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The Plank (1979 Film)
''The Plank'' is a 30-minute, British slapstick comedy film for television from 1979, which was written and directed by Eric Sykes. This version, which is a remake of the 1967 film '' The Plank'', also written and directed by Sykes, was produced by Thames Television and broadcast on the ITV network. Although not literally a silent film, it has little spoken dialogue. Instead the film is punctuated by grunts, other vocal noises and sound effects. The soundtrack was composed by Alan Braden, and performed by Alan Braden and his orchestra. Sveriges Television in Sweden used to show the film several times around Christmas and New Year during the 1980s and 1990s. Outline When two builders find that a floorboard is missing, they buy a replacement floorboard and return with it through the streets, causing unexpected chaos. This was the third version of ''The Plank''; the basic idea had originated in an episode called "Sykes and a Plank", which Eric Sykes had written for his BBC te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tommy Cooper
Thomas Frederick Cooper (19 March 1921 – 15 April 1984) was a Welsh prop comedian and magician. As an entertainer, his appearance was large and lumbering at , and he habitually wore a red fez when performing. He served in the British Army for seven years before developing his conjuring skills and becoming a member of The Magic Circle. Although he spent time on tour performing his magical act, which specialised in magic tricks that appeared to fail, he rose to international prominence when his career moved into television, with programmes for London Weekend Television and Thames Television. By the end of the 1970s, Cooper was smoking and drinking heavily, which affected his career and his health, effectively ending offers to front new programmes and relegating him to performing as a guest star on other entertainment shows. On 15 April 1984, Cooper died at the age of 63 after suffering a heart attack on live television. Early life Thomas Frederick Cooper was born on 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ann Sidney
Ann Sidney (born 27 March 1944) is a British actress, television host and beauty queen who won the 1964 Miss World contest representing the United Kingdom. Early life Sidney moved to Poole when very young. She went to Martin Road School in Parkstone and then Martin Kemp-Welch secondary school, which later became St Aldhelm's Academy, leaving school at fifteen. She initially took an apprenticeship in hairdressing, working in salons in Bournemouth, but then decided that she would rather be a model. Miss World Sidney became the second woman from her country to win the title, after Rosemarie Frankland in 1961. The pageant was held in London on 12 November 1964. It was watched on television by a reported 27.2 million people in the UK alone. During her reign as Miss World, she travelled around the world five times and joined Bob Hope on his USO tour of Asia. Career After relinquishing the Miss World title, Sidney had many television acting roles, including '' The Avengers'' and '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rex Garner
Rex Garner (1921 – 17 May 2015) was a British born actor and director. He was born in 1921 in Wolverhampton, England. He died 17 May 2015 at the age of 94. Garner was survived by his seven children: Nicholas Garner, Lindsey Garner, Christopher Garner, Geraldine Raper (née Garner) Sally Garner-Gibbons, Kerry Garner, and Kim Garner, and his ex-wife Tammy Garner. He played Vic Steele, between 1957-'59, in Shadow Squad. Among his many British TV appearances he also co-starred in '' My Wife and I''. In 1968 he went to South Africa to join the Academy Theatre, and settled there in 1974. In 1979 joined Pieter Toerien acting and directing plays until 1999. In 1981 he was the director of Tommie Meyer's film "Birds of Paradise". He returned to the UK in the early 2000s. He was named the best actor in 1983 at the Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards The Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards are a set of annual awards that recognize prominence in professional theatrical productions held within the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frankie Howerd
Francis Alick Howard (6 March 1917 – 19 April 1992), better known by his stage-name Frankie Howerd, was an English actor and comedian. Early life Howerd was born the son of a soldier Francis Alfred William (1887–1934)England & Wales, Death Index: 1916–2005 and Edith Florence Howard (née Morrison, 1888–1962), at the City Hospital in York, England, in 1917 (not 1922 as he later claimed). His mother worked at the Rowntree's factory. The family lived in Hartoft Street, which he later described as ''"a poorish area of the city near the River Ouse, Yorkshire, River Ouse"''. He retained an affection for his home city, to which he often returned. When his father was posted to Woolwich Garrison, Woolwich, the family moved to Eltham, London while he was a young child, and he was educated at Shooters Hill Sixth Form College, Shooter's Hill Grammar School in Shooter's Hill.Howerd, Frankie (1976) ''On the Way I Lost It'', W.H. Allen, Career His first stage appearance was at ag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pat Gorman
William Patrick Gorman (10 May 1933 – 9 October 2018) was a British actor known in particular for his many small roles in the science fiction programme ''Doctor Who''. Early life Gorman was born in the East End of London on March 10, 1933. His parents died before he was five, and he was raised by his grandmother. He later served in the army and work in Canada as a miner and logger before returning to London to help look after his widowed grandmother. He got into acting after a chance meeting with an agent looking for extras and stuntmen while Gorman was working at a market. Career Despite never appearing in a starring role, Gorman appeared in minor roles in a large number of films and television productions, including ''The Elephant Man'', ''Z-Cars'', ''Fawlty Towers'', '' I, Claudius'' and ''Blake's 7''. He also played the killer in the television series '' The Nightmare Man''. He appeared in minor roles in 83 episodes of the science fiction series ''Doctor Who'' between 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kenny Lynch
Kenneth Lynch, OBE (18 March 1938 – 18 December 2019) was an English singer, songwriter, entertainer, and actor. He appeared in many variety shows in the 1960s. At the time, he was among the few black singers in British pop music. He was appointed an OBE in the 1970 New Year Honours list. Early life Lynch was born in Stepney, East London, in 1938, where he grew up on Cornwall Street, the youngest in a family of 14 children. His sister Gladys (stage name Maxine Daniels) was a jazz singer of some note. His father was born in Barbados and his mother was mixed-raced British and Jamaican. After leaving school at 15 and working various jobs, he did national service in the Royal Army Service Corps and was the regimental featherweight boxing champion. Career Before Lynch had several UK hit singles in the early 1960s, he released "Twist Me Pretty Baby" with Bert Weedon in 1962 (His Master's Voice-45 POP 989); the label's credit reads "Shouts by Kenny Lynch". Two top ten hits were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy Edwards
James Keith O'Neill Edwards, DFC (23 March 19207 July 1988) was an English comedy writer and actor of stage, radio, television and film, known for his roles as Pa Glum in '' Take It from Here'' and as headmaster "Professor" James Edwards in '' Whack-O!''. Early life Edwards was born in Barnes, Surrey, the son of Reginald Walter Kenrick Edwards, lecturer in mathematics at King's College London, and Phyllis Katherine Cowan, from New Zealand. He was the eighth of nine children and fifth of five sons.Slide 2018, chapter 1"The early years" His father died in 1935, leaving the family in dire financial straits. Jimmy's brother Alan had to leave school and enter the mounted police, while his brother Hugh joined the Merchant Navy as an apprentice aged fourteen. Hugh subsequently gained a reputation as a smuggler of cigarettes, whisky, and occasionally people, and published a memoir, ''Midnight Trader'', in 1959. Edwards was educated at St Paul's Cathedral School, where he became he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roy Castle
Roy Castle (31 August 1932 – 2 September 1994) was an English dancer, singer, comedian, actor, television presenter and musician. An accomplished jazz trumpet player, he could also play many other instruments. In a career as a versatile performer on stage, television and film, he became best known to British television viewers as long-running presenter of the children's series ''Record Breakers''. Early career Castle was born in Scholes, near Holmfirth, West Riding of Yorkshire. The son of a railwayman, he was a tap dancer from an early age and trained at Nora Bray's school of dance with Audrey Spencer, who later ran a big dance school, and after leaving Holme Valley Grammar School (now Honley High School) he started his career as an entertainer in an amateur concert party. As a young performer in the 1950s, he lived in Cleveleys near Blackpool and appeared there at the local Queen's Theatre, turning professional in 1953 as a stooge for Jimmy Clitheroe and Jimmy James. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charlie Drake
Charles Edward Springall (19 June 1925 – 23 December 2006), known professionally as Charlie Drake, was an English comedian, actor, writer and singer. With his small stature ( tall), curly red hair and liking for slapstick, he was a popular comedian with children in his early years, becoming nationally known for his "Hello, my darlings!" catchphrase. Early life Born Charles Edward Springall in the Elephant and Castle, Southwark, south London, he took his mother's maiden name for the stage and, later, film and television, achieving success as a comedian. Aged eight, he won a chorus place in a Harry Champion music hall production. He left school and home aged fourteen to become an electrician's mate while attempting to break into showbusiness. Career Drake made his first appearance on stage at the age of eight, and after leaving school toured working men's clubs. After serving in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, Drake turned professional and made his televis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Murphy (actor)
Brian Trevor John Murphy (25 September 1932 – 2 February 2025) was an English comic actor. He was best known as the henpecked husband George Roper in the popular sitcom '' Man About the House'' and its spin-off series '' George and Mildred''. He also played Alvin Smedley in ''Last of the Summer Wine''. Other notable roles included Stan the shopkeeper in the 1990s children's series '' Wizadora'', and Maurice in the comedy drama series '' The Booze Cruise''. Early life Murphy was born in Ventnor on the Isle of Wight, on 25 September 1932. He was the son of grocer's assistant Gerald Murphy and his wife Mabel, both of whom later became restaurateurs. His two brothers Ken and Eric died during active service in the Second World War. He was called up to do his national service at RAF Northwood, where he met future '' The Good Life'' actor Richard Briers. Upon leaving the RAF the two aspiring actors both performed in productions by the Dramatic Society at the Borough Polytechnic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
