Up Against It
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Up Against It
''Up Against It'' is an unproduced script by Joe Orton, written in 1967 for The Beatles at the height of their fame. Background Orton's screenplay was a revised version of a 1966 script called ''Shades of a Personality'', by Owen Holder, which producer Walter Shenson wanted Orton to "punch-up", in his words; Orton incorporated portions of this prior draft, but used, as the opening of the story, a concept he and his companion Kenneth Halliwell had explored in a now-lost novel from 1957, ''The Silver Bucket''. The story's skeleton also borrowed liberally from Orton's final novel, written in 1959, called ''The Vision of Gombold Provol'' (posthumously published as ''Head to Toe''). After a proper contract had been drawn up, allowing Orton to buy back the rights to his script should it be refused, Orton submitted the script to the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein; after a long period without hearing from either Epstein or the Beatles on the subject, his screenplay was returned to ...
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Joe Orton
John Kingsley Orton (1 January 1933 – 9 August 1967), known by the pen name of Joe Orton, was an English playwright, author, and diarist. His public career, from 1964 until his death in 1967, was short but highly influential. During this brief period he shocked, outraged, and amused audiences with his scandalous black comedies. The adjective ''Ortonesque'' refers to work characterised by a similarly dark yet farcical cynicism. Early life Orton was born on 1 January 1933 at Causeway Lane Maternity Hospital, Leicester, to William Arthur Orton and Elsie Mary Orton (née Bentley). William worked for Leicester County Borough Council as a gardener and Elsie worked in the local footwear industry until tuberculosis cost her a lung. At the time of Joe's birth William and Mary were living with William's family at 261 Avenue Road Extension in Clarendon Park, Leicester. The same year that Joe's younger brother Douglas was born, 1935, the Ortons moved to 9 Fayrhurst Road on the Saffron Lan ...
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University Of Leicester
, mottoeng = So that they may have life , established = , type = public research university , endowment = £20.0 million , budget = £326 million , chancellor = David Willetts , vice_chancellor = Nishan Canagarajah , head_label = Visitor , head = The King , academic_staff = 1,705 (2018/19) , administrative_staff = 2,205 (2018/19) , students = () , undergrad = () , postgrad = () , city = Leicester , country = England, UK , coordinates = , campus = Urban parkland , colours = , website = , logo = UniOfLeicesterLogo.svg , logo_size = 250px , affiliations = ACUAMBA EMUA EUA Sutton 30 M5 UniversitiesUniversities UK The University of Leicester ( ) is a public research university based in Leicester, England. The main campus is south of the city centre, adjacent to Victoria Park. The university's predecessor, University College, Leicester, gained university status in 1957. The university had an income of £323.1 million in 2019/20, of which £5 ...
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Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn (; born 23 March 1968) is an English-Icelandic musician, singer-songwriter and composer, best known as the frontman and primary lyricist of the rock band Blur and as the co-creator and primary musical contributor of the virtual band Gorillaz. Raised in Leytonstone, East London, and around Colchester, Essex, Albarn attended The Stanway School, where he met guitarist Graham Coxon and formed Blur. They released their debut album ''Leisure'' in 1991. After spending long periods touring the US, Albarn's songwriting became increasingly influenced by British bands from the 1960s. The result was the Blur albums ''Modern Life Is Rubbish'' (1993), ''Parklife'' (1994) and '' The Great Escape'' (1995). All three received critical acclaim, while Blur gained mass popularity in the UK, aided by a Britpop chart rivalry with Oasis. Subsequent albums such as '' Blur'' (1997), '' 13'' (1999) and ''Think Tank'' (2003) incorporated influences from lo-fi, art rock, electronic an ...
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Blur (band)
Blur are an English rock band formed in London in 1988. The band consists of singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree. Their debut album, ''Leisure'' (1991), incorporated the sounds of Madchester and shoegazing. Following a stylistic change influenced by English guitar pop groups such as the Kinks, the Beatles and XTC, Blur released ''Modern Life Is Rubbish'' (1993), ''Parklife'' (1994) and '' The Great Escape'' (1995). As a result, the band helped to popularise the Britpop genre and achieved mass popularity in the UK, aided by a chart battle with rival band Oasis in 1995 dubbed "The Battle of Britpop". Blur's self-titled fifth album (1997) saw another stylistic shift, influenced by the lo-fi styles of American indie rock groups, and became their third UK chart-topping album. Its single " Song 2" brought the band mainstream success in the US for the first time. Their next album, '' 13'' (1999) saw the band experimenting with ...
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Prunella Scales
Prunella Margaret Rumney West Scales (''née'' Illingworth; born 22 June 1932) is an English former actress, best known for playing Sybil Fawlty, wife of Basil Fawlty (John Cleese), in the BBC comedy '' Fawlty Towers'', her nomination for a BAFTA award for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in '' A Question of Attribution'' (''Screen One'', BBC 1991) by Alan Bennett, and for the documentary series '' Great Canal Journeys'' (2014–2021), travelling on canal barges and narrowboats with her husband, fellow actor Timothy West. Early life Scales was born in Sutton Abinger, Surrey, the daughter of Catherine (''née'' Scales), an actress, and John Richardson Illingworth, a cotton salesman. She attended Moira House Girls' School, Eastbourne. She had a younger brother, Timothy "Timmo" Illingworth (1934–2017). In 1939, at the start of the Second World War, Scales's parents moved with their children to Bucks Mill near Bideford in Devon. Scales herself and her brother were evacua ...
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Fawlty Towers
''Fawlty Towers'' is a British television sitcom written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, broadcast on BBC2 in 1975 and 1979. Two series of six episodes each were made. The show was ranked first on a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000 and, in 2019, it was named the greatest ever British TV sitcom by a panel of comedy experts compiled by the ''Radio Times''.Mattha Busby, 9 April 2019"Fawlty Towers named greatest ever British TV sitcom" ''The Guardian'', Retrieved 24 May 2019 The series is set in Fawlty Towers, a fictional hotel in the seaside town of Torquay on the English Riviera. The plots centre on the tense, rude and put-upon owner Basil Fawlty (Cleese), his bossy wife Sybil (Prunella Scales), the sensible chambermaid Polly (Booth) who often is the peacemaker and voice of reason, and the hapless and English-challenged Spanish waiter Manuel (Andrew Sachs). They show their attempts to run the hotel amidst far ...
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John Fletcher (playwright)
John Fletcher (1579–1625) was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's. He collaborated on writing plays with Francis Beaumont, and also with Shakespeare on three plays. Though his reputation has declined since, Fletcher remains an important transitional figure between the Elizabethan popular tradition and the popular drama of the Restoration. Biography Early life Fletcher was born in December 1579 (baptised 20 December) in Rye, Sussex, and died of the plague in August 1625 (buried 29 August in St. Saviour's, Southwark). His father Richard Fletcher was an ambitious and successful cleric who was in turn Dean of Peterborough, Bishop of Bristol, Bishop of Worcester and Bishop of London (shortly before his death), as well as chaplain to Queen Elizabeth. As Dean of Pete ...
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BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts also featuring. The station describes itself as "the world's most significant commissioner of new music", and through its BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme, New Generation Artists scheme promotes young musicians of all nationalities. The station broadcasts the The Proms, BBC Proms concerts, live and in full, each summer in addition to performances by the BBC Orchestras and Singers. There are regular productions of both classic plays and newly commissioned drama. Radio 3 won the Sony Radio Academy UK Station of the Year Gold Award for 2009 and was nominated again in 2011. According to RAJAR, the station broadcasts to a weekly audience of 1.7 million with a listening share of 1.3% as of September 2022. History Radio 3 is the ...
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2nd Wind
''2nd Wind'' is the thirteenth album by American musician Todd Rundgren, released in 1991 on Warner Bros. Records. It reached number 118 on the ''Billboard'' 200 album chart. ''2nd Wind'' includes the single "Change Myself" and was Rundgren's final album on a major label until 2004's '' Liars''. Background As with its predecessor, '' Nearly Human'', Rundgren chose to record the album with a full band, as opposed to playing all of the instruments himself. The album was recorded live in front of an audience at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, California, over the course of a week. The album includes three songs ("The Smell of Money", "If I Have to Be Alone" and "Love in Disguise") written for Rundgren's musical version of the Joe Orton play/screenplay ''Up Against It''. "Gaya's Eyes" continues the new, more mature sound introduced on the preceding album '' Nearly Human''. Rundgren used the video for the album's only single, "Change Myself," as a showcase for the NewTe ...
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Nearly Human
''Nearly Human'' is a 1989 album by the rock musician Todd Rundgren, released by Warner Bros. Records. It was his first release in four years, although he had been active as a producer in the intervening years. Many of the album's songs deal with loss, self-doubt, jealousy and spiritual recovery. It was also the first collaboration between Rundgren and Michele Gray, a singer and ex-model who helped to organize the sessions. Gray sang backing vocals, both on the record and on subsequent tours, and the pair later married. Recording The song "Parallel Lines" was originally written for Rundgren's musical theater Off Broadway production of Joe Orton's ''Up Against It''. The original version is rather slow and can be found on Rundgren's Japan-only album, '' Up Against It!''. The song was re-recorded here with an uptempo and lusher arrangement. Unlike a large portion of Rundgren's solo albums on which he played all the instruments and sang all lead and backing vocals, ''Nearly Human'' was ...
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Up Against It! (Todd Rundgren Album)
''Up Against It!'' is a 1997 album by Todd Rundgren consisting mostly of song demos he wrote and recorded between 1986 and 1989 for the musical theater adaptation of the never-produced screenplay ''Up Against It''. The play was originally written in 1967 by Joe Orton for the Beatles. Background This album is Rundgren's score to the stage adaptation of playwright Joe Orton's Up Against It, the unfilmed screenplay originally mooted as the third Beatles film (after ''A Hard Day's Night'' and ''Help!''). They declined it, so he reworked it to lessen their presence, successfully sold it to the producer Oscar Lewenstein, and then was violently murdered by boyfriend Kenneth Halliwell in a notorious murder-suicide. With Orton no longer around to help push it along, development stalled, and the script was never filmed. It was published in book form a couple of times, however, and in the 1980s Joseph Papp decided to give the script a new lease on life as a piece of musical theater - hence th ...
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Alison Fraser
Alison Fraser (born in Natick, Massachusetts) is an American actress, voice actress and singer who has appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in television and film. In concert, she has performed at such venues as Carnegie Hall, The White House, Town Hall, The Brooklyn Botanic Garden, The Tisch Center for the Arts, The Folger Shakespeare Library, The Wilma, The Emelin, Joe's Pub, 54 Below, and Symphony Space. Career Fraser is a two-time Tony Award nominee for ''The Secret Garden'' and ''Romance/Romance'', a Drama Desk Award nominee for both ''The Secret Garden'', and ''First Daughter Suite'' and a Carbonell Award winner for ''Romance/Romance''. Fraser is a Callaway Award-winner for ''Heartbreak House''. She played "Tessie Tura" in the New York City Center and Broadway productions of ''Gypsy'' starring Patti LuPone under the direction of Arthur Laurents. She was the first ever recipient of Philadelphia's Barrymore Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of "The Blond ...
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