HOME
*



picture info

John Philip Kemble
John Philip Kemble (1 February 1757 – 26 February 1823) was a British actor. He was born into a theatrical family as the eldest son of Roger Kemble, actor-manager of a touring troupe. His elder sister Sarah Siddons achieved fame with him on the stage of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. His other siblings, Charles Kemble, Stephen Kemble, Ann Hatton, and Elizabeth Whitlock, also enjoyed success on the stage. Early life The second child of Roger Kemble – the manager of the travelling theatre company the Warwickshire Company of Comedians – he was born at Prescot, Lancashire. John Kemble
article at ODNB
His mother being a

picture info

William Beechey
Sir William Beechey (12 December 175328 January 1839) was an English portraitist during the golden age of British painting. Early life Beechey was born at Burford, Oxfordshire, on 12 December 1753, the son of William Beechey, a solicitor, and his wife Hannah Read. Both parents died when he was still quite young in the early 1760s, and he and his siblings were brought up by his uncle Samuel, a solicitor who lived in nearby Chipping Norton. The uncle was determined that the young Beechey should likewise follow a career in the law, and at an appropriate age he was entered as a clerk with a conveyancer near Stow-on-the-Wold. But as ''The Monthly Mirror'' later recorded in July 1798, he was: "Early foredoomed his ncle'ssoul to cross/ And paint a picture where he should engross." Career Beechey was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools in 1772, where he is thought to have studied under Johan Zoffany. He first exhibited at the Academy in 1776. His earliest surviving portrai ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Oxford Dictionary Of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September 2004 in 60 volumes and online, with 50,113 biographical articles covering 54,922 lives. First series Hoping to emulate national biographical collections published elsewhere in Europe, such as the '' Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (1875), in 1882 the publisher George Smith (1824–1901), of Smith, Elder & Co., planned a universal dictionary that would include biographical entries on individuals from world history. He approached Leslie Stephen, then editor of the '' Cornhill Magazine'', owned by Smith, to become the editor. Stephen persuaded Smith that the work should focus only on subjects from the United Kingdom and its present and former colonies. An early working title was the ''Biographia Britannica'', the name of an earlier eig ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

York
York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a minster, castle, and city walls. It is the largest settlement and the administrative centre of the wider City of York district. The city was founded under the name of Eboracum in 71 AD. It then became the capital of the Roman province of Britannia Inferior, and later of the kingdoms of Deira, Northumbria, and Scandinavian York. In the Middle Ages, it became the northern England ecclesiastical province's centre, and grew as a wool-trading centre. In the 19th century, it became a major railway network hub and confectionery manufacturing centre. During the Second World War, part of the Baedeker Blitz bombed the city; it was less affected by the war than other northern cities, with several historic buildings being gutted and restore ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Macbeth
''Macbeth'' (, full title ''The Tragedie of Macbeth'') is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power. Of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of James I, ''Macbeth'' most clearly reflects his relationship with King James, patron of Shakespeare's acting company. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book, and is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy. A brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler. The bloodbath an ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Kingston Upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea and south-east of York, the historic county town. With a population of (), it is the fourth-largest city in the Yorkshire and the Humber region after Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford. The town of Wyke on Hull was founded late in the 12th century by the monks of Meaux Abbey as a port from which to export their wool. Renamed ''Kings-town upon Hull'' in 1299, Hull had been a market town, military supply port, trading centre, fishing and whaling centre and industrial metropolis. Hull was an early theatre of battle in the English Civil Wars. Its 18th-century Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, took a prominent part in the abolition of the slave trade in Britain. More than 95% of the city was damaged or destroyed in the blitz and suffere ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




The Recruiting Officer
''The Recruiting Officer'' is a 1706 play by the Irish writer George Farquhar, which follows the social and sexual exploits of two officers, the womanising Plume and the cowardly Brazen, in the town of Shrewsbury (the town where Farquhar himself was posted in this capacity) to recruit soldiers. The characters of the play are generally stock, in keeping with the genre of Restoration comedy. Characters Plot The play opens with the recruiter, Captain Plume's Sergeant Kite, recruiting in the town of Shrewsbury. Plume arrives, in love with Sylvia, closely followed by Worthy, a local gentleman who is in love with Sylvia's cousin Melinda. Worthy asked Melinda to become his mistress a year previously, as he believed her to be of inadequate fortune to marry. But he changes his mind after she comes into an inheritance of £20,000. Melinda accepts an invitation from Captain Brazen, another recruiter, to annoy Worthy, as she was offended by Worthy's previous offer. However, her maid ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

George Farquhar
George Farquhar (1677The explanation for the dual birth year appears in Louis A. Strauss, ed., A Discourse Upon Comedy, The Recruiting Officer, and The Beaux’ Stratagem by George Farquhar' (Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., 1914), p. v. Strauss notes that "Our sole source of information as to the time of his birth is the entry of his matriculation in the register of Trinity College" on 17 July 1694, where "His age is given as 17." Earlier biographers took this to mean Farquhar was in his 17th year—hence born in 1678—and Strauss favors this date. But later writers, such as William Myers, ed., George Farquhar: The Recruiting Officer and Other Plays'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. vii, give the dual year, and John Ross, ed., ''George Farquhar: The Recruiting Officer (New Mermaids),'' 2nd ed., (London: A&C Black, 1991), p. xiii, gives a birthdate of "''ca.'' 1677" for the playwright. – 29 April 1707) was an Irish dramatist. He is noted for his contributions to late ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Wakefield
Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population, West Yorkshire – Wakefield BUASD, code E35000474 The city is the administrative centre of the wider City of Wakefield metropolitan district, which had a population of , the most populous district in England. It is part of the West Yorkshire Built-up Area and the Yorkshire and The Humber region. In 1888, it was one of the last group of towns to gain city status due to having a cathedral. The city has a town hall and county hall, as the former administrative centre of the city's county borough and metropolitan borough as well as county town to both the West Riding of Yorkshire and West Yorkshire, respectively. The Battle of Wakefield took place in the Wars of the Roses, and the city was a Royalist stronghold in the Civil W ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Tate Wilkinson
Tate Wilkinson (27 October 173916 November 1803) was an English actor and manager. Life He was the son of a clergyman and was sent to Harrow. His first attempts at acting were badly received, and it was to his wonderful gift of mimicry that he owed his success. His imitations, however, naturally gave offence to the important actors and managers whose peculiarities he hit off to the life. Garrick, Peg Woffington, Samuel Foote and Sheridan, after being delighted with the imitations of the others, were among the most angry when it came to their turn, and threatened never to forgive him. Garrick never did. As an actor, Wilkinson was most successful in Foote's plays, but his list of parts was a long one. In Shakespearian characters he was very popular in the provinces. In 1766 he became a partner of Joseph Baker in the management of several Yorkshire theatres, and married about 1768. He became sole manager after his partner's death in 1770 of a number of theatres on what was th ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Tragedy
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsis, or a "pain hatawakens pleasure", for the audience. While many cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, the term ''tragedy'' often refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western civilization. That tradition has been multiple and discontinuous, yet the term has often been used to invoke a powerful effect of cultural identity and historical continuity—"the Greeks and the Elizabethans, in one cultural form; Hellenes and Christians, in a common activity," as Raymond Williams puts it. From its origins in the theatre of ancient Greece 2500 years ago, from which there survives only a fra ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Nathaniel Lee
Nathaniel Lee (c. 1653 – 6 May 1692) was an English dramatist. He was the son of Dr Richard Lee, a Presbyterian clergyman who was rector of Hatfield and held many preferments under the Commonwealth; Dr Lee was chaplain to George Monck, afterwards Duke of Albemarle, but after the Restoration he conformed to the Church of England, and withdrew his approval for Charles I's execution. Lee was educated at Westminster School (though some sources say Charterhouse School), and at Trinity College, Cambridge, taking his B.A. degree in 1668. Coming to London, perhaps under the patronage of George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, he tried to earn his living as an actor, but acute stage fright made this impossible. His earliest play, ''Nero, Emperor of Rome'', was acted in 1675 at Drury Lane. Two tragedies written in rhymed heroic couplets, in imitation of John Dryden, followed in 1676: '' Sophonisba, or Hannibal's Overthrow'' and '' Gloriana, or the Court of Augustus Caesar''. Bot ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Theodosius (play)
''Theodosius; Or, The Force Of Love'' is a 1680 tragedy by the English writer Nathaniel Lee. It was first staged by the Duke's Company at the Dorset Garden Theatre. It takes place during the reign of the Roman Emperor Theodosius II. Incidental music for the play was composed by Henry Purcell. The original cast included Joseph Williams as Theodosius, Thomas Betterton as Varanes, William Smith as Marcian, John Wiltshire as Lucius, John Bowman as Atticus, Mary Betterton as Pulcheria and Elizabeth Barry as Athenais. The published version was dedicated to the Duchess of Richmond. The play remained popular and was revived numerous times over the following century and a half. A 1744 version at the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin used fresh compositions from Thomas Arne, the leading English-born composer of the era.Cudworth p.68 Actors who appeared in the title role included Lacy Ryan, Henry Giffard, Thomas Barry and John Philip Kemble John Philip Kemble (1 February 1757 � ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]