In honor of Great English Entertainment

[DirectorDave]

Great to see the the English get a shout.....too many times they are overshadowed by the rest of the British.

I don't believe all the guff about them being "the poor mans Scotland" when it comes to education, the arts and Science.

For me......Steptoe & Son. Doctor Who would have run it close but that is now definetly Welsh.

[Phil H]

Coward was, I believe, in the play at the time when his friend and one time lover, The Duke of Kent (son of George V) was killed in a flying accident during the war. He was advised not to appear that night because the play is, of course, all about contact with the dead. He did appear but found himself very emotional and more greatly moved than he had expected.

I'm also very fond of Coward's "This Happy Breed" about a family living in Battersea between 1919 and 1939.

The film has Robert Newton and Celia Johnson on fine form and was an early project of David Lean. Stanley Holloway, a young John Mills and Kay Walsh (later Mrs Lean) also star.

It is very well done and includes many details of life that i recall from my youth - the oil cloth with dagged edges used to cover pantry shelves; the furniture and conventions of the day. It recreates some major events - the Victory Parade through London 1919; etc.

One character, off the the Empire Exhibition at Wembley proudly proclaims, "I've got eight and sixpence and I intend to spend every penny!"

[Robert]

Yes, Noel Coward and Margaret Rutherford - who could ask for more?

[Beowulf]

Of any kind, music, movies, theatre, poetry...So much.

I'm going to start with a link to a great English movie, Blythe Spirit. Noel Coward's play, starring sexy Rexy, Harrison that is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...XvI5XHeMM&NR=1

Wikipedia says:

Blithe Spirit is a comic play written by Noël Coward which takes its title from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "To a Skylark" ("Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! / Bird thou never wert"). The play concerns socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to gather material for his next book. The scheme backfires when he is haunted by the ghost of his annoying and temperamental first wife, Elvira, following the séance. Elvira makes continual attempts to disrupt Charles's marriage to his second wife, Ruth, who cannot see or hear the ghost.

The play was first seen in the West End of London in 1941, creating a new long-run record for non-musical British plays of 1,997 performances. It also did well on Broadway later that year, running for 657 performances. Coward adapted the play for film in 1945, starring Rex Harrison, and directed a musical adaptation, High Spirits, on Broadway in 1964. It was also adapted for television in the 1950s and 1960s and for radio. The play enjoyed several West End and Broadway revivals in the 1970s and 1980s and was revived again in London in 2004. It returned to Broadway in February 2009.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blithe_Spirit_(play)