Stephen Poliakoff
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Stephen Poliakoff
Stephen Poliakoff (born 1 December 1952) is a British playwright, director and screenwriter. In 2006 Gerard Gilbert of ''The Independent'' described him as the UK's "pre-eminent TV dramatist" who had "inherited Dennis Potter's crown". Early life Poliakoff was born in Holland Park, West London, to Ina (née Montagu) and Alexander Poliakoff. His father was a Russian-Jewish immigrant and his mother was a British Jew. His maternal grandfather had bought 16th-century mansion Great Fosters, and his maternal great-grandfather was Samuel Montagu, 1st Baron Swaythling. The second of four children, he was sent at a young age to Marlborough House School, which he hated. He then attended Westminster School, where he attracted sufficient attention for ''Granny'', a play he wrote and directed, to be reviewed in ''The Times'' newspaper. After Westminster, he went to King's College, Cambridge to read history but left after two years, later recalling Cambridge as "a stuffy place" and the h ...
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Holland Park
Holland Park is an area of Kensington, on the western edge of Central London, that contains a street and public park of the same name. It has no official boundaries but is roughly bounded by Kensington High Street to the south, Holland Road to the west, Holland Park Avenue to the north, and Kensington Church Street to the east. Adjacent districts are Notting Hill to the north, Earl's Court to the south, and Shepherd's Bush to the northwest. The area is principally composed of tree-lined streets with large Victorian townhouses, and contains many shops, cultural tourist attractions such as the Design Museum, luxury spas, hotels, and restaurants, as well as the embassies of several countries. The street of Holland Park is formed from three linked roads constructed between 1860 and 1880 in projects of master builders William and Francis Radford, who were contracted to build and built over 200 houses in the area. Notable nineteenth-century residential developments in the area in ...
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The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (founded in 1821) are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, in turn wholly owned by News Corp. ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'', which do not share editorial staff, were founded independently and have only had common ownership since 1966. In general, the political position of ''The Times'' is considered to be centre-right. ''The Times'' is the first newspaper to have borne that name, lending it to numerous other papers around the world, such as ''The Times of India'', ''The New York Times'', and more recently, digital-first publications such as TheTimesBlog.com (Since 2017). In countries where these other titles are popular, the newspaper is often referred to as , or as , although the newspaper is of nationa ...
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Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, Stratford-upon-Avon, and on tour across the UK and internationally. The company's home is in Stratford-upon-Avon, where it has redeveloped its Royal Shakespeare and Swan theatres as part of a £112.8-million "Transformation" project. The theatres re-opened in November 2010, having closed in 2007. The new buildings attracted 18,000 visitors within the first week and received a positive media response both upon opening, and following the first full Shakespeare performances. Performances in Stratford-upon-Avon continued throughout the Transformation project at the temporary Courtyard Theatre. As well as the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, the RSC produces new work from living artists and develops creative links with theatre-make ...
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Fascism
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites, and the desire to create a (German: “people’s community”), in which individual interests would be subordinated to the good of the nation" characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Fascism rose to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I, before spreading to other European countries, most notably Germany. Fascism also had adherents outside of Europe. Opposed to anarchism, democracy, pluralism, liberalism ...
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Scottish Television
Scottish Television (now, legally, known as STV Central Limited) is the ITV network franchisee for Central Scotland. The channel — the largest of the three ITV franchises in Scotland — has been in operation since 31 August 1957 and is the second-oldest franchise holder in the UK that is still active (the oldest being Granada Television). STV Central broadcasts from studios at Pacific Quay in Glasgow and is owned and operated by STV Group (formerly SMG plc), which also owns the Northern Scotland franchise, Grampian Television (now STV North), based in Aberdeen. It produces news for the west and east halves of its transmission region ('' STV News at Six'') along with current affairs and feature programming for Northern and Central Scotland. Along with STV North and ITV Border, STV Central is a commercial rival to the publicly funded national broadcaster, BBC Scotland. History Scottish Television was founded by Canadian newspaper magnate Roy Thomson (later Lord Thoms ...
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ITV (TV Network)
ITV is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network. It was launched in 1955 as Independent Television to provide competition to BBC Television (established in 1936). ITV is the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, it has been legally known as Channel 3 to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time, BBC1, BBC2 and Channel 4. ITV was for four decades a network of separate companies which provided regional television services and also shared programmes between each other to be shown on the entire network. Each franchise was originally owned by a different company. After several mergers, the fifteen regional franchises are now held by two companies: ITV plc, which runs the ITV1 channel, and STV Group, which runs the STV channel. The ITV network is a separate entity from ITV plc, the company that resulted from the merger of Granada plc and Carlton Communications in 2004. ITV plc holds the Channel 3 ...
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Thames Television
Thames Television, commonly simplified to just Thames, was a Broadcast license, franchise holder for a region of the British ITV (TV network), ITV television network serving Greater London, London and surrounding areas from 30 July 1968 until the night of 31 December 1992. Thames Television broadcast from 9:25 Monday morning to 5:15 Friday afternoon (7:00 Friday night until 1982) at which time it would hand over to London Weekend Television (LWT). Formed as a joint company, it merged the television interests of British Electric Traction (trading as Associated-Rediffusion) owning 49%, and Associated British Picture Corporation—soon taken over by EMI—owning 51%. Like all ITV franchisees, it was a broadcaster, a producer and a commissioner of television programmes, making shows both for the local region it covered and, as one of the History of ITV#The Big Four and Big Five, "Big Five" ITV companies, for networking nationally across the ITV regions. After its loss of franchise i ...
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Peggy Ashcroft
Dame Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft (22 December 1907 – 14 June 1991), known professionally as Peggy Ashcroft, was an English actress whose career spanned more than 60 years. Born to a comfortable middle-class family, Ashcroft was determined from an early age to become an actress, despite parental opposition. She was working in smaller theatres even before graduating from drama school, and within two years she was starring in the West End. Ashcroft maintained her leading place in British theatre for the next 50 years. Always attracted by the ideals of permanent theatrical ensembles, she did much of her work for the Old Vic in the early 1930s, John Gielgud's companies in the 1930s and 1940s, the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre and its successor the Royal Shakespeare Company from the 1950s, and the National Theatre from the 1970s. While well regarded in Shakespeare, Ashcroft was also known for her commitment to modern drama, appearing in plays by Bertolt Brecht, Samuel B ...
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BBC2
BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio channels, it is funded by the television licence, and is therefore free of commercial advertising. It is a comparatively well-funded public-service network, regularly attaining a much higher audience share than most public-service networks worldwide. Originally styled BBC2, it was the third British television station to be launched (starting on 21 April 1964), and from 1 July 1967, Europe's first television channel to broadcast regularly in colour. It was envisaged as a home for less mainstream and more ambitious programming, and while this tendency has continued to date, most special-interest programmes of a kind previously broadcast on BBC Two, for example the BBC Proms, no ...
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Caught On A Train
''Caught on a Train'' is a British television play written by Stephen Poliakoff and directed by Peter Duffell, based on an overnight train journey across Europe, and following the route of a journey that Poliakoff had himself made from London to Vienna. It was first shown, as part of the ''BBC2 Playhouse'' series, on 31 October 1980, and was re-shown in 2001 and 2006. The play stars Dame Peggy Ashcroft and Michael Kitchen, and the main supporting cast features Wendy Raebeck and Michael Sheard. The soundtrack was written by the jazz composer Mike Westbrook. The play won a BAFTA Television Award and other plaudits in 1980. Having previously been available on VHS, the play was released on DVD by BBC Worldwide in 2004, with an audio commentary by Poliakoff and the producer, Kenith Trodd. References External links The film's entry at the BFI Screenonline''Caught ...
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Stephen Frears
Stephen Arthur Frears (born 20 June 1941) is an English director and producer of film and television often depicting real life stories as well as projects that explore social class through sharply drawn characters. He's received numerous accolades including three BAFTA Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award as well as nominations for two Academy Awards. In 2008, ''The Daily Telegraph'' named Frears among the 100 most influential people in British culture. In 2009 he received the Commandeur de l' Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Born in Leicester and educated at Gresham's School and Trinity College, Cambridge, Frears started his career working as an assistant director in theatre and film while directing numerous television plays. In 1971, he directed his first feature film, '' Gumshoe''. He received acclaim for his early films such as ''My Beautiful Laundrette'' (1985), ''Prick Up Your Ears'' (1987), and ''Dangerous Liaisons'' (1988). He received Academy Award for Best Director nom ...
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Associated TeleVision
Associated Television was the original name of the British broadcaster ATV, part of the Independent Television (ITV) network. It provided a service to London at weekends from 1955 to 1968, to the Midlands on weekdays from 1956 to 1968, and to the Midlands all week from 1968 to 1982. It was one of the " Big Four" until 1968, and the "Big Five" after 1968, that between them produced the majority of ITV networked programmes. In 1982, ATV was restructured and rebranded as Central Independent Television, under which name it continued to provide the service for the Midlands. ATV was awarded its first franchise by the Independent Television Authority (ITA) to provide the Independent Television service at weekends for the London region. This service started on Saturday, 24 September 1955, the second ITA franchise to go on air, and was extended until Sunday, 28 July 1968. ATV was also awarded the franchise to provide the weekdays Independent Television service for the Midlands region ...
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