Portobello Road is a street in the Notting Hill district of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in west London. It runs almost the length of Notting Hill from south to north, roughly parallel with Ladbroke Grove. On Saturdays it is home to Portobello Road Market, one of London's notable street markets, known for its second-hand clothes, pastries and antiques. Every August since 1996, the Portobello Film Festival has been held in locations around Portobello Road and in 2015, Portobello Radio was founded as the area's community radio station.
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club was Charles Dickens's first novel. Because of his success with Sketches by Boz published in 1836, Dickens was asked by the publisher Chapman & Hall to supply descriptions to explain a series of comic "cockney sporting plates" by illustrator Robert Seymour, and to connect them into a novel. The book became a publishing phenomenon, with bootleg copies, theatrical performances, Sam Weller joke books, and other merchandise. On its cultural impact, Nicholas Dames in The Atlantic writes, “Literature” is not a big enough category for Pickwick. It defined its own, a new one that we have learned to call “entertainment.” Published in 19 issues over 20 months, the success of The Pickwick Papers popularised serialised fiction and cliffhanger endings.
"My Old Man's a Dustman" is a song first recorded by the British skiffle singer Lonnie Donegan. It reached number one in the British, Irish, Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand singles charts in 1960. The chorus of the song is:
London has been used frequently both as a filming location and as a film setting. These have ranged from historical recreations of the Victorian London of Charles Dickens and Sherlock Holmes, to the romantic comedies of Bridget Jones's Diary and Notting Hill, by way of crime films, spy thrillers, science fiction and the "swinging London" films of the 1960s.
Bud Flanagan, was a British music hall and vaudeville entertainer and comedian, and later a television and film actor. He was best known as a double act with Chesney Allen. Flanagan was famous as a wartime entertainer and his achievements were recognised when he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1959.
A Kid For Two Farthings is a 1955 film, directed by Carol Reed. The screenplay was adapted by Wolf Mankowitz from his 1953 novel of the same name. The title is a reference to the traditional Passover song, Chad Gadya, which begins "One little goat which my father bought for two zuzim". At the end of the film, Mr. Kandinsky softly sings fragments of an English translation of the song.
Vivian John Herman Ellis, CBE was an English musical comedy composer best known for the song "Spread a Little Happiness" and the theme "Coronation Scot".
Cyril Wolf Mankowitz was an English writer, playwright and screenwriter. He is particularly known for three novels— Make Me an Offer (1952), A Kid for Two Farthings (1953) and My Old Man's a Dustman—and other plays, historical studies, and the screenplays for many successful films which have received awards including the Oscar, Bafta and the Cannes Grand Prix.
Gered Mankowitz is an English photographer who focused his career in the music industry. He has worked with a range of artists from The Rolling Stones to Jimi Hendrix, and in other divisions of the photography industry, including fashion, music, advertising, news, and private photography. He works from his own gallery in North London.
Chad GadyaorHad Gadya is a playful cumulative song in Aramaic and Hebrew. It is sung at the end of the Passover Seder, the Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. The melody may have its roots in Medieval German folk music. It first appeared in a Haggadah printed in Prague in 1590, which makes it the most recent inclusion in the traditional Passover seder liturgy.
Philip Glassborow is a playwright, lyricist and composer who writes for theatre, radio and television. His best-known theatre musical is The Great Big Radio Show! with book in collaboration with Nick McIvor, which was premiered by the Watermill Theatre in Newbury, showcased at the Bridewell Theatre in London, and had additional exposure via the off-Broadway York Theatre Company ‘Musicals in Mufti’ series (2005), and Malta’s National Theatre, Teatru Manoel (2014).
Let's Get Tough! is a 1942 film and the ninth film in the East Side Kids series, starring Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, and Robert Armstrong. Released in early 1942, it was directed by Wallace Fox, and features the gang caught up in World War II and fighting the Black Dragon Society, an enemy sabotage ring.
The Bespoke Overcoat is a 1956 British black and white short film directed by Jack Clayton, based on a 1953 play of the same name by Wolf Mankowitz. The story is an adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's short story The Overcoat with the action moved from Russia to the East End of London. In this version the protagonists are poor Jews working in the clothing trade, played by Alfie Bass and David Kossoff. It won an Oscar at the 29th Academy Awards in 1957 for Best Short Subject (Two-Reel).
The East End of London in popular culture covers aspects of popular culture within the area of the East End of London. The area is roughly that covered by the modern London Borough of Tower Hamlets, and parts of the south of the London Borough of Hackney.
Coney Island has been featured in novels, films, television shows, cartoons, and theatrical plays.
Make Me an Offer is a 1954 Eastmancolor British comedy film directed by Cyril Frankel and starring Peter Finch, Adrienne Corri, Rosalie Crutchley and Finlay Currie. It is based on the 1952 novel of the same title by Wolf Mankowitz. It was distributed by British Lion Films.
Johanna M. Harwood is an Irish screenwriter. She was born and raised in County Wicklow in the Irish countryside. She co-wrote two James Bond films, and went uncredited for adaptation work on a third.
Expresso Bongo is a 1959 film satire of the music industry directed by Val Guest, shot in uncredited black & white Dyaliscope and starring Laurence Harvey, Cliff Richard, and Yolande Donlan. It is adapted from the stage musical of the same name, which was first produced on the stage at the Saville Theatre, London, on 23 April 1958.
