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The Ruling Class (play)
''The Ruling Class'' is a 1968 British play by Peter Barnes. The black comedy centres on Jack Arnold Alexander Tancred Gurney, the 14th Earl of Gurney and the attempts to cure him of insanity. Peter O'Toole acquired the film rights and starred in the 1972 film adaptation. Plot After a speech at a dinner proposing a toast to England, the 13th Earl of Gurney is got ready for bed by his butler Tucker. This includes setting up a silken noose above his four-poster, which the Earl uses for a bizarre autoerotic asphyxiation ritual. He survives this the first time, but it goes wrong the second time he tries it and kills him. His half-brother Sir Charles, Charles' wife Lady Claire and their son Dinsdale gather to hear the reading of the 13th Earl's will. Three of the Earl's sons have already died overseas in the British Empire and the one survivor, Jack, is in a mental institution and thought to be unable to be present. He has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic prone to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Barnes (playwright)
Peter Barnes (10 January 1931 – 1 July 2004) was an English Olivier Award-winning playwright and screenwriter. His best known work is the play '' The Ruling Class'', which was made into a 1972 film for which Peter O'Toole received an Oscar nomination. Biography Early career Barnes was educated at Marling School in Stroud, Gloucestershire and performed his national service with the Royal Air Force. He then worked briefly for London County Council. Bored with his job, Barnes took a correspondence course in theology and began to visit the British Museum Reading Room, which he used as an office on a daily basis. During this period he worked as a film critic, story editor, and a screenwriter. He achieved critical and box-office success with his baroque comedy ''The Ruling Class'' (1968), which debuted at the Nottingham Playhouse. The play was notorious for its anti- naturalistic approach, unusual in theatre at the time. Critic Harold Hobson deemed it to be one of the best first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Dame Aux Camélias
LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure 8'' (album) * ''L.A.'' (EP), by Teddy Thompson * '' L.A. (Light Album)'', a Beach Boys album * "L.A." (Neil Young song), 1973 * The La's, an English rock band * L.A. Reid, a prominent music producer * Yung L.A., a rapper * Lady A, an American country music trio * "L.A." (Amy Macdonald song), 2007 * "La", a song by Australian-Israeli singer-songwriter Old Man River Other media * l(a, a poem by E. E. Cummings * La (Tarzan), fictional queen of the lost city of Opar (Tarzan) * '' Lá'', later known as Lá Nua, an Irish language newspaper * La7, an Italian television channel * LucasArts, an American video game developer and publisher * Liber Annuus, academic journal Business, organizations, and government agencies * L.A. Screenings, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Derek Godfrey
Derek Godfrey (3 June 1924 – 18 June 1983) was an English actor, associated with the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1960, who also appeared in several films and BBC television dramatisations during the 1960s and 1970s. Born in London, he performed with the Old Vic from 1956 where he played the roles of Iachimo and Enobarbus.Michael Dobson, Stanley W. Wells. ''Oxford Companion to Shakespeare''. Oxford University Press, 2001 With the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1960, he performed as Orsino, Hector, Petruchio and Malvolio. According to ''The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare'', Godfrey " th his fine voice and often sardonic appearance...was a loyal company actor who revealed an intuitive grasp of the dark characters in Jacobean plays".Dobson & Wells (2001):p. 167 He created the role of Jack Gurney in Peter Barnes's play '' The Ruling Class''. He also appeared in a number of films such as '' Hands of the Ripper'' and ''The Abominable Dr. Phibes'', and the BBC television dram ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piccadilly Theatre
The Piccadilly Theatre is a West End theatre located at 16 Denman Street, behind Piccadilly Circus and adjacent to the Regent Palace Hotel, in the City of Westminster, London, England. Early years Built by Bertie Crewe and Edward A. Stone for Edward Laurillard, its simple façade conceals a grandiose Art Deco interior designed by Marc-Henri Levy and Gaston Laverdet, with a 1,232-seat auditorium decorated in shades of pink. Gold and green are the dominant colours in the bars and foyer, which include the original light fittings. Upon its opening on 27 April 1928, the theatre's souvenir brochure claimed, "If all the bricks used in the building were laid in a straight line, they would stretch from London to Paris." The opening production, Jerome Kern's musical '' Blue Eyes'', starred Evelyn Laye, one of the most acclaimed actresses of the period. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nottingham Playhouse, 1967 - Geograph
Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robin Hood and to the lace-making, bicycle and tobacco industries. The city is also the county town of Nottinghamshire and the settlement was granted its city charter in 1897, as part of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Nottingham is a tourist destination; in 2018, the city received the second-highest number of overnight visitors in the Midlands and the highest number in the East Midlands. In 2020, Nottingham had an estimated population of 330,000. The wider conurbation, which includes many of the city's suburbs, has a population of 768,638. It is the largest urban area in the East Midlands and the second-largest in the Midlands. Its Functional Urban Area, the largest in the East Midlands, has a population of 919,484. The populatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capital Punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that the person is responsible for violating norms that warrant said punishment. The sentence ordering that an offender is to be punished in such a manner is known as a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is known as an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is ''condemned'' and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Crimes that are punishable by death are known as ''capital crimes'', ''capital offences'', or ''capital felonies'', and vary depending on the jurisdiction, but commonly include serious crimes against the person, such as murder, mass murder, aggravated cases of rape (often including child sexual abuse), terrorism, aircraft hijacking, war crimes, crimes agains ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
House Of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Lords scrutinises bills that have been approved by the House of Commons. It regularly reviews and amends bills from the Commons. While it is unable to prevent bills passing into law, except in certain limited circumstances, it can delay bills and force the Commons to reconsider their decisions. In this capacity, the House of Lords acts as a check on the more powerful House of Commons that is independent of the electoral process. While members of the Lords may also take on roles as government ministers, high-ranking officials such as cabinet ministers are usually drawn from the Commons. The House of Lords does not control the term of the prime minister or of the government. Only the lower house may force ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the crime of killing a person with malice aforethought or with recklessness manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.") This state of mind may, depending upon the jurisdiction, distinguish murder from other forms of unlawful homicide, such as manslaughter. Manslaughter is killing committed in the absence of ''malice'',This is "malice" in a technical legal sense, not the more usual English sense denoting an emotional state. See malice (law). brought about by reasonable provocation, or diminished capacity. ''Involuntary'' manslaughter, where it is recognized, is a killing that lacks all but the most attenuated guilty intent, recklessness. Most societies consider murder to be an extremely serious crime, and thus that a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. Puritanism played a significant role in English history, especially during the Protectorate. Puritans were dissatisfied with the limited extent of the English Reformation and with the Church of England's toleration of certain practices associated with the Roman Catholic Church. They formed and identified with various religious groups advocating greater purity of worship and doctrine, as well as personal and corporate piety. Puritans adopted a Reformed theology, and in that sense they were Calvinists (as were many of their earlier opponents). In church polity, some advocated separation from all other established Christian denominations in favour of autonomous gathered churches. These Separatist and Independent strands of Puritanism bec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psychopath
Psychopathy, sometimes considered synonymous with sociopathy, is characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, and egotistical traits. Different conceptions of psychopathy have been used throughout history that are only partly overlapping and may sometimes be contradictory. Hervey M. Cleckley, an American psychiatrist, influenced the initial diagnostic criteria for antisocial personality reaction/disturbance in the '' Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'' (''DSM''), as did American psychologist George E. Partridge. The ''DSM'' and ''International Classification of Diseases'' (ICD) subsequently introduced the diagnoses of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and dissocial personality disorder (DPD) respectively, stating that these diagnoses have been referred to (or include what is referred to) as psychopathy or sociopathy. The creation of ASPD and DPD was driven by the fact that many of the class ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack The Ripper
Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer was called the Whitechapel Murderer and Leather Apron. Attacks ascribed to Jack the Ripper typically involved female prostitutes who lived and worked in the slums of the East End of London. Their throats were cut prior to abdominal mutilations. The removal of internal organs from at least three of the victims led to speculation that their killer had some anatomical or surgical knowledge. Rumours that the murders were connected intensified in September and October 1888, and numerous letters were received by media outlets and Scotland Yard from individuals purporting to be the murderer. The name "Jack the Ripper" originated in the " Dear Boss letter" written by an individual claiming to be the murderer, which was disseminated in the press ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
