A man of many theatrical talents, Chris Harris is best remembered by West Country audiences as a pantomime dame. During the 1990s, he wrote, directed and starred in pantos for the Bristol Ol…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 08:42AMExplaining the intricacies of classical music to a worldwide audience in a form of language that any layman could understand seemed just the job for Antony Hopkins. To undertake the task fro…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 08:34AMAlthough she trained as a classical ballerina, one of the favourite shows that April Olrich appeared in was the revue Wait a Minim!, which was staged at the Fortune in London from 1964 to 19…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 07:16AMAdopting an internationalist approach to ballet training, the Royal Ballet School director Gailene Stock was at the centre of controversy on more than one occasion. Although she produced gra…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 04:15AMIt was typical of the mayhem they wrought that the opening night of BBC Two in 1964, in which Tony Gray and his brother Douglas were to appear as the Alberts, was blacked out by…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 11:06AMUndaunted by a serious road accident that left him confined to a wheelchair as a young man, Richard Broke carved himself an enviable niche as a television director, winning BAFTAs for his tw…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 06:05AMAngels investing in a new comedy, No Sex Please, We’re British, written by Tony Marriott and Alistair Foot, must have groaned when they read the opening night’s notices in London in 1971…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 06:03AMAfter being highly praised for her portrayal of the Jewish heroine in The Diary of Anne Frank (1956-57), Perlita Neilson was invited to star in Hollywood’s film version of the play. But sh…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 10:23AMTelevision viewers who assiduously follow EastEnders will recall the battleaxe Mo Butcher, played by Edna Dore between 1988 and 1990. Dore was highly praised for her delicate treatment of Bu…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 10:08AMHe may not have been born in a trunk, but, as a baby, the American screen actor, singer and dancer Mickey Rooney slept in one. Although only 5ft 2in, he was far larger than life….
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 10:18AMThe star of the unlikeliest hit musical of the mid-1950s, Eleanor Drew soon came to realise that this was to be the high point of her career. The show was Salad Days, which ran for…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 12:39PMIn turn both actor and dramatist, Roger Milner saw his best known play, How’s the World Treating You? (1965) provide Patricia Routledge with her West End debut before it transferred to Bro…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 10:29AMAn inquest into the death of the young actor Richard Gent has concluded that he committed suicide. Coroner Andrew Walker recorded that Gent, who was 27, had killed himself against a backgrou…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 11:33AMCompared with the cosy television police series Dixon of Dock Green, the gritty realism of Z-Cars, with James Ellis playing one of its leading roles, came as something of a shock. But within…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 01:33PMOne of Blackpool’s favourite entertainers, Richard de Vere presented magic shows at the resort’s Pleasure Beach for 21 consecutive seasons. During the winter, he was a popular villain in…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 11:42AMOne of the most respected and admired of agents, Morris Aza represented Roy Hudd for 50 years, helping him develop from a struggling young comedian to a leading comic actor with a huge perso…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 11:03AMOne of the most successful pop lyricists of the 1960s, Peter Callander created hits for Cliff Richard, Dusty Springfield, Cilla Black and many other recording stars of the day. He worked mos…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 07:36AMA concert pianist who helped to establish the Leeds International Piano Competition, Marion Thorpe saw her fame based on her two marriages, first to the Queen’s cousin, Lord Harewood, and …
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 07:26AMOne of the longest-serving directors on Doctor Who, Christopher Barry oversaw the introduction of the doctor’s arch-foes, the Daleks. Directing 43 episodes in all, he also worked with the …
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 11:48AMIllusionist Richard de Vere, who ran his own show called Mystique on Blackpool’s Pleasure Beach for the past thirteen years, has died while on holiday in Thailand. He was 46 and is believe…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 10:38AMA female impersonator of the first order, Ken Gibson appeared regularly in theatres and clubs all over Britain. He was a stalwart of summer shows and the mainstay of countless pantomimes as …
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 11:45AMAn actress whose television career lasted for nearly 50 years, Iris Russell made her most notable impact in the pioneering medical soap Emergency – Ward 10 (1957-67), in which she played a…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 11:44AMThe longest-serving presenter on BBC Newcastle, the radio station covering Tyne and Wear, Frank Wappat won two Sony awards, the first for a documentary uncovering the truth about the popular…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 10:42AMIn a diverse career that combined acting, writing and theatre management, Margery Mason made acclaimed appearances in television and film, toured with the Royal Shakespeare Company and ran h…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 12:35PMIn the dying years of the variety theatre, the Singing Scott Brothers were a popular Glaswegian-based close harmony act, the eldest of whom was Harry. Although they were brothers in real lif…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 10:27AMThe cult musical The Rocky Horror Show dominated the career of Christopher Malcolm. He played Brad Majors in the original production in 1973, singing Dammit it, Janet!; Over at the Frankenst…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 10:27AMBoth glamorous and versatile, the actress Anna Nicholas was almost constantly in demand. She was particularly suited to musicals and appeared in a number of West End productions. The daughte…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 03:47AMA reviewer with The Stage, Hugh Homan came to writing after directing plays at a grammar school in Chelmsford. His love of theatre began when he was a schoolboy in north London. In school dr…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 08:46AMAs one of the most prominent faces of the Swinging Sixties, Samantha Juste gained her fame through the unlikeliest of tasks. On BBC Television’s Top of the Pops, she sat alongside DJs incl…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 07:33AMAfter starting her career in a starring cinema role, the actress Lisa Daniely went on to play crucial parts in two television series and write a one-woman show that she presented at the Edin…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 11:56AMAfter directing the much-derided soap opera Crossroads, Alan Coleman helped to launch the careers of a number of television writers. Once he had emigrated to Australia, he produced the hit s…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 11:55AM