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Johnny Speight
Johnny Speight (2 June 1920 – 5 July 1998) was an English television scriptwriter of many classic British sitcoms. Speight emerged in the mid-1950s, writing for radio comics Frankie Howerd, Vic Oliver, Arthur Askey, and Cyril Fletcher. For television he wrote for Morecambe & Wise, Peter Sellers and '' 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 Jacques ...
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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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Greater London
Greater London is an administrative area in England, coterminous with the London region, containing most of the continuous urban area of London. It contains 33 local government districts: the 32 London boroughs, which form a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county also called Greater London, and the City of London. The Greater London Authority is responsible for strategic local government across the region, and regular local government is the responsibility of the borough councils and the City of London Corporation. Greater London is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Hertfordshire to the north, Essex to the north-east, Kent to the south-east, Surrey to the south, and Berkshire and Buckinghamshire to the west. Greater London has a land area of and had an estimated population of in . The ceremonial county of Greater London is only slightly smaller, with an area of and a population of in . The area is almost entirely urbanised and contains the majority of the ...
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All In The Family
''All in the Family'' is an American sitcoms in the United States, sitcom television series that aired on CBS for nine seasons from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979, with a total of 205 episodes. It was later produced as ''Archie Bunker's Place'', a continuation series, which picked up where ''All in the Family'' ended and ran for four seasons through April 4, 1983. Based on the British sitcom ''Till Death Us Do Part'', ''All in the Family'' was produced by Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin. It starred Carroll O'Connor, Jean Stapleton, Sally Struthers, and Rob Reiner. The show revolves around the life of a working-class man and his family. It broke ground by introducing challenging and complex issues into mainstream network television comedy: racism, antisemitism, infidelity, homosexuality, women's liberation movement, women's liberation, rape, religion, miscarriage, abortion, breast cancer, the Vietnam War, menopause, divorce, and impotence. The series became arguably one of televis ...
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Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative and Unionist Party, commonly the Conservative Party and colloquially known as the Tories, is one of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party. The party sits on the Centre-right politics, centre-right to Right-wing politics, right-wing of the Left–right political spectrum, left-right political spectrum. Following its defeat by Labour at the 2024 United Kingdom general election, 2024 general election it is currently the second-largest party by the number of votes cast and number of seats in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons; as such it has the formal parliamentary role of His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition. It encompasses various ideological factions including One-nation conservatism, one-nation conservatives, Thatcherism, Thatcherites and Traditionalist conservatism, traditionalist conservatives. There have been 20 Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, prime minis ...
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Reactionary
In politics, a reactionary is a person who favors a return to a previous state of society which they believe possessed positive characteristics absent from contemporary.''The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought'' Third Edition, (1999) p. 729. 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 ''wiktionary:status_quo_ante, status quo ante''. As an 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, and economic change. In the 20th century, reactionary politics was associated with r ...
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Warren Mitchell
Warren Mitchell (born Warren Misell; 14 January 1926 – 14 November 2015) was an English actor best known for playing bigoted cockney Alf Garnett in television, film and stage productions from the 1960s to the 1990s. He was a 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 Alf Garnett in the BBC television sitcom '' Till Death Us Do Part'' (1965–75), created by Johnny Speight, which won him a Best TV Actor BAFTA in 1967. He reprised the role in the television sequels '' Till Death...'' ( ATV, 1981) and '' In Sickness and in Health'' (BBC, 1985–92), and in the films '' Till Death Us Do Part'' (1969) and '' The Alf Garnett Saga'' (1972). Mitchell's other film appearances include '' Three Crooked Men'' (1958), '' Carry On Cleo'' (1964), '' The Spy ...
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Associated TeleVision
ATV Network Limited, originally Associated TeleVision (ATV), was a British broadcaster, part of the ITV (TV network), ITV (Independent Television) network. It provided a service to London at weekends from 1955 to 1968, to the Midlands on weekdays from 1956 to 1968, and subsequently to the Midlands all week from 1968 to 1982. It was one of the "History of ITV#The Big Four and Big Five, 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 franch ...
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Spike Milligan
Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was an Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright and actor. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British Raj, British 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, 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 (character), Eccles and Minnie Bannister. He was the earliest-born and last surviving member of The Goons (The Goon Show), the Goons. He took his success with ''The Goon Show'' into television with ''Q... (TV series), Q5'', a surreal sketch show credited as a major influence on the members of ''Monty Pytho ...
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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 to 19 ...
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Richard Wattis
Richard Cameron 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 Walsall (, or ; locally ) is a market town and administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. Historic counties of England, Historically part of Staffordshire, it is located ... from 1924 to 1929. Career After leaving the family business, Wattis became an actor. His debut was with Croydon Repertory Theatre, and he mad ...
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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 with Eri ...
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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, which include collaboration on some scripts for '' The Goon Show''. 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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