Mary Queen of Shops is a British television series presented by Mary Portas broadcast on BBC Two. The series began with a four-week run starting on 7 June 2007, and returned for a second series of six episodes beginning on 9 June 2008. A third three-part series, titled Mary Queen of Charity Shops, began on 2 June 2009. The show returned for a fourth series on 7 June 2010, featuring various independent shops, rather than just fashion boutiques. The title of the programme is a play on Mary, Queen of Scots' name.
In each episode, Mary Portas troubleshoots her way around the UK on a mission to help turn around struggling fashion boutiques. Mary is a leading retail communications expert and is the founder and creative director of Yellowdoor. Her aim is to turn the businesses around and put glamour back into shopping. First, she visits the boutiques while the owners are away. Then she revamps them, gets the shop owners right up-to-date and hopefully helps them to start making money again. In season 3, Mary takes on other retail shops.
Mary Queen of Shops premiered in the United States on 14 August 2009 on BBC America. The programme also airs on GEM HD in Australia.
Open All Hours is a British television sitcom created and written by Roy Clarke for the BBC. It ran for 26 episodes in four series, which aired in 1976, 1981, 1982 and 1985. The programme was developed from a television pilot broadcast in Ronnie Barker's comedy anthology series Seven of One (1973). Open All Hours ranked eighth in the 2004 Britain's Best Sitcom poll. A sequel, entitled Still Open All Hours, aired from 2013 to 2019.
Susannah Caroline Constantine is an English former TV fashion journalist, writer, style advisor, television presenter, author and clothes designer. Her second book, What Not to Wear, co-written with her fashion partner Trinny Woodall, won her a British Book Award and sold 670,000 copies.
High Street is a common street name for the primary business street of a city, town, or village, especially in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. It implies that it is the focal point for business, especially shopping. It is also a metonym for the retail sector.
Lynne Joanne Franks is a communications strategist and writer. She founded a public relations consultancy in the early 1970s.
TOPSHOP is a British fashion brand for women's clothing, shoes and accessories. It was part of the Arcadia Group, controlled by Sir Philip Green, but went into administration in late 2020 before being purchased by ASOS on 1 February 2021. It now operates via the ASOS website and app, as well as being sold in Nordstrom stores in the US on Nordstrom.com. TOPSHOP previously had around 510 shops worldwide.
ZARA is a Spanish multi-national retail clothing chain. It specialises in fast fashion, and sells clothing, accessories, shoes, beauty products and perfumes. The head office is in Arteixo, in A Coruña in Galicia. It is the largest constituent company of the Inditex group. In 2020 it was launching over twenty new product lines per year.
Van Cleef & Arpels is a French luxury jewelry company. It was founded in 1896 by the Dutch diamond-cutter Alfred Van Cleef and his father-in-law Salomon Arpels in Paris. Their pieces often feature flowers, animals, and fairies, and have been worn by style icons and royalty such as Grace Kelly, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Diana, Princess of Wales, Ava Gardner, Farah Pahlavi, Eva Perón, Elizabeth Taylor, the Duchess of Windsor and Queen Nazli of Egypt.
The Apprentice is a British business-styled reality game show created by Mark Burnett, distributed by Fremantle and broadcast by the BBC since 16 February 2005. Devised after the success of the American original and part of the international franchise of the same name, the programme focuses on a group of businesspeople competing in a series of business-related challenges set by British business magnate Alan Sugar, in order to prove themselves worthy of a prize offered by him. To observe candidates as they undertake these tasks, Sugar is aided by two close business associates who act as observers with little involvement in what is conducted – these roles are currently performed by Karren Brady and either Claude Littner or Tim Campbell.
Primark Stores Limited is an Irish multinational fast fashion retailer with headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with outlets across Europe and in the United States. The original Penneys brand is not used outside of Ireland because it is owned elsewhere by American retailer J. C. Penney.
Holly Marie Willoughby is an English television presenter, author and model. She currently co-presents ITV's This Morning (2009–present) and Dancing on Ice.
Dame Mary Rosa Alleyne Hunnings is an English food writer, chef, baker and television presenter. After being encouraged in domestic science classes at school, she studied catering at college. She then moved to France at the age of 22 to study at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school, before working in a number of cooking-related jobs.
Christine Louise Lampard is a Northern Irish broadcaster. She has presented various television programmes with Adrian Chiles, such as The One Show (2007–2010) and Daybreak (2010–11), while with Phillip Schofield she has presented Dancing on Ice (2012–14) and This Morning (2013–16). Lampard has also presented factual series for ITV including Off The Beaten Track (2013) and Wild Ireland (2015). Since 2016 she has been a presenter of the ITV lunchtime chat show Loose Women.
Mary Portas is an English retail consultant and broadcaster, known for her retail- and business-related television shows, founding her creative agency Portas and her appointment by David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, to lead a review into the future of Britain's high streets.
Molly Parkin is a Welsh painter, novelist and journalist, who became most well-known for her work on Nova magazine, newspapers and television in the 1960s.
Kate Elizabeth Sutton is an English writer, activist, television presenter and model from Andover, Hampshire.
Miranda is a British television sitcom written by and starring comedian Miranda Hart. It originally aired on BBC Two from 9 November 2009, and later on BBC One. Developed from Hart's semi-autobiographical BBC Radio 2 comedy Miranda Hart's Joke Shop (2008), the situation comedy revolves around socially inept Miranda, who frequently finds herself in awkward situations. The show features actors Sarah Hadland, Tom Ellis, Patricia Hodge, Sally Phillips, James Holmes and Bo Poraj. It was taped in front of live audiences at the BBC Television Centre and The London Studios.
Solange Azagury-Partridge is a British designer known for her jewellery and interior designs. Based in London, she is the founder of her own brand called Solange.
The Portas Review was carried out in 2011 by retail expert and television personality Mary Portas into issues affecting the retail sector in the United Kingdom, and particularly high streets.
Selina Fay Mosinski is an English actress, known for portraying the fictional charity shop manager and internet personality Sue Tuke, better known as Charity Shop Sue. Mosinski first appeared as the character in the online mockumentary series Charity Shop Sue which was filmed in 2014 and distributed in 2019, set in the fictional charity shop Sec*hand Chances in Bulwell, Nottingham.
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