|
Clive Swift
Clive Walter Swift (9 February 1936 – 1 February 2019) was an English actor and songwriter. A classically trained actor, his stage work included performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company, but he was best known to television viewers for his role as Richard Bucket in the BBC sitcom ''Keeping Up Appearances''. He played many other television and film roles. Life and career Swift was born in Liverpool on 9 February 1936, the son of Abram Sampson Swift, who owned a furniture shop in Bootle, and Lily Rebecca, née Greenman. He was educated at Clifton College and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge reading English literature. He was previously a teacher at LAMDA and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. His family was Jewish. He appeared as Snug in the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1968 film production of ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' as part of a cast that included Diana Rigg, Helen Mirren and Ian Richardson. During the 1970s, he appeared as Doctor Black in two of the BBC's M. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
LAMDA
The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) is a drama school located in Hammersmith, London. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest specialist drama school in the British Isles and a founding member of the Federation of Drama Schools. In January 2025 the school expanded its training grounds to New York City through a partnership with A.R.T. New York in Manhattan to provide studio training to actors in the US. LAMDA was ranked as the No. 1 drama school in the UK by The Guardian University Guide in 2025. The academy's graduates work regularly at the Royal National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare's Globe, and the theatres of London's West End and Hollywood, as well as on the BBC, Broadway, and in the MCU. It is registered as a company under the name LAMDA Ltd and as a charity under its trading name London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. There is an associate organisation in America under the name of American Friends of LAMDA (AFLAMDA). A very high ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Voyage Of The Damned (Doctor Who)
"Voyage of the Damned" is an episode of the British science fiction television programme ''Doctor Who''. First broadcast on BBC One on 25 December 2007, it is the third ''Doctor Who'' Christmas special since the show's revival in 2005. The episode was written by Russell T Davies and directed by James Strong. In the episode, the alien businessman Max Capricorn ( George Costigan) seeks revenge on his company after it votes him out. He sets a starship replica of the RMS ''Titanic'' on a collision course with Earth to frame the board of directors for killing the humans on Earth. The episode features the only performance in ''Doctor Who'' by the Australian singer and actress Kylie Minogue, who plays the waitress Astrid Peth. Davies described her casting as a "very exceptional case", having written the part of Astrid specifically for Minogue. On its original airdate Christmas 2007, "Voyage of the Damned" was watched by 13.31 million viewers, the highest viewing figure for '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Revelation Of The Daleks
''Revelation of the Daleks'' is the sixth and final serial of the 22nd season in the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in two weekly parts on 23 and 30 March 1985. This was the final serial to be broadcast in 45-minute episodes; this format would return 20 years later when the series resumed in 2005. ''Revelation of the Daleks'' is the only time the Sixth Doctor encountered the Daleks in a television story. The serial is set on the planet Necros. The galaxy is suffering from famine, but Davros ( Terry Molloy) is masquerading as the Great Healer and has commandeered a funeral home, the high-tech facility Tranquil Repose, as a base from which he can convert humans into either food for the starving or into Daleks for his new secret army. However, his manufacturing ally Kara ( Eleanor Bron) wants his business and has hired the assassins Orcini ( William Gaunt) and Bostock ( John Ogwen) to kill him. Plot The TARDIS lands on Necros, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterrestrial being called the Doctor, part of a humanoid species called Time Lords. The Doctor travels in the universe and in time using a time travelling Spacecraft, spaceship called the TARDIS, which externally appears as a British police box. While travelling, the Doctor works to save lives and liberate oppressed peoples by combating List of Doctor Who villains, foes. The Doctor usually travels with Companion (Doctor Who), companions. Beginning with William Hartnell, List of actors who have played the Doctor, fourteen actors have headlined the series as the Doctor; the most recent being Ncuti Gatwa, who portrayed the Fifteenth Doctor from 2023 to 2025. The transition between actors is written into the plot of the series with the Regeneration ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Hyacinth Bucket
Hyacinth Bucket (née Walton; sometimes known as ''The Bucket Woman'') is a fictional character in the BBC sitcom ''Keeping Up Appearances'', portrayed by Patricia Routledge. Routledge won a British Comedy Award in 1991, and was nominated for two BAFTA awards in 1992 and 1993 for her portrayal. Character synopsis Hyacinth is a social-climbing snob who constantly aims to impress people, particularly of the upper and upper-middle classes, and to give the impression that she is of high social standing, despite her modest status. This is epitomised in her insistence on pronouncing her surname as " Bouquet". She has an "acquired cultured accent which buckles under stress". The character's creator, Roy Clarke, has called her the "least invented of all the characters I've found in my head": So I knew my Hyacinths and I knew I had to write my own. They fascinated me. They were hilarious in their pretensions, so marvellously unaware of the real impressions they were making, and yet s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
The Barchester Chronicles
''The Barchester Chronicles'' is a 1982 British television serial produced by Jonathan Powell for the BBC. It is an adaptation by Alan Plater of Anthony Trollope's first two Chronicles of Barsetshire, '' The Warden'' (1855) and '' Barchester Towers'' (1857). The series was directed by David Giles. Location work was videotaped in and around Peterborough Cathedral, using locations such as the Deanery and Laurel Court. Plot overview The clerical community around Barchester's cathedral is rocked by a press investigation into the finances of Hiram's Hospital almshouse. Following the death of the bishop in the midst of the controversy, the chaplain and wife of the new bishop lead a reforming crusade, which arouses strong opposition within the diocese. These public events have a significant effect on the private lives of many of those involved. Cast * Donald Pleasence as Mr Harding * Nigel Hawthorne as Archdeacon Grantly * Angela Pleasence as Mrs Grantly * Cyril Luckham as Bishop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
A Warning To The Curious (1972 Film)
''A Warning to the Curious'' is a short film, the second of the British supernatural anthology series ''A Ghost Story for Christmas''.Angelini, Sergio, . Retrieved 7 July 2010. Written, produced, and directed by the series' creator, Lawrence Gordon Clark, it is based on the ghost story of the same name by M. R. James, first published in the collection ''A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories'' (1925) and first aired on BBC1 on 24 December 1972. At 50 minutes it is the longest instalment in the series' original run. It stars Peter Vaughan as Paxton, an amateur archaeologist whose attempt to track down one of the three legendary crowns of East Anglia causes him to be followed by the ghost of its last guardian, William Ager (John Kearney). He seeks the assistance of the vacationing scholar Dr. Black (Clive Swift) in order to return the crown and end the haunting. Since airing, the episode has received critical acclaim as one of the best in the series, and one of the greate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
The Stalls Of Barchester
''The Stalls of Barchester'' is a short film which serves as the first of the British supernatural anthology series ''A Ghost Story for Christmas''. Written, produced, and directed by the series' creator Lawrence Gordon Clark, it is based on the ghost story "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral" by M. R. James, first published in the collection '' More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary'' (1911). It stars Robert Hardy as Archdeacon Haynes of the fictional Barchester Cathedral, whose mysterious death is investigated 50 years later by the scholar Dr. Black (Clive Swift), and first aired on BBC1 on 24 December 1971. Clark was inspired to initiate the series by ''Whistle and I'll Come to You'' (1968), based on a James story and directed by Jonathan Miller for the BBC documentary strand ''Omnibus'', and the oral tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas of which James' stories were a part. It was commissioned by Paul Fox and, like Miller's film, produced by the BBC Documentary Unit; ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
A Ghost Story For Christmas
''A Ghost Story for Christmas'' is a Anthology series, strand of annual British short television films originally broadcast on BBC One between 1971 and 1978, and revived sporadically by the BBC since 2005. With one exception, the original instalments were directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark and the films were all shot on 16 mm film, 16 mm colour film. The remit behind the series was to provide a television adaptation of a classic ghost story, in line with the oral tradition of telling supernatural tales at Christmas. Each instalment is a separate adaptation of a short story, ranges between 30 and 50 minutes in duration, and features well-known British actors such as Clive Swift, Robert Hardy, Peter Vaughan, Edward Petherbridge and Denholm Elliott. The first five are adaptations of ghost stories by M. R. James, the sixth is based on a short story by Charles Dickens, and the last two instalments from the 1970s are original screenplays by Clive Exton and John Griffith Bowen, John ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ian Richardson
Ian William Richardson (7 April 19349 February 2007) was a Scottish actor. He was best known for his portrayal of Conservative politician Francis Urquhart in the BBC's '' House of Cards'' (1990–1995) television trilogy, as well as the pivotal spy Bill Haydon in '' Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'' (1979). His other notable screen work included a portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in two films ( ''The Sign of Four'' and ''The Hound of the Baskervilles''), as well as significant roles in ''Brazil'', '' M. Butterfly'', and '' Dark City''. Richardson was also a leading stage actor, well known for his Shakespearean works as well as his portrayal of Jean-Paul Marat in the Broadway production of '' Marat/Sade''. Early life Richardson was born in Edinburgh, the only son and eldest of three children of John Richardson (1909–1990), a manager at the McVitie & Price factory (where he and his wife met, and, according to his son, where John invented the Jaffa cake), and Margaret ("Peggy") Po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Helen Mirren
Dame Helen Mirren (; born Ilyena Lydia Vasilievna Mironov; 26 July 1945) is an English actor. With a career spanning over six decades of Helen Mirren on screen and stage, screen and stage, List of awards and nominations received by Helen Mirren, her accolades include an Academy Award, five Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, four BAFTA Awards, and a Laurence Olivier Award. She is the only person to have achieved both the Triple Crown of Acting, US and Triple Crown (UK entertainment), UK Triple Crowns of Acting, and has also received the BAFTA Fellowship, Honorary Golden Bear, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. Mirren was made a Dame, Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 Birthday Honours, 2003. Mirren started her career at the age of 18 as a performer with the National Youth Theatre, where she played Cleopatra in ''Antony and Cleopatra'' (1965). She later joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and made her West End theatre, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
