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The Utterly Utterly Merry Comic Relief Christmas Book
''The Utterly Utterly Merry Comic Relief Christmas Book'' was a fundraising book issued on behalf of Comic Relief in 1986. It was edited by Douglas Adams and Peter Fincham and contained contributions from Adams and many of the leading comedy writers and performers of the day. Contents The book is of particular interest to fans of Douglas Adams' work as it contains several items written by him which are hard to find or exclusive to the collection. Besides the novella '' Young Zaphod Plays it Safe'' and the short story "The Private Life of Genghis Khan", which have since appeared in ''The Salmon of Doubt'', the book also contains Adams' short story "A Christmas Fairly Story" (written in collaboration with Terry Jones) and three supplements to ''The Meaning of Liff''. Items by other authors include: * ''Adrian Mole's Christmas'', an addition to Sue Townsend's '' Adrian Mole'' series (later included in ''The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole''). * ''A New Decade of Heroic Fai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comic Relief (charity)
Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene, or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension. Definition Comic relief usually means a releasing of emotional or other tension resulting from a comic episode interposed in the midst of serious or tragic elements in a drama. Comic relief is often seen but is not limited to, taking the form of a bumbling, wisecracking sidekick of the hero or villain in a work of fiction. A sidekick used for comic relief will usually comment on the absurdity of the hero's situation and make comments that would be inappropriate for a character who is to be taken seriously. Other characters may use comic relief as a means to irritate others or keep themselves confident. Application Sometimes comic relief characters will appear in fiction that is comic. This generally occurs when the work enters a dramatic moment, but the character continues to be comical regardless. External comic reliefs and internal comic reli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxfam
Oxfam is a British-founded confederation of 21 independent charitable organizations focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, founded in 1942 and led by Oxfam International. History Founded at 17 Broad Street, Oxford, as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief by a group of Quakers, social activists, and Oxford academics in 1942 and registered in accordance with UK law in 1943, the original committee was a group of concerned citizens, including Henry Gillett (a prominent local Quaker), Theodore Richard Milford, Gilbert Murray and his wife Mary, Cecil Jackson-Cole, and Alan Pim. The committee met in the Old Library of University Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford, for the first time in 1942, and its aim was to help starving citizens of occupied Greece, a famine caused by the Axis occupation of Greece and Allied naval blockades and to persuade the British government to allow food relief through the blockade. The Oxford committee was one of several local committees for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adrian Edmonson
Adrian Charles Edmondson (born 24 January 1957) is an English actor, comedian, musician, writer and television presenter. He was part of the alternative comedy boom in the early 1980s and had roles in the television series '' The Young Ones'' (1982–1984) and ''Bottom'' (1991–1995), which he wrote together with his collaborator Rik Mayall. Edmondson also appeared in '' The Comic Strip Presents...'' series of films throughout the 1980s and 1990s. For one episode of this he created the spoof heavy metal band Bad News, and for another he played his nihilistic alter-ego Eddie Monsoon, an offensive South African television star. He played the lead role in the Comic Strip's 1985 feature film, ''The Supergrass''. In the 2000s, Edmondson appeared in numerous TV programmes in drama roles including ''Jonathan Creek'', '' Holby City'', ''Miss Austen Regrets'', as himself on ''Hell's Kitchen'' and created the sitcom ''Teenage Kicks''. Since 2006, Edmondson has concentrated increasingly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Angus Deayton
Gordon Angus Deayton (; born 6 January 1956) is an English actor, writer, musician, comedian, and broadcaster. He was the original presenter of the satirical panel game '' Have I Got News for You,'' the host of British panel show '' Would I Lie to You?'' from 2007 to 2008, and a regular cast member of the David Renwick sitcom ''One Foot in the Grave'' from 1990 until 2000. He also played George Windsor in the series 8-10 of '' Waterloo Road''. Early life The youngest of three sons of a Prudential insurance broker/manager English father and a home economics school teacher Scottish mother,"Angus Deayton on Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland and returning to the Fringe" – '' [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ron Cobb
Ronald Ray Cobb (September 21, 1937 – September 21, 2020) was an American-Australian artist. In addition to his work as an editorial cartoonist, he contributed to major films including '' Dark Star'' (1974), ''Star Wars'' (1977), ''Alien'' (1979), ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' (1981), ''Conan the Barbarian'' (1982), ''Back to the Future'' (1985), ''The Abyss'' (1989), '' Total Recall'' (1990), and ''Southland Tales'' (2006). He had one credit as director, for the 1992 film '' Garbo''. Cobb also created a symbol which was later featured on the Ecology Flag. Biography Ronald Ray "Ron" Cobb was born in Los Angeles but spent most of his life in Sydney, Australia. Early career By the age of 18, with no formal training in graphic illustration, Cobb was working as an animation " inbetweener" artist for Disney Studios in Burbank, California. He progressed to becoming a breakdown artist on the animation feature ''Sleeping Beauty'' (1959). It was the last Disney film to have cels inked by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graham Chapman
Graham Chapman (8 January 1941 – 4 October 1989) was a British actor, comedian and writer. He was one of the six members of the surreal comedy group Monty Python. He portrayed authority figures such as The Colonel and the lead role in two Python films, ''Holy Grail'' (1975) and ''Life of Brian'' (1979). Chapman was born in Leicester and was raised in Melton Mowbray. He enjoyed science, acting and comedy and, after graduating from Emmanuel College, Cambridge and St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College, he turned down a career as a doctor to be a comedian instead. Chapman eventually established a writing partnership with John Cleese, which reached its critical peak with Monty Python during the 1970s. He subsequently left Britain for Los Angeles, where he attempted to be a success on American television, speaking on the college circuit and producing the pirate film ''Yellowbeard'' (1983), before returning to Britain in the early 1980s. In his personal life, Chapman was open ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Bywater
Michael Bywater (born 11 May 1953) is an English non-fiction writer and broadcaster. He has worked for many London newspapers and periodicals and contributed to the design of computer games. Biography Bywater was educated at the independent Nottingham High School and at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was a long-running columnist for ''The Independent on Sunday'' and an early futurist for ''The Observer''. He spent ten years on the staff of ''Punch'', where he wrote a regular computer column and the anonymous "Bargepole" column. He wrote regularly for ''The Times'' and had been a contributing editor to ''Cosmopolitan'' and ''Woman's Journal''. He also writes regularly on high-tech subjects for ''The Daily Telegraph'' and a wide variety of technology magazines. He is termed a cultural critic for the ''New Statesman''. In 1998 he was part of BBC Radio 4's five-part political satire programme ''Cartoons, Lampoons, and Buffoons''. He also supervises on the ''Tragedy'' paper for a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glen Baxter (cartoonist)
Glen Baxter (born 4 March 1944), nicknamed Colonel Baxter, is an English draughtsman and artist, noted for his absurdist drawings and an overall effect often resembling literary nonsense. Born in Leeds, Baxter was trained at Leeds College of Art (1960-5). He was a teacher at the V&A (1967–74). His first solo exhibition was held at New York's Gotham Book Mart Gallery. Baxter's artwork has appeared in ''The New Yorker'', '' Vanity Fair'' and ''The Independent on Sunday''. His images and their corresponding captions employ art and language inspired by pulp fiction and adventure comics with intellectual jokes and references. His simple line-drawings often feature cowboys, gangsters, explorers and schoolchildren, who utter incongruous intellectual statements regarding art and philosophy. One of his best known satirical works, ''The Impending Gleam'', was first published in 1981. Today the artist lives and works in London. With Flowers Gallery, Baxter has had a number of solo s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rowan Atkinson
Rowan Sebastian Atkinson (born 6 January 1955) is an English actor, comedian and writer. He played the title roles on the sitcoms '' Blackadder'' (1983–1989) and ''Mr. Bean'' (1990–1995), and the film series ''Johnny English'' (2003–2018). Atkinson first came to prominence in the BBC sketch comedy show ''Not the Nine O'Clock News'' (1979–1982), receiving the 1981 British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance, and ''The Secret Policeman's Ball'' (1979) where he performed a skit. Subsequent skits on stage have featured solo performances as well as collaborations. His other film work includes the James Bond film '' Never Say Never Again'' (1983), playing a bumbling vicar in ''Four Weddings and a Funeral'' (1994), voicing the red-billed hornbill Zazu in ''The Lion King'' (1994), and playing jewellery salesman Rufus in ''Love Actually'' (2003). He portrayed Mr. Bean in the film adaptations ''Bean'' (1997) and ''Mr. Bean's Holiday'' (2007). Atkinson a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Corp. The name is a combination of several publishing firm names: Harper & Row, an American publishing company acquired in 1987—whose own name was the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers (founded in 1817) and Row, Peterson & Company—together with Scottish publishing company William Collins, Sons (founded in 1819), acquired in 1989. The worldwide CEO of HarperCollins is Brian Murray. HarperCollins has publishing groups in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, India, and China. The company publishes many different imprints, both former independent publishing houses and new imprints. History Collins Harper Mergers and acquisitions Collins was bought by Rupert Murdoch's News Corpora ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicholas Winterton
Sir Nicholas Raymond Winterton (born 31 March 1938) is a retired British Conservative Party politician. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Macclesfield from 1971 until he retired from the House of Commons at the 2010 general election. His wife, Ann Winterton, also served as a Member of Parliament, representing the neighbouring Congleton constituency from 1983 to 2010. Early life Winterton was born in Rugeley, Staffordshire and was educated at Bilton Grange, a prep school in Rugby, then Rugby School. He undertook his National Service from 1957 to 1959 and was commissioned into the 14th/20th King's Hussars serving in Germany before leaving to work as a trainee sales executive with Shell-Mex and BP. In 1960, he became a Sales and General Manager of a construction machinery company, a job he retained until he was elected to Parliament. He served as a member of the West Midlands Conservative Council from 1967 to 1971 and was a Warwickshire County Councillor representing a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Curtis
Richard Whalley Anthony Curtis (born 8 November 1956) is a New Zealand-born British screenwriter, producer and film director. One of Britain's most successful comedy screenwriters, he is known primarily for romantic comedy films, among them ''Four Weddings and a Funeral'' (1994), ''Notting Hill'' (1999), ''Bridget Jones's Diary'' (2001), ''Love Actually'' (2003), '' Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason'' (2004), '' About Time'' (2013) and '' Yesterday'' (2019). He is also known for the drama ''War Horse'' (2011) and for having co-written the sitcoms ''Blackadder'', ''Mr. Bean'' and ''The Vicar of Dibley''. His early career saw him write material for the BBC's ''Not the Nine O'Clock News'' and ITV's ''Spitting Image''. In 2007, Curtis received the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He is the co-founder, with Sir Lenny Henry, of the British charity Comic Relief, which has raised over £1 billion. At the 2008 Britannia Awar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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