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Concert Party (entertainment)
A concert party, also called a Pierrot troupe, is the collective name for a group of entertainers, or Pierrots, popular in Britain during the first half of the 20th century. The variety show given by a Pierrot troupe was called a Pierrot show. Concert parties were travelling shows of songs and comedy, often put on at the seaside and opening with a Pierrot number. History In 1891, the singer and banjoist Clifford Essex, inspired by Michel Carré fils' pantomime ''L'enfant prodigue'' (1890), which he had seen at the Prince of Wales' Theatre (of the latter known as the Scala Theatre) in London, resolved to create a troupe of English Pierrot entertainers. Thus began the tradition of seaside Pierrots in pointed hats and black or coloured costumes who sang, danced, juggled, and joked on the piers of Brighton, Margate and Blackpool from the 1890s until the 1950s.See Pertwee. The style of performance attracted artists from music hall and variety theatre. Some performers, such as Ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierrot
Pierrot ( , ; ), a stock character of pantomime and commedia dell'arte, has his origins in the late 17th-century Italian troupe of players performing in Paris and known as the Comédie-Italienne. The name is a hypocorism, diminutive of ''Pierre'' (Peter), using the suffix ''wikt:-ot#French, -ot'' and derives from the Italian Pedrolino. His character in contemporary popular culture—in poetry, fiction, and the visual arts, as well as works for the stage, screen, and concert hall—is that of the sad clown, often pining for love of Columbina, Columbine (who usually breaks his heart and leaves him for Harlequin). Performing unmasked, with a whitened face, he wears a loose white blouse with large buttons and wide white pantaloons. Sometimes he appears with a frilled collaret and a hat, usually with a close-fitting crown and wide round brim and, more rarely, with a conical shape like a dunce's cap. Pierrot's character developed from that of a buffoon to become an avatar of the dise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Armed Forces
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a distinct military uniform. They may consist of one or more military branches such as an army, navy, air force, space force, marines, or coast guard. The main task of a military is usually defined as defence of their state and its interests against external armed threats. In broad usage, the terms "armed forces" and "military" are often synonymous, although in technical usage a distinction is sometimes made in which a country's armed forces may include other paramilitary forces such as armed police. Beyond warfare, the military may be employed in additional sanctioned and non-sanctioned functions within the state, including internal security threats, crowd control, promotion of political agendas, emergency services and reconstr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Music Hall
Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was most popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850, through the World War I, Great War. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as Variety show, variety. Perceptions of a distinction in Britain between bold and scandalous music hall entertainment and subsequent, more respectable variety entertainment differ. Music hall involved a mixture of popular songs, comedy, speciality acts, and variety entertainment. The term is derived from a type of theatre or venue in which such entertainment took place. In North America vaudeville was in some ways analogous to British music hall, featuring rousing songs and comic acts. Originating in saloon bars within pubs during the 1830s, music hall entertainment became increasingly popular with audiences. So much so, that during the 1850s some public houses were demolished, and specialised music hall theatres developed in their place. These t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enid Blyton
Enid Mary Blyton (11 August 1897 – 28 November 1968) was an English children's writer, whose books have been worldwide bestsellers since the 1930s, selling more than 600 million copies. Her books are still enormously popular and have been translated into ninety languages. As of June 2019, Blyton held the 4th place for the most translated author. She wrote on a wide range of topics, including education, natural history, fantasy, mystery, and biblical narratives. She is best remembered for her ''Noddy (character), Noddy'', ''Famous Five'', ''Secret Seven'', the ''Five Find-Outers'', and ''Malory Towers'' books, although she also wrote many others, including; ''St. Clare's (series), St. Clare's'', ''The Naughtiest Girl'', and ''The Faraway Tree'' series. Her first book, ''Child Whispers'', a 24-page collection of poems, was published in 1922. Following the commercial success of her early novels, such as ''The Wishing-Chair (series), Adventures of the Wishing-Chair'' (1937) and '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an American actress whose Katharine Hepburn on screen and stage, career as a Golden Age of Hollywood, Hollywood leading lady spanned six decades. She was known for her headstrong independence, spirited personality, and outspokenness, cultivating a screen persona that matched this public image, and regularly playing strong-willed, sophisticated women. She worked in a varied range of genres, from screwball comedy to literary drama, which earned her List of awards and nominations received by Katharine Hepburn, various accolades, including four Academy Awards for Academy Award for Best Actress, Best Actress—a List of Academy Award records#Acting records, record for any performer. Raised in Connecticut by wealthy, Progressive Era, progressive parents, Hepburn began to act while at Bryn Mawr College. Favorable reviews of her work on Broadway theatre, Broadway brought her to the attention of Hollywood. Her early years i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cary Grant
Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English and American actor. Known for his blended British and American accent, debonair demeanor, lighthearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing, he was one of Classical Hollywood cinema, classic Hollywood's definitive leading man, leading men. He was nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Actor, Academy Award, received an Academy Honorary Award in 42nd Academy Awards, 1970, and received the Kennedy Center Honor in 1981. He was named AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars#List of 50 greatest screen legends: Top 25 Male and Top 25 Female stars, the second greatest male star of the Golden Age of Hollywood by the American Film Institute in 1999. Grant was born into an impoverished family in Bristol, where he had an unhappy childhood marked by the absence of his mother and his father's alcoholism. He became attracted to theatre at a young age when he visited the Bristol Hippodrome. At 16, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sylvia Scarlett (novel)
''The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett,'' often shortened to ''Sylvia Scarlett'', is a 1918 novel by the British writer Compton Mackenzie. The heroine of the story had previously appeared in Mackenzie's ''Sinister Street''. It was followed by a sequel '' Sylvia and Michael'' in 1919. Adaptation In 1935 it was made into an American film ''Sylvia Scarlett'' directed by George Cukor and starring Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Edmund Gwenn and Brian Aherne William Brian de Lacy Aherne (2 May 190210 February 1986) was an English actor of stage, screen, radio and television, who enjoyed a long and varied career in Britain and the United States. His first Broadway appearance in '' The Barretts of ....Goble p.300 References Bibliography * Goble, Alan. ''The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film''. Walter de Gruyter, 1999. * Orel, Harold. ''Popular Fiction in England, 1914-1918''. University Press of Kentucky, 1992. 1918 British novels Novels by Compton Mac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Good Companions
''The Good Companions'' is a novel by the English author J. B. Priestley. Written in 1929, it follows the fortunes of a Concert Party (entertainment), concert party on a tour of England. It is Priestley's most famous novel and established him as a national figure. It won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was adapted twice into film. Plot summary The novel is written in picaresque style and opens with the middle-aged, discontented Jess Oakroyd in the fictional Yorkshire town of Bruddersford. He opts to leave his family and seek adventure "on t'road". (Throughout the novel Priestley uses dialect for all non-Received Pronunciation, RP speakers of English.) He heads south down the Great North Road (Great Britain), Great North Road. Intertwined with the story of Oakroyd's travels are those of Elizabeth Trant and Inigo Jollifant, two similarly malcontented individuals. Miss Trant is an upper-middle-class spinster and Jollifant is a teacher at a down-at-heel private schoo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roy Hudd
Roy Hudd (16 May 1936 – 15 March 2020) was an English comedian, actor, presenter, radio host, author and authority on the history of music hall entertainment. Early life Hudd was born in Croydon on 16 May 1936 to Evalina "Evie" (née Barham) and Harry Hudd. His father was a carpenter who left the family shortly after the Second World War, and his mother, who had a history of mental health problems, committed suicide by gas when Hudd was nine years old. Hudd was primarily brought up by his grandmother, and attended Tavistock Secondary Modern School in Croydon and Croydon Secondary Technical School. After completing his national service in the Royal Air Force, he studied commercial art at the Regent Street Polytechnic. He then worked as a messenger for an advertising agency, as a window dresser, and as a commercial artist, working under Harry Beck. He made his professional debut as a comedian at the Streatham Hill Theatre on 27 October 1957, in a show in aid of the Sir Phi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Television
Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, entertainment, news, and sports. The medium is capable of more than "radio broadcasting", which refers to an audio signal sent to radio receivers. Television became available in crude experimental forms in the 1920s, but only after several years of further development was the new technology marketed to consumers. After World War II, an improved form of black-and-white television broadcasting became popular in the United Kingdom and the United States, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses, and institutions. During the 1950s, television was the primary medium for influencing public opinion.Diggs-Brown, Barbara (2011''Strategic Public Relations: Audience Focused Practice''p. 48 In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Combined Services Entertainment
BFBS Live Events (formerly Combined Services Entertainment (CSE) until 2 March 2020) is the live entertainment arm of the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) (and prior to March 2020 the Services Sound and Vision Corporation (SSVC), a registered British charity). It is the official provider of live entertainment to the British Armed Forces. BFBS Live Events routinely sends tours of entertainment to Afghanistan, Cyprus, Oman, the Falkland Islands and to Royal Navy ships deployed worldwide. History BFBS Live Events/CSE is the successor to the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA). Originally, it was called the Central Pool of Artists. It emerged during and after the Second World War as the British Armed Forces' concert party. Artists Artists who began their careers in the Central Pool of Artists, and later the CSE, included Benny Hill,"Benny Hill Obituary". Telegraph. Telegraph Media. 22 April 1992. Retrieved 31 March 2012. Kenneth Williams, Spike Milligan, Sta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Entertainments National Service Association
The Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) was an organisation established in 1939 by Basil Dean and Leslie Henson to provide entertainment for British armed forces personnel during World War II. ENSA operated as part of the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes. In 1946 it was re-named to Combined Services Entertainment (CSE) operating under the Services Sound and Vision Corporation (SSVC), until 2 March 2020, when the SSVC re-branded to the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS), with the CSE likewise re-branding as BFBS Live Events. The first big wartime variety concert organised by ENSA was broadcast by the BBC to the Empire and local networks from RAF Hendon in north London on 17 October 1939. Among the entertainers appearing on the bill were Adelaide Hall, The Western Brothers and Mantovani. A newsreel of this concert showing Hall singing " We're Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line" accompanied by Mantovani and His Orchestra exists. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
