Brian Norman Roger Rix, Baron Rix, was an English actor-manager, who produced a record-breaking sequence of long-running farces on the London stage, including Dry Rot, Simple Spymen and One for the Pot. His one-night TV shows made him the joint-highest paid star on the BBC. He often worked with his wife Elspet Gray and sister Sheila Mercier, who became the matriarch in Emmerdale Farm.
Anthony Rodgers was an English actor and occasional director. He performed on stage, in film, in television dramas and sitcoms. He starred in several sitcoms, including Fresh Fields, its sequel French Fields, and May to December.
The Girl from Kays is a musical comedy in three acts, with music by Ivan Caryll and book and lyrics by Owen Hall. Additional songs were by Paul Rubens, Howard Talbot, Adrian Ross, Percy Greenbank and others. The farcical story concerns a misguided kiss.
Raymond George Alfred Cooney OBE is an English playwright, actor, and director.
The Morosco Theatre was a Broadway theatre near Times Square in New York City from 1917 to 1982. It housed many notable productions and its demolition, along with four adjacent theaters, was controversial.
Trafalgar Theatre is a West End theatre in Whitehall, near Trafalgar Square, in the City of Westminster, London. The Grade II listed building was built in 1930 with interiors in the Art Deco style as the Whitehall Theatre; it regularly staged comedies and revues. It was converted into a television and radio studio in the 1990s, before returning to theatrical use in 2004 as Trafalgar Studios, the name it bore until 2020, with the auditorium converted to two studio spaces. It re-opened in 2021 following a major multi-million pound project to reinstate it to its original single-auditorium design.
Ronald Alfred Shiner was a British stand-up comedian and comedy actor whose career encompassed film, West End theatre and music hall.
John Slater was an English character actor who usually portrayed lugubrious, amiable cockney types.
Dry Rot is a 1956 British comedy film directed by Maurice Elvey, and starring Ronald Shiner, Brian Rix, Peggy Mount, and Sid James.
The Whitehall farces were a series of five long-running comic stage plays at the Whitehall Theatre in London, presented by the actor-manager Brian Rix, in the 1950s and 1960s. They were in the low comedy tradition of British farce, following the Aldwych farces, which played at the Aldwych Theatre between 1924 and 1933.
Look After Lulu! is a farce by Noël Coward, based on Occupe-toi d'Amélie! by Georges Feydeau. It is set in Paris in 1908. The central character is an attractive cocotte, Lulu, whose lover is called away on military service; the plot involves libidinous foreign royalty, a mock wedding that turns out to be real, people hiding under beds and in bathrooms, and a happy ending.
John Roy Chapman was a British actor, playwright and screenwriter, known for his collaborations with Ray Cooney.
Hazel Douglas was an English actress. She portrayed Nagini in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1.
Reluctant Heroes is a 1952 British comedy film directed by Jack Raymond and starring Ronald Shiner, Derek Farr and Christine Norden. It is based on the popular farce of the same title by Colin Morris. The play, which had its West End premiere at the Whitehall Theatre in September 1950, was the first of the Brian Rix company's Whitehall farces. The film was shot at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith in West London. It's sets were designed by the art director Wilfred Arnold.
The Dover Road is a three-act comedy by A. A. Milne, seen on Broadway in 1921–22 and in the West End in 1922–23. It depicts the dampening effect of close proximity on the ardour of eloping couples when they are forced into sustained exposure to each other's habits and idiosyncrasies.
Nicholas Wilton is an English actor and scriptwriter. He has appeared as Mr Lister in the BBC soap opera EastEnders as a recurring character; he has also appeared in Carrott's Lib and Jackanory.
Turkey Time is a farce by Ben Travers. It was one of the series of Aldwych farces that ran nearly continuously at the Aldwych Theatre in London from 1923 to 1933. The story concerns two guests, staying at the Stoatt household for Christmas, who offer shelter to a pretty concert performer left stranded when her employer absconds, leaving his cast unpaid.
Leo Franklyn was an English actor. Much of his early career was in Edwardian musical comedy; in his later career he was chiefly associated with farce.
The Aldwych farces were a series of twelve stage farces presented at the Aldwych Theatre, London, nearly continuously from 1923 to 1933. All but three of them were written by Ben Travers. They incorporate and develop British low comedy styles, combined with clever word-play. The plays were presented by the actor-manager Tom Walls and starred Walls and Ralph Lynn, supported by a regular company that included Robertson Hare, Mary Brough, Winifred Shotter, Ethel Coleridge, and Gordon James.
Dirty Work is a farce by Ben Travers. It was one of the series of twelve Aldwych farces that ran in uninterrupted succession at the Aldwych Theatre in London from 1923 to 1933. The play depicts the maladroit but ultimately successful efforts of a shop-walker to outwit a gang of jewel thieves.
