Alan Bennett is an English playwright, author, actor and screenwriter. Over his entertainment career he has received numerous awards and honours including two BAFTA Awards, four Laurence Olivier Awards, and two Tony Awards. He also earned an Academy Award nomination for his film The Madness of King George (1994). In 2005 he received the Society of London Theatre Special Award.
Prospero is a fictional character and the protagonist of William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan, whose usurping brother, Antonio, had put him to sea on a "rotten carcass" of a boat to die, twelve years before the play begins. Prospero and Miranda had survived and found exile on a small island. He has learned sorcery from books, and uses it while on the island to protect Miranda and control the other characters.
Richard David Briers was an English actor whose five-decade career encompassed film, radio, stage and television.
John James Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, and entrepreneur, who is regarded as one of the most influential figures in post-war theatre. Born in London, he briefly worked as a journalist before starting out in theatre as a stage manager and actor. He lived in poverty for several years before his third produced play, Look Back in Anger (1956), brought him national fame.
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. A member of the Terry family theatrical dynasty, he gained his first paid acting work as a junior member of his cousin Phyllis Neilson-Terry's company in 1922. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), he worked in repertory theatre and in the West End before establishing himself at the Old Vic as an exponent of Shakespeare in 1929–31.
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.
Mark Gatiss is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, director, producer and novelist. He is best known for his work in television acting in and co-creating shows with Steven Moffat. Gatiss has received several awards including a BAFTA TV Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Peabody Award, and two Laurence Olivier Awards.
Dame Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft, known professionally as Peggy Ashcroft, was an English actress whose career spanned more than 60 years.
The History Boys is a play by British playwright Alan Bennett. The play premiered at the Royal National Theatre in London on 18 May 2004. Its Broadway debut was on 23 April 2006 at the Broadhurst Theatre where 185 performances were staged before it closed on 1 October 2006.
Patrick Ewart Garland was a British director, writer and actor.
The History Boys is a 2006 British comedy-drama film adapted by Alan Bennett from his play of the same name, which won the 2005 Olivier Award for Best New Play and the 2006 Tony Award for Best Play. It was directed by Nicholas Hytner, who directed the original production at the Royal National Theatre in London, and features the original cast of the play.
The Lyric Theatre is a West End theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. It was built for the producer Henry Leslie, who financed it from the profits of the light opera hit, Dorothy, which he transferred from its original venue to open the new theatre on 17 December 1888.
George Alexander Cassady Devine was an English theatrical manager, director, teacher, and actor based in London from the early 1930s until his death. He also worked in TV and film.
Kenneth Marshall is a retired American actor.
Hugh "Binkie" Beaumont was a British theatre manager and producer, sometimes referred to as the "éminence grise" of the West End theatre. Though he shunned the spotlight so that his name was not known widely among the general public, he was one of the most successful and influential manager-producers in the West End during the middle of the 20th century.
Edward Knoblock was a playwright and novelist, originally American and later a naturalised British citizen. He wrote numerous plays, often at the rate of two or three a year, of which the most successful were Kismet (1911) and Milestones. Many of his plays were collaborations, with, among others, Vicki Baum, Beverley Nichols, J. B. Priestley and Vita Sackville-West.
Nicholas Patrick Day is an English actor, who is currently the narrator on the Netflix series Myths & Monsters.
Habeas Corpus is a stage comedy in two acts by the English author Alan Bennett. It was first performed at the Lyric Theatre in London on 10 May 1973, with Alec Guinness in the central role. It ran, with cast changes, until 10 August 1974. The Broadway production that followed was less successful, running for less than three months. The play has been revived several times since then, in London and elsewhere.
Prime Minister parodies are a long-running feature of the British satirical magazine Private Eye, which have been included in the majority of issues since the magazine's inception. The parodies consist of one arch satirical personification of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of the day, and use that personification to send up continuously that Prime Minister's personality and style of leadership, and the personalities and general features of his or her cabinet. Such are their popularity that the parodies usually find their way into mainstream culture far beyond simply being viewed as a joke within the pages of Private Eye, and are subsequently mentioned often in other journalistic appraisals of the individual in question.
Nora Nicholson was an English actress. Known for her portrayal of character roles, she achieved her greatest success in the later years of her career. She played in classics by Shakespeare and Chekhov and in new plays by authors including Noël Coward and Alan Bennett. Many of her best-regarded performances were as eccentric or even unhinged characters.
