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Sophie Harris
Audrey Sophia "Sophie" Harris (2 July 1900 – 10 March 1966) was an English award winning theatre and opera costume and scenic designer. Biography Born in Hayes, Kent, the third child and first daughter of William Birkbeck Harris, a Lloyds Insurance clerk, and his wife Kathleen Marion Carey. With her younger sister Margaret "Percy" Harris she studied at The Chelsea Illustrators Studio in London. A fellow student was Elizabeth Montgomery, and the three formed a theatre design partnership known as Motley Theatre Design Group. The first full-scale production on which they worked was ''Romeo and Juliet'' for the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), John Gielgud's début as a director. The great success of this led to an invitation from Gielgud to design Gordon Daviot's ''Richard of Bordeaux'', which opened at the New Theatre in St Martins Lane, London, in February 1933. The production was a huge success, achieving cult status, with playgoers queuing round the block ever ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hayes, Bromley
Hayes is a suburban area of South East London, Greater London, England. Prior to 1965 it was within the London Borough of Bromley and the historic county of Kent. It is located south-east of Charing Cross, to the north of Keston and Coney Hall, west of Bromley Common, south of Bromley town centre, and east of West Wickham. History The ancient village The name ''Hayes'' is recorded from 1177 as ''hoese'' from the Anglo-Saxon meaning "a settlement in open land overgrown with shrubs and rough bushes". It formed an ancient, and later civil, parish of Kent of around . The village stood at the junction of Hayes Lane, leading north to Bromley (one mile distant), and what is now known as Pickhurst Lane, leading west to West Wickham; the centre of the old village is now called ''Hayes Street''. The village school was here, as is the parish church of St Mary the Virgin. Parts of the church date back to the thirteenth century, however it was subject to heavy restorations by George G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glen Byam Shaw
Glencairn Alexander "Glen" Byam Shaw, CBE (13 December 1904 – 29 April 1986) was an English actor and theatre director, known for his dramatic productions in the 1950s and his operatic productions in the 1960s and later. In the 1920s and 1930s Byam Shaw was a successful actor, both in romantic leads and in character parts. He worked frequently with his old friend John Gielgud. After working as co-director with Gielgud at the end of the 1930s, he preferred to direct rather than act. He served in the armed forces during the Second World War, and then took leading directorial posts at the Old Vic, the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre and Sadler's Wells (later known as the English National Opera). Life and career Early years Byam Shaw was born in London, the youngest of five siblings (four sons and one daughter) born to artist John Byam Liston Shaw and his wife, Caroline Evelyn Eunice Pyke-Nott (1870–1959), also an artist.Denison, Michael"Shaw, Glencairn Alexander Byam (1904–1986 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Innocents (1961 Film)
''The Innocents'' is a 1961 gothic psychological horror film directed and produced by Jack Clayton, and starring Deborah Kerr, Michael Redgrave, and Megs Jenkins. Based on the 1898 novella ''The Turn of the Screw'' by the American novelist Henry James, the screenplay was adapted by William Archibald and Truman Capote, who used Archibald's own 1950 stage play—also titled ''The Innocents''—as a primary source text. Its plot follows a governess who watches over two children and comes to fear that their large estate is haunted by ghosts and that the children are being possessed. Archibald's original screenplay for ''The Innocents'' was based on the premise that the paranormal events depicted were legitimate. Displeased with Archibald's take on the material, director Jack Clayton appointed American writer Truman Capote to rework the script. Capote's rewrites incorporated psychological themes, resulting in a final work that suggests other alternatives to the plot. Filming took pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Clayton
Jack Isaac Clayton (1 March 1921 – 26 February 1995) was a British film director and producer who specialised in bringing literary works to the screen. Overview Starting out as a teenage studio "tea boy" in 1935, Clayton worked his way up through British film industry in a career that spanned nearly sixty years. He rapidly rose through a series of increasingly important roles in British film production, before shooting to international prominence as a director with his Oscar-winning feature film debut, the drama '' Room at the Top'' (1959). This was followed by the much-lauded horror film '' The Innocents'' (1961), based on Henry James' ''The Turn of the Screw''. Clayton looked set for a brilliant future, and he was highly regarded by peers and critics alike, but a number of overlapping factors hampered his career. He was a notably 'choosy' director, who by his own admission "never made a film I didn't want to make", and he repeatedly turned down films (including ''Alien'') ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
This Sporting Life
''This Sporting Life'' is a 1963 British kitchen sink drama film directed by Lindsay Anderson. Based on the 1960 novel of the same name by David Storey, which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award, it recounts the story of a rugby league footballer, Frank Machin, in Wakefield, a mining city in Yorkshire, whose romantic life is not as successful as his sporting life. Storey, a former professional rugby league footballer, also wrote the screenplay. The film stars Richard Harris, Rachel Roberts, William Hartnell and Alan Badel. The film was Harris's first starring role, and won him the Best Actor Award at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival. He was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role. Roberts won her second BAFTA award and received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Harris was nominated for the BAFTA that year as well. The film opened at the Odeon Leicester Square in London's West End on 7 February 1963. Plot Set in Wakefield, the film concerns Frank Mach ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner (film)
''The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner'' is a 1962 British coming-of-age film. The screenplay was written by Alan Sillitoe from his 1959 short story of the same title. The film was directed by Tony Richardson, one of the new young directors emerging from the English Stage Company at the Royal Court. It tells the story of a rebellious youth (played by Tom Courtenay), sentenced to a borstal for burgling a bakery, who gains privileges in the institution through his prowess as a long-distance runner. During his solitary runs, reveries of important events before his incarceration lead him to re-evaluate his status as the prize athlete of the Governor (Michael Redgrave), eventually undertaking a rebellious act of personal autonomy and suffering an immediate loss of privileges. The film poster's byline is "you can play it by rules... or you can play it by ear – WHAT COUNTS is that you play it right for you...". The film depicts Britain in the late 1950s and early 1960s as an e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Taste Of Honey (film)
''A Taste of Honey'' is a 1961 British film adaptation of the 1958 play of the same name by Shelagh Delaney. Delaney wrote the screenplay with director Tony Richardson, who had directed the play on the stage. It is an exemplar of a gritty genre of British film that has come to be called kitchen sink realism. The film opened on 15 September 1961 at the Leicester Square Theatre in London's West End. Plot The film starts with girls playing a game of netball in a school playground. Jo and her mother then move across Manchester on a bus. The story is set in a run-down, post-industrial area of Salford. Jo (Rita Tushingham) is a 17-year-old schoolgirl with a self-centred, promiscuous, alcoholic mother, Helen (Dora Bryan). The two of them frequently argue, and rarely stay in one home for long, since the mother runs up rent arrears, and is either evicted, or elects to abandon the property without settling any debts. As they move into a shabby new flat, a young black sailor called Ji ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (film)
''Saturday Night and Sunday Morning'' is a 1960 British kitchen sink drama film directed by Karel Reisz and produced by Tony Richardson. It is an adaptation of the 1958 novel of the same name by Alan Sillitoe, who also wrote the screenplay adaptation. The film is about a young teddy boy machinist, Arthur, who spends his weekends drinking and partying, all the while having an affair with a married woman. The film is one of a series of "kitchen sink drama" films made in the late 1950s and early 1960s, as part of the British New Wave of filmmaking, from directors such as Reisz, Jack Clayton, Lindsay Anderson, John Schlesinger and Tony Richardson and adapted from the works of writers such as Sillitoe, John Braine and John Osborne. A common trope in these films was the working-class " angry young man" character (in this case, the character of Arthur), who rebels against the oppressive system of his elders. In 1999, the British Film Institute named ''Saturday Night and Sunday Morning' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Woodfall Film Productions
Woodfall Film Productions was a British film production company established in the late 1950s. It was established by Tony Richardson, John Osborne and Harry Saltzman to make a screen adaptation of Osborne's best known play. The film version of ''Look Back in Anger'', directed by Richardson and produced by Saltzman, was released in 1959. Following its critical success, Woodfall, under the effective control of Richardson, produced several of the most significant British films of the 1960s. These include ''Saturday Night and Sunday Morning'' (1960), ''A Taste of Honey'' (1961) and ''The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner'' (1962). A later Woodfall film, '' Tom Jones'' (1963), won four Academy Awards in 1964. According to film director Desmond Davis, Woodfall Films brought a new era of realism to British films, strongly influenced by the French ''nouvelle vague''. Woodfall became dormant after Richardson's death in 1991, but in 2014 his surviving family agreed that the films be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England. In 1956 it was acquired by and remains the home of the English Stage Company, which is known for its contributions to contemporary theatre and won the Europe Prize Theatrical Realities in 1999. History The first theatre The first theatre on Lower George Street, off Sloane Square, was the converted Nonconformist Ranelagh Chapel, opened as a theatre in 1870 under the name The New Chelsea Theatre. Marie Litton became its manager in 1871, hiring Walter Emden to remodel the interior, and it was renamed the Court Theatre. Several of W. S. Gilbert's early plays were staged here, including ''Randall's Thumb'', ''Creatures of Impulse'' (with music by Alberto Randegger), ''Great Expectations'' (adapted from the Dickens novel), and ''On Gu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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