John Kingsley Orton, known by the pen name of Joe Orton, was an English playwright, author, and diarist.
Galton and Simpson were a British comedy scriptwriting duo, who wrote for radio, television and film, consisting of Ray Galton OBE and Alan Simpson OBE. They are best known for their work with comedian Tony Hancock on radio and television between 1954 and 1961 and their long-running television situation comedy, Steptoe and Son, eight series of which were aired between 1962 and 1974, they had an association lasting 60 years.
Prick Up Your Ears is a 1987 British film, directed by Stephen Frears, about the playwright Joe Orton and his lover Kenneth Halliwell. The screenplay was written by Alan Bennett, based on the 1978 biography by John Lahr. The film stars Gary Oldman as Orton, Alfred Molina as Halliwell, Wallace Shawn as Lahr, and Vanessa Redgrave as Peggy Ramsay.
Comedy Playhouse is a long-running British anthology series of one-off unrelated sitcoms that aired for 128 episodes from 1961 to 1975. Many episodes later graduated to their own series, including Steptoe and Son, Meet the Wife, Till Death Us Do Part, All Gas and Gaiters, Up Pompeii!, Not in Front of the Children, Me Mammy, That's Your Funeral, The Liver Birds, Are You Being Served? and particularly Last of the Summer Wine, which is the world's longest running sitcom, having run from January 1973 to August 2010. In all, 27 sitcoms started from a pilot in the Comedy Playhouse strand.
Hywel Thomas Bennett was a Welsh film and television actor. He had a lead role in The Family Way (1966) and played the titular "thinking man's layabout" James Shelley in the television sitcom Shelley (1979–1992).
Loot is a two-act play by the English playwright Joe Orton. The play is a dark farce that satirises the Roman Catholic Church, social attitudes to death, and the integrity of the police force.
Wilfred Duncan Wood was a British comedy producer, director and writer, who has been described as "the founding father of the British TV sitcom".
The Angry Silence is a 1960 black-and-white British drama film directed by Guy Green and starring Richard Attenborough, Pier Angeli, Michael Craig and Bernard Lee.
The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins is a 1971 British sketch comedy film directed and produced by Graham Stark. Its title is a conflation of The Magnificent Seven and the seven deadly sins. It comprises a sequence of seven sketches, each representing a sin and written by an array of British comedy-writing talent, including Graham Chapman, Spike Milligan, Barry Cryer and Galton and Simpson. The sketches are linked by animation sequences overseen by Bob Godfrey's animation studio. The music score is by British jazz musician Roy Budd, cinematography by Harvey Harrison and editing by Rod Nelson-Keys and Roy Piper. It was produced by Tigon Pictures and distributed in the U.K. by Tigon Film Distributors Ltd.
Alan Francis Simpson was an English scriptwriter, best known for the Galton and Simpson comedy writing partnership with Ray Galton. Together they devised and wrote the BBC sitcom Hancock's Half Hour (1954–1961), the first two series of Comedy Playhouse (1961–1963), and Steptoe and Son (1962–1974).
Steptoe and Son is a 1972 British comedy drama film directed by Cliff Owen and starring Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett. It was written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The film centres on a flashback to about four years earlier detailing Harold's short-lived marriage to Zita, a stripper.
Steptoe and Son Ride Again is a 1973 British comedy drama film directed by Peter Sykes and starring Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett. It was written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.
Up the Chastity Belt is a 1971 British comedy film directed by Bob Kellett and starring Frankie Howerd. It was written by Sid Colin, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.
Silvio Narizzano was a Canadian film and television director, who lived and worked primarily in the United Kingdom. He is best known for directing the acclaimed 1966 comedy-drama film Georgy Girl, which is considered a classic of the Swinging London era. He was also a prolific director of television dramas.
The Spy with a Cold Nose is a 1966 British comedy film directed by Daniel Petrie and starring Laurence Harvey, Daliah Lavi, Lionel Jeffries, Denholm Elliott, and Colin Blakely. It was written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.
The Comedy Man is a 1964 British kitchen sink realism drama film directed by Alvin Rakoff and starring Kenneth More, Cecil Parker, Dennis Price and Billie Whitelaw. It depicts the life of a struggling actor in Swinging London.
Thomas James Harman Sloan was a British television executive. He was the BBC's Head of Light Entertainment in the 1960s.
Associated London Scripts (ALS) was a writers' agency organised as a co-operative which involved many leading comedy and television writers of the 1950s and 1960s.
The Diamond is a 1954 British film noir crime film directed by Montgomery Tully, and starring Dennis O'Keefe, Margaret Sheridan and Philip Friend. It is based on the 1952 novel Rich Is the Treasure by Maurice Procter. It was released by United Artists in Britain and in America, where it was known as The Diamond Wizard.
Paul Merton in Galton and Simpson's... is a British comedy television show that ran from 26 January 1996 to 21 October 1997. It stars Paul Merton, re-performing a number of classic comedy scripts written by the duo Galton and Simpson, including some originally written for Tony Hancock. The programme was produced by Central Independent Television for ITV, and aired for 15 episodes in two series.
