeremy Summers and starring Ronald Fraser as 'Little Walter', the leader of a gang of forgers, including Barbara Windsor as 'Bikini', Bernard Cribbins as 'Squirts', Melvyn Hayes as 'Willy', Grégoire Aslan as 'Lorenzo', and Davy Kaye as 'Specs'. Plot After pulling off a train robbery by tricking the train into stopping with false signal lights, 'Little Walter' and his gang are forced to hide out on a remote Cornish island in a monastery (which they buy with their "ill-gotten gains"), disguised as monks. With them comes 'Bikini' (Barbara Windsor), Walter's girlfriend, who is given the job of cook to the group, despite never having cooked in her life. After a few initial setbacks, they slowly adjust to their new contemplative life of tending animals and crops, surviving the added tribulations of visits by a group of tourists and two of the real monks who had been forced to sell the monastery after falling on hard t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Vic
Old or OLD may refer to: Places *Old, Baranya, Hungary * Old, Northamptonshire, England *Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD) *OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, Maine, United States People *Old (surname) Music *OLD (band), a grindcore/industrial metal group * ''Old'' (Danny Brown album), a 2013 album by Danny Brown * ''Old'' (Starflyer 59 album), a 2003 album by Starflyer 59 * "Old" (song), a 1995 song by Machine Head *''Old LP'', a 2019 album by That Dog Other uses * ''Old'' (film), a 2021 American thriller film *'' Oxford Latin Dictionary'' * Online dating *Over-Locknut Distance (or Dimension), a measurement of a bicycle wheel and frame *Old age See also *List of people known as the Old * * *Olde, a list of people with the surname *Olds (other) Olds may refer to: People * The olds, a jocular and irreverent online nickname for older adults * Bert Olds (1891–1953), Australian ru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High Society (musical)
''High Society'' is a musical comedy with a book by Arthur Kopit and music and lyrics by Cole Porter. Some updated or new lyrics were provided by Susan Birkenhead. The musical is based on Philip Barry's 1939 stage comedy '' The Philadelphia Story'' and the subsequent 1956 musical film adaptation, ''High Society'', which features Porter's songs. The musical includes most of the music featured in the movie, along with several songs selected from other Porter musicals. It premiered on Broadway in 1998 and has since been revived.Simonson, Robert and David Lefkowitz"''High Society'' Opens on Broadway" Playbill.com, April 27, 1998 Another musical adaptation of the story had opened in London in 1987 with a different book by Richard Eyre. The plot centers on a pretentious Oyster Bay socialite who is planning to wed an equally pretentious executive, when her ex-husband arrives to disrupt the proceedings. Plot ;Act I Glamorous but pretentious Oyster Bay, Long Island socialite Tracy Sama ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Pirates Of Penzance
''The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty'' is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, W. S. Gilbert. Its official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where it was well received by both audiences and critics. Its London debut was on 3 April 1880, at the Opera Comique, where it ran for 363 performances. The story concerns Frederic, who, having completed his 21st year, is released from his apprenticeship to a band of tender-hearted pirates. He meets the daughters of Major-General Stanley, including Mabel, and the two young people fall instantly in love. Frederic soon learns, however, that he was born on the 29th of February, and so, technically, he has a birthday only once each leap year. His indenture specifies that he remain apprenticed to the pirates until his "twenty-first birthday", meaning that he must serve for another 63 years. Bound by his own sense of duty, Freder ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Papp
Joseph Papp (born Joseph Papirofsky; June 22, 1921 – October 31, 1991) was an American theatrical producer and director. He established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in Lower Manhattan. There Papp created a year-round producing home to focus on new plays and musicals. Among numerous examples of these were the works of David Rabe, Ntozake Shange's ''For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf'', Charles Gordone's '' No Place to Be Somebody'' (the first off-Broadway play to win the Pulitzer Prize), and Papp's production of Michael Bennett's Pulitzer Prize–winning musical ''A Chorus Line''. Papp also founded Shakespeare in the Park, helped to develop other off-Broadway theatres and worked to preserve the historic Broadway Theatre District. Early life Papp was born as Joseph Papirofsky in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, the son of Yetta (née Miritch), a seamstress, and Samuel Papirofsky, a trunkmaker. His par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Entertaining Mr Sloane
''Entertaining Mr Sloane'' is a three-act play written in 1963 by the English playwright Joe Orton. It was first produced in London at the New Arts Theatre on 6 May 1964 and transferred to the West End's Wyndham's Theatre on 29 June 1964. Plot summary Act 1 Mr Sloane, a young man looking for a place to board, happens by the residence of Kath, a middle-aged landlady whose home is on the outskirts of a rubbish dump. Kath is eager to have Mr Sloane as a tenant at her home, which she shares with her nearly-blind father Kemp. Getting acquainted with Mr Sloane, Kath is open about a previous relationship she had which led to her bearing a child; her brother insisted that she give it up for adoption because it was conceived out of wedlock. Mr Sloane reveals he is himself an orphan, though vague about his parents' death, except that they "passed away together". Kath's father immediately distrusts Mr Sloane, believing him to be the man who killed his employer some years earlier. After K ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seán O'Casey
Seán O'Casey ( ga, Seán Ó Cathasaigh ; born John Casey; 30 March 1880 – 18 September 1964) was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes. Early life O'Casey was born at 85 Upper Dorset Street, Dublin, as John Casey, the son of Michael Casey, a mercantile clerk (who worked for the Irish Church Missions), and Susan Archer. His parents were Protestants and he was a member of the Church of Ireland, baptised on 28 July 1880 in St. Mary's parish, confirmed at St John the Baptist Church in Clontarf, and an active member of St. Barnabas' Church on Sheriff Street until his mid-20s, when he drifted away from the church. There is a church called 'Saint Burnupus' in his play '' Red Roses For Me''. O'Casey's father died when Seán was just six years of age, leaving a family of thirteen. The family lived a peripatetic life thereafter, moving from house to house around north Dublin. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Showing Up Of Blanco Posnet
''The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet: A Sermon in Crude Melodrama'' is a one-act play by George Bernard Shaw, first produced in 1909. Shaw describes the play as a religious tract in dramatic form.Violet M. Broad & C. Lewis Broad ''Dictionary to the Plays and Novels of Bernard Shaw'', A. & C. Black, London, 1929, p.81. In 1909 Shaw jousted with governmental censorship, as personified by The Examiner Of Plays, an agency acting under the auspices of the Lord Chamberlain. The outcome, unsatisfactory to Shaw, is reviewed minutely in the Preface to this play, which had been refused a license to perform because of statements made by the protagonist about God, which were thought to violate the blasphemy law in force at the time. Characters *Babsy *Lottie *Hannah *Jessie *Emma *Elder Daniels *Blanco Posnet *Strapper Kemp *Euphemia "Feemy" Evans *Sheriff Kemp *Foreman of jury *Nestor *Waggoner Joe *The Woman Plot summary The play is set in the American West. Blanco Posnet, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Androcles And The Lion (play)
''Androcles and the Lion'' is a 1912 Play (theatre), play written by George Bernard Shaw. The play is Shaw's retelling of the tale of Androcles, a slave who is saved by the requiting mercy of a lion. In the play, Shaw portrays Androcles to be one of the many Christians being led to the Colosseum for torture. Characters in the play exemplify several themes and takes on both modern and supposed early Christianity, including the cultural clash between teachings of Jesus, Jesus' teachings and traditional Roman values. Characters *Androcles (main character) *The Lion *Magaera *Centurion *Captain *Lavinia *Lentulus *Metellus *Spintho *Ferrovius *Ox-Driver *Call Boy *The Editor *Menagerie Keeper *Caesar *Secutor *Retiariu Plot Androcles, a fugitive Christian tailor, accompanied by his nagging wife, is on the run from his Roman persecutors. While hiding in the forest he comes upon a wild lion who approaches him with a wounded paw. His wife runs off. Androcles sees that the cause of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Singular Man
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with nouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of the archaic pron ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ginger Man
''The Ginger Man'' is a novel, first published in Paris in 1955, by J. P. Donleavy. The story is set in Dublin, Ireland, in post-war 1947. Upon its publication, it was banned both in Ireland and the United States of America by reason of obscenity. Background Donleavy's friend and fellow writer Brendan Behan was the first person to read the completed manuscript. The book was rejected by numerous publishers, but ''The Manchester Guardian'' published some extracts from it, calling the book a "comic triumph". Subsequently, Behan told Donleavy about Olympia Press, a Paris-based English-language publisher that had produced works by Samuel Beckett, and Donleavy succeeded in getting the book published by them, but was angered when he discovered that it had done so under its pornography imprint. In his 1994 autobiography ''The History of The Ginger Man'', Donleavy wrote, "I smashed my fist upon its green cover format, published as it was in the pseudonymous and pornographic Traveller's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Long And The Short And The Tall (play)
''The Long and the Short and the Tall'' is a play written by British playwright Willis Hall. Set in the Second World War, the play premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London in January 1959; it was directed by Lindsay Anderson and starred Peter O'Toole and Robert Shaw. It was Anderson's first major production for the Royal Court, transferring to London's West End in April 1959. The play's name comes from the lyrics of the 1917 song "Bless 'Em All". A film adaptation was released in 1961. Directed by Leslie Norman, it stars Laurence Harvey, Richard Harris, Richard Todd and David McCallum. A TV drama followed in 1979 which starred Michael Kitchen, Mark McManus and Richard Morant. Plot The play is set in British Malaya in 1942, during the Battle of Malaya. The characters are a patrol of British Army soldiers; the play's events take place in an abandoned hut in the middle of the Malayan jungle. Tension rises as the patrol's radio malfunctions and a Japanese soldier stumbles up ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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