Peter Edward Cook was an English comedian, actor, satirist, playwright and screenwriter. He was the leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishment comedic movement that emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s.
Stephen Joshua Sondheim was an American composer and lyricist. Regarded as one of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theater, he is credited with reinventing the American musical. With his frequent collaborations with Harold Prince and James Lapine, Sondheim's Broadway musicals tackled unexpected themes that ranged beyond the genre's traditional subjects, while addressing darker elements of the human experience. His music and lyrics were tinged with complexity, sophistication, and ambivalence about various aspects of life.
Kenneth Charles Williams was a British actor and comedian. He was best known for his comedy roles and in later life as a raconteur and diarist. He was one of the main ensemble in 26 of the 31 Carry On films, and appeared in many British television programmes and radio comedies, including series with Tony Hancock and Kenneth Horne, as well as being a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4's comedy panel show Just a Minute from its second series in 1968 until his death 20 years later.
Beyond the Fringe was a British comedy stage revue written and performed by Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller, and Dudley Moore. It debuted at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival and went on to play in London's West End and then in America, both on tour and on New York's Broadway in the early 1960s. Hugely successful, it is widely regarded as seminal to the "satire boom", the rise of satirical comedy in 1960s Britain.
Second City Television, commonly shortened to SCTV and later known as SCTV Network and SCTV Channel, is a Canadian television sketch comedy show that ran intermittently between 1976 and 1984. It was created as an offshoot from Toronto's Second City troupe. It is a rare example of a Canadian show that moved successfully to U.S. television, where it aired on NBC in 1981–1983.
Frederick Dewayne Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter.
He played bebop, hard bop, and post-bop styles from the early 1960s onwards. His unmistakable and influential tone contributed to new perspectives for modern jazz and bebop.
Leon Russell was an American musician and songwriter who was involved with numerous bestselling records during his 60-year career that spanned multiple genres, including rock and roll, country, gospel, bluegrass, rhythm and blues, southern rock, blues rock, folk, surf and the Tulsa sound. His recordings earned six gold records and he received two Grammy Awards from seven nominations. In 2011, he was inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Salad Days is a musical with music by Julian Slade, and with book and lyrics by Dorothy Reynolds and Julian Slade. The musical was initially performed in 1954 in the UK in Bristol and then in the West End, where it ran for 2,283 performances.
"One Leg Too Few" is a comedy sketch written by Peter Cook and most famously performed by Cook and Dudley Moore. It is a classic example of comedy arising from an absurd situation which the participants take entirely seriously, and a demonstration of the construction of a sketch in order to draw a laugh from the audience with almost every line. Peter Cook said that this was one of the most perfect sketches he had acted in, and that it amazed him, later in his career, that he could have created it so young, at the age of 17 or 18.
Gary Brooker was an English singer and pianist, and the founder and lead singer of the rock band Procol Harum.
A Night at the Met is the third official album by Robin Williams, released August 9, 1986. It features segments recorded live at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. The album won the 1988 Grammy Award for Best Comedy Performance Single or Album, Spoken or Musical.
Moby Dick is a two-act drama by Orson Welles. The play was staged June 16–July 9, 1955, at the Duke of York's Theatre in London, in a production directed by Welles. The original cast included Welles, Christopher Lee, Kenneth Williams, Joan Plowright, Patrick McGoohan, Gordon Jackson, Peter Sallis, and Wensley Pithey. The play was published by Samuel French in 1965.
Norman Frederick Simpson was an English playwright closely associated with the Theatre of the Absurd. To his friends he was known as Wally Simpson, in comic reference to the abdication crisis of 1936.
Stop Messing About was a BBC radio series broadcast in 1969 and 1970. Forced by circumstance into being a follow-up to Round the Horne, it retained a number of key talents from the previous show, with Kenneth Williams as the new show's main star.
Unique Recording Studios was a five-room recording studio operating near Times Square in New York City from 1978 until 2004. Founders and co-owners Bobby Nathan and Joanne Georgio-Nathan installed the first Otari 24-track tape deck in New York. The studio was known for its extensive collection of synthesizers, which attracted Steve Winwood, who jammed for many hours in the process of creating his multi-Grammy winning album Back in the High Life (1986) at Unique.
Travelin' at the Speed of Thought is an album by the American R&B group the O'Jays, released in 1977 on Philadelphia International Records. Unusual for the time, there had been no advance single release from the album; the only single subsequently issued, "Work on Me", became a #7 R&B hit but failed to reach the pop listings, making this the first O'Jays PIR album without a top 100 pop single. Travelin' at the Speed of Thought peaked at #6 on the R&B chart and reached #27 on the pop chart. The album achieved a gold certification.
Some People is a 1962 film directed by Clive Donner, starring Kenneth More and Ray Brooks. It is centred on the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme.
The Fast Show, known as Brilliant in the US, is a BBC comedy sketch show that ran from 1994 to 1997, with specials in 2000 and 2014. The show's central performers were Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson, Simon Day, Mark Williams, John Thomson, Arabella Weir and Caroline Aherne. Other significant cast members included Felix Dexter, Paul Shearer, Rhys Thomas, Jeff Harding, Maria McErlane, Eryl Maynard, Colin McFarlane and Donna Ewin.
Crystal Johnson is an American singer and songwriter from Brooklyn, New York. She has performed in a variety of stage productions and has collaborated with a wide array of well-known artists including Anthony Hamilton, Dr. Dre, Heavy D, Mobb Deep, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Angie Stone, Usher and many others.
Pieces of Eight was a British musical comedy revue with sketches written by Peter Cook, music by Laurie Johnson and starring Kenneth Williams and Fenella Fielding.
