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Johnny Speight
Johnny Speight (2 June 1920 – 5 July 1998) was an English television scriptwriter of many classic British sitcoms. He emerged in the mid-1950s. He wrote for radio comics Frankie Howerd, Vic Oliver, Arthur Askey, and Cyril Fletcher. For television he wrote for Morecambe & Wise, and Peter Sellers, as well as ''The Arthur Haynes Show''. Later, he began to write '' Till Death Us Do Part'', which included his most famous creation, the controversial bigot Alf Garnett. His shows often explored the themes of racism and sexism through satire. Life and career John Speight was born into an Irish Catholic family in Canning Town, West Ham, Essex (now Greater London). He left school at 14, and after a series of odd jobs, tried his hand at writing, looking to George Bernard Shaw as inspiration. He began contributing scripts to comedy shows in 1955, starting with '' Great Scott - It's Maynard!'' He later contributed to '' Sykes and a...'' (1960–65), which starred Eric Sykes, Hattie Jac ...
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Lewis Morley
Lewis Frederick Morley (16 June 1925 – 3 September 2013) was a photographer. Biography Morley was born in Hong Kong to English and Chinese parents and interned in Stanley Internment Camp during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong between 1941 and 1945, when he was released and emigrated to the United Kingdom with his family. He studied at Twickenham Art School for three years, and spent time as a painter in Paris in the 1950s. Perhaps best known for his photographs of Christine Keeler and Joe Orton, Morley began his career with assignments for magazines such as ''Tatler''. He was also a successful theatre photographer for over 100 West End productions. His publicity photographs for the '' Beyond The Fringe'' revue (1961) included a study of the cast Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller which was used for the best selling LP Cover of the show. Morley emigrated to Australia in 1971 with his wife Patricia and son Lewis, where he lived in the inner west of ...
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West Ham
West Ham is an area in East London, located east of Charing Cross in the west of the modern London Borough of Newham. The area, which lies immediately to the north of the River Thames and east of the River Lea, was originally an ancient parish formed to serve parts of the older Manor of Ham, and it later became a County Borough. The district, part of the historic county of Essex, was an administrative unit, with largely consistent boundaries, from the 12th century to 1965, when it merged with neighbouring areas to become the western part of the new London Borough of Newham. The area of the parish and borough included not just central West Ham area, just south of Stratford; but also the sub-districts of Stratford, Canning Town, Plaistow, Custom House, Silvertown, Forest Gate and the western parts of Upton Park, which is shared with East Ham. The district was historically dependent on its docks and other maritime trades, while the inland industrial concentrations ...
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Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party and also known colloquially as the Tories, is one of the Two-party system, two main political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party. It is the current Government of the United Kingdom, governing party, having won the 2019 United Kingdom general election, 2019 general election. It has been the primary governing party in Britain since 2010. The party is on the Centre-right politics, centre-right of the political spectrum, and encompasses various ideological #Party factions, factions including One-nation conservatism, one-nation conservatives, Thatcherism, Thatcherites, and traditionalist conservatism, traditionalist conservatives. The party currently has 356 Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Members of Parliament, 264 members of the House of Lords, 9 members of the London Assembly, 31 members of the Scottish Parliament, 16 members of the Senedd, Welsh Parliament, 2 D ...
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Reactionary
In political science, a reactionary or a reactionist is a person who holds political views that favor a return to the '' status quo ante'', the previous political state of society, which that person believes possessed positive characteristics absent from contemporary society. As a descriptor term, ''reactionary'' derives from the ideological context of the left–right political spectrum. As an adjective, the word ''reactionary'' describes points of view and policies meant to restore a past ''status quo ante''.''The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought'' Third Edition, (1999) p. 729. In ideology, reactionism is a tradition in right-wing politics; the reactionary stance opposes policies for the social transformation of society, whereas conservatives seek to preserve the socio-economic structure and order that exists in the present. In popular usage, ''reactionary'' refers to a strong traditionalist conservative political perspective of a person opposed to social, political, ...
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Warren Mitchell
Warren Mitchell (born Warren Misell; 14 January 1926 – 14 November 2015) was a British actor. He was a British Academy Television Award, BAFTA TV Award winner and twice a Laurence Olivier Award winner. In the 1950s, Mitchell appeared on the radio programmes ''Educating Archie'' and ''Hancock's Half Hour''. He also performed minor roles in several films. In the 1960s, he rose to prominence in the role of bigoted cockney Alf Garnett in the BBC television sitcom ''Till Death Us Do Part'' (1965–75), created by Johnny Speight, which won him a British Academy Television Award for Best Actor, Best TV Actor BAFTA in 1967. He reprised the role in the television sequels ''Till Death...'' (Associated TeleVision, ATV, 1981) and ''In Sickness and in Health'' (BBC, 1985–92), and in the films ''Till Death Us Do Part (film), Till Death Us Do Part'' (1969) and ''The Alf Garnett Saga'' (1972). His other film appearances include ''Three Crooked Men'' (1958), ''Carry On Cleo'' (1964), ...
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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 regio ...
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Spike Milligan
Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was an Irish actor, comedian, writer, musician, poet, and playwright. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British Colonial India, where he spent his childhood before relocating in 1931 to England, where he lived and worked for the majority of his life. Disliking his first name, he began to call himself "Spike" after hearing the band Spike Jones and his City Slickers on Radio Luxembourg. Milligan was the co-creator, main writer, and a principal cast member of the British radio comedy programme '' The Goon Show'', performing a range of roles including the characters Eccles and Minnie Bannister. He was the earliest-born and last surviving member of the Goons. He took his success with ''The Goon Show'' into television with '' Q5'', a surreal sketch show credited as a major influence on the members of '' Monty Python's Flying Circus''. He wrote and edited many books, including '' Puckoo ...
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John Antrobus
John Arthur Antrobus (born 2 July 1933) is an English playwright and screenwriter. He has written extensively for stage, screen, TV and radio, including the epic World War II play, ''Crete and Sergeant Pepper'' at the Royal Court. He authored the children's book series ''Ronnie'', which includes ''Help! I am a Prisoner in a Toothpaste Factory''. Early life John Arthur Antrobus was born at Woolwich, London.Contemporary Dramatists, ed. Kate Berney, St James Press, 1993, p. 19 His father was a regimental sergeant-major in the Royal Horse Artillery, and the family was stationed at the School of Artillery in Larkhill, on the edge of Salisbury Plain. After attending Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury, Wiltshire, Selhurst Grammar School, Croydon, and King Edward VII Nautical College, London, where he was an apprentice deck officer in the Merchant Navy from 1950 to 1952, Antrobus attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, serving with the East Surrey Regiment from 1952 ...
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Richard Wattis
Richard Wattis (25 February 1912 – 1 February 1975) was an English actor, co-starring in many popular British comedies of the 1950s and 1960s. Early life Richard Cameron Wattis was born on 25 February 1912 in Wednesbury, Staffordshire, the elder of two sons born to Cameron Tom Wattis and Margaret Janet, née Preston. He attended King Edward's School and Bromsgrove School, after which he worked for the electrical engineering firm William Sanders & Co (Wednesbury) Ltd. His uncle, William Preston (1874–1941), was the managing director and was the Conservative MP for Walsall from 1924 to 1929. Career After leaving the family business, Wattis became an actor. His debut was with Croydon Repertory Theatre, and he made many stage appearances in the West End in London. His first appearance in a film was ''A Yank at Oxford'' (1938), but war service interrupted his career as an actor. He served as a second lieutenant in the Small Arms Section of Special Operations Executive at ...
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Hattie Jacques
Hattie Jacques (; born Josephine Edwina Jaques; 7 February 1922 – 6 October 1980) was an English comedy actress of stage, radio and screen. She is best known as a regular of the ''Carry On'' films, where she typically played strict, no-nonsense characters, but was also a prolific television and radio performer. Jacques started her career in 1944 with an appearance at the Players' Theatre in London, but came to national prominence through her appearances on three highly popular radio series on the BBC: with Tommy Handley on '' It's That Man Again''; with ventriloquist Peter Brough on '' Educating Archie''; and then with Tony Hancock on '' Hancock's Half Hour''. After the Second World War Jacques made her cinematic debut in '' Green for Danger'' (1946), in which she had a brief, uncredited role. From 1958 to 1974 she appeared in 14 ''Carry On'' films, playing various roles including the formidable hospital matron. On television she had a long professional partnership wit ...
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Eric Sykes
Eric Sykes (4 May 1923 – 4 July 2012) was an English radio, stage, television and film writer, comedian, actor, and director whose performing career spanned more than 50 years. He frequently wrote for and performed with many other leading comedy performers and writers of the period, including Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Tommy Cooper, Peter Sellers, John Antrobus, and Johnny Speight. Sykes first came to prominence through his many radio credits as a writer and actor in the 1950s, most notably through his collaboration on '' The Goon Show'' scripts. He became a TV star in his own right in the early 1960s when he appeared with Hattie Jacques in several popular BBC comedy television series. Early life Sykes was born on 4 May 1923 in Oldham, Lancashire; his mother died three weeks later, leaving him and his two-year-old brother Vernon motherless. Their father was a labourer in a cotton mill and a former army sergeant. When Sykes was two, his father remarried and he gained ...
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Sykes And A
''Sykes and a...'' is a black-and-white British sitcom starring Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques that aired on BBC 1 from 1960 to 1965. It was written by Eric Sykes, Johnny Speight, John Antrobus and Spike Milligan. ''Sykes and a...'' was the first television series to feature both Sykes and Jacques, who later starred in ''Sykes and a Big, Big Show'' and '' Sykes'', the latter of which featured the same characters. Cast *Eric Sykes - Himself * Hattie Jacques - Hattie Sykes * Deryck Guyler - PC Wilfred "Corky" Turnbull * Richard Wattis - Charles Brown ''(series 1 to 3)'' Plot Eric is an accident-prone childlike man who lives with his twin sister Hattie in a terraced house, 24 Sebastopol Terrace, in East Acton. Both are unmarried. Their busybody neighbour Charles Brown often interferes, until he emigrates to Australia. The local policeman, who makes occasional appearances, is Corky Turnbull. Episodes Out of the 59 episodes, 32 have been lost, as well as the 1962 short episode ...
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