Samantha Ellis is a British playwright and writer best known for her book How to be a Heroine [1] and her play How to Date a Feminist . [2]
Ellis was born in London to Iraqi-Jewish parents. [3] [4] She studied English at Queens' College, Cambridge.
Ellis's play The Candy Jar was produced at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1996. [5] She worked as a journalist, and wrote a column on theatrical history for The Guardian newspaper. [6]
Her play Patching Havoc was produced at Theatre503 in 2003. [7] Her radio play Sugar and Snow, set in the Kurdish community in north London, was produced on BBC Radio 4 in 2006 and given a reading at the Hampstead Theatre. [8] Her short play A Sudden Visitation of Calamity was produced at Menagerie Theatre in 2008. [9] In 2010 her play The Thousand and Second Night was produced by LAMDA.[ citation needed ] In 2010 her play Cling To Me Like Ivy, published by Nick Hern Books, [10] was produced by the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and went on tour. [11] [12] In 2012 she was a founder member of women's theatre company Agent 160. [13]
Her book How to be a Heroine was published by Chatto & Windus in January 2014, [14] and her biography of Anne Brontë Take Courage: Anne Bronte and the Art of Life was published in January 2017. [15]
Anne Brontë was an English novelist and poet, the youngest member of the Brontë literary family.
Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature. She is best known for her novel Jane Eyre, which she published under the androgynous name Currer Bell. Jane Eyre went on to become a success in publication, and is widely held in high regard in the gothic fiction genre of literature.
Emily Jane Brontë was an English novelist and poet who is best known for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. She also published a book of poetry with her sisters Charlotte and Anne titled Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell with her own poems finding regard as poetic genius. Emily was the second-youngest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother Branwell. She published under the pen name Ellis Bell.
Hedda Gabler is a play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The world premiere was staged on 31 January 1891 at the Residenztheater in Munich. Ibsen himself was in attendance, although he remained back-stage. The play has been canonized as a masterpiece within the genres of literary realism, nineteenth century theatre, and world drama. Ibsen mainly wrote realistic plays until his forays into modern drama. Hedda Gabler dramatizes the experiences of the title character, Hedda, the daughter of a general, who is trapped in a marriage and a house that she does not want. Overall, the title character for Hedda Gabler is considered one of the great dramatic roles in theater. The year following its publication, the play received negative feedback and reviews. Hedda Gabler has been described as a female variation of Hamlet.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the second and final novel written by English author Anne Brontë. It was first published in 1848 under the pseudonym Acton Bell. Probably the most shocking of the Brontës' novels, it had an instant and phenomenal success, but after Anne's death her sister Charlotte prevented its re-publication in England until 1854.
The Brontës were a nineteenth-century literary family, born in the village of Thornton and later associated with the village of Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. The sisters, Charlotte (1816–1855), Emily (1818–1848) and Anne (1820–1849), are well-known poets and novelists. Like many contemporary female writers, they published their poems and novels under male pseudonyms: Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Their stories attracted attention for their passion and originality immediately following their publication. Charlotte's Jane Eyre was the first to know success, while Emily's Wuthering Heights, Anne's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and other works were accepted as masterpieces of literature after their deaths.
Janet Ellis, is an English television presenter, actress and writer, who is best known for presenting the children's television programmes Blue Peter and Jigsaw between 1979 and 1987. She has published two novels, The Butcher's Hook (2016) and How It Was (2019). She is the mother of three children: singer/songwriter Sophie Ellis-Bextor, musician and former child actor Jackson Ellis-Leach and art historian Martha Ellis-Leach.
Samantha Jane Bond is an English actress. She played Miss Moneypenny in four James Bond films during the Pierce Brosnan era, and appeared in Downton Abbey as the wealthy widow Lady Rosamund Painswick, sister of Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham. On television, she played "Auntie Angela" in the sitcom Outnumbered and the villain Mrs Wormwood in the CBBC Doctor Who spin-off, The Sarah Jane Adventures. She also originated the role of "Miz Liz" Probert in the Rumpole of the Bailey series. She is a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Cicely Mary Hamilton, was an English actress, writer, journalist, suffragist and feminist, part of the struggle for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. She is now best known for the feminist play How the Vote was Won, which sees a male anti-suffragist change his mind when the women in his life go on strike. She was also the author of one of the most frequently performed suffrage plays, A Pageant of Great Women (1909), which featured the character of Jane Austen as one of its "Learned Women."
Bonnie Greer, OBE FRSL is an American-British playwright, novelist, critic and broadcaster, who has lived in the UK since 1986. She has appeared as a panellist on television programmes such as Newsnight Review and Question Time and has served on the boards of several leading arts organisations, including the British Museum, the Royal Opera House and the London Film School. She is Vice President of the Shaw Society. She is former Chancellor of Kingston University in Kingston upon Thames, London. In July 2022 she was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Edmund Stoppard is an English actor. He is the son of playwright Tom Stoppard and doctor Miriam, Lady Hogg. his credits include The Pianist (2002), Joy Division (2006), Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire (2006), Tchaikovsky (2007), Brideshead Revisited (2008), Britain's Greatest Codebreaker (2011), The Politician's Husband (2013), Cilla (2014), Blackwood (2014), Angelica (2015), Home Fires (2015), The Frankenstein Chronicles (2015–2017), Genius (2017), Knightfall (2017–2019), Brave New World (2020), The Princess (2022), and Golda (2023).
Polly Teale is a British theatre director and playwright best known for her work with the Shared Experience theatre company, of which she was an artistic director.
Laura Wade is an English playwright.
Penelope Skinner is a British playwright. Born in 1978, she came to prominence after her play Fucked was first produced in 2008 at the Old Red Lion Theatre and the Edinburgh Festival to critical acclaim and has had other plays staged in London including at the Bush Theatre, National Theatre and Royal Court Theatre.
Cling to Me Like Ivy is a 2010 play by playwright Samantha Ellis staged at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre on 11 February 2010 directed by Sarah Esdaile. It was inspired by a chance remark by Victoria Beckham which sparked a crisis in the Orthodox Jewish community over the wigs worn by married women. The cast was: Gethin Anthony, Amanda Boxer, Mona Goodwin, David Hartley, Edward Halsted and Emily Holt. It was published by Nick Hern Books. The Guardian called it "funny, sad and compassionate...that genuinely rare beast, a popular comedy with heart, brains and the stomach to make some difficult choices".
Zinnie Harris FRSE is a British playwright, screenwriter and director currently living in Edinburgh. She has been commissioned and produced by the Royal Court Theatre, Royal National Theatre, the National Theatre of Scotland and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her plays have been translated and performed in many countries across Europe and the globe.
Caryl Lesley Churchill is a British playwright known for dramatising the abuses of power, for her use of non-naturalistic techniques, and for her exploration of sexual politics and feminist themes. Celebrated for works such as Cloud 9 (1979), Top Girls (1982), Serious Money (1987), Blue Heart (1997), Far Away (2000), and A Number (2002), she has been described as "one of Britain's greatest poets and innovators for the contemporary stage". In a 2011 dramatists' poll by The Village Voice, five out of the 20 polled writers listed Churchill as the greatest living playwright.
Lisa Parry is a playwright, based in Cardiff. Her work has been staged by leading new writing companies in the UK and USA. She has been shortlisted for various awards, including Theatre Uncut's Political Playwriting Award, the BBC Audio Awardsand her drama NOT was named one of the RSC's 37 Plays.
Emma Juliet Rice is a British actor, director and writer. Hailed as a fearless director, Rice's work includes theatrical adaptations of Brief Encounter, The Red Shoes and Wise Children. In 2022, Rice was named in the Sky Arts Top 50 most influential British artists. Rice worked with Kneehigh Theatre in Cornwall for twenty years as an actor, director, then artistic director with co-artistic director, Mike Shepherd. She was the Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe from 2016-2018, before founding her own touring theatre company Wise Children.
Kate O'Flynn is a British actress. She is known for her performance in National Theatre's production of Port for which she received a Critics' Circle Theatre Award in 2013, as well as starring roles in plays A Taste of Honey in 2014, and The Glass Menagerie for which she was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in 2017.