Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins is a Welsh actor. One of Britain's most recognisable and prolific actors, he is known for his performances on the screen and stage. Hopkins has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Laurence Olivier Award. He has also received the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2005 and the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement in 2008. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to drama in 1993.
The Threepenny Opera is a German "play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, The Beggar's Opera, and four ballads by François Villon, with music by Kurt Weill. Although there is debate as to how much, if any, contribution Hauptmann might have made to the text, Brecht is usually listed as sole author.
Richard David Briers was an English actor whose five-decade career encompassed film, radio, stage and television.
The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today. Ballad operas were satiric musical plays that used some of the conventions of opera, but without recitative. The lyrics of the airs in the piece are set to popular broadsheet ballads, opera arias, church hymns and folk tunes of the time.
Topsy-Turvy is a 1999 British musical period drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh, starring Jim Broadbent as W. S. Gilbert and Allan Corduner as Sir Arthur Sullivan, along with Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville and Ron Cook. The story concerns the 15-month period in 1884 and 1885 leading up to the premiere of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. The film focuses on the creative conflict between playwright and composer, and their decision to continue their partnership, which led to their creation of several more Savoy operas.
Imelda Mary Philomena Bernadette Staunton is an English theatre, film and television actress. After training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Staunton began her career in repertory theatre in 1976 and appeared in various theatre productions in the United Kingdom.
Fiona Hendley is a British actress and latterly Christian speaker, married to the former Manfred Mann singer and actor Paul Jones.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 1979 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. It is based on the 1970 play Sweeney Todd by Christopher Bond. The character of Sweeney Todd first appeared in a Victorian penny dreadful titled The String of Pearls.
A Gaiety Girl is an English musical comedy in two acts by a team of musical comedy neophytes: Owen Hall, Harry Greenbank (lyrics) and Sidney Jones (music). It opened at Prince of Wales Theatre in London, produced by George Edwardes, on 14 October 1893 and ran for 413 performances. The show starred C. Hayden Coffin, Louie Pounds, Decima Moore, Eric Lewis, W. Louis Bradfield, and later Rutland Barrington, Scott Russell, Huntley Wright, Marie Studholme and George Grossmith, Jr. Topsy Sinden and later Letty Lind danced in the piece. Choreography was by Willie Warde. Percy Anderson designed the Japanese costumes for the musical, while the non-Japanese costumes were supplied by leading fashion houses. Blanche Massey was one of the Gaiety Girls in the piece. It also had a successful three-month Broadway run in 1894, followed by an American tour and a world tour.
Barbara Gillian Ferris is an English actress and former fashion model.
Janie Dee is a British actress. She won the Olivier Award for Best Actress, Evening Standard Award and Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress in a Play, and in New York the Obie and Theatre World Award for Best Newcomer, for her performance as Jacie Triplethree in Alan Ayckbourn's Comic Potential.
Brideshead Revisited is a 1981 British television serial starring Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews. It was produced by Granada Television for broadcast by the ITV network. Significant elements of it were directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who handled the initial phases of the production, before Charles Sturridge carried on with the series. The first episode is credited to both men equally.
Alexandra Pigg is a British actress who first came to prominence as Petra Taylor in the TV soap opera Brookside. Her best-known film appearances are as Elaine in Letter to Brezhnev (1985), for which she was nominated for a BAFTA award, and as Bridget Baines in A Chorus of Disapproval (1988).
Andrew Howard is a Welsh theatre, television and film actor.
A Chorus of Disapproval is a 1984 play written by English playwright Alan Ayckbourn.
Alvin Rakoff is a Canadian director of film, television and theatre productions. He has worked with actors including Laurence Olivier, Peter Sellers, Sean Connery, Judi Dench, Rex Harrison, Rod Steiger, Henry Fonda and Ava Gardner.
Jeremy John Irons is an English actor and activist. He is known for his roles on stage and screen having won numerous accolades including an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award. He is one of the few actors who have achieved the "Triple Crown of Acting" having won Oscar, Emmy, and Tony Awards for Film, Television and Theatre.
Anne Sharp was a Scottish coloratura soprano particularly associated with the operas of Benjamin Britten.
Maximilian Paul Diarmuid Irons is an English and Irish actor. He is known for his roles in films such as Red Riding Hood (2011), The White Queen (2013), The Host (2013), Woman in Gold (2014), The Riot Club (2014), Bitter Harvest (2017), and The Wife (2018). He also starred in the spy thriller series Condor (2018–2020).
Hyacinth Hazel O'Higgins, stage name Hy Hazell, was a British actress of theatre, musicals and revue as well as a contralto singer and film actress. AllMusic described her as "an exuberant comic actor and lively singer and dancer". A pretty brunette, with long legs, she was billed as Britain's answer to Betty Grable.
