Testimony (1988 Film)
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Testimony (1988 Film)
''Testimony'' is a 1988 British independent musical film, musical drama film directed by Tony Palmer and starring Ben Kingsley, Sherry Baines and Robert Stephens. The film is based on the memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) as dictated in the book ''Testimony (Volkov book), Testimony'' (edited by Solomon Volkov, ) and filmed in Panavision. Cast *Ben Kingsley as Dmitri Shostakovich *Sherry Baines as Nina Shostakovich *Magdalen Asquith as Galya Shostakovich *Mark Asquith as Maxim Shostakovich *Terence Rigby as Joseph Stalin *Ronald Pickup as Mikhail Tukhachevsky *John Shrapnel as Andrei Zhdanov *Robert Reynolds as Brutus *Vernon Dobtcheff as Gargolovsky *Colin Hurst as Stalin’s Secretary *Joyce Grundy as Keke Geladze *Mark Thrippleton as Young Joseph Stalin *Liza Goddard as The English Humanist *Peter Woodthorpe as Alexander Glazunov *Robert Stephens as Vsevolod Meyerhold *William Squire as Aram Khachaturian *Murray Melvin as The Film Editor *Robert Urquhart (actor), ...
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Tony Palmer
Tony Palmer (born 29 August 1941)IMDb: Tony Palmer
Retrieved 24 September 2011
is a British film director and author. His work includes over 100 films, ranging from early works with , , , ('' Irish Tour '74'') and

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Mikhail Tukhachevsky
Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Тухачевский, Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevskiy, p=tʊxɐˈtɕefskʲɪj;  – 12 June 1937) nicknamed the Red Napoleon by foreign newspapers, was a Soviet general who was prominent between 1918 and 1937 as a military officer and theoretician. After service in World War I of 1914-1917 and in the Russian Civil War of 1917-1923, from 1920 to 1921 he commanded the Soviet Western Front in the Polish–Soviet War. Soviet forces under his command successfully repelled the Polish forces from Western Ukraine, driving them back into Poland, but the Red Army suffered defeat outside of Warsaw, and the war ended in a Soviet defeat. He later served as chief of staff of the Red Army from 1925 through 1928, as assistant in the People's Commissariat of Defense after 1934 and as commander of the Volga Military District in 1937. He achieved the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1935. As a ma ...
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Brook Williams
Brook Richard Williams (22 January 1938 – 29 April 2005) was a British stage actor who also made numerous film and television appearances in small roles. Biography His father was the Welsh playwright and actor Emlyn Williams. His older brother Alan was a foreign correspondent and novelist. Brook was born in London and attended Stowe School in Buckinghamshire. After national service in the RAF he appeared on stage in repertory theatre, in London's West End and abroad on tour. His film appearances included: ''The Plague of the Zombies'' (1966), ''Where Eagles Dare'' (1968), '' Anne of the Thousand Days'' (1969), ''Villain'' (1971), ''The Wild Geese'' (1978) and '' The Sea Wolves'' (1980). He was a close friend, assistant and advisor to actor Richard Burton who had known him since he was a child and he appeared in several films in which Burton starred.
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Christopher Bramwell
Christopher Bramwell is a British actor who was active on television from 1977 until 1996. He appeared in several TV dramas including ''Grange Hill'', '' Enemy at the Door'', '' Tales of the Unexpected'', '' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'' (in a brief appearance as the adult Peter Pevensie) and ''Van der Valk''. He was also a presenter on Playschool in the early 1980s. In a non-speaking role, he portrayed the young George Frideric Handel in Tony Palmer's television film '' God Rot Tunbridge Wells!'' (1985). His most recent television appearance was in ''This Life This may refer to: * ''This'', the singular proximal demonstrative pronoun Places * This, or ''Thinis'', an ancient city in Upper Egypt * This, Ardennes, a commune in France People with the surname * Hervé This, French culinary chemist Arts, e ...''. External links * British male television actors Living people Year of birth missing (living people) {{UK-tv-actor-stub ...
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Robert Urquhart (actor)
Robert Urquhart (16 October 1922 – 21 March 1995) was a Scottish character actor who worked on the stage, for British television, and in film. His breakthrough role was Paul Krempe in ''The Curse of Frankenstein'' in 1957, along with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Early life Urquhart was born in Ullapool, Scotland. His father was a sailor with the Merchant Navy. He was educated at George Heriot's School in Edinburgh. After school, he entered the Merchant Navy and went to Australia, New Zealand, South America, and South Africa as an apprentice before earning third mate's papers. He continued his service during World War II. In 1942, he left the Merchant Navy after his ship was torpedoed three times and worked in Glasgow's docklands. He won an ex-serviceman's scholarship that allowed him to train at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Career Stage Urquhart made his stage debut in 1947 at the Park Theatre in Glasgow, Scotland. That same year, he was cast in Tyrone Guthr ...
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Murray Melvin
Murray Melvin (born 10 August 1932) is an English actor. He is best known for his acting work with Joan Littlewood, Ken Russell and Stanley Kubrick. He is the author of two books: ''The Art of Theatre Workshop'' (2006) and ''The Theatre Royal, A History of the Building'' (2009). Early years Melvin was born on 10 August 1932 in St. Pancras, London, the son of Hugh Victor Melvin and Maisie Winifred, née Driscoll. Melvin left his north London secondary school at the age of fourteen unable to master fractions but as head prefect, a qualification he says he gained by always having clean fingernails and well-combed hair. He started work as an office boy for a firm of travel agents off Oxford Street. To help channel the energies of the young after the disturbing times of the war, his parents had helped to found a youth club in Hampstead, financed by the Co-operative Society of which they were longstanding members. A drama section formed with Melvin its most enthusiastic participant ...
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Aram Khachaturian
Aram Ilyich Khachaturian (; rus, Арам Ильич Хачатурян, , ɐˈram ɨˈlʲjitɕ xətɕɪtʊˈrʲan, Ru-Aram Ilyich Khachaturian.ogg; hy, Արամ Խաչատրյան, ''Aram Xačʿatryan''; 1 May 1978) was a Soviet and Armenian composer and conductor. He is considered one of the leading Soviet composers. Born and raised in Tbilisi, the multicultural capital of Georgia, Khachaturian moved to Moscow in 1921 following the Sovietization of the Caucasus. Without prior music training, he enrolled in the Gnessin Musical Institute, subsequently studying at the Moscow Conservatory in the class of Nikolai Myaskovsky, among others. His first major work, the Piano Concerto (1936), popularized his name within and outside the Soviet Union. It was followed by the Violin Concerto (1940) and the Cello Concerto (1946). His other significant compositions include the '' Masquerade Suite'' (1941), the Anthem of the Armenian SSR (1944), three symphonies (1935, 1943, 1947), and ar ...
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William Squire
William Squire (29 April 1917 – 3 May 1989) was a Welsh actor of stage, film and television. Squire was born in Neath, Glamorgan, the son of William Squire and his wife Martha (née Bridgeman). Career As a stage actor, Squire performed at Stratford-upon-Avon and at the Old Vic, and notably replaced his fellow-countryman Richard Burton as King Arthur in ''Camelot'' at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. One of his first film appearances was in the 1956 film ''Alexander the Great'', which starred Burton in the title role. His varied screen roles included Thomas More in the 1969 film version of Maxwell Anderson's play ''Anne of the Thousand Days'', Sir Daniel Brackley in the 1972 television adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's ''The Black Arrow'', the voice of Gandalf in the 1978 animated version of ''The Lord of the Rings'' and the Shadow in the 1979 '' Doctor Who'' serial ''The Armageddon Factor''. Perhaps his best-known role was as Hunter, the superior of secret agent David ...
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Vsevolod Meyerhold
Vsevolod Emilyevich Meyerhold (russian: Всеволод Эмильевич Мейерхольд, translit=Vsévolod Èmíl'evič Mejerchól'd; born german: Karl Kasimir Theodor Meyerhold; 2 February 1940) was a Russian and Soviet theatre director, actor and theatrical producer. His provocative experiments dealing with physical being and symbolism in an unconventional theatre setting made him one of the seminal forces in modern international theatre. During the Great Purge, Meyerhold was arrested in June 1939. He was tortured, his wife was murdered, and he was executed on 2 February 1940. Life and work Early life Vsevolod Meyerhold was born Karl Kasimir Theodor Meyerhold in Penza on to Russian-German wine manufacturer Friedrich Emil Meyerhold and his Baltic German wife, Alvina Danilovna (). He was the youngest of eight children.Pitches (2003, pg. 4) After completing school in 1895, Meyerhold studied law at Moscow University but never completed his degree. He was ...
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Alexander Glazunov
Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov; ger, Glasunow (, 10 August 1865 – 21 March 1936) was a Russian composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Russian Romantic period. He was director of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory between 1905 and 1928 and was instrumental in the reorganization of the institute into the Petrograd Conservatory, then the Leningrad Conservatory, following the Bolshevik Revolution. He continued as head of the Conservatory until 1930, though he had left the Soviet Union in 1928 and did not return. The best-known student under his tenure during the early Soviet years was Dmitri Shostakovich. Glazunov successfully reconciled nationalism and cosmopolitanism in Russian music. While he was the direct successor to Balakirev's nationalism, he tended more towards Borodin's epic grandeur while absorbing a number of other influences. These included Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestral virtuosity, Tchaikovsky's lyricism and Taneyev's contrapuntal skill. Younger comp ...
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Peter Woodthorpe
Peter Woodthorpe (25 September 1931 – 13 August 2004) was an English actor who supplied the voice of Gollum in the 1978 Bakshi version of ''The Lord of the Rings'' and BBC's 1981 radio serial. He also provided the voice of Pigsy in the cult series ''Monkey'' and was Max the pathologist in early episodes of ''Inspector Morse''. In 1955, he portrayed Estragon in the first British production of '' Waiting for Godot''. He had then just finished his second year reading Biochemistry at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and expected to return after a run of a few weeks. When the play was successful, faced with the choice of dropping out either from Cambridge or from the play, he chose to stay with the play and his acting career. In 1960, he played Aston in the first production of Harold Pinter's ''The Caretaker'' at the Arts Theatre, in London, prior to transferring to the West End's Duchess Theatre on 30 May 1960. He also starred as Oxford in the Broadway musical Darling of the Day. ...
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Mark Thrippleton
Mark Thrippleton (born 13 July 1967) is an England, English actor from Leeds. Thrippleton worked as a roofer and tiler before taking up acting in the 1980s. In 1984 he appeared in ''How We Used to Live'' — a British educational drama tracing the lives and fortunes of fictional Yorkshire families from Ewardian times. He also played a young Joseph Stalin in the film ''Testimony (1988 film), Testimony'' (1988), which told the story of the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. Thrippleton is best known for playing the northern builder, Paul Priestly, in the popular BBC soap opera ''EastEnders''. His character joined the show in 1989, but was one of many to be axed in 1990 following the introduction of the new executive-producer, Michael Ferguson (director), Michael Ferguson. Thrippleton has since been seen in the successful ITV (TV network), ITV soap opera, ''Coronation Street'', playing the minor role of Simon Hanson in 1997.
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