The Art of Success is a play by the British playwright Nick Dear, centered on the life of William Hogarth. [1] It premiered at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1986, with Michael Kitchen playing Hogarth and Niamh Cusack playing his wife, Jane. [2] It premiered to an American audience at the Manhattan Theatre Club in December 1989, with Tim Curry playing Hogarth and Mary-Louise Parker playing Jane. [3] Both productions were directed by Adrian Noble. [4] [3]
William Hogarth was an English painter, engraver, pictorial satirist, social critic, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects", and he is perhaps best known for his series A Harlot's Progress, A Rake's Progress and Marriage A-la-Mode. Familiarity with his work is so widespread that satirical political illustrations in this style are often referred to as "Hogarthian".
Cyril James Cusack was an Irish stage and screen actor with a career that spanned more than 70 years. During his lifetime, he was considered one of Ireland's finest thespians, and was renowned for his interpretations of both classical and contemporary theatre, including Shakespearean roles as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and over 60 productions for the Abbey Theatre, of which he was a lifelong member. In 2020, Cusack was ranked at number 14 on The Irish Times' list of Ireland's greatest film actors.
Michael Jeremy Thomas Clyde is an English actor and musician. During the 1960s, he was one-half of the folk duo Chad & Jeremy. Their first song was the 1963 hit "Yesterday’s Gone". The duo became more successful in America than in their native country. Clyde has enjoyed a long television acting career, often playing upper-middle class or aristocratic characters.
Three Sisters is a play by the Russian author and playwright Anton Chekhov. It was written in 1900 and first performed in 1901 at the Moscow Art Theatre. The play is often included on the shortlist of Chekhov's outstanding plays, along with The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull and Uncle Vanya.
Heartbeat is a British police procedural period drama series, based upon the Constable series of novels written by Nicholas Rhea, and produced by Yorkshire Television until it was merged with ITV, then by ITV Studios from 1992 until 2010. The series is set in the North Riding of Yorkshire during the 1960s, and takes place in real-life and fictional locations. Most episodes' focus on separate stories sometimes intersect with one another; some episodes focus on a single major incident.
Dancing at Lughnasa is a 1990 play by dramatist Brian Friel set in County Donegal, Ireland in August 1936 in the fictional town of Ballybeg. It is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Evans, the narrator. He recounts the summer in his aunts' cottage when he was seven years old.
Sinéad Moira Cusack is an Irish actress. Her first acting roles were at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, before moving to London in 1969 to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. She has won the Critics' Circle and Evening Standard Awards for her performance in Sebastian Barry's Our Lady of Sligo.
Michael Roy Kitchen is an English actor and television producer, best known for his starring role as Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle in the ITV drama Foyle's War, which comprised eight series between 2002 and 2015. He also played the role of Bill Tanner in two James Bond films opposite Pierce Brosnan, and that of John Farrow in BBC Four's comedy series Brian Pern.
Declan Michael Martin Donnellan is an English film/stage director and author. He co-founded the Cheek by Jowl theatre company with Nick Ormerod in 1981. In addition to his Cheek by Jowl productions, Donnellan has made theatre, opera and ballet with a variety of companies across the world. In 1992, he received an honorary degree from the University of Warwick and in 2004 he was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his work in France. In 2010, he was made an honorary fellow of Goldsmiths' College, University of London. Donnellan was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to theatre.
Niamh Cusack is an Irish actress. Born to a family with deep roots in the performing arts, she has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal National Theatre, and many others. Her most notable television role was as Dr. Kate Rowan in the UK series Heartbeat (1992–1995). Other TV and film credits include Always and Everyone (1999–2002), The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends (1992–1995), The Closer You Get (2000), Agatha Christie's Marple, Midsomer Murders (2008), A Touch of Frost (2010), In Love with Alma Cogan (2011), Testament of Youth (2014), Departure (2015), ChickLit, The Ghoul (2016), The Virtues (2019), Death in Paradise (2021), The Tower (2023). She has been nominated at IFTA for her performance in Too Good to be True (2004).
Sorcha Cusack is an Irish television and stage actress. Her numerous television credits include playing the title role in Jane Eyre (1973), Casualty (1994–1997), Coronation Street (2008) and Father Brown (2013–2022).
Nick Dear is an English writer for stage, screen and radio. He received a BAFTA for his first screenwriting credit, a film adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion.
Faith Healer is a play by Brian Friel about the life of the faith healer Francis Hardy as monologued through the shifting memories of Hardy, his wife, Grace, and stage manager, Teddy. It was first produced in 1979.
Penny Downie is an Australian actress known for her stage and television appearances in the United Kingdom.
Always and Everyone is a British television medical drama, broadcast on ITV, that ran for four series between 7 June 1999 and 22 August 2002. Set in the Accident and Emergency department of Saint Victor's city hospital in Manchester, the series follows the everyday lives of the doctors and nurses working in the department, and was heavily described as ITV's answer to Casualty, and the British equivalent of ER.
Nicholas "Nick" Robinson is an English actor who has appeared regularly on British television, most famously as William Beech in Goodnight Mister Tom, starring John Thaw. He also played the lead in the television series Harry and the Wrinklies based upon the book of the same name by Alan Temperley, produced by Scottish Television.
Ella Smith is an English actress.
David William Logan Westhead is an English actor.
Fools of Fortune is a 1990 Irish romantic drama film directed by Pat O'Connor and written by Michael Hirst based on the 1983 novel by Irish writer William Trevor. It depicts a Protestant family caught up in the conflict between the British Army and the IRA during the Irish War of Independence.
Jane Hogarth was a British printseller and businesswoman who preserved the rights to the artwork of her husband, William Hogarth, following his death. She successfully continued to produce and sell his work for many years.