"of Sarah was based on Arnold Wesker's aunt, Sarah Wesker, who was a trade union activist in the East End of London. A major revival, starring Samantha Spiro, was staged at the Royal Court in the summer of 2011. Chicken Soup with Barley Chicken Soup with Barley is a 1956 play by British playwright Arnold Wesker. It is the first of a trilogy and was first performed on stage in 1958 at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, where Wesker's two other plays of that trilogy—""Roots"" and ""I'm Talking About Jerusalem""—also premiered. The play is split into three acts, each with"
"disillusion. ""Chicken Soup with Barley"" (1958) went out to the provinces, and rather than opening in the West End, its premiere was seen at the provincial Coventry Theatre, a locale which typified Wesker's political views as an 'angry young man'. Wesker's play ""Roots"" (1959) was a kitchen sink drama about a girl, Beatie Bryant, who returns after three years of stay in London to her farming family home at Norfolk and struggles to voice herself. Critics commended the ""emotional authenticity"" brought out in the play. ""Roots"", ""The Kitchen"", and ""Their Very Own and Golden City"" were staged by the English"
"during a vogue for historical drama. Shakespeare's plays are difficult to date precisely, however, and studies of the texts suggest that ""Titus Andronicus"", ""The Comedy of Errors"", ""The Taming of the Shrew,"" and ""The Two Gentlemen of Verona"" may also belong to Shakespeare's earliest period. His first histories, which draw heavily on the 1587 edition of Raphael Holinshed's ""Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland"", dramatise the destructive results of weak or corrupt rule and have been interpreted as a justification for the origins of the Tudor dynasty. The early plays were influenced by the works of other Elizabethan dramatists, especially"
"Beverley Cross Alan Beverley Cross (13 April 1931 – 20 March 1998) (known as Beverley Cross) was an English playwright, librettist and screenwriter. Born in London into a theatrical family, and educated at the Nautical College Pangbourne, Cross started off by writing children's plays in the 1950s. He achieved instant success with his first play, ""One More River"", which dealt with a mutiny in which a crew puts its first officer on trial for manslaughter. The play premiered in 1958 at the New Shakespeare Theatre Liverpool, starring Robert Shaw, directed by Sam Wanamaker, and in 1959, still with Robert Shaw,"
"This was followed by Monty Blatt in ""Chicken Soup with Barley"" at the Royal Court during June and July 1960, completing the Wesker Trilogy with a revival of ""Roots"" and the transfer of ""I’m Talking About Jerusalem"" (as 1st Removal Man). At the Pembroke Theatre in Croydon he played Kenny Baird in ""A Loss of Roses"" during January 1961, and the following month a return to the Royal Court as de Piraquo in Tony Richardson's production of Thomas Middleton and William Rowley's Jacobean tragedy ""The Changeling"", then little known. In 1962 he was cast as the Duke of Ferrara in"
"""Two Roses"", by James Albery. These were played at the old Town Hall in 1887 with great success. He also stage-managed Iolanthe, which started an era of musical plays in October 1889, and the Crimson Scarf, a comic opera by H. B. Farnie and J. E. Legouix, in 1888 ; nor was he above giving an evening a week to coach the elder pupils of Raffles Girls' School in their Shakespeare. Although not very robust, he played a fair game at tennis, a good game of billiards, and was a staunch supporter of the Swimming Club, which has a fine"
"""Peter Pan"" (1904), which began life as a play, is one of the best known stories in English. Barrie is often linked to the Kailyard movement and his early plays such as ""Quality Street"" (1901) and ""The Admirable Crichton"" (1902) deal with temporary inversions of the normal social order. His later works, such as ""Dear Brutus"" (1917) and ""Mary Rose"" (1920), focused on historical themes. After Barrie the most successful Scottish playwrights of the early twentieth century were John Brandane and James Bridie, the pseudonyms, respectively, of doctors John Macintyre (1869-1947) and Osborne Mavor (1888–1951). Brandane's plays were often humorous"
"English drama include the Jewish moneylender Shylock in William Shakespeare's ""The Merchant of Venice"" (1598) and the title character of Ben Jonson's ""Volpone"" (1606). In Aubrey Beardsley's title page for the latter, Volpone is shown worshiping his possessions, in illustration of the lines from the play, ""Dear Saint, / Riches, the dumb god that giv'st all men tongues."" A similar scene takes place in the second act of Alexander Pushkin's short tragedy ""Skupoi rytsar"" (1836). This concerns a son, Albert, kept short of funds by his father, the Baron. Under the title The Miserly Knight, it was made an opera"
"theatre credits included ""Robert's Wife"" (1968, with future husband John Merivale at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre), ""Softly, Goldfish Mating"" (1971, with Patrick Macnee, toured the UK), ""Touch Of Purple"" (1972, Thorndike Theatre, Leatherhead), Don Taylor's ""Out On The Lawn"" (1975, with Edward Hardwicke, Rosemary Leach and T.P. McKenna, Watford Palace Theatre), Noël Coward's ""Star Quality"" (1982/83, with Emlyn Williams and Annette Crosbie amongst others, Theatre Royal Bath), George Bernard Shaw's ""The Apple Cart"" (1985/86, with Peter O'Toole and Susannah York, firstly in Bath, then transferred to the London's Theatre Royal Haymarket), and William Douglas Home's ""The Kingfisher"" (1992, Theatre Royal"
"In 1996, in a company that he co-founded with Ian Dickens, he appeared in a touring production of ""There's a Girl in My Soup"" with Jack Smethurst, Deborah McAndrew and Tony Scannell. Rose is well known for appearing in pantomime as the Dame and has more than 20 years' experience of this. In addition to his role in ""Robin of Sherwood"", Rose played the part of a doctor from the regional health authority in the 1984 BBC nuclear-war drama ""Threads"". In 2007, Rose played the science-fiction writer A.K. 'Bunny' Cheesewight in the second story in BBC7's ""Scarifyers"" series, ""The Devil"
"Really Rosie Really Rosie is a musical with a book and lyrics by Maurice Sendak and music by Carole King. The musical is based on Sendak's books ""Chicken Soup with Rice"", ""Pierre"", ""One was Johnny"", ""Alligators All Around"" (which compose 1962's ""The Nutshell Library""), and ""The Sign on Rosie's Door"" (1960). Sendak based the story on a demonstrative little girl who used to sing and dance on the stoop of her building, whom he observed while he was a little boy growing up in Brooklyn. The musical has become a mainstay of children's theater groups. It follows a typical summer"
"Kays"" (1903), ""The Orchid"" (1903), ""The Cingalee"" (1904), ""The Spring Chicken"" (1905) and ""The Girls of Gottenberg"" (1907). In 1901, Ross married Ethel Wood, an actress, and the couple produced a son and two daughters. The family resided in Church Street, Kensington. Also in 1901, he collaborated with his sister Mary Emily Ropes on the children's story, ""On Peter's Island"". When Edwardes found success, beginning in 1907, in mounting English-language versions of the new generation of continental European operettas to the London stage, Ross wrote the English lyrics for the adaptations, often with libretti by Basil Hood. His words to"
"(1860–1937) was amongst the most successful of Scottish literary exports, spending most of his career in England. His ""Peter Pan"" (1904), which began life as a play, is one best known stories in English. Barrie is often linked to the Kailyard movement and his early plays such as ""Quality Street"" (1901) and ""The Admirable Crichton"" (1902) deal with temporary inversions of the normal social order. His later works, such as ""Dear Brutus"" (1917) and ""Mary Rose"" (1920), focused on historical themes. After Barrie the most successful Scottish playwrights of the early twentieth century were John Brandane and James Bridie, the"
"Goose With Pepper Goose With Pepper is a radio drama by Frederick Bradnum. The play was originally written for BBC Radio 4, airing on 17 September 1972. The BBC said of it ""Mr Bradnum's new play has that astonishing ease and easy depth that come with maturity; technique is undetectable; humanity, occasionally in the past veiled by self-consciousness, shines through, clear and warm."" In August 1975 the play was dramatised for the theatre by David Ambrose. In 1975 it was also adapted into a TV movie by Ambrose and Troy Kennedy-Martin and directed by John Jacobs. It starred Kenneth More,"
"a local lawyer named More. Henry Carey wrote the libretto to a burlesque opera called ""The Dragon of Wantley"" in 1737. The opera, with music composed by John Frederick Lampe, punctured the vacuous operatic conventions and pointed a satirical barb at Robert Walpole and his taxation policies. The opera was a huge success and its initial run was 69 performances in the first season; a number which exceeded even ""The Beggar's Opera"". The opera debuted at the Haymarket Theatre, where its coded attack on Walpole would have been clear, but its long run occurred after it moved to Covent Garden,"
"Geoffrey Chaucer's pilgrims set off on their journey in ""The Canterbury Tales"". Just west of the Bridge was the Liberty of the Clink manor, which was never controlled by the City, but was held under the Bishopric of Winchester's nominal authority. This area therefore became the entertainment district for London, with attractions such as bull and bear-baiting. It also hosted a concentration of brothels.. In 1587, Southwark's first playhouse theatre, The Rose, opened. The Rose was set up by Philip Henslowe, and soon became a popular place of entertainment for all classes of Londoners. Both Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare,"
"follows the categories used in the First Folio. However, modern criticism has labelled some of these plays ""problem plays"" that elude easy categorisation, or perhaps purposely break generic conventions, and has introduced the term romances for what scholars believe to be his later comedies. When Shakespeare first arrived in London in the late 1570s or early 1580s, dramatists writing for London's new commercial playhouses (such as The Curtain) were combining two strands of dramatic tradition into a new and distinctively Elizabethan synthesis. Previously, the most common forms of popular English theatre were the Tudor morality plays. These plays, celebrating piety"
"James Albery James Albery (4 May 1838 – 15 August 1889) was an English dramatist. Albery was born in London. On leaving school Albery entered an architect's office, and started to write plays. His farce ""A Pretty Piece of Chiselling"" was given its first production by the Ingoldsby Club in 1864. After some failures, his adaptation, ""Dr Davy"", was produced at the Lyceum Theatre, London (1866). His most successful piece, ""Two Roses"", a comedy, was produced at the Vaudeville Theatre in 1870, in which Sir Henry Irving made one of his earliest London successes as Digby Grant. The production ran"
"residence, 42 Ampthill Square, Hampstead Road, London, on 28 January 1859. Notable roles include Sanguinback in ""Cherry and Fair Star"", Grindoff in ""The Miller and his Men"" (a piece for which Sir H. R. Bishop wrote charming music), Robinson Crusoe, and his Timour the Tartar. He also played comedic characters, such as Jeremy in ""Love for Love"" and Lord Trinket in ""The Jealous Wife"". Farley wrote many plays himself, most of which were not printed. Some notable works include: Charles Farley Charles Farley (1771–1859) was an English actor and dramatist. Farley was born in London and entered the theatrical profession"
"title ""The Wars of the Roses"", at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. The first play (entitled simply ""Henry VI"") featured a much shortened version of ""1 Henry VI"" and half of ""2 Henry VI"" (up to the death of Beaufort). The second play (entitled ""Edward IV"") featured the second half of ""2 Henry VI"" and a shortened version of ""3 Henry VI"", which was followed by a shortened version of ""Richard III"" as the third play. In all, 1,450 lines written by Barton were added to 6,000 lines of original Shakespearean material, with a total of 12,350 lines removed. The production"
"author, by J. W. Lake. His first play, ""The Female Dramatist"" (1782), for which Smollett's ""Roderick Random"" supplied the materials, was unanimously condemned, but ""Two to One"" (1784) was entirely successful. It was followed by ""Turk and no Turk"" (1785), a musical comedy; ""Inkle and Yarico"" (1787), an opera; ""Ways and Means"" (1788); ""The Battle of Hexham"" (1793); ""The Iron Chest"" (1796), taken from William Godwin's ""Adventures of Caleb Williams""; ""The Heir at Law"" (1797), which enriched the stage with one immortal character, ""Dr Pangloss"" (borrowed of course from Voltaire's Candide); ""The Poor Gentleman"" (1802); ""John Bull, or an Englishman's"
"act by Larry Nicol; solo musical performances by Scottish comedian Frank Pollard; and several theatrical sketches and monologues by Neville Giordano. Much of the troupe's musical repertoire included well-known, contemporary compositions such as W.T. Wrighton’s ""Sing me an English Song"", Philip Braham’s ""We’ll have a Little Cottage"" (1917), Weatherly and Wood’s ""Roses of Picardy"" (1916), Thomas J. Hewitt’s ""Alone in Love’s Garden"" (1912), and Davy Burnaby and Gitz Rice's ""A Conscientious Objector"" (1917). The repertoire also included original productions—designed, written and in some cases composed for the troupe itself. The troupe’s first commanding officer, Major John Graham Gillam, excelled at"
"The Rose (theatre) The Rose was an Elizabethan theatre. It was the fourth of the public theatres to be built, after The Theatre (1576), the Curtain (1577), and the theatre at Newington Butts (c. 1580?) – and the first of several playhouses to be situated in Bankside, Southwark, in a liberty outside the jurisdiction of the City of London's civic authorities. The Rose was built in 1587 by Philip Henslowe and by a grocer named John Cholmley. It was the first purpose-built playhouse to ever stage a production of any of Shakespeare's plays. The theatre was built on a messuage"
"published three volumes of poetry: ""Veterans and Other Poems"" (1941), ""The Hungry Grass"" (1947) and ""A Warning to Conquerors"" (1968). He also edited the ""Oxford Book of Irish Verse"" (1958) with Lennox Robinson. He also wrote poetic dramas and ballad operas. One play, ""Happy As Larry"", was translated into a number of languages. He had three other plays produced: ""God's Gentry"" (1951, a ballad opera about the tinkers), ""Lady Spider"" (1959, about Deirdre of the Sorrows and the Three sons of Ussna and by far his best writing) and ""Step in the Hollow"" a piece of situation comedy nonsense. He"
"Bernard Kops Bernard Kops (born 28 November 1926) is a British dramatist, poet and novelist. Born in the East End of London, the son of Dutch Jewish immigrants, Kops was evacuated from London in 1939, and recounted that experience in episode two of Thames Television’s TV series, ""The World at War"", first broadcast in 1973. His first play, ""The Hamlet of Stepney Green"", was produced at the Oxford Playhouse in 1957. It is considered to be one of the keystones of the ""New Wave"" in British Kitchen Sink Drama. Subsequent plays include ""Enter Solly Gold"" (1962), ""Ezra"" (1981, about Ezra"
"English history [...] so far as we know, Shakespeare was the first."" However, not all critics agree with Wilson here. For example, Michael Taylor argues that there were at least thirty-nine history plays prior to 1592, including the two-part Christopher Marlowe play ""Tamburlaine"" (1587), Thomas Lodge's ""The Wounds of Civil War"" (1588), George Peele's ""The Troublesome Reign of King John"" (1588), the anonymous ""Edmund Ironside"" (1590), Robert Green and Thomas Lodge's ""Selimus"" (1591) and another anonymous play, ""The True Tragedy of Richard III"" (1591). Paola Pugliatti however argues that the case may be somewhere between Wilson and Taylor's argument; ""Shakespeare"
"in 1869, and first had a play – ""Our Farm"" – produced in London in 1872. He was a regular contributor to the Illustrated London News, specifically, the English Homes series, and was the theatre critic for the Sunday Times starting in 1894 and continuing until at least 1897. His greatest success as a playwright came in 1896 with the premiere of his adaption of ""The Prisoner of Zenda"". He later adapted other works of Anthony Hope, but none reached the same level of success. He married Elizabeth Ann Gould, and had two daughters, Lucy and Dorothy. His elder daughter,"
"including ""Kafka's Dick"" and ""The Kiss of the Spiderwoman"" (Nottingham Playhouse); ""The Cocktail Party"" (Edinburgh Festival); ""Rebecca"" (Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh); ""Hamlet"" (Greenwich and tour); ""Macbeth"" (Sheffield Crucible) and ""The Duchess of Malfi"" (West Yorkshire Playhouse, Greenwich and West End); ""Private Lives"" and ""The Heiress"" (Royal National Theatre); ""The White Devil"" (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith); ""Nicholas Nickleby"" (Chichester Festival Theatre); and ""The Tempest"" (Liverpool Playhouse). He has also directed many BBC Radio dramas including ""A Patriot For Me"" by John Osborne starring Richard Goulding, Peter Egan, Amanda Root, Michael Pennington. BBC Radio 3. and ""A Cold Supper Behind Harrods"" by David Morley"
"his plays. The use of groundlings ""saved the drama from academic stiffness and preserved its essential bias towards entertainment in comedy "". ""Hamlet"" is an outstanding example of ""groundlings"" quickness and response. Use of groundlings enhanced Shakespeare's work practically and artistically. He represented English people more concretely and not as puppets. His skills have found expression in chronicles, or history plays, and tragedies. Shakespeare's earliest years were dominated by history plays and a few comedies that formed a link to the later written tragedies. Nine out of eighteen plays he produced in the first decade of his career were chronicles"
"notably in Lindsay Anderson's ""The Changing Room"" (1971). A season with Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company followed, where appropriately enough his roles included Charles the wrestler in ""As You Like It"", and a robust Peter in ""Romeo and Juliet"". For the Royal National Theatre he appeared in ""The Mysteries"" (as God, creating the world with the help of a real fork-lift truck), ""Saint Joan"" and ""Don Quixote"". His performance in ""The Mysteries"" secured additional work in the commercial theatre. ""The Canterbury Tales"" (West End) was followed by a return to television and the ""Play for Today"" series, both as writer and"
"two plays by Haughton, Day, and Chettle. A. H. Bullen republished the play with an introduction in ‘A Collection of Old English Plays.’ Robert Yarington Robert Yarington (fl. 1601), was a playwright. Robert Yarington was an English Playwright, most famous for his play, Two Tragedies in One, which has two concurrent plots. One of these tells of the murder and gruesome dismembering of Mr Beech, a chaundler in Thames Street, and his boy, by Thomas Merry, the other of a young child murdered in a wood by two ruffians, with the consent of his uncle. In the concurrent plot, set"
"speculatively, Tomkis has been suggested as the possible author of two entertainments, ""Ruff, Cuff, and Band"" and ""Work for Cutlers"" (both published 1615), and the academic morality play ""Locus, Corpus, Motus"" (c. 1604/5). The nineteenth-century critic F. G. Fleay attempted to link Tomkis with the Tomkins family of prominent musicians in his era, Thomas Tomkins and his son John Tomkins. Fleay's argument is recognized as speculative and incorrect. Thomas Tomkis Thomas Tomkis (or Tomkys) (c. 1580 – 1634) was an English playwright of the late Elizabethan and the Jacobean eras, and arguably one of the more cryptic figures of English"
"Nigel Davenport and Maria Aitken. The British Film Institute summarizes the plot as ""the peaceful rural life of a retired Brigadier is shattered by the arrival of the Company Sergeant-Major on his doorstep."" Goose With Pepper Goose With Pepper is a radio drama by Frederick Bradnum. The play was originally written for BBC Radio 4, airing on 17 September 1972. The BBC said of it ""Mr Bradnum's new play has that astonishing ease and easy depth that come with maturity; technique is undetectable; humanity, occasionally in the past veiled by self-consciousness, shines through, clear and warm."" In August 1975 the"