Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins is a Welsh actor, director, and producer. One of Britain's most recognisable and prolific actors, he is known for his performances on the screen and stage. Hopkins has received many accolades throughout his career, including two Academy Awards, three British Academy Film Awards, a British Academy Television Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and a Laurence Olivier Award. He has also received an honorary Golden Globe Award and the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In 1993, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the arts, and in 2003, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his achievements in the motion picture industry.
The Threepenny Opera is a "play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, The Beggar's Opera, and four ballads by François Villon, with music by Kurt Weill. Although there is debate as to how much, if any, Hauptmann might have contributed to the text, Brecht is usually listed as sole author.
Richard David Briers was an English actor whose five-decade career encompassed film, radio, stage and television.
The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today. Ballad operas were satiric musical plays that used some of the conventions of opera, but without recitative. The lyrics of the airs in the piece are set to popular broadsheet ballads, opera arias, church hymns and folk tunes of the time.
Topsy-Turvy is a 1999 British musical period drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh, starring Allan Corduner as Sir Arthur Sullivan and Jim Broadbent as W.S. Gilbert, along with Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville and Ron Cook. The story concerns the 15-month period in 1884 and 1885 leading up to the premiere of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. The film focuses on the creative conflict between playwright and composer, and their decision to continue their partnership, which led to their creation of several more Savoy operas.
Imelda Mary Philomena Bernadette Staunton is an English actress and singer. After training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Staunton began her career in repertory theatre in 1976 and appeared in various theatre productions in the United Kingdom.
Fiona Hendley is a British actress and latterly Christian speaker, married to the former Manfred Mann singer and actor Paul Jones.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler. It is based on the 1973 play of the same name by Christopher Bond. It is originally based off a Victorian ‘Penny Dreadful’ titled ‘The String Of Pearls’ in which the characters first make an appearance.
Nigel Derek Harman is an English actor, best known for his role as Dennis Rickman in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. He has worked mostly in theatre. He starred in the final series of Hotel Babylon. In early 2013 he started filming for the fourth series of Downton Abbey, playing visiting valet, Mr Green. From 2013 until the series ended in 2017, he played the role of Bradley Dawson in Sky One's Mount Pleasant. He appeared as Lloyd in Series 4 of Cuckoo.
James Anthony Hazeldine was a British television, stage and film actor and director.
A Gaiety Girl is an English musical comedy in two acts by a team of musical comedy neophytes: Owen Hall, Harry Greenbank (lyrics) and Sidney Jones (music). It opened at Prince of Wales Theatre in London, produced by George Edwardes, on 14 October 1893 and ran for 413 performances. The show starred C. Hayden Coffin, Louie Pounds, Decima Moore, Eric Lewis, W. Louis Bradfield, and later Rutland Barrington, Scott Russell, Huntley Wright, Marie Studholme and George Grossmith, Jr. Topsy Sinden and later Letty Lind danced in the piece. Choreography was by Willie Warde. Percy Anderson designed the Japanese costumes for the musical, while the non-Japanese costumes were supplied by leading fashion houses. Blanche Massey was one of the Gaiety Girls in the piece. It also had a successful three-month Broadway run in 1894, followed by an American tour and a world tour.
Barbara Gillian Ferris is an English actress and former fashion model.
Janie Dee is an English actress and singer. She won the Olivier Award for Best Actress, Evening Standard Award and Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress in a Play, and in New York the Obie and Theatre World Award for Best Newcomer, for her performance as Jacie Triplethree in Alan Ayckbourn's Comic Potential.
Alexandra Pigg is a British actress who first came to prominence as Petra Taylor in the TV soap opera Brookside. Her best-known film appearances are as Elaine in Letter to Brezhnev (1985), for which she was nominated for a BAFTA award, and as Bridget Baines in A Chorus of Disapproval (1988).
Andrew Howard is a Welsh theatre, television and film actor.
A Chorus of Disapproval is a 1984 play written by English playwright Alan Ayckbourn.
Alvin Rakoff is a Canadian director of more than 100 film, television and theatre productions. He has with worked actors including Laurence Olivier, Peter Sellers, Sean Connery, Judi Dench, Rex Harrison, Rod Steiger, Henry Fonda and Ava Gardner.
Jeremy John Irons is an English actor and activist. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969 and has appeared in many West End theatre productions, including the Shakespeare plays The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, and Richard II. In 1984, he made his Broadway debut in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, receiving the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.
Anne Sharp was a Scottish coloratura soprano particularly associated with the operas of Benjamin Britten.
The 1985 Laurence Olivier Awards were presented by the Society of London Theatre in 1985 at the Dominion Theatre in London, celebrating excellence in West End theatre. It was broadcast by BBC Television, though the broadcast date and specific BBC station is not available – the 2003 Oliviers, for example, aired on BBC Two the evening after the live event.
