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Joyce Carey
Joyce Carey (30 March 1898 – 28 February 1993) was an English actress, best known for her long professional and personal relationship with Noël Coward. Her stage career lasted from 1916 until 1987, and she was performing on television in her 90s. Although never a star, she was a familiar face both on stage and screen. In addition to light comedy, she had a large repertory of Shakespearean roles. Career Joyce Carey was born to Joyce Lilian Lawrence, the daughter of actor Gerald Lawrence, a matinée idol who had been a juvenile in Henry Irving's Shakespeare company, and his wife, actress Lilian Braithwaite,''Gaye'', pp 426–427 a major West End star."Obituary", ''The Times'', 3 March 1993, p. 17 Carey was educated at the Florence Etlinger Dramatic School. Carey made her stage debut in 1916, aged 18, as Princess Katherine in an all-female production of '' Henry V''. She joined Sir George Alexander's company at the St James's Theatre playing Jacqueline, a French countess, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Order Of The British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two of which make the recipient either a Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom#Modern honours, knight if male or a dame (title), dame if female. There is also the related British Empire Medal, whose recipients are affiliated with the order, but are not members of it. The order was established on 4 June 1917 by King George V, who created the order to recognise 'such persons, male or female, as may have rendered or shall hereafter render important services to Our Empire'. Equal recognition was to be given for services rendered in the UK and overseas. Today, the majority of recipients are UK citizens, though a number of Commonwealth realms outside the UK continue to make appointments to the order. Honorary awards may be made to cit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Titania (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
Titania () is a character in William Shakespeare's 1595–1596 play ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''. In the play, she is the Queen of the fairies and wife of the Fairy King, Oberon. The pair are depicted as powerful natural spirits who together guarantee the fertility or health of the human and natural worlds. Yet their falling out has severely disrupted both worlds, as Titania explains at length in Act 1 Scene 2, ending "And this same progeny of evils comes From our debate, from our dissension." Origins The names Titania and Oberon may both sound vaguely classical, but neither is a figure from classical mythology. Survivals of homegrown English paganism were sometimes denounced as witchcraft; but Shakespeare folds his pagan fairies into the more accepted mythology of Greco-Roman literature, associating Titania and Oberon with the legend of Theseus. Shakespeare likely took the name Titania from Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'', where it is an appellation given to the daughters of Ti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blithe Spirit (play)
''Blithe Spirit'' is a comic play by Noël Coward, described by the author as "an improbable farce in three acts". The play concerns the socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant Madame Arcati to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to gather material for his next book. The scheme backfires when he is haunted by the ghost of his wilful and temperamental first wife, Elvira, after the séance. Elvira makes continual attempts to disrupt Charles's marriage to his second wife, Ruth, who cannot see or hear the ghost. The play was first seen in the West End in 1941 and ran for 1,997 performances, a new record for a non-musical play in London. It also did well on Broadway later that year, running for 657 performances. The play was adapted for the cinema in 1945; a second film version followed in 2020. Coward directed a musical adaptation, '' High Spirits'', seen on Broadway and in the West End in 1964. Radio and television presenta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
This Happy Breed
''This Happy Breed'' is a play by Noël Coward. It was written in 1939 but, because of the outbreak of World War II, it was not staged until 1942, when it was performed on alternating nights with another Coward play, '' Present Laughter''. The two plays later alternated with Coward's '' Blithe Spirit''. The title, a reference to the English people, is a phrase from John of Gaunt's monologue in Act II, Scene 1 of Shakespeare's ''Richard II''. The story of the play concerns the lower middle-class Gibbons family between the end of World War I and the outbreak of World War II. It anticipates the non-violent ways in which social justice issues might be incorporated into post-war national reconstruction, examines the personal trauma caused by the sudden death of sons and daughters and anticipates the forthcoming return of English men from the war. It is also an intimate portrait of the economy and politics of Great Britain in the 1920s and 1930s (such as the General Strike of 1926) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Entertainments National Service Association
The Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) was an organisation established in 1939 by Basil Dean and Leslie Henson to provide entertainment for British armed forces personnel during World War II. ENSA operated as part of the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes. In 1946 it was re-named to Combined Services Entertainment (CSE) operating under the Services Sound and Vision Corporation (SSVC), until 2 March 2020, when the SSVC re-branded to the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS), with the CSE likewise re-branding as BFBS Live Events. The first big wartime variety concert organised by ENSA was broadcast by the BBC to the Empire and local networks from RAF Hendon in north London on 17 October 1939. Among the entertainers appearing on the bill were Adelaide Hall, The Western Brothers and Mantovani. A newsreel of this concert showing Hall singing " We're Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line" accompanied by Mantovani and His Orchestra exists. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud ( ; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. A member of the Terry family theatrical dynasty, he gained his first paid acting work as a junior member of his cousin Phyllis Neilson-Terry's company in 1922. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), he worked in repertory theatre and in the West End theatre, West End before establishing himself at the Old Vic as an exponent of Shakespeare in 1929–31. During the 1930s Gielgud was a stage star in the West End and on Broadway theatre, Broadway, appearing in new works and classics. He began a parallel career as a director, and set up his own company at the Sondheim Theatre, Queen's Theatre, London. He was regarded by many as the finest Prince Hamlet, Hamlet of his era, and was also k ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spring Meeting (play)
''Spring Meeting'' is a 1938 British comedy play written by Molly Keane (as M.J. Farrell) and John Perry. It was a hit in the West End, running for 310 performances at the Ambassadors Theatre between May 1938 and March 1939. Directed by John Gielgud, the cast included Niall MacGinnis, Edmund Breon, Nicholas Phipps, Joyce Carey, Zena Dare, Betty Chancellor and Margaret Rutherford. Rutherford's performance in particular attracted strong reviews.Wearing p.681 From December 1938 a Broadway version ran at the Morosco Theatre with a cast including Gladys Cooper and A.E. Matthews, lasting for 98 performances. Synopsis Tiny Fox-Collier, a penniless and divorced adventureress brings her son Tony with her to Ireland intending to marry him to the eldest daughter of her old flame, Sir Richard Furze, a member of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. However she is already in love with a local stable hand, while he rapidly falls for the younger daughter. To add to the complications Tiny begins ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tonight At 8
Tonight may refer to: Television * ''Tonight'' (1957 TV programme), a 1957–1965 British current events television programme hosted by Cliff Michelmore that was broadcast on BBC * ''Tonight'' (1975 TV programme), a 1975–1979 British current events television programme on BBC One * ''Tonight'' (1999 TV programme), a British news magazine television programme that has aired on ITV since 1999 * '' 1News Tonight'', a New Zealand evening news programme hosted by Kate Hawkesby * ''The Tonight Show'', a United States talk show, also known in its early years as simply ''Tonight'' * '' Tonight with Arnold Clavio'', a Philippine television talk show * "Tonight" (''Prison Break''), an episode of ''Prison Break'' Music Bands * Tonight (band), a British new-wave group Albums * ''Tonight'' (Big Bang EP), or the title song, 2011 * ''Tonight'' (Clark Terry-Bob Brookmeyer Quintet album), 1965 * ''Tonight'' (David Bowie album), or the title song (see below), 1984 * ''Tonight'' (FM album ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Road To Rome
''The Road to Rome'' is a 1926 historical satire by author Robert Sherwood. It has three acts, two settings, and a large cast. The action of the play covers a single evening and the next morning in June 216 B.C., during the Second Punic War. The plot revolves around a Greco-Roman lady who distracts and dissuades Hannibal from capturing Rome after the Battle of Cannae. It was Sherwood's first published play. The play was first produced by William A. Brady, Jr. and Dwight Wiman, with staging by Lester Lonergan, settings and costumes by Lee Simonson, musical effects by Douglas Moore, and starring Jane Cowl, with Philip Merivale and Richie Ling. It had tryouts at Washington, D.C. and Newark, New Jersey, before its Broadway premiere, all during January 1927. It ran for 396 performances, ending just ten days short of a year. After a four month tour, the play was revived for another month on Broadway. It also had a separate production company in London starting in May 1928, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Easy Virtue (play)
''Easy Virtue'' is a three-act play by Noël Coward, written in 1924 when he was 25 years old. The play depicts the conflict that arises within a conventional upper-middle-class household when the only son of the family marries a glamorous divorcée. The play had a successful first run in New York in 1925 and then opened in London in 1926. It has been revived several times since and made into a film twice – in Easy Virtue (1928 film), 1928 and Easy Virtue (2008 film), 2008. Background ''Easy Virtue'' was produced at a time when Coward was riding a wave of success. ''The Vortex'' (1924) had been a controversial sensation on both sides of the Atlantic with its portrayal of recreational drug taking and veiled references to homosexuality; his comedy ''Hay Fever (play), Hay Fever'' (1925) achieved box-office success in the West End theatre, West End. In his autobiography, ''Present Indicative'', Coward said that his object in writing the play was to present a comedy in the structur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olivia (Twelfth Night)
Olivia is a fictional character from William Shakespeare's play '' Twelfth Night'', believed to have been written around 1600 or 1601. She is at the centre of the various plots, both the comedic and the romantic. She has various suitors. Background Olivia is a beautiful lady of noble birth who lives in Illyria. Before the play begins, she lost her brother, her guardian, after her father died. This loss has made her grief-stricken and she has refused to see anyone who does not reside in her household and declared that she will be in mourning for seven years (The element itself, till seven years' heat, Shall not behold her face at ample view). Because of her wealth and beauty, Olivia attracts various men ( Malvolio, Sir Andrew Aguecheek) who wish to marry her. The play begins with the Duke of Illyria, Orsino, pining away over his love for Olivia while she refuses to accept him as a suitor. Sir Andrew has been invited to her household by Sir Toby, and Andrew hopes to u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Celia (As You Like It)
Celia is one of the important characters of Shakespeare's ''As You Like It''. Celia is the daughter of Duke Frederick and niece of the banished Duke Senior. Celia and Rosalind are cousins but they have sisterly affection. Physical appearance Celia is beautiful, but with a beauty less sparkling than that of Rosalind. Orlando describes both of them as "fair and excellent ladies". Celia is shorter than her cousin and less majestic in appearance. She has a gentle expression combined with a habitual serious appearance. Hence Rosalind addresses her at one time as "my pretty little coz" (), and at another as, "sad brow and true maid" (). Love for Rosalind Celia's love for Rosalind knows no limits and is frequently referred to in the play. Charles, the wrestler, relates that Celia loves her cousin so much that she would have followed Rosalind into exile in case Rosalind too had been banished along with her father. Le Beau, the courtier, describes their love as "dearer than the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
