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The Kenny Everett Television Show
''The Kenny Everett Television Show'' is a comedy sketch show broadcast on BBC1 from 1981 to 1988. It was presented by its main performer Kenny Everett, who wrote the material with Barry Cryer and Ray Cameron. Later in 1986 they were joined by writing team Andrew Marshall and David Renwick after Cameron's departure the previous year. It was similar in style to Everett's previous programme '' The Kenny Everett Video Show'', broadcast on ITV from 1978 to 1981, but with greater emphasis on comedy sketches than musical numbers. However, each edition would still have at least one music act. A total 47 episodes, including 6 Christmas specials and 2 compilations over 5 series, were produced by the BBC, broadcast between 24 December 1981 and 18 January 1988 inclusive. Background In 1981, Everett was increasingly unhappy with Thames Television over the management and scheduling of '' The Kenny Everett Video Show''. One of his main complaints was that the show was directly scheduled ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barry Cryer
Barry Charles Cryer (23 March 1935 – 25 January 2022) was an English writer, comedian, and actor. As well as performing on stage, radio and television, Cryer wrote for many performers including Dave Allen, Stanley Baxter, Jack Benny, Rory Bremner, George Burns, Jasper Carrott, Tommy Cooper, Ronnie Corbett, Les Dawson, Dick Emery, Kenny Everett, Bruce Forsyth, David Frost, Bob Hope, Frankie Howerd, Richard Pryor, Spike Milligan, Mike Yarwood, '' The Two Ronnies'' and Morecambe and Wise. Early life Cryer was born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, to John Cryer, an accountant, who died when Barry was five, and his wife, Jean. After an education at Leeds Grammar School, he began studying English literature at the University of Leeds. He later described himself as a university dropout: "I was supposed to be studying English Literature at Leeds, but I was in the bar and chasing girls and my first-year results showed it. So I'm 'BA Eng. Lit. failed' of Leeds." Car ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Top Of The Pops
''Top of the Pops'' (''TOTP'') is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly between 1January 1964 and 30 July 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show. For most of its history, it was broadcast on Thursday evenings on BBC One. Each show consisted of performances of some of the week's best-selling popular music records, usually excluding any tracks moving down the chart, including a rundown of that week's singles chart. This was originally the Top 20, though this varied throughout the show's history. The Top 30 was used from 1969, and the Top 40 from 1984. Dusty Springfield's " I Only Want to Be with You" was the first song featured on ''TOTP'', while the Rolling Stones were the first band to perform, with " I Wanna Be Your Man". Snow Patrol were the last act to play live on the weekly show when they performed their single " Chasing Cars". Special editions were broadcast on Christmas Day (and us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beau Geste
''Beau Geste'' is an adventure novel by British writer P. C. Wren, which details the adventures of three English brothers who enlist separately in the French Foreign Legion following the theft of a valuable jewel from the country house of a relative. Published in 1924, the novel is set in the period before World War I. It has been adapted for the screen several times. Plot summary Michael "Beau" Geste is the protagonist. The main narrator is his younger brother John. The three Geste brothers are portrayed as behaving according to the English upper-class values of a time gone by. The Geste siblings are orphans and have been brought up by their aunt Lady Patricia at Brandon Abbas. The rest of Beau's band are mainly Isobel and Claudia (possibly the illegitimate daughter of Lady Patricia) and Lady Patricia's relative Augustus (the caddish nephew of the absent Sir Hector Brandon). While not mentioned in ''Beau Geste'', the American Otis Vanbrugh appears as a friend of the Geste brot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he first appeared in the anthology comic book ''Amazing Fantasy'' #15 (August 1962) in the Silver Age of Comic Books. He has since been featured in films, television shows, novels, video games, and plays. Spider-Man is the alias of Peter Parker, an orphan raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben in New York City after his parents Richard and Mary Parker died in a plane crash. Lee and Ditko had the character deal with the struggles of adolescence and financial issues and gave him many supporting characters, such as Flash Thompson, J. Jonah Jameson, and Harry Osborn; romantic interests Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson, and the Black Cat; and foes such as Doctor Octopus, the Green Goblin, and Venom. In his origin story, Spider-Man gets superhuman spider-powers and abilities from a bite from a radioactive spider; these include cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dynasty (1981 TV Series)
''Dynasty'' is an American prime time television soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television Serial (radio and television), serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio drama ... that aired on American Broadcasting Company, ABC from January 12, 1981, to May 11, 1989. The series, created by Richard and Esther Shapiro and produced by Aaron Spelling, revolves around the Carrington family, Carringtons, a wealthy family residing in Denver, Colorado. ''Dynasty'' stars John Forsythe as oil magnate Blake Carrington, Linda Evans as his new wife Krystle Carrington, Krystle, and later Joan Collins as his former wife Alexis Colby, Alexis. ''Dynasty'' was conceived by ABC to compete with CBS's prime time series ''Dallas (1978 TV series), Dallas''. Ratings for the show's first season were unimpressive, but a revamp for the second season that included the arrival ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dallas (1978 TV Series)
''Dallas'' is an American prime time television soap opera that aired on CBS from April 2, 1978, to May 3, 1991. The series revolves around an affluent and feuding Texas family, the Ewings, who own the independent oil company Ewing Oil and the cattle-ranching land of Southfork. The series originally focused on the marriage of Bobby Ewing and Pamela Barnes, whose families were sworn enemies. As the series progressed, Bobby's elder brother, oil tycoon J.R. Ewing, became the show's breakout character, whose schemes and dirty business became the show's trademark. When the show ended on May 3, 1991, J.R. was the only character to have appeared in every episode. The show was prominent for its cliffhangers, including the " Who shot J.R.?" mystery. The 1980 episode " Who Done It" remains the second-highest-rated prime-time telecast ever. The show also featured a "Dream Season", in which the entirety of season 9 was revealed to have been a dream of Pamela Ewing. After 14 seasons, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Parkinson
Sir Michael Parkinson (born 28 March 1935) is an English broadcaster, journalist and author. He presented his television talk show '' Parkinson'' from 1971 to 1982 and from 1998 to 2007, as well as other talk shows and programmes both in the UK and internationally. He has also worked in radio. He has been described by ''The Guardian'' as "the great British talkshow host". Early life Parkinson was born on 28 March 1935 in the village of Cudworth, near Barnsley, then in the West Riding of Yorkshire (since 1974 included in the new metropolitan county of South Yorkshire). The son of a miner, he was educated at Barnsley Grammar School after passing the eleven-plus and in 1951 passed two O-Levels: in art and English language. He was a club cricketer, and both he and his opening partner at Barnsley Cricket Club, Dickie Bird, had trials for Yorkshire together with Geoffrey Boycott. He once kept Boycott out of the Barnsley Cricket Club team by scoring a century and 50 in two succ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
B Movie
A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double feature (akin to B-sides for recorded music). However, the U.S. production of films intended as second features largely ceased by the end of the 1950s. With the emergence of commercial television at that time, film studio B movie production departments changed into television film production divisions. They created much of the same type of content in low budget films and series. The term ''B movie'' continues to be used in its broader sense to this day. In its post-Golden Age usage, B movies can range from lurid exploitation films to independent arthouse films. In either usage, most B movies represent a particular genre—the Western was a Golden Age B movie staple, while low-budget science-fiction and horror films became more popular in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mime Artist
A mime artist, or simply mime (from Greek , , "imitator, actor"), is a person who uses ''mime'' (also called ''pantomime'' outside of Britain), the acting out of a story through body motions without the use of speech, as a theatrical medium or as a performance art. In earlier times, in English, such a performer would typically be referred to as a mummer. Miming is distinguished from silent comedy, in which the artist is a character in a film or skit without sound. Jacques Copeau, strongly influenced by Commedia dell'arte and Japanese Noh theatre, used masks in the training of his actors. His pupil Étienne Decroux was highly influenced by this, started exploring and developing the possibilities of mime, and developed corporeal mime into a highly sculptural form, taking it outside the realms of naturalism. Jacques Lecoq contributed significantly to the development of mime and physical theatre with his training methods. As a result of this, the practice of mime has been in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alasdair Milne
Alasdair David Gordon Milne (8 October 19308 January 2013) was a British television producer and executive. He had a long career at the BBC, where he was eventually promoted to Director-General, and was described by ''The Independent'' as "one of the most original and talented programme-makers to emerge during television's formative years". In his early career, Milne was a BBC producer and was involved in founding the current affairs series ''Tonight'' in 1957. Later, after a period outside the BBC, he became controller of BBC Scotland and BBC Television's director of programmes. He served as Director-General of the BBC between July 1982 and January 1987, when he was forced to resign from his post by the BBC Governors following several difficult years for the BBC, which included sustained pressure from the Thatcher government about editorial decisions which had proved controversial. Early life Milne was born in British India to Charles Gordon Shaw Milne, an Aberdonian surge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Not The Nine O'Clock News
''Not the Nine O'Clock News'' is a British television sketch comedy show which was broadcast on BBC2 from 1979 to 1982. Originally shown as a comedy alternative to the '' Nine O'Clock News'' on BBC1, it features satirical sketches on then-current news stories and popular culture, 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 meta-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'' and '' Alas Smith ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mike Yarwood
Michael Edward Yarwood, (born 14 June 1941) is an English impressionist, comedian and actor. He was one of Britain's top-rated entertainers, regularly appearing on television from the 1960s to the 1980s. Early life Michael Edward Yarwood was born on Saturday, 14 June 1941 in Bredbury, Cheshire. After leaving Secondary Modern School, he worked as a messenger and then salesman at a garment warehouse. He played football as a child, but did not pursue a professional career. Later he was a director of the Stockport County football club. Career London Palladium Yarwood appeared on British television shows in the 1960s and 1970s. Before his various eponymous BBC Television series, he worked for the ITV franchise holder ATV, and for Thames Television after he left the BBC. Yarwood owed his initial success to the ''Sunday Night at the London Palladium'' variety "spectacular", on which he first appeared in 1964. His appearance coincided with the senior political career of Labour Pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
