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Valmouth
''Valmouth'' is a 1919 novel by British author Ronald Firbank. Valmouth is an imaginary English spa resort that attracts centenarians owing to its famed pure air. The town's name evokes actual seaside towns in the southwest peninsula of Britain, such as Falmouth, Dartmouth, Teignmouth, Exmouth and Weymouth. The novel's plot concerns, among other things, the effects of a black woman and her niece moving into a spa resort inhabited by wealthy centenarians. The ironic novel is about eroticism and exoticism in the milieu of quaint but lewd old British ladies at the fictional spa. The novel is noted for its florid and baroque style and parody-like humour, and its sexual innuendos both heterosexual and homosexual. There is also a fanciful brand of Catholicism, a blend of mortification of the flesh, high-flown mysticism, and proselytism. In 1958, a musical adaptation was made by Sandy Wilson. Summary Two wealthy elderly Valmouth-area ladies, Mrs Hurstpierpoint and Mrs Thoroughf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valmouth (musical)
''Valmouth'' is a 1958 musical by Sandy Wilson based on the novel of the same name by Ronald Firbank. It premiered in London at the Lyric Hammersmith, before transferring to the Saville Theatre. The production was directed by Vida Hope. It made a star of Fenella Fielding as Lady Parvula de Panzoust. The musical has since been staged several times including twice at the Chichester Festival Theatre and several cast album recordings have been released. The musical has also been performed on BBC Radio, first broadcast in 1975. Original cast *Captain Dick Thoroughfare - Alan L Edwards *Cardinal Pirelli - Geoffrey Dunn *Carry - Denise Hirst *David Tooke - Peter Gilmore *Dr Dee - Lewis Henry *Father Colley-Mahoney - Robert Bernal *Granny Tooke - Doris Hare *Lady Parvula de Panzoust - Fenella Fielding *Lady Saunter - Celia Helda *Lt. Jack Whorwood - Aubrey Woods *Madame Mimosa - Marcia Owen *Mrs Hurstpierpoint - Barbara Couper *Mrs Q. Comedy - Sally Alsford *Mrs Thoroughfare ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ronald Firbank
Arthur Annesley Ronald Firbank (17 January 1886 – 21 May 1926) was an innovative English novelist. His eight short novels, partly inspired by the London aesthetes of the 1890s, especially Oscar Wilde, consist largely of dialogue, with references to religion, social-climbing, and sexuality. Biography Arthur Annesley Ronald Firbank was born on 17 January 1886, in Clarges Street, Westminster, the son of a member of parliament, Sir Thomas Firbank, and Lady Firbank, née Harriet Jane Garrett. He had an older brother, Joseph Sydney (born 1884), a younger brother, Hubert Somerset (born 1887), and a sister, Heather (born 1888). At the age of fourteen Firbank went briefly to Uppingham School (September 1900 to April 1901) and then on to Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1907. In 1909 he left Cambridge without taking a degree. Living off his inheritance, he travelled around Spain, Italy, the Middle East, and North Africa. Openly gay and chronically shy, h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandy Wilson
Alexander Galbraith "Sandy" Wilson (19 May 1924 – 27 August 2014) was an English composer and lyricist, best known for his musical '' The Boy Friend'' (1953). Biography Wilson was born in Sale, Cheshire, England, and was educated at Harrow School. In 1942 he won a State Scholarship for a wartime course at SOAS and was assigned to study Japanese. He was thus one of the so-called 'Dulwich Boys' who studied at SOAS and boarded at Dulwich College. While there he put together a satirical review titled 'A Matter of Course' based on his experiences on the Japanese course. He was one of the few not to complete the course and he subsequently served in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in Great Britain, Egypt and Iraq. After the war he went to Oriel College, Oxford and while a student wrote revues for the Oxford University Experimental Theatre Club and then attended the Old Vic Theatre School on a production course. Most of his work for the stage was material for revues, such as Hermion ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fenella Fielding
Fenella Fielding (born Fenella Marion Feldman; 17 November 1927 – 11 September 2018) was an English stage, film and television actress who rose to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s, and was often referred to as "England's first lady of the double entendre". She was known for her seductive image and distinctively husky voice. Fielding appeared in two ''Carry On (franchise), Carry On'' films, ''Carry On Regardless'' (1961) and ''Carry On Screaming!'' (1966). Early life and education Fenella Marion Feldman was born on 17 November 1927 in Whitechapel, London, to a Romanian Jew, Romanian Jewish mother, Tilly (' Katz; 1902–1977), and a Lithuanian Jews, Lithuanian Jewish father, Philip Feldman. She was the younger sister of Basil, later Basil Feldman, Baron Feldman, Baron Feldman. She grew up in Lower Clapton and later Edgware where she attended North London Collegiate School. Her father at one time managed a cinema in Silvertown, east London. She later resided in Chiswick, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Swimming Pool Library
''The Swimming-Pool Library'' is a 1988 novel by Alan Hollinghurst. The novel won two awards including Somerset Maugham Award 1988 followed by American Academy of Arts and Letters E.M. Forster Award 1989. Plot introduction In 1983 London, Will, a privileged, gay, sexually irresistible 25-year-old, saves the life of an elderly aristocrat who has a heart-attack in a public lavatory. This chance meeting ultimately requires Will to re-evaluate his sense of the past and his family's history. Plot summary William Beckwith is a privileged, attractive and sexually adventurous young gay man. He is the grandson and heir of Viscount Beckwith, an elder statesman and a recent peer. To avoid death duties, that grandfather has already settled most of his estate on Will, who therefore has substantial private means and no need of work. As the novel opens, Will is seeing a young, working-class, black man named Arthur. His preoccupation with Arthur is almost entirely physical. Will is a mem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Falmouth, Cornwall
Falmouth ( ; ) is a town, civil parish and port on the River Fal on the south coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. Falmouth was founded in 1613 by the Killigrew family on a site near the existing Pendennis Castle. It developed as a port on the Carrick Roads harbour, overshadowing the earlier town of Penryn, Cornwall, Penryn. In the 19th century after the arrival of the railways, tourism became important to its economy. In modern times, both industries maintain a presence in Falmouth and the town is also home to the National Maritime Museum Cornwall, a campus of Falmouth University and Falmouth Art Gallery. Etymology The name Falmouth is of English language, English origin, a reference to the town's situation on the mouth (river), mouth of the River Fal. The Cornish language name, or , is of identical meaning. History Early history In 1540, Henry VIII of England, Henry VIII built Pendennis Castle in Falmouth to defend Carrick Roads. The main town of the distr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the island containing Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and southeast of the Cayman Islands (a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory). With million people, Jamaica is the third most populous English-speaking world, Anglophone country in the Americas and the fourth most populous country in the Caribbean. Kingston, Jamaica, Kingston is the country's capital and largest city. The indigenous Taíno peoples of the island gradually came under Spanish Empire, Spanish rule after the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1494. Many of the indigenous people either were killed or died of diseases, after which the Spanish brought large numbers of Africans to Jamaica as slaves. The island remained a possession of Spain, under the name Colo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Hollinghurst
Sir Alan James Hollinghurst (born 26 May 1954) is an English novelist, poet, short story writer and translator. He won the 1989 Somerset Maugham Award and the 1994 James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 2004, he won the Booker Prize for his novel ''The Line of Beauty''. Hollinghurst is credited with having helped gay-themed fiction to break into the literary mainstream through his seven novels since 1988. Early life and education Hollinghurst was born in Stroud, Gloucestershire, only child of bank manager James Hollinghurst, who served in the Royal Air Force, RAF in the World War II, Second World War, and his wife, Elizabeth. He attended Dorset's Canford School. He studied English at Magdalen College, Oxford, receiving a BA in 1975 and MLitt in 1979. His thesis was on works by three gay writers: Ronald Firbank, E. M. Forster and L. P. Hartley. He house-shared at Oxford with future poet laureate Andrew Motion, and was awarded poetry's Newdigate Prize, a year before Motion. In the l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927. The service provides national radio stations covering the majority of musical genres, as well as local radio stations covering local news, affairs, and interests. It also oversees online audio content. Of the national radio stations, BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, 2, BBC Radio 3, 3, BBC Radio 4, 4, and BBC Radio 5 Live, 5 Live are all available through analogue radio (Medium wave, MW or FM broadcasting, FM, also BBC Radio 4 broadcasts on longwave) as well as on DAB Digital Radio and BBC Sounds. The BBC Asian Network, Asian Network broadcasts on DAB and selected AM frequencies in the English Midlands. BBC Radio 1Xtra, BBC Radio 4 Extra, 4 Extra, BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra, 5 Sports Extra, BBC Radio 6 Music, 6 Music and the BBC World Service, World Service broadcast only on DAB and BBC Sounds, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chichester Festival Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre is a theatre and Grade II* listed building situated in Oaklands Park in the city of Chichester, West Sussex, England. Designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, it was opened by its founder Leslie Evershed-Martin in 1962. The smaller and more intimate Minerva Theatre was built nearby in 1989. The inaugural Artistic Director was Sir Laurence Olivier, and it was at Chichester that the first National Theatre company was formed. Chichester's productions would transfer to the National Theatre's base at the Old Vic in London. The opening productionsFestival - The Stage is Set, 1962 in 1962 were: '' The Chances'' by John Fletcher (first production 1638) which opened on 3 July; '' The Broken Heart'' (1633), by John Ford, opened 9 July; '' Uncle Vanya'' (1896), by Anton Chekov, opened 16 July. Among the actors in the opening season were: Lewis Casson, Fay Compton, Joan Greenwood, Rosemary Harris, Kathleen Harrison, Keith Michell, André Morell, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Augustus John
Augustus Edwin John (4 January 1878 – 31 October 1961) was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a time he was considered the most important artist at work in Britain: Virginia Woolf remarked that by 1908 the era of John Singer Sargent and Charles Wellington Furse "... was over. The age of Augustus John was dawning." In the second volume of BLAST, Percy Wyndham Lewis wrote, referring to John, that the ten years up to 1914 had been "the Augustan decade." He was the younger brother of the painter Gwen John. Early life Born in Tenby, at 11, 12 or 13 The Esplanade, now known as The Belgrave Hotel, Pembrokeshire, John was the younger son and third of four children. His father was Edwin William John, a Welsh solicitor; his mother, Augusta Smith (1848–1884), from a long line of Sussex master plumbers, died when he was six, but not before inculcating a love of drawing in both Augustus and his older sister Gwen. At the age of seventeen he briefly attended the Tenby ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lyric Theatre (Hammersmith)
The Lyric Theatre, also known as the Lyric Hammersmith, is a nonprofit theatre on Lyric Square, off King Street, Hammersmith, London."About the Lyric" > "History" ''Lyric'' official website. Retrieved January 2024. Background The Lyric Theatre was originally a music hall established in 1888 on Bradmore Grove, Hammersmith. Success as an entertainment venue led it to be rebuilt and enlarged on the same site twice, firstly in 1890 and then in 1895 by the English theatrical architect Frank Matcham. The 1895 reopening, as The New Lyric Opera House, was accompanied by an opening address by the famous actress Lillie Langtry. In 1966 the theatre was due to be closed and demolished. However, a successful campaign to save it led to the auditorium being dismantled and reinstalled piece by piece within a modern shell on its current site on King Street a short distance from the former Bradmore Grove location. The relocated theatre opened in 1979.John Earl"Presidential Address: The Crest of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
