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Not The Nine O'Clock News
''Not the Nine O'Clock News'' is a British television sketch comedy show that was broadcast on BBC2 from 16 October 1979 to 8 March 1982. Originally shown as a comedy alternative to the '' Nine O'Clock News'' on BBC1, the show features satirical sketches on news stories and popular culture of the early 1980s, as well as parody songs, comedy sketches, re-edited videos, and spoof television formats. The programme features Rowan Atkinson, Pamela Stephenson, Mel Smith, and Griff Rhys Jones, as well as Chris Langham in the first series. Format The format was a deliberate departure from the stream-of-consciousness comedy pioneered by ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'', returning to a more conventional sketch format. Sketches were mostly self-contained, lasting from a few seconds to a few minutes, and often had a degree of naturalism in performance. The series launched the careers of several high-profile actors and writers, and also led to other comedic series including ''Blackadder ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Lloyd (producer)
John Hardress Wilfred Lloyd (born 30 September 1951) is an English producer and writer of television and radio comedy. His television work includes ''Not the Nine O'Clock News'', ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'', ''Blackadder'', '' Spitting Image'' and '' QI''. He presents BBC Radio 4's '' The Museum of Curiosity''. Early life John Hardress Wilfred Lloyd was born on 30 September 1951 in Dover, Kent. His father, H. L. "Harpy" Lloyd, was an Anglo-Irish captain with the Royal Navy. As a child, Lloyd lived in several different places, owing to his father's job. This led him to attend school properly only at the age of 9. He was educated at West Hill Park School in Titchfield, Hampshire, a place where he claims bullying was "endemic", and later at The King's School, Canterbury. He read Law at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was a member of the Footlights. He became friends with fellow student Douglas Adams, with whom he later worked and shared a flat. Lloyd is the great ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quantel Paintbox
The Quantel Paintbox was a dedicated computer graphics workstation for composition of broadcast television video and graphics. Produced by the British production equipment manufacturer Quantel (which, via a series of mergers, is now part of Grass Valley), its design emphasized the studio workflow efficiency required for live news production. At a price of $250,000 () per unit, they were used primarily by large TV networks such as NBC, while in the UK, Peter Claridge's company CAL Videographics was the first commercial company to purchase one. Following its initial launch in 1981, the Paintbox revolutionised the production of television graphics. History left, The interface of running Quantel Paintbox software on a V-series Paintbox Artist Martin Holbrook worked with Quantel's development team to develop the artist-oriented functionality and user interface, which remained virtually unchanged throughout the life of the product; their Patented pressure-sensitive pen and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Cleese
John Marwood Cleese ( ; born 27 October 1939) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer, and Television presenter, presenter. Emerging from the Footlights, Cambridge Footlights in the 1960s, he first achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on ''The Frost Report''. In the late 1960s, he cofounded Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show ''Monty Python's Flying Circus.'' Along with his Python costars Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, Cleese starred in Monty Python films, which include ''Monty Python and the Holy Grail'' (1975), ''Monty Python's Life of Brian, Life of Brian'' (1979), and ''Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, The Meaning of Life'' (1983). In the mid-1970s, Cleese and first wife Connie Booth cowrote the sitcom ''Fawlty Towers'', in which he starred as hotel owner Basil Fawlty, for which he won the 1980 British Academy Television Award for Best Ente ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fawlty Towers
''Fawlty Towers'' is a British television sitcom written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, originally broadcast on BBC Two in 1975 and 1979. Two series of six episodes each were made. The series is set in Fawlty Towers, a dysfunctional fictional hotel in the English seaside town of Torquay in Devon. 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), and the hapless and English-challenged Spanish waiter Manuel ( Andrew Sachs). They show their attempts to run the hotel amidst farcical situations and an array of demanding and eccentric guests and tradespeople. The idea of ''Fawlty Towers'' came from Cleese after he stayed at the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, Devon, in 1970 (along with the rest of the Monty Python troupe), where he encountered the eccentric hotel owner Donald Sinclair. Stuffy and snobbish, Sinclair treated guests as though they were a hindrance to his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bob Hope
Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003) was an American comedian, actor, entertainer and producer with a career that spanned nearly 80 years and achievements in vaudeville, network radio, television, and USO Tours. He appeared in Bob Hope filmography, more than 70 short and feature films, starring in 54. These included a series of seven ''Road to ...'' musical comedy films with Bing Crosby as his partner. Hope hosted the Academy Awards ceremony a record 19 times. He also appeared in many stage productions and television roles and wrote 14 books. The song "Thanks for the Memory" was his signature tune. He was praised for his comedic timing, specializing in one-liners and rapid-fire delivery of jokes that were often self-deprecating. Between 1941 and 1991, he made 57 tours for the United Service Organizations (USO), entertaining military personnel around the world. In 1997, Congress passed a bill that made him an honorary veteran of the Armed Forces. Hope was bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Llewelyn
Robert Llewellyn (born 10 March 1956) is a British actor, comedian, presenter and writer. He plays the mechanoid Kryten in the sci-fi television sitcom ''Red Dwarf'' and formerly presented the engineering gameshow '' Scrapheap Challenge''. He has also founded and hosts a YouTube series, '' Fully Charged'', which has grown into a company that puts on EV and "Everything Electric" conventions in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and Europe. Early life and career Llewellyn was born in Northampton, England. Llewellyn's first foray into the world of show business started out as a hobby, organising a few amateur cabaret evenings in a riverside warehouse overlooking Tower Bridge in London. The shows were a great success and he eventually helped form an alternative comedy theatre group called The Joeys. Within six months, he had stopped working as a shoemaker and started performing professionally with the group alongside Bernie Evans, Nigel Ordish and Graham Allum. The group toured Brit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Denis Healey
Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey (30 August 1917 – 3 October 2015) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979 and as Secretary of State for Defence from 1964 to 1970; he remains the longest-serving Defence Secretary to date. He was a Member of Parliament from 1952 to 1992, and was Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1980 to 1983. To the public at large, Healey became well known for his bushy eyebrows, his avuncular manner and his creative turns of phrase. Healey attended the University of Oxford and served as a Major in the Second World War. He was later an agent for the Information Research Department (IRD), a secret branch of the Foreign Office dedicated to spreading anti-communist propaganda during the early Cold War. Healey was first elected to Parliament in a by-election in 1952 for the seat of Leeds South East. He moved to the seat of Leeds East at the 1955 election, which he represented until his retireme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chris Emmett
Christopher Roderick Emmett (born 13 December 1938 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire) is a British actor and comedian best known for his work on the BBC Radio 4 comedies '' The Burkiss Way'' (1976-1980) and '' Alison and Maud'' (2002-2004). He was a regular on various series starring Roy Hudd, including '' The News Huddlines'', '' The Newly Discovered Casebook of Sherlock Holmes'', ''Huddwinks'' and ''Crowned Hudds''. He was also a regular on '' Week Ending'' and appeared in a number of sketches in the television game show '' 3-2-1''. In August 2003, he featured in the ''Talking to One Person'' episode of BBC Radio 4 comedy '' Smelling of Roses'', playing the old disc jockey Kenny Truman as he tried to get a job on radio station Gleam FM. He is a member of the showbusiness charitable fraternity the Grand Order of Water Rats The Grand Order of Water Rats is a British entertainment industry fraternity and charitable organisation based in London. Founded in 1889 by the music hall com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonathan Hyde
Jonathan Stephen Geoffrey King (born 21 May 1948), known professionally as Jonathan Hyde, is an Australian actor. Hyde is perhaps best known for roles as Herbert Arthur Runcible Cadbury in the comedy film '' Richie Rich'' (1994), Samuel Parrish and Van Pelt in the fantasy adventure film ''Jumanji'' (1995), J. Bruce Ismay in the epic romantic film ''Titanic'' (1997), Culverton Smith in '' The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes'', Warren Westridge in creature feature film '' Anaconda'' (1997), Dr. Allen Chamberlain in the adventure horror film '' The Mummy'' (1999), and Eldritch Palmer in the FX TV series ''The Strain''. Although an Australian citizen, he has mostly lived in the United Kingdom since 1969, after his family left Australia. Early life Hyde was born in Brisbane, Queensland, to a middle-class family. Hyde's interest in law took him to university to study the subject but his passion for performing and the theatre led him to pursue a career in acting. Leaving for London in 1969 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willoughby Goddard
Willoughby Wittenham Rees Goddard (4 July 1926 – 11 April 2008) was an English actor whose trademark rotund figure was well known on television and in films for more than 40 years. Biography Goddard was born in Bicester, Oxfordshire. He played Mr. Bumble in two versions of Charles Dickens's ''Oliver Twist'' – a 1962 television adaptation, and the original Broadway production of the musical '' Oliver!''. He originated the role of Cardinal Wolsey in the West End production of Robert Bolt's '' A Man for All Seasons''. He appeared in the television series '' The Adventures of William Tell'' (which lasted 39 episodes) in 1958 and 1959 as the villain Landburgher Gessler and as Sir Geoffrey in '' The Man in Room 17'', which ran two series of 13 hour-long black-and-white episodes in 1965 and 1966. He was cast as Reeder's boss, Sir Jason Toovey, (head of the Department of Public Prosecutions) in '' The Mind of Mr. J.G. Reeder'', a TV series of 16 hour-long episodes with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Gorman (musician)
John Gorman (born 4 January 1936) is an English comedian, vocalist and comedy musician. Early life and education Gorman was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire in 1936. After grammar school, Gorman worked as a telecommunications engineer. The Scaffold He was the founder of the comedy music group The Scaffold, best known for their 1968 hit single ''Lily the Pink'', and its successor the band Grimms – the 'G' in Gorman providing the 'G' in Grimms. He also made a comedy musical album for DJM Records, ''Go Man Gorman''. During the 1970s he made brief film appearances in Frankie Howerd's medieval set farce '' Up the Chastity Belt'' (1971), ''Melody'' (1971), Terry Gilliam's ''Jabberwocky'' (1977), where he is credited as 'second peasant', and '' The Music Machine'' (1979) as a newsagent. Television He also made appearances on the British children's television show '' Tiswas'' between 1977 and 1981 (becoming a regular member in 1978) and was one of the Four Bucketeers, a novelty ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Godwin
Christopher Godwin (born 5 August 1943) is a British actor who has been active since the late 1960s. TV and recording career He made his TV debut at the age of 25, when he took on the role of PC Grange in an episode of '' Softly, Softly''. He has since made appearances in television dramas including ''Z-Cars'', '' Nearly a Happy Ending'', '' Return to Waterloo'', ''South of the Border'', ''Return to Treasure Island'', '' Nice Work'', '' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader'', ''My Family and Other Animals'', '' FairyTale: A True Story'', ''The Bill'', '' Murder in Mind'', '' Waking the Dead'' and '' The Peter Principle (There's Something About Geoffrey)''. His film career has included roles in ''Porridge'' (1979), '' Charlie Muffin'' (1979), '' Bullshot'' (1983), '' A Handful of Dust'' (1988), '' FairyTale: A True Story'' (1997), '' Jinnah'' (1998), ''Scoop'' (2006), ''A Viking Saga: The Darkest Day'' (2013), ''The Crucible'' (2014), '' Mary Poppins Returns'' (2018), '' Emma'' (2020) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
