Roger Michell
Roger Harry Michell (5 June 1956 – 22 September 2021) was a British theatre, television and film director. He was best known for directing films such as ''Notting Hill'' and ''Venus'', as well as the 1995 made-for-television film ''Persuasion''. Early life and education Roger Harry Michell was born on 5 June 1956 in Pretoria, Union of South Africa. He was not South African, as is sometimes mistakenly assumed, but was born there because his father was a British diplomat who had been posted to South Africa. On account of his father's job, Michell spent parts of his childhood in Beirut, Damascus, and Prague; he and his family were in Prague during the 1968 invasion. He was educated at Clifton College in Bristol, where he began directing and writing short plays, before studying English at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he directed and acted in dozens of plays, winning both the RSC Buzz Goodbody Award for Best Student Director at the NSDF, and a Fringe First Award at the Ed ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pretoria
Pretoria ( ; ) is the Capital of South Africa, administrative capital of South Africa, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to the country. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends eastward into the foothills of the Magaliesberg mountains. It has a reputation as an academic city and centre of research, being home to the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), the University of Pretoria (UP), the University of South Africa (UNISA), the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and the Human Sciences Research Council. It also hosts the National Research Foundation (South Africa), National Research Foundation and the South African Bureau of Standards. Pretoria was one of the host cities of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Pretoria is the central part of the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality which was formed by the amalgamation of several former local authorities, including B ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Queens' College, Cambridge
Queens' College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Queens' is one of the 16 "old colleges" of the university, and was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou. Its buildings span the River Cam with the Mathematical Bridge and Silver Street connecting the two sides. College alumni include Desiderius Erasmus, who studied at the college during his trips to England between 1506 and 1515. Other notable alumni include author T. H. White, Israeli politician Abba Eban, founding father of Ghana William Ofori Atta, newsreader and journalist Emily Maitlis, actor and writer Stephen Fry, the Governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey (banker), Andrew Bailey, the British Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), members of Parliament Stephen Kinnock, Liz Kendall and Suella Braverman, and Fields Medallist James Maynard (mathematician), James Maynard. The college's first Nobel Prize winner is Demis Hassabis, Sir Demis Hassabis who rece ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Richard Maher
Richard Maher is a British screenwriter, author and playwright. Born in Bristol in 1957, he graduated from Queens' College, Cambridge in 1979. His television work includes writing for '' Pie in the Sky'' and ''Taggart'', and co-creating the ITV1 drama '' Making Waves'' with Ted Childs Ted Childs is a British television producer, screenwriter, and director. Career Childs commenced training as a programme director with ABC Weekend TV in 1962. He went on to produce and direct a wide variety of factual programmes and documenta .... References External links * 1957 births 20th-century British male writers 21st-century British male writers Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge British male dramatists and playwrights British male screenwriters British television writers Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Writers from Bristol {{UK-screenwriter-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression. His first short story, " Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in '' Black Mask,'' a popular pulp magazine. His first novel, '' The Big Sleep'', was published in 1939. In addition to his short stories, Chandler published seven novels during his lifetime (an eighth, in progress at the time of his death, was completed by Robert B. Parker). All but '' Playback'' have been made into motion pictures, some more than once. In the year before his death, he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America. Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature. He is a founder of the hardboiled school of detective fiction, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other ''Black ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Danny Boyle
Daniel Francis Boyle (born 20 October 1956) is an English director and producer. He is known for his work on the films ''Shallow Grave (1994 film), Shallow Grave'' (1994), ''Trainspotting (film), Trainspotting'' (1996) and its sequel ''T2 Trainspotting'' (2017), ''The Beach (film), The Beach'' (2000), ''28 Days Later'' (2002), ''Sunshine (2007 film), Sunshine'' (2007), ''Slumdog Millionaire'' (2008), ''127 Hours'' (2010), ''Steve Jobs (film), Steve Jobs'' (2015), and ''Yesterday (2019 film), Yesterday'' (2019). Boyle's debut film ''Shallow Grave'' won the BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Film, BAFTA Award for Best British Film. The British Film Institute ranked ''Trainspotting'' the BFI Top 100 British films, 10th greatest British film of the 20th century. Boyle's 2008 crime drama film ''Slumdog Millionaire'', the most successful British film of the decade, was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won eight, including the Academy Award for Best Director. He won the Golden G ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hanif Kureishi
Hanif Kureishi (born 5 December 1954) is a British Pakistani playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker, and novelist. He is known for his film '' My Beautiful Laundrette'' and novel '' The Buddha of Suburbia''. Early life and education Hanif Kureishi was born on 5 December 1954 Subscription needed. in Bromley, South London, to a Pakistani father, Rafiushan (Shanoo) Kureishi, and an English mother, Audrey Buss. Emily Ballou"Whims of the father" ''The Australia'', 15 November 2008. His father was from a wealthy family based in Madras (now Chennai), whose members moved to Pakistan after the Partition of India in 1947. Rafiushan's father was a colonel and doctor in the British Indian Army. Rafiushan went to the same Cathedral School attended by Salman Rushdie, and the family was later close to the Bhuttos. Rafiushan's brother (Hanif's uncle), Omar Kureishi, was a newspaper columnist and manager of the Pakistan cricket team. Rafiushan travelled to the UK in 1950 to study law, but he ran ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Simon Curtis (filmmaker)
Simon Curtis (born 11 March 1960) is an English director and producer. He has worked in theatre, television and film. Career Curtis began his career working at the Royal Court Theatre. His first job was assistant director for Caryl Churchill's ''Top Girls''. He later became assistant director to both Danny Boyle and Max Stafford-Clark. Theatre productions Curtis has worked on include the world premiere of ''Road'', ''A Lie of the Mind'', ''Roots'', '' Dinner with Friends'' and ''The Rise and Fall of Little Voice''. In 2010, Curtis directed '' Serenading Louie'' at the Donmar Warehouse. In 1996, Curtis directed episodes of the television comedy series '' Tracey Takes On...'' for HBO. He also directed the three-part television drama '' Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky'' for BBC Four in 2005. The serial is an adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's '' 20,000 Streets Under the Sky'' novels. He directed the BBC's adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's '' Cranford'' in 2007. In June 2009, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Antonia Bird
Antonia Jane Bird, FRSA (27 May 1951 – 24 October 2013Kate Hardi"Antonia Bird obituary" ''The Guardian'', 28 October 2013) was an English producer and director of television drama and feature films. Career In 1968, at the age of 17, Bird began working in theatre as an assistant stage manager at Coventry Rep. She worked her way up doing a variety of jobs, including acting, stage management, publicity, theatre administration and directing in repertory and regional theatres. She directed a season of plays at The Studio at Chester Theatre and later joined Leicester's Phoenix Theatre as a director.Simon Farquha"Obituary: Antonia Bird, Television director with a flair for gritty realism" ''The Independent'', 30 October 2013. Bird was named resident director at the Royal Court Theatre in 1978. She was appointed artistic director of the Royal Court's Theatre Upstairs, London's leading venue for new writing. Her first television production was ''Submariners'' (1983), an adaptation o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tragicomic episodes of life, often coupled with black comedy and literary nonsense. A major figure of Irish literature and one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, he is credited with transforming the genre of the modern theatre. Best remembered for his tragicomedy play ''Waiting for Godot'' (1953), he is considered to be one of the last Modernism, modernist writers, and a key figure in what Martin Esslin called the "Theatre of the Absurd." For his lasting literary contributions, Beckett received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation." A resident of Paris for most of his adult life, Beckett wrote in both Frenc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Max Stafford-Clark
Maxwell Robert Guthrie Stewart "Max" Stafford-Clark (born 17 March 1941) is a British theatre director. Life and career Stafford-Clark was born in Cambridge, the son of David Stafford-Clark, a physician, and Dorothy Crossley (née Oldfield). He was educated at Felsted School, in Essex, and Riverdale Country School in New York City, followed by Trinity College, Dublin. His directing career began as Associate Director of the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in 1966. He became artistic director there from 1968 to 1970. He was Director of the Traverse Theatre Workshop Company from 1970 to 1974. Stafford-Clark then co-founded the Joint Stock Theatre Company in 1974. Joint Stock worked with writers using company research to inspire workshops. From these workshops, writers such as David Hare, Howard Brenton and Caryl Churchill would garner material to inspire a writing phase before rehearsals began. This methodology is sometimes referred to as The Joint Stock Method. Productions durin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Osborne
John James Osborne (12 December 1929 – 24 December 1994) was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, and entrepreneur, who is regarded as one of the most influential figures in post-war theatre. Born in London, he briefly worked as a journalist. before starting out in theatre as a stage manager and actor.. He lived in poverty for several years before his third produced play, '' Look Back in Anger'' (1956), brought him national fame. Based on Osborne's volatile relationship with his first wife, Pamela Lane, it is considered the first work of kitchen sink realism, initiating a movement which made use of social realism and domestic settings to address disillusion with British society in the waning years of the Empire.Heilpern, pp. 93–102 The phrase “ angry young man”, coined by George Fearon to describe Osborne when promoting the play, came to embody the predominantly working class and left-wing writers within this movement. Osborne was considered its leading figure ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a West End theatre#London's non-commercial theatres, non-commercial theatre in Sloane Square, London, England, opened in 1870; the current building was completed in 1888. The capacity of the theatre has varied between 728 seats and today's 380 seats (with a smaller upstairs theatre opened in 1969). In 1956 it was acquired by and remains the home of the English Stage Company, which focuses on contemporary theatre and won the Europe Theatre Prize, Europe Prize Theatrical Realities in 1999. History The first theatre The first theatre on Lower George Street, off Sloane Square, was the converted Nonconformist Ranelagh Chapel, opened as a theatre in 1870 under the name The New Chelsea Theatre. Marie Litton became its manager in 1871, hiring Walter Emden to remodel the interior, and it was renamed the Court Theatre. Several of W. S. Gilbert's early plays ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |