Miranda Jane Richardson is an English actress. She made her film debut playing Ruth Ellis in Dance with a Stranger (1985) and went on to receive Academy Award nominations for Damage (1992) and Tom & Viv (1994). A seven-time BAFTA Award nominee, she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Damage. She has also been nominated for seven Golden Globe Awards, winning twice for Enchanted April (1992) and the TV film Fatherland (1994). In 1996, one critic asserted that she is "the greatest actress of our time in any medium" after she appeared in Orlando at the Edinburgh International Festival.
Susan Mary Cooper is an English author of children's books. She is best known for The Dark Is Rising, a contemporary fantasy series set in England and Wales, which incorporates British mythology such as the Arthurian legends and Welsh folk heroes. For that work, in 2012 she won the lifetime Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association, recognizing her contribution to writing for teens. In the 1970s two of the five novels were named the year's best English-language book with an "authentic Welsh background" by the Welsh Books Council.
John Boynton Priestley was an English novelist, playwright, screenwriter, broadcaster and social commentator.
The year 1940 saw a number of significant events in radio broadcasting history.
Geoffrey Dyson Palmer was an English actor. He was best known for his roles in British television sitcoms playing Jimmy Anderson in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976–79), Ben Parkinson in Butterflies (1978–1983) and Lionel Hardcastle in As Time Goes By (1992–2005). His film appearances include A Fish Called Wanda (1988), The Madness of King George (1994), Mrs Brown (1997) and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997).
Bert Coules is an English writer, mainly for the BBC, who has produced a number of adaptations and original works. He works mainly in radio drama but also writes for TV and the stage.
Cecil John Charles Street, who was known to his colleagues, family and friends as John Street, began his military career as an artillery officer in the British Army. During the course of World War I, he became a propagandist for MI7, in which role he held the rank of Major. After the armistice, he alternated between Dublin and London during the Irish War of Independence as Information Officer for Dublin Castle, working closely with Lionel Curtis. He later earned his living as a prolific writer of detective novels.
Kenneth Campbell Stott is a Scottish stage, television and film actor who won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 1995 in the play Broken Glass at Royal National Theatre. He portrayed the dwarf Balin in The Hobbit film trilogy (2012–2014).
Dame Harriet Mary Walter is a British actress. She has received a Laurence Olivier Award as well as numerous nominations including for a Tony Award, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2011, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to drama.
Michael Culver is an English actor. He was born in Hampstead, London, the son of actor Roland Culver and casting director Daphne Rye. He was educated at Gresham's School.
Time and the Conways is a British play written by J. B. Priestley in 1937 illustrating J. W. Dunne's Theory of Time through the experience of a moneyed Yorkshire family, the Conways, over a period of nineteen years from 1919 to 1937. Widely regarded as one of the best of Priestley's Time Plays, a series of pieces for theatre which played with different concepts of Time, it continues to be revived in the UK regularly.
Beatrice Edney is an English television actress.
The Good Companions is a novel by the English author J. B. Priestley.
When We Are Married is a comedy by the English dramatist, J. B. Priestley, written in 1934. It was first performed in London at the St. Martin's Theatre, London on 11 October 1938, and transferred to the larger Prince's Theatre in March 1939 and ran until 24 June of that year.
The Linden Tree is a 1947 play by the English dramatist J. B. Priestley. It was first produced at the Duchess Theatre, London on 15 August 1947, and ran for 422 performances. The play had a brief run on Broadway in New York in March 1948 in a production directed by George Schaefer and using costumes designed by Frank Thompson.
Laburnum Grove is a comedy-drama play by the British writer J.B. Priestley which was first staged in 1933. It was one of Priestley's earliest hits. The play premiered at the Duchess Theatre on 28 November 1933. In its initial run it had over 300 performances. It made its Broadway debut at Booth's Theatre on 14 January 1935 and ran for 131 performances.
Summer Day's Dream is a 1949 play by J. B. Priestley. It is set in 1975, and evokes a world where a nuclear Third World War has caused Britain to revert to a pre-industrial, pre-capitalist state. It takes its title from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is being produced by two members of the English family the play is based around.
Mr. Kettle and Mrs. Moon is a comedy play by the British writer J.B. Priestley first staged in 1955 at the Duchess Theatre in London. The original cast featured Clive Morton and Fanny Rowe in the title roles and was directed by Tony Richardson. It ran for 211 performances. It is also known by the longer title The Scandalous Affair of Mr Kettle and Mrs Moon.
Benighted is a 1927 novel by the British writer J.B. Priestley. Priestley's second published novel, it is a story of post-First World War disillusionment. A number of travellers are forced to take shelter at an old country house during a storm.
This is a list of events from British radio in 1940.
