Sir Carol Reed was an English film director and producer, best known for Odd Man Out (1947), The Fallen Idol (1948), The Third Man (1949), and Oliver! (1968), for which he was awarded the Academy Award for Best Director.
Diana Wynyard, CBE was an English stage and film actress.
Phyllis Hannah Murray-Hill, known professionally as Phyllis Calvert, was an English film, stage and television actress. She was one of the leading stars of the Gainsborough melodramas of the 1940s such as The Man in Grey (1943) and was one of the most popular movie stars in Britain in the 1940s. She continued her acting career for another 50 years.
Half a Sixpence is a 1963 musical comedy based on the 1905 novel Kipps by H. G. Wells, with music and lyrics by David Heneker and a book by Beverley Cross. It was written as a vehicle for British pop star Tommy Steele.
Margaretta Mary Winifred Scott was an English stage, screen and television actress whose career spanned over seventy years. She is best remembered for playing the eccentric widow Mrs. Pumphrey in the BBC television series All Creatures Great and Small (1978–1990).
Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul is a novel by H. G. Wells, first published in 1905. It was reportedly Wells's own favourite among his works, and it has been adapted for stage, cinema and television productions, including the musical Half a Sixpence.
Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre (1847) has been the subject of numerous television and film adaptations. This 1973 four-hour literary version was originally broadcast as a five-part BBC television drama serial. It was directed by Joan Craft and starred Sorcha Cusack and Michael Jayston.
Helen Haye was a British stage and film actress.
A Kid For Two Farthings is a 1955 British comedy-drama 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.
An Ideal Husband, also known as Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband, is a 1947 British comedy film adaptation of the 1895 play by Oscar Wilde. It was made by London Film Productions and distributed by British Lion Films (UK) and Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation (USA). It was produced and directed by Alexander Korda from a screenplay by Lajos Bíró from Wilde's play. The music score was by Arthur Benjamin, the cinematography by Georges Périnal, the editing by Oswald Hafenrichter and the costume design by Cecil Beaton. This was Korda's last completed film as a director, although he continued producing films into the next decade.
Leonora Mary Johnson, known professionally as Nora Swinburne, was an English actress who appeared in many British films.
The Stars Look Down is a British film from 1940, based on A. J. Cronin's 1935 novel of the same title, about injustices in a mining town in North East England. The film, co-scripted by Cronin and directed by Carol Reed, stars Michael Redgrave as Davey Fenwick and Margaret Lockwood as Jenny Sunley. The film is a New York Times Critics' Pick and is listed in The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made.
Half a Sixpence is a 1967 British musical film directed by George Sidney starring Tommy Steele, Julia Foster and Cyril Ritchard. It was choreographed by Gillian Lynne. The screenplay by Beverley Cross is adapted from his book for the 1963 stage musical of the same name, which was based on Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul, the 1905 novel by H. G. Wells. The music and lyrics are by David Heneker.
Fanny by Gaslight is a 1944 British drama film, directed by Anthony Asquith and produced by Gainsborough Pictures, set in the 1870s and adapted from a 1940 novel by Michael Sadleir.
Edward Black was a British film producer, best known for being head of production at Gainsborough Studios in the late 1930s and early 1940s, during which time he oversaw production of the Gainsborough melodramas. He also produced such classic films as The Lady Vanishes (1938).
The Woman in Black is a 1987 stage play, adapted by Stephen Mallatratt. The play is based on the 1983 book of the same name by British author Susan Hill. The play was produced by PW Productions, led by Peter Wilson. It is notable for only having three actors perform the whole play. It was first performed at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, in 1987. The production opened in London's West End in 1989 and was performed there until 4 March 2023 for 13,232 performances, becoming the second longest-running non-musical play in West End history, after The Mousetrap.
The Girl in the News is a 1940 British thriller film directed by Carol Reed and starring Margaret Lockwood, Barry K. Barnes and Emlyn Williams. It was based on the eponymous novel by Roy Vickers, released the same year.
Kipps is a 1921 British silent drama film directed by Harold M. Shaw and starring George K. Arthur, Edna Flugrath and Christine Rayner. It is an adaptation of the 1905 novel Kipps by H. G. Wells. It was made by Stoll Pictures, the largest film company in the British Isles at the time. The novel was subsequently remade into the 1941 sound film Kipps directed by Carol Reed.
Betty Ann Davies was a British stage and film actress active from the 1920s to the 1950s. Davies made her first stage appearance at the Palladium in a revue in 1924. The following year she joined Cochran's Young Ladies in revues such as One Dam Thing After Another and This Year of Grace. Davies enjoyed a long and distinguished West End career which included The Good Companions (1934), The Morning Star (1942), Blithe Spirit (1943) and Four Winds (1953). Her outstanding stage triumph was in the role of Blanche du Bois, which she took over from Vivien Leigh, in the original West End production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Davies appeared in 38 films, most notably as the future Mrs Polly in The History of Mr. Polly and in the first of the St Trinian's films The Belles of St. Trinian's, and was active in TV at the time of her death. She went into hospital on May 14, 1955, to have an operation for appendicitis, but suffered from complications following surgery and died the same day. She was 44. She left one son, Brook Blackford.
Half a Sixpence is a stage musical based on the 1905 novel Kipps by H. G. Wells and the original 1963 musical, with music by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, and lyrics by Anthony Drewe and Heneker, featuring several of the original songs by Heneker, and book by Julian Fellowes.
