Eric Sykes was an English radio, stage, television and film writer, comedian, actor and director whose performing career spanned more than 50 years. He frequently wrote for and performed with many other leading comedy performers and writers of the period, including Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Tommy Cooper, Peter Sellers, John Antrobus and Johnny Speight. Sykes first came to prominence through his many radio credits as a writer and actor in the 1950s, most notably through his collaboration on The Goon Show scripts. He became a TV star in his own right in the early 1960s when he appeared with Hattie Jacques in several popular BBC comedy television series.
Bod is a British children's television programme first shown on BBC1 in 1975, with thirteen episodes, based on four original Bod books by Joanne and Michael Cole. It is a cutout animated cartoon series narrated by John Le Mesurier and Maggie Henderson with music by Derek Griffiths and produced by David Yates. The four books were published in 1965 in the United Kingdom and later in the United States and France. They are: Bod's Apple, Bod's Present, Bod's Dream and Bod and the Cherry Tree. The French version of Bod's Apple is called La Pomme de Gus.
Michael Deeley is an Academy Award-winning British film producer known for such motion pictures as The Italian Job (1969), The Deer Hunter (1978), and Blade Runner (1982). He is also a founding member and Honorary President of British Screen Forum.
Margaret Rose Mount OBE was an English actress. As a child, she found acting an escape from an unhappy home life. After playing in amateur productions, she was taken on by a repertory company and spent nine years in various British towns, learning her craft. In 1955, she got her big break in the comic play Sailor Beware!: she created the leading role in a repertory production and, though unknown to London audiences, was given the part when the play was presented in the West End. She became known for playing domineering middle-aged women in plays, films and television shows.
Robbery is a 1967 British crime film directed by Peter Yates and starring Stanley Baker, Joanna Pettet and James Booth. The story is a heavily fictionalised version of the 1963 Great Train Robbery. The film was produced by Stanley Baker and Michael Deeley, for Baker's company Oakhurst Productions.
Peter James Yates was an English film director and producer. He is known for directing such films as Bullitt (1968), John and Mary (1969), The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), Breaking Away (1979), and The Dresser (1983). He received nominations for four Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards.
Mona Lee Washbourne was an English actress of stage, film, and television. Her most critically acclaimed role was in the film Stevie (1978), late in her career, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Award.
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.
British Lion Films is a film production and distribution company active under several forms since 1919. Originally known as British Lion Film Corporation Ltd, it entered receivership on 1 June 1954. From 29 January 1955 to 1976, the company was known as British Lion Films Ltd, and was a pure distribution company.
Cuthbert Mark Dignam was a prolific English actor.
Alison Joy Leggatt was an English character actress.
Stevie is a 1977 play by Hugh Whitemore, about the life of poet Stevie Smith. The play's two-week, pre-London engagement was at the Theatre Royal, Brighton. The production opened March 23, 1977, at the Vaudeville Theatre with Glenda Jackson as English poet and novelist Stevie Smith and featured Mona Washbourne and Peter Eyre. It was directed by Clifford Williams.
Ferry Cross the Mersey is a 1964 British musical film featuring Gerry and the Pacemakers. It is frequently considered to be their version of the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night.
This Happy Breed is a 1944 British Technicolor drama film directed by David Lean and starring Robert Newton, Celia Johnson, Stanley Holloway and John Mills. The screenplay by Lean, Anthony Havelock-Allan and Ronald Neame is based on the 1939 play This Happy Breed, by Noël Coward. It tells the story of an inter-war suburban London family, set against the backdrop of what were then recent news events, moving from the postwar era of the 1920s to the inevitability of another war, and the passing of the torch from one generation to the next. Domestic triumphs and tragedies play against such transformative changes as the coming of household radio and talking pictures. The film was not released in the United States until April 1947.
Stevie is a 1978 biographical drama film produced and directed by Robert Enders from a screenplay by Hugh Whitemore, based on Whitemore's 1977 play of the same name. The film stars Glenda Jackson, Trevor Howard, Mona Washbourne and Alec McCowen.
Touch and Go is a 1955 British comedy film directed by Michael Truman, and starring Jack Hawkins, Margaret Johnston, and June Thorburn.
To Dorothy a Son is a black and white 1954 British gentle comedy film in the form of a farce directed by Muriel Box and starring Shelley Winters, John Gregson and Peggy Cummins. Known in the U.S. as Cash on Delivery, it is based on the 1950 play To Dorothy, a Son by Roger MacDougall which had enjoyed a lengthy run in the West End. It was shot at Elstree Studios near London with sets designed by the art director George Provis. It was distributed in America by RKO Pictures in January 1956.
Woodfall Film Productions was a British film production company established in the late 1950s. It was established by Tony Richardson, John Osborne and Harry Saltzman to make a screen adaptation of Osborne's hit play Look Back in Anger. The film version, directed by Richardson and produced by Saltzman, was released in 1959.
Child's Play is a 1954 British science fiction film directed by Margaret Thomson and starring Mona Washbourne and Christopher Beeny. The script was by Don Sharp, who also worked on the film as an assistant.
One Way Pendulum, described on the title page as "A Farce in a New Dimension", is a play by N. F. Simpson. It was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Brighton on 14 December 1959, before playing at London's Royal Court Theatre from 22 December, later transferring to the Criterion Theatre where it ran until 11 June 1960. The play was adapted for the cinema in 1965.
