Joan Edgar (born Joan Burman, died 2005) was a World War II-era BBC Radio continuity announcer, [1] and an actress. [2]
She appeared as a castaway on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 1 September 1945. [3]
She married the television producer Barrie Edgar in 1943. [2] The couple had first met when she performed as an acting student at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in the late 1930s. [2] They lived in the Edgbaston district of Birmingham in retirement. [1] Their son David Edgar became a successful playwright. He had been encouraged in this pursuit by his father, starting to write plays at the age of five when his father constructed a small wooden theatre for him. [4] Their daughter Kate also entered the theatre, as a composer and musical director. Their other daughter, Sarah worked as an environmentalist. [2] Barrie survived Joan. [1]
Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park,, known professionally as P. D. James, was an English novelist and life peer. Her rise to fame came with her series of detective novels featuring the police commander and poet, Adam Dalgliesh.
Desert Island Discs is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942.
Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading, is a Kittitian-English singer-songwriter and guitarist.
Michael Edward Borg Banks MBE was a British soldier, adventurer, climber and author.
David Edgar is a British playwright and writer who has had more than sixty of his plays published and performed on stage, radio and television around the world, making him one of the most prolific dramatists of the post-1960s generation in Great Britain. He was resident playwright at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1974–5 and has been a board member there since 1985. Awarded a Fellow in Creative Writing at Leeds Polytechnic, he was made a Bicentennial Arts Fellow (US) (1978–79).
Anthony Barrie Edgar was an English television producer. Edgar began working for the BBC when its television service resumed after the Second World War, remaining with the corporation until his retirement in 1979. During the course of his career, he produced over 1,200 programmes, including multiple episodes of the long-running series Songs of Praise, Gardeners' World and Come Dancing.
Joan Jay was a singer and dancer at the Windmill Theatre in London, from 1936–1947. She was seriously injured there during a World War II bombing raid in October 1940, but returned to dancing after receiving skin grafts during a four-month stay in hospital. Her costumes were adapted to hide her scars.
Brian Reece was an English actor.
Kay Smart was a British circus performer, of the Smart's circus dynasty.
Jules Henry Sherek (1900–1967) was a British theatrical manager, known for producing the plays of T. S. Eliot.
Elsie Maude Stanley Hall, commonly referred to as Elsie Stanley Hall, was a prominent Australian-born South African classical pianist.
Cicely Joan Whittington CBE was an English Red Cross aid worker.
Sylva Stuart Watson was licensee and manager of the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, in London, England, from 1963.
Julia Trevelyan Oman, Lady Strong CBE was an English television, theatre, ballet and opera set designer.
Robert Nesbitt was a theatre director, theatrical producer and impresario, particularly known for staging 25 instances of the Royal Variety Show.
Elizabeth Kenward was an English magazine columnist, known for writing "Jennifer's Diary", originally in Tatler, subsequently in Queen.
Henrietta Russell, Dowager Duchess of Bedford is a landowner and horse breeder, and the widow of Robin Russell, 14th Duke of Bedford, with whom she lived at Woburn Abbey. Until her husband succeeded to the Dukedom in 2002, she was better known as the Marchioness of Tavistock.
Marguerite Agnes Rachel Wolff OBE was a British pianist.
Thea Holme was a British actor and writer.
Blanche Marvin, also known as Blanche Zohar, is an American-born theatre critic, producer, writer, and former actress and dancer who is based in the United Kingdom.