John Chapman (English writer)

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John Roy Chapman (27 May 1927, London – 3 September 2001, Périgueux, France) was a British actor and playwright.

Périgueux Prefecture and commune in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France

Périgueux is a commune in the Dordogne department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France.

France Republic with mainland in Europe and numerous oversea territories

France, officially the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered by Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany to the northeast, Switzerland and Italy to the east, and Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. The country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres (248,573 sq mi) and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice.

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Biography

Born in London, the nephew of the actor Edward Chapman, his father was an engineer. He trained at the RADA, and made his acting debut in Enid Bagnold's National Velvet in 1946. [1]

Edward Chapman (actor) English actor

Edward Chapman was an English actor who starred in many films and television programmes, but is chiefly remembered as "Mr. Wilfred Grimsdale", the officious superior and comic foil to Norman Wisdom's character of Pitkin in many of his films from the late 1950s and 1960s.

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art drama school located in London, England

The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) is a drama school in London, England that provides training for film, television and theatre. It is one of the oldest and most prestigious drama schools in the United Kingdom, founded in 1904 by Herbert Beerbohm Tree.

Enid Bagnold English dramatist, playwright, memoirist

Enid Algerine, Lady Jones, was a British author and playwright, known for the 1935 story National Velvet.

Initially a stage manager and understudy at the Whitehall Theatre for the first two years of Reluctant Heroes, the first Whitehall farce, he subsequently spent a few years in weekly rep before returning to Brian Rix's company with his first play. Dry Rot (1954), which is about dishonest bookmakers, had a four-year run with 1,475 performances. [1] Ray Cooney joined the cast in 1956 and first met the author at this time. Chapman followed Dry Rot with Simple Spymen (1958), [2] which was staged 1,404 times [1] over a three-year run.

Trafalgar Studios theatre in London, England

Trafalgar Studios, formerly the Whitehall Theatre until 2004, is a West End theatre in Whitehall, near Trafalgar Square, in the City of Westminster, London.

Whitehall farce

The Whitehall farces were a series of five long-running comic stage plays at the Whitehall Theatre in London, presented by the actor-manager Brian Rix, in the 1950s and 1960s. They were in the low comedy tradition of British farce, following the Aldwych farces, which played at the Aldwych Theatre between 1924 and 1933.

Brian Rix British actor

Brian Norman Roger Rix, Baron Rix, was an English actor-manager, who produced a record-breaking sequence of long-running farces on the London stage, including Dry Rot, Simple Spymen and One for the Pot. His one-night TV shows made him the joint-highest paid star on the BBC. He often worked with his wife Elspet Gray and his sister Sheila Mercier, who went on to feature regularly in Emmerdale Farm.

Before the production of Simple Spymen closed, Chapman and Cooney had begun their collaboration. Together they wrote Not Now, Darling (1967, which Chapman adapted for the film version), Move Over Mrs. Markham (1968), My Giddy Aunt (1968) and There Goes the Bride (1973). [3] Meanwhile, he also wrote extensively for television including episodes of the sitcoms Hugh and I (1962-5) and Happy Ever After (1974-77), both of which were BBC vehicles for Terry Scott. Fresh Fields (1984–86), for Thames Television, featured Anton Rodgers and Julia McKenzie in the leads.

Not Now is a 1967 farce written by English playwrights John Chapman and Ray Cooney, first staged at the Richmond Theatre, in Richmond, England prior to a long West End run starring Donald Sinden and Bernard Cribbins, with Jill Melford, Mary Kenton, Brian Wilde, Carmel McSharry and Ann Sidney.

Hugh and I is a black-and-white British sitcom that aired from 1962 to 1967. It starred Terry Scott and Hugh Lloyd as two friends who shared lodgings with Terry's mother and was followed by a sequel called Hugh and I Spy. Previously, the two actors had worked together on stage for many years.

Happy Ever After is a British sitcom starring Terry Scott and June Whitfield. It aired from 7 May 1974 to 25 April 1979.

Chapman was married to actress Betty Impey, from Whitehall and they had four children, Mark, Adam, Justin and Guy (who died when he was young). Chapman died in Périgueux, France on 3 September 2001, aged 74.

Filmography

<i>Dry Rot</i> (film) 1956 film by Maurice Elvey

Dry Rot is a 1956 British comedy film directed by Maurice Elvey, and starring Ronald Shiner, Brian Rix, Peggy Mount, and Sid James.

Maurice Elvey was the most prolific film director in British history. He directed nearly 200 films between 1913 and 1957. During the silent film era he directed as many as twenty films per year. He also produced more than fifty films - his own as well as films directed by others.

<i>Not Now, Darling</i> (film) 1973 British comedy film

Not Now, Darling is a 1973 British comedy film adapted from the play of the same title by John Chapman and Ray Cooney. The plot is a farce centered on a shop in central London that sells fur coats. A loosely related sequel Not Now, Comrade was released in 1976.

Screenwriter

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Chapman is an English surname derived from the Old English occupational name céapmann “marketman, monger, merchant”, from the verb céapan, cypan “to buy or sell” and the noun form ceap "barter, business; a purchase." Alternate spellings include Caepmon, Cepeman, Chepmon, Cypman(n), and Shapman.

John Dixon may refer to:

References

  1. 1 2 3 Obituary: John Chapman, telegraph.co.uk, 7 September 2001
  2. "12 Successful Years For Mr. Brian Rix", The Times, 13 September 1962, p. 12
  3. Ray Coonety Obituary: John Chapman, The Guardian, 8 September 2001