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Norbert Smith - A Life
''Norbert Smith: A Life'' (also known as ''Sir Norbert Smith: A Life''), is a 1989 mockumentary (spoof documentary) television film, charting the life and career of the fictitious British actor Sir Norbert Smith. It stars Harry Enfield in the title role. It was written by Enfield and Geoffrey Perkins and directed by Geoff Posner. Summary The film is presented as if it were an edition of the ITV arts programme ''The South Bank Show'', commemorating the 80th birthday of Sir Norbert Smith, a celebrated British actor. Melvyn Bragg, the real-life presenter of ''The South Bank Show'', plays himself, visiting Sir Norbert at his home and encouraging him to reminisce about his past career. Bragg also talks with people who worked with Sir Norbert over the years. The interviews, scattered through the film, gradually reveal that although Sir Norbert is acclaimed as one of Britain's "Knights of the Theatre", a star Shakespearean actor in the mould of Laurence Olivier or John Gielgud, none o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mockumentary
A mockumentary (a portmanteau of ''mock'' and ''documentary'') is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events, but presented as a Documentary film, documentary. Mockumentaries are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues in a satirical way by using a fictional setting, or to parody the documentary form itself. The term originated in the 1960s but was popularized in the mid-1990s when ''This Is Spinal Tap'' director Rob Reiner used it in interviews to describe that film. While mockumentaries are comedy, comedic, pseudo-documentary, pseudo-documentaries are their dramatic equivalents. However, pseudo-documentary should not be confused with docudrama, a fictional genre in which dramatic techniques are combined with documentary elements to depict real events. Nor should either of those be confused with docufiction, a genre in which documentaries are contaminated with fictional elements. Mockumentaries are often presented as historical documenta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (theatre), play depicts Prince Hamlet and his attempts to exact revenge against his uncle, King Claudius, Claudius, who has murdered Ghost (Hamlet), Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and marry Gertrude (Hamlet), Hamlet's mother. ''Hamlet'' is considered among the "most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language", with a story capable of "seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others." It is widely considered one of the greatest plays of all time. Three different early versions of the play are extant: the Hamlet Q1, First Quarto (Q1, 1603); the Second Quarto (Q2, 1604); and the First Folio (F1, 1623). Each version includes lines and passages missing from the others. Many works have been pointed to as possible s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Renée Asherson
Dorothy Renée Ascherson (19 May 1915 – 30 October 2014), known professionally as Renée Asherson, was a British actress. Much of her theatrical career was spent in Shakespearean plays, appearing at such venues as the Old Vic, the Liverpool Playhouse, and the Westminster Theatre. Her first stage appearance was on 17 October 1935, aged 20, and her first major film appearance was in ''The Way Ahead'' (1944). Her last film appearance was in '' The Others'' (2001). Early life Dorothy Renée Ascherson was born in Kensington, London, the younger daughter of shipowner Charles Stephen Ascherson (1877–1945) and Dorothy Lilian (; 1881–1975). Her father was of German-Jewish extraction. She was brought up in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, as well as Switzerland and Anjou. She later trained for the stage at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. Career Theatre Asherson made her first stage appearance on 17 October 1935, as a walk-on in John Gielgud's production of ''Romeo a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Goodwright
Peter Goodwright (12 May 1936 – 2 November 2020) was an English comedic impressionist. He appeared on the ITV impressions show '' Who Do You Do?'' in the 1970s. Goodwright was born in Haslington, Cheshire. Career Goodwright has been referred to as "the godfather of impressionists". On radio in the 1950s, he appeared in '' The Clitheroe Kid'' and the last episode of ''Hancock's Half Hour''; where he impersonated Tony Hancock as he specialised in impersonating radio performers. As well as ''Who Do You Do?'', he made several television appearances, including on '' Jokers Wild''. He was a panel member on the BBC Radio 2 comedy game ''The Impressionists'' and appeared on the ''Royal Variety Performance'' in 1987. He worked with Harry Enfield in the spoof documentary biopic '' Norbert Smith: A Life'' in 1989, and also appeared on stage in farces by Ray Cooney Raymond George Alfred Cooney Order of the British Empire, OBE (born 30 May 1932) is an English playwright, actor, and dir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blackface
Blackface is the practice of performers using burned cork, shoe polish, or theatrical makeup to portray a caricature of black people on stage or in entertainment. Scholarship on the origins or definition of blackface vary with some taking a global perspective that includes European culture and Western colonialism. Blackface became a global phenomenon as an outgrowth of theatrical practices of racial misrepresentation, racial impersonation popular throughout Britain and its colonial empire, where it was integral to the development of imperial racial politics. Scholars with this wider view may date the practice of blackface to as early as Medieval Europe's mystery plays when bitumen and coal were used to darken the skin of white performers portraying demons, devils, and damned souls. Still others date the practice to English Renaissance theatre, English Renaissance theater, in works such as William Shakespeare's ''Othello''. However, some scholars see blackface as a specific pract ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( , ; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a Universal suffrage, fully representative democratic election. Presidency of Nelson Mandela, His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by fostering racial Conflict resolution, reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialism, socialist, he served as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997. A Xhosa people, Xhosa, Mandela was born into the Thembu people, Thembu royal family in Mvezo, South Africa. He studied law at the University of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. There he became involved in anti-colonial and Afr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biographical Film
A biographical film or biopic () is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or group of people. Such films show the life of a historical person and the central character's real name is used. They differ from Docudrama, docudrama films and Historical drama, historical drama films in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a single person's life story or at least the most historically important years of their lives. Context Biopic scholars include George F. Custen of the College of Staten Island and Dennis P. Bingham of Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. Custen, in ''Bio/Pics: How Hollywood Constructed Public History'' (1992), regards the genre as having died with the Studio system, Hollywood studio era, and in particular, Darryl F. Zanuck. On the other hand, Bingham's 2010 study ''Whose Lives Are They Anyway? The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre'' shows how it perpetuates as a codified genre using many of the same tropes used in the studio era that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp
Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp was a series of protest camps established to protest against nuclear weapons being placed at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire, England. The camp began on 5 September 1981 after a Welsh group, Women for Life on Earth, arrived at Greenham to protest against the decision of the British government to allow cruise missiles to be stored there. After realising that the march alone was not going to get them the attention that they needed to have the missiles removed, women began to stay at Greenham to continue their protest. The first blockade of the base occurred in March 1982 with 250 women protesting, during which 34 arrests occurred. The camp became the central focus of the British peace movement and a global symbol of the antinuclear struggle and the centrality of women to it. Despite the installation of cruise missiles at Greenham in 1983, the protests, historian Martin Shaw argues, contributed decisively to the 1987 INF treaty which led to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Caine
Sir Michael Caine (born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, 14 March 1933) is a retired English actor. Known for his distinct Cockney accent, he has appeared in more than 160 films over Michael Caine filmography, a career that spanned eight decades and is considered a British cultural icon. He has received List of awards and nominations received by Michael Caine, numerous awards including two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. As of 2017, the films in which Caine has appeared have grossed over $7.8 billion worldwide. Caine is one of only five male actors to be nominated for an Academy Award for acting in five different decades. In 2000, he received a BAFTA Fellowship and was Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom, knighted by Elizabeth II, Queen Elizabeth II. Often playing a Cockney, Caine made his breakthrough in the 1960s with starring roles in British films such as ''Zulu (1964 film), Zulu'' (1964), ''The Ipcress ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rock Musical
A rock musical is a musical theatre work with rock music. The genre of rock musical may overlap somewhat with album musicals, concept albums and song cycles, as they sometimes tell a story through the rock music, and some album musicals and concept albums become rock musicals. Notable examples of rock musicals include ''Next to Normal'', '' Spring Awakening'', '' Rent'', '' Grease'', and ''Hair''. The Who's '' Tommy'' and other rock operas are sometimes presented on stage as a musical. History The first musical to hint at what was to come was the final Ziegfeld Follies in 1957. This production featured one rock and roll number, "The Juvenile Delinquent", performed by fifty-year-old Billy De Wolfe. This was followed by another precursor to the rock musical, '' Bye Bye Birdie'' (1960), which included two rock and roll numbers. The rock musical became an important part of the musical theatre scene in the late 1960s with the hit show ''Hair''. Styled "The American Tribal Love-Rock Mus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber (born 22 March 1948) is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End theatre, West End and on Broadway theatre, Broadway. He has composed 21 musicals, a song cycle, a set of Variation (music), variations, two film scores, and Requiem (Lloyd Webber), a Latin Requiem Mass. Several of Lloyd Webber's songs have been widely recorded and widely successful outside their parent musicals, such as "Memory (Cats song), Memory" from ''Cats (musical), Cats'', "The Music of the Night" and "All I Ask of You" from ''The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical), The Phantom of the Opera'', "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from ''Jesus Christ Superstar'', "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" from ''Evita (musical), Evita'', and "Any Dream Will Do (song), Any Dream Will Do" from ''Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat''. In 2001, ''The New York Times'' referred to him as "the most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire and span the Transition from Classical to Romantic music, transition from the Classical period (music), Classical period to the Romantic music, Romantic era. His early period, during which he forged his craft, is typically considered to have lasted until 1802. From 1802 to around 1812, his middle period showed an individual development from the styles of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and is sometimes characterised as heroic. During this time, Beethoven began to grow increasingly Hearing loss, deaf. In his late period, from 1812 to 1827, he extended his innovations in musical form and expression. Born in Bonn, Beethoven displayed his musical talent at a young age. He was initially taught intensively by his father, Johann van Bee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
