Richard Burton was a Welsh actor. Noted for his mellifluous baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s, and he gave a memorable performance of Hamlet in 1964. He was called "the natural successor to Olivier" by critic Kenneth Tynan. A heavy drinker, Burton's perceived failure to live up to those expectations disappointed some critics and colleagues and added to his image as a great performer who had wasted his talent. Nevertheless, he is widely regarded as one of the most acclaimed actors of his generation.
Toad of Toad Hall is a play written by A. A. Milne – the first of several dramatisations of Kenneth Grahame's 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows – with incidental music by Harold Fraser-Simson. It was originally produced by William Armstrong at the Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool, on 21 December 1929. It was given in the West End the following year, and has been revived frequently by many theatrical companies.
Dame Penelope Alice Wilton, styled Penelope, Lady Holm between 1998 and 2001, is an English actress. She is known for starring opposite Richard Briers in the BBC sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles (1984–1989); playing Homily in The Borrowers (1992) and The Return of the Borrowers (1993); and for her role as the widowed Isobel Crawley in the ITV drama Downton Abbey (2010–2015). She also played the recurring role of Harriet Jones in Doctor Who (2005–2008) and Anne in Ricky Gervais' Netflix dark comedy After Life.
Private Lives is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It concerns a divorced couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetually stormy relationship, they realise that they still have feelings for each other. Its second act love scene was nearly censored in Britain as too risqué. Coward wrote one of his most popular songs, "Some Day I'll Find You", for the play.
Brian Blessed is an English actor, presenter, writer and mountaineer.
Marti Webb is an English actress and singer, who appeared on stage in Evita, before starring in Andrew Lloyd Webber's one-woman show Tell Me on a Sunday in 1980. This included her biggest hit single, "Take That Look Off Your Face", a UK top three hit, with the parent album also reaching the top three.
Christopher Fry was an English poet and playwright. He is best known for his verse dramas, especially The Lady's Not for Burning, which made him a major force in theatre in the 1940s and 1950s.
Simon James Holliday Gray was an English playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years. While teaching at Queen Mary, Gray began his writing career as a novelist in 1963 and, during the next 45 years, in addition to five published novels, wrote 40 original stage plays, screenplays, and screen adaptations of his own and others' works for stage, film, and television and became well known for the self-deprecating wit characteristic of several volumes of memoirs or diaries.
The Wednesday Play is an anthology series of British television plays which ran on BBC1 for six seasons from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually original works written for television, although dramatic adaptations of fiction also featured. The series gained a reputation for presenting contemporary social dramas, and for bringing issues to the attention of a mass audience that would not otherwise have been discussed on screen.
In Greek mythology, Dynamene was a Nereid or sea-nymph, one of the 50 daughters of the "Old Man of the Sea" Nereus and the Oceanid Doris. Her name, a participle, means "she who can, the capable one." She, along with her sister Pherusa, was associated with the might and power of great ocean swells. Dynamene had the ability to appear and disappear rapidly. Some variations of her name were Dyomene and Dinamene
Patricia Ann Hodge, OBE is an English actress. She is best known on-screen for playing Phyllida Erskine-Brown in Rumpole of the Bailey (1978–1992), the title role in Jemima Shore Investigates (1983), Penny in Miranda (2009–2015) and Mrs Pumphrey in All Creatures Great and Small (2021–present).
Coral Edith Browne was an Australian-American stage and screen actress. Her extensive theatre credits included Broadway productions of Macbeth (1956), The Rehearsal (1963) and The Right Honourable Gentleman (1965). She won the 1984 BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for the BBC TV film An Englishman Abroad (1983). Her film appearances included Auntie Mame (1958), The Killing of Sister George (1968), The Ruling Class (1972) and Dreamchild (1985). She was also actor Vincent Price's third wife.
Alan Wheatley was an English actor. He was a well known stage actor in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, appeared in forty films between 1931 and 1965 and was a frequent broadcaster on radio from the 1930s to the 1990s, and on television from 1938 to 1964. His most prominent television role was the Sheriff of Nottingham in the 1950s TV series The Adventures of Robin Hood, with Richard Greene as Robin Hood; Wheatley played the sheriff in 54 episodes between 1955 and 1959. Earlier, he had played Sherlock Holmes in the first television series featuring the great detective.
The Mercury Theatre was a small theatre on Ladbroke Road, Notting Hill Gate, London, notable for the productions of poetic dramas between 1933 and 1956, and as the home of the Ballet Rambert until 1987.
The Mercury Theatre was an Australian theatre company that was co-founded by Peter Finch and existed from 1946 to 1954. It was named after the American Orson Welles' theatre company of the same name.
Philip Henry Burton, MBE was a Welsh teacher who became an acclaimed radio producer and theatre director. In his later life, he emigrated to the United States where he helped found the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City. Despite Burton's successes in many fields, it is for his role in helping Richard Burton to pursue his career as an actor, that he is best remembered.
A Day by the Sea is a 1953 play by the British writer N. C. Hunter, first produced in 1953.
A Phoenix Too Frequent is a 1957 Australian TV play. It was made by the ABC at a time when Australian drama production was rare. Christopher Fry's play only featured a cast of three so was considered ideal for television production; the ABC filmed it again in 1966.
Ida Shepley born Ida Mary Humphrey was a British actress and singer. She began as a singer and worked with the BBC before expanding her career into acting appearing on the London stage and television.
Joan White (1909-1999) was a British actress, theatre director and educator who over a career that spanned 65 years became a popular figure on the London stage, appeared in films and television and produced and directed plays on both sides of the Atlantic, and trained many of the young to follow in her footsteps. She worked with such storied names as Laurence Olivier, Paul Scofield, Tyrone Guthrie, and Christopher Fry in their successes, and with others such as Rex Harrison, Mischa Auer and Tyrone Guthrie in their failures. As a master of the art of high comedy she entertained numberless audiences, and through her students left an indelible mark on the future of her profession.
