2013, ISBN: 9781845136185

Gebundene Ausgabe

"The Stuttgart Story" by John Percival - ephemera"Wizardry in Wuerttemberg"9 x 12 inches, 2 pagesNoted British ballet critic John Percival died June 20, 2012 at his home in London. John w… Mehr…

"The Stuttgart Story" by John Percival - ephemera"Wizardry in Wuerttemberg"9 x 12 inches, 2 pagesNoted British ballet critic John Percival died June 20, 2012 at his home in London. John wrote for Danceviewtimes for several years.John Percival was the main critic for the Times of London for decades. There is a very nice interview with him on Ballet.co.uk.Percival was one of the finest critics writing in recent years. He was a teacher by example. He could pack so much detail into six lines yet still keep the writing individual and vivid. I realized after I'd been writing for a few years that I'd subconsciously been using the structure of his full length reviews in Dance and Dancers, where he was a mainstay until that magazine ceased publication.He had a love of dance as keen as his eye, and an openness to all genres of dance that was rare in those days. He also had a way of being honest about a new struggling choreographer's work without pulverizing him with wit. He remained a strong voice in support of Ashton's work.His skills as a critic did not diminish with age.-----------------------------------John Percival, born March 16 1927, died June 20 2012John Percival, who has died aged 85, was probably the most influential observer of the explosive development of 20th-century British dance.John Percival was born in London on March 16 1927 and educated in Walthamstow. He saw his first ballet when he was 16 and determined to be a critic. On going up to St Catherine's College, Oxford, where he read English, he found like minds in four other undergraduates, who would later also become prominent dance critics.Among them was Clive Barnes, who would go on to write for The New York Times. The pair edited Arabesque, the magazine of the University Ballet Club, and presented a small touring company, which gave Percival a valuable insight into the business end of dance presentation.Both he and Barnes found roles with London County Council, and Percival's day-job remained in London local government until he retired in 1991. In the evenings and at weekends, however, he worked as a freelance critic for various papers, reviewing the early phase of the fast-rising Sadler's Wells Ballet and the many foreign companies visiting London after the war.He and Barnes soon became frequent contributors to the new monthly Dance and Dancers, a magazine which, from 1951 until its closure in 1995, was the major publication of record about the British dance scene. "Always we wanted to encourage people to enjoy dance, and in particular to draw attention to what we especially admired," Percival said.He saw the first performances in Britain of the New York City Ballet, the new French ballet of Roland Petit, the Bolshoi, and the Martha Graham and Pina Bausch contemporary dance troupes, and he took a keen interest in Britain's regional ballet. By 1960 he was an established voice, and in 1964 he was appointed to The Times.During his time there he enthusiastically advocated American modernists such as Paul Taylor and Twyla Tharp, and highlighted young British experimentalists such as Jonathan Burrows, Siobhan Davies and Michael Clark. But he became infamous during the hostilities that erupted at the Royal Ballet in the 1970s.A strong admirer of the choreographies of Frederick Ashton, then the Royal Ballet's director, he was much less supportive of the rising Kenneth MacMillan, and when MacMillan succeeded Ashton in 1970, Percival became known inside Covent Garden as "poisonous Perce".Percival maintained that it was only MacMillan's full-evening story ballets that he considered overrated, but lines became bitterly drawn, with Percival and Barnes perceived as having a powerful influence on the American reception of the Royal Ballet's all-important tours there.However, Percival was equally trenchant about MacMillan's successors, considering Anthony Dowell a "disastrous" director in the 1990s. He said he could not help being forthright, as his standards had been formed in the outstandingly fertile period of the Fifties and Sixties.While writing for The Times, Percival became editor of Dance and Dancers in 1981, and was its Chairman and Director in its last years. In 1994 he moved to The Independent as dance critic and became London correspondent for New York's Ballet Review and the online American magazine DanceViewTimes.John Percival wrote books on Nureyev, the choreographers Antony Tudor and John Cranko and the ballerina Marcia Haydee, and published studies on male dancers and new trends in classical and experimental dance, as well as contributing to the International Encyclopedia of Dance and Ballet and to many German dance publications.He was adviser to the Nureyev Foundation, served as President of the Critics' Circle, and appointed MBE in 2002. Apart from dance, he described his pleasures in life as eating well and reading thrillers.He married, first, in 1954, Freda Thorne-Large; and, secondly, in 1972, Judith Cruickshank, who survives him. There were no children.When the young Rudolf Nureyev defected to the West, Percival befriended him and later became his first biographer , revealing the conditions in Soviet Russia from which Nureyev had emerged and illuminating for the public his artistic motivation.As The Times's chief dance critic for more than three decades, Percival also shaped opinion both in Britain and America, wielding considerable clout in the heated debates of the 1970s about performances of the Royal Ballet under its choreographer-director Kenneth MacMillan.Percival made enemies with his robust views about what he saw as the decline in the Covent Garden company. After one particularly hostile review, the Royal Opera House chairman even felt moved to write to The Times to complain about what he saw as a plot to destabilise MacMillan and replace him with Nureyev.--------------------------------Passion Play by John Percival, September 10, 2005 John Percival takes a close look at legendary choreographer John Cranko, whose Onegin runs through September 18 at Houston Ballet.John Cranko's Onegin is the best narrative work of one of ballet's master story-tellers. Born 1927 in Rustenburg, South Africa, Cranko produced his first creation, a personal interpretation of Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale suite, in Cape Town aged 16. Moving to London on the first available ship after World War Two, he danced and made ballets at Sadler's Wells and Covent Garden for both Royal Ballet companies, was soon named resident choreographer and commissioned also by New York City Ballet, Ballet Rambert, the Paris Opéra and La Scala, Milan. Outstanding among his early ballets were Pineapple Poll, the big hit of the Festival of Britain, and the three-act Prince of the Pagodas, for which Benjamin Britten composed the score.It was the success of Pagodas that led the Württemberg Theatre, Stuttgart, to invite Cranko in 1961 as its ballet director. Before his accidental early death in 1973 he transformed Stuttgart Ballet into one of the world's leading companies. Part of his success lay in recruiting and maintaining a team of exceptionally fine dancers, chief among them the great dramatic ballerina Marcia Haydée. She created leading roles in many ballets by Cranko, Kenneth MacMillan, Glen Tetley, Jirì Kylián, Hans van Manen, John Neumeier and Maurice Béjart among others. The diversity implied by that list is something that Cranko always encouraged and developed, for Haydée and the company as a whole. Having, for instance, made a star of her as Juliet, and then invented the tragic character of Tatiana for her in Onegin, he went on to reveal a command of comedy (which she had thought beyond her, but he insisted) in The Taming of the Shrew.The story of Eugene Onegin and his doomed love for Tatiana is one that had long appealed to Cranko - at least since the 1940s when he made the dances for a Sadler's Wells production of Tchaikovsky's opera on that subject. It fitted perfectly with his wish to make highly theatrical ballets about recognizable people, and to please the widest possible public. The opera and the ballet both derive from the verse novel by Russia's great writer, Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837), whose varied works have inspired many choreographers from his own time on, among them such successes as The Prisoner of the Caucasus, The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, The Bronze Horseman, Aleko and The Queen of Spades. Before moving to Stuttgart, Cranko had already proposed an Onegin for the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, to star the husband and wife partnership of Ronald Hynd and Annette Page, but the management turned down his idea of having a score adapted from Tchaikovsky's opera. The same objection was raised in Stuttgart when Cranko first suggested Onegin there, but this time he overcame the problem by having less familiar Tchaikovsky music selected and arranged for his purpose by the German composer Kurt-Heinz Stolze.The ballet was admired from its first performances in 1965, but gained immensely from the revisions which Cranko made on reviving it two years later. He deleted an unhelpful prologue and substantially developed the title role for a new interpreter, Heinz Clauss, recruited from the Hamburg Ballet, who proved a worthy match for Haydée's exceptional qualities.Adapted by Cranko from Pushkin's original, the libretto shows Tatiana falling in love at first sight with the dandified poet Onegin, in spite of his amused and condescending manner towards her. Rejected by him, and understandably grief-stricken when Onegin kills her sister's fiancé in a duel, Tatiana marries her admirer Prince Gremin. Years later, Onegin meets her again, and now it is his turn to fall in love and hers to reject him, however sadly.Cranko realized that this story provided vividly dramatic roles for five leading characters, seen against the backdrop of an ensemble that changed in each act: first the peasants who work on the farm of Tatiana's mother, Madame Larina; then the guests at her party; and finally the assembly at Prince Gremin's ball. His handling of the action, however, is surprisingly domestic: even at Madame Larina's party he concentrates on the individuals rather than seizing the opportunities for large-scale dances. And the scenes which end both Act 1 (Tatiana writing her love letter to Onegin) and Act 3 (Onegin's final rejection by Tatiana) never have more than two dancers on stage at once.Onegin himself, Tatiana's sister Olga and her betrothed Lensky all have fine roles for acting, solo dancing and duets. However, it is for Tatiana, inspired by Haydée's supreme artistry, that Cranko primarily made the ballet, creating a truly tragic character of impassioned depth and rare understanding. Even for that unrivaled dance-actress this was a challenging part, and ballerinas all over the world who have had the honor of succeeding her in it have found the role as demanding as it is rewarding.John Percival, an international freelance critic, has been watching dance for more than 60 years and writing about it almost as long.-------------------------------Requiem is a one-act ballet created by Kenneth MacMillan in 1976 for the Stuttgart Ballet. The music is Gabriel Fauré's Requiem (1890). The designer was Yolanda Sonnabend, who had first collaborated with him on 1963's Symphony.Reviewing the Stuttgart premiere for The Times, John Percival rated the piece as MacMillan's best ballet to date, and criticised the Royal Ballet for failing to secure the piece for itself. When the work was staged at Covent Garden in 1983 Percival again praised it, though he was less convinced by the company's dancing, much of which he found too reserved. In The Observer, Jann Parry wrote of, "A beautiful ballet, reminding us that MacMillan can use a corps de ballet as a community rather than a crowd of extras."--------------------------------Cranko also staged the ballet at Stuttgart on 6 November 1960: see John Percival, Theatre in my Blood: A Biography of John Cranko, pp. 130-32. The ballet scored something of a success in Stuttgart (due in part to a major overhaul of the original choreography), Cranko immediately being invited to take up the position of ...----------------------------------Choreography by John Cranko First performance: Stuttgart, Wurttemberg States Theatre (States Theatre Ballet), 16 March 1961, under the title of FamilienAlbum. Dancers and the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Josef Dunnwald. Bibliography: John Percival, Theatre in My Blood: A Biography of John ...-----------------------------------Percival, dance critic for the The Times in London, analyzes Cranko's life and work, from being the youngest choreographer for the Royal Ballet, to his death at the age of forty-five in 1973; utilizes information from family, friends, and co-workers. -------------------------------From the Stuttgart Ballet website: 'John Cranko was born on August 15, 1927 in Rustenburg, South Africa. He received his dance education mainly at the University of Cape Town, where he also choreographed his first ballet to Stravinsky's Suite from The Soldier's Tale. In 1946, he continued his studies at the Sadler's Wells School in London and shortly afterwards became a member of the Sadler's Wells Ballet (subsequently The Royal Ballet). In 1947, Cranko made a sensational choreography to Debussy's Children's Corner for the Sadler's Wells Ballet; from 1949 on he devoted himself exclusively to choreography, producing extremely successful ballets - mostly for the Sadler's Wells Ballet. In 1955, he choreographed La Belle Hélène for the Paris Opera Ballet and in 1957 he created his first full-length ballett, The Prince of the Pagodas, for The Royal Ballet. In 1961, John Cranko was appointed ballet director in Stuttgart by Walter Erich Schaefer, the General Director of the Wuerttemberg State Theatre (today's Stuttgart State Theater). At the beginning of his time in Stuttgart, Cranko created short ballets and gathered together a group of dancers, among whom were Egon Madsen, Richard Cragun, Birgit Keil and, most importantly, a young Brazilian dancer named Marcia Hayd´e who was to become his prime muse and inspiration. The breakthrough for Cranko came in December 1962 with the world premiere of Romeo and Juliet, which was highly praised by critics and audience alike. In Stuttgart Cranko created many small choreographic jewels such as Jeu de cartes and Opus I, as well as his symphonic ballet Initials R.B.M.E., but it was with his dramatic story ballets such as Onegin, The Taming of the Shrew, Carmen, Po´me de l'Extase and Traces that Cranko secured his place in the pantheon of great choreographers. In addition, he encouraged young dancers in his company - including Jiri Kylian and John Neumeier - to try their hand at choreography. Cranko's gift for nuanced story-telling, clear dramatic structure and his exquisite mastery of the art of the pas de deux conquered New York audiences, 3, Speak. Good. 0.9 x 8.4 x 5.5 inches. Paperback. 2010. 320 pages. Cover worn.<br>The critically acclaimed, bestselling n ovel from Gayle Forman, author of Where She Went, Just One Day, a nd Just One Year. Soon to be a major motion picture, starring Ch loe Moretz! In the blink of an eye everything changes. Seventeen ­year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall what happened afterwards, watching her own damaged body being ta ken from the wreck. Little by little she struggles to put togethe r the pieces- to figure out what she has lost, what she has left, and the very difficult choice she must make. Heartwrenchingly be autiful, this will change the way you look at life, love, and fam ily. Now a major motion picture starring Chloe Grace Moretz, Mia' s story will stay with you for a long, long time. Editorial Revi ews Review Beautifully written.--Entertainment Weekly A beautif ul novel.--Los Angeles Times A do-not-miss story of love, friend ship, family, loss, control, and coping.--Justine Magazine The b rilliance of this book is the simplicity.-- The Wall Street Journ al A touching and thought-provoking novel.--Romantic Times Abou t the Author Gayle Forman is an award-winning, internationally be stselling author and journalist. Her #1 New York Times bestsellin g novel If I Stay was adapted into a film starring Chloë Grace Mo retz. Gayle is also the author of several other bestselling novel s, including Where She Went, I Was Here, the Just One series, I H ave Lost My Way, and Leave Me. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, w ith her husband and daughters. CONNECT WITH GAYLE: Website: Gayle Forman.com Twitter: @GayleForman Instagram: @GayleForman Facebook : Facebook.com/GayleFormanAuthor Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permiss ion. All rights reserved. 7:09 A.M. Everyone thinks it was becau se of the snow. And in a way, I suppose that's true. I wake up t his morning to a thin blanket of white covering our front lawn. I t isn't even an inch, but in this part of Oregon a slight dusting brings everything to a standstill as the one snowplow in the cou nty gets busy clearing the roads. It is wet water that drops from the sky-and drops and drops and drops-not the frozen kind. It i s enough snow to cancel school. My little brother, Teddy, lets ou t a war whoop when Mom's AM radio announces the closures. Snow da y! he bellows. Dad, let's go make a snowman. My dad smiles and t aps on his pipe. He started smoking one recently as part of this whole 1950s, Father Knows Best retro kick he is on. He also wears bow ties. I am never quite clear on whether all this is sartoria l or sardonic-Dad's way of announcing that he used to be a punker but is now a middle-school English teacher, or if becoming a tea cher has actually turned my dad into this genuine throwback. But I like the smell of the pipe tobacco. It is sweet and smoky, and reminds me of winters and woodstoves. You can make a valiant try , Dad tells Teddy. But it's hardly sticking to the roads. Maybe y ou should consider a snow amoeba. I can tell Dad is happy. Barel y an inch of snow means that all the schools in the county are cl osed, including my high school and the middle school where Dad wo rks, so it's an unexpected day off for him, too. My mother, who w orks for a travel agent in town, clicks off the radio and pours h erself a second cup of coffee. Well, if you lot are playing hooky today, no way I'm going to work. It's simply not right. She pick s up the telephone to call in. When she's done, she looks at us. Should I make breakfast? Dad and I guffaw at the same time. Mom makes cereal and toast. Dad's the cook in the family. Pretending not to hear us, she reaches into the cabinet for a box of Bisqui ck. Please. How hard can it be? Who wants pancakes? I do! I do! Teddy yells. Can we have chocolate chips in them? I don't see wh y not, Mom replies. Woo hoo! Teddy yelps, waving his arms in the air. You have far too much energy for this early in the morning , I tease. I turn to Mom. Maybe you shouldn't let Teddy drink so much coffee. I've switched him to decaf, Mom volleys back. He's just naturally exuberant. As long as you're not switching me to decaf, I say. That would be child abuse, Dad says. Mom hands me a steaming mug and the newspaper. There's a nice picture of you r young man in there, she says. Really? A picture? Yep. It's ab out the most we've seen of him since summer, Mom says, giving me a sidelong glance with her eyebrow arched, her version of a soul- searching stare. I know, I say, and then without meaning to, I s igh. Adam's band, Shooting Star, is on an upward spiral, which, i s a great thing-mostly. Ah, fame, wasted on the youth, Dad says, but he's smiling. I know he's excited for Adam. Proud even. I l eaf through the newspaper to the calendar section. There's a smal l blurb about Shooting Star, with an even smaller picture of the four of them, next to a big article about Bikini and a huge pictu re of the band's lead singer: punk-rock diva Brooke Vega. The bit about them basically says that local band Shooting Star is openi ng for Bikini on the Portland leg of Bikini's national tour. It d oesn't mention the even-bigger-to-me news that last night Shootin g Star headlined at a club in Seattle and, according to the text Adam sent me at midnight, sold out the place. Are you going toni ght? Dad asks. I was planning to. It depends if they shut down t he whole state on account of the snow. It is approaching a blizz ard, Dad says, pointing to a single snowflake floating its way to the earth. I'm also supposed to rehearse with some pianist from the college that Professor Christie dug up. Professor Christie, a retired music teacher at the university who I've been working w ith for the last few years, is always looking for victims for me to play with. Keep you sharp so you can show all those Juilliard snobs how it's really done, she says. I haven't gotten into Juil liard yet, but my audition went really well. The Bach suite and t he Shostakovich had both flown out of me like never before, like my fingers were just an extension of the strings and bow. When I' d finished playing, panting, my legs shaking from pressing togeth er so hard, one judge had clapped a little, which I guess doesn't happen very often. As I'd shuffled out, that same judge had told me that it had been a long time since the school had seen an Ore gon country girl. Professor Christie had taken that to mean a gua ranteed acceptance. I wasn't so sure that was true. And I wasn't 100 percent sure that I wanted it to be true. Just like with Shoo ting Star's meteoric rise, my admission to Juilliard-if it happen s-will create certain complications, or, more accurately, would c ompound the complications that have already cropped up in the las t few months. I need more coffee. Anyone else? Mom asks, hoverin g over me with the ancient percolator. I sniff the coffee, the r ich, black, oily French roast we all prefer. The smell alone perk s me up. I'm pondering going back to bed, I say. My cello's at sc hool, so I can't even practice. Not practice? For twenty-four ho urs? Be still, my broken heart, Mom says. Though she has acquired a taste for classical music over the years-it's like learning to appreciate a stinky cheese-she's been a not-always-delighted cap tive audience for many of my marathon rehearsals. I hear a crash and a boom coming from upstairs. Teddy is pounding on his drum k it. It used to belong to Dad. Back when he'd played drums in a bi g-in-our-town, unknown-anywhere-else band, back when he'd worked at a record store. Dad grins at Teddy's noise, and seeing that, I feel a familiar pang. I know it's silly but I have always wonde red if Dad is disappointed that I didn't become a rock chick. I'd meant to. Then, in third grade, I'd wandered over to the cello i n music class-it looked almost human to me. It looked like if you played it, it would tell you secrets, so I started playing. It's been almost ten years now and I haven't stopped. So much for go ing back to sleep, Mom yells over Teddy's noise. What do you kno w, the snow's already melting. Dad says, puffing on his pipe. I g o to the back door and peek outside. A patch of sunlight has brok en through the clouds, and I can hear the hiss of the ice melting . I close the door and go back to the table. I think the county overreacted, I say. Maybe. But they can't un-cancel school. Hors e is already out of the barn, and I already called in for the day off, Mom says. Indeed. But we might take advantage of this unex pected boon and go somewhere, Dad says. Take a drive. Visit Henry and Willow. Henry and Willow are some of Mom and Dad's old music friends who'd also had a kid and decided to start behaving like grown-ups. They live in a big old farmhouse. Henry does Web stuff from the barn they converted into a home office and Willow works at a nearby hospital. They have a baby girl. That's the real rea son Mom and Dad want to go out there. Teddy having just turned ei ght and me being seventeen means that we are long past giving off that sour-milk smell that makes adults melt. We can stop at Boo kBarn on the way back, Mom says, as if to entice me. BookBarn is a giant, dusty old used-book store. In the back they keep a stash of twenty-five-cent classical records that nobody ever seems to buy except me. I keep a pile of them hidden under my bed. A colle ction of classical records is not the kind of thing you advertise . I've shown them to Adam, but that was only after we'd already been together for five months. I'd expected him to laugh. He's su ch the cool guy with his pegged jeans and black low-tops, his eff ortlessly beat-up punk-rock tees and his subtle tattoos. He is so not the kind of guy to end up with someone like me. Which was wh y when I'd first spotted him watching me at the music studios at school two years ago, I'd been convinced he was making fun of me and I'd hidden from him. Anyhow, he hadn't laughed. It turned out he had a dusty collection of punk-rock records under his bed. W e can also stop by Gran and Gramps for an early dinner, Dad says, already reaching for the phone. We'll have you back in plenty of time to get to Portland, he adds as he dials. I'm in, I say. It isn't the lure of BookBarn, or the fact that Adam is on tour, or that my best friend, Kim, is busy doing yearbook stuff. It isn't even that my cello is at school or that I could stay home and wa tch TV or sleep. I'd actually rather go off with my family. This is another thing you don't advertise about yourself, but Adam get s that, too. Teddy, Dad calls. Get dressed. We're going on an ad venture. Teddy finishes off his drum solo with a crash of cymbal s. A moment later he's bounding into the kitchen fully dressed, a s if he'd pulled on his clothes while careening down the steep wo oden staircase of our drafty Victorian house. School's out for su mmer . . . he sings. Alice Cooper? Dad asks. Have we no standard s? At least sing the Ramones. School's out forever, Teddy sings over Dad's protests. Ever the optimist, I say. Mom laughs. She puts a plate of slightly charred pancakes down on the kitchen tab le. Eat up, family. 8:17 A.M. We pile into the car, a rusting B uick that was already old when Gran gave it to us after Teddy was born. Mom and Dad offer to let me drive, but I say no. Dad slips behind the wheel. He likes to drive now. He'd stubbornly refused to get a license for years, insisting on riding his bike everywh ere. Back when he played music, his ban on driving meant that his bandmates were the ones stuck behind the wheel on tours. They us ed to roll their eyes at him. Mom had done more than that. She'd pestered, cajoled, and sometimes yelled at Dad to get a license, but he'd insisted that he preferred pedal power. Well, then you b etter get to work on building a bike that can hold a family of th ree and keep us dry when it rains, she'd demanded. To which Dad a lways had laughed and said that he'd get on that. But when Mom h ad gotten pregnant with Teddy, she'd put her foot down. Enough, s he said. Dad seemed to understand that something had changed. He' d stopped arguing and had gotten a driver's license. He'd also go ne back to school to get his teaching certificate. I guess it was okay to be in arrested development with one kid. But with two, t ime to grow up. Time to start wearing a bow tie. He has one on t his morning, along with a flecked sport coat and vintage wingtips . Dressed for the snow, I see, I say. I'm like the post office, Dad replies, scraping the snow off the car with one of Teddy's pl astic dinosaurs that are scattered on the lawn. Neither sleet nor rain nor a half inch of snow will compel me to dress like a lumb erjack. Hey, my relatives were lumberjacks, Mom warns. No making fun of the white-trash woodsmen. Wouldn't dream of it, Dad repl ies. Just making stylistic contrasts. Dad has to turn the igniti on over a few times before the car chokes to life. As usual, ther e is a battle for stereo dominance. Mom wants NPR. Dad wants Fran k Sinatra. Teddy wants SpongeBob SquarePants. I want the classica l-music station, but recognizing that I'm the only classical fan in the family, I am willing to compromise with Shooting Star. Da d brokers the deal. Seeing as we're missing school today, we ough t to listen to the news for a while so we don't become ignoramuse s- I believe that's ignoramusi, Mom says. Dad rolls his eyes an d clasps his hand over Mom's and clears his throat in that school teachery way of his. As I was saying, NPR first, and then when th e news is over, the classical station. Teddy, we will not torture you with that. You can use the Discman, Dad says, starting to di sconnect the portable player he's rigged to the car radio. But yo u are not allowed to play Alice Cooper in my car. I forbid it. Da d reaches into the glove box to examine what's inside. How about Jonathan Richman? I want SpongeBob. It's in the machine, Teddy s houts, bouncing up and down and pointing to the Discman. The choc olate-chip pancakes dowsed in syrup have clearly only enhanced hi s hyper excitement. Son, you break my heart, Dad jokes. Both Ted dy and I were raised on the goofy tunes of Jonathan Richman, who is Mom and Dad's musical patron saint. Once the musical selectio ns have been made, we are off. The road has some patches of snow, but mostly it's just wet. But, Speak, 2010, 2.5, Aurum Press Ltd. Very Good/Very Good. 2013. First Edition. Hard Cover. 8vo 1845136187 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Red cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine. No ownership marks. Photographs on plates. 304 pages clean and tight. 'Entertainment' wrote the impresario Sir Oswald Stoll to The Times when war broke out in in 1939, 'is necessary to the morale of the people.' And none more so than the armed forces posted around the globe to fight for their country in the Second World War. And so was born the Entertainment National Services Association, or ENSA, under the indefatigable leadership of Mr Basil Dean - to send the nation's best singers, dancers, musicians and comedians, from Noel Coward to Gracie Fields, to entertain the troops, however far away. The war gave a first break to such postwar stars as Tommy Cooper and Frankie Howerd, as well as enshrining the young Vera Lynn forever as the forces' sweetheart. While getting up on stage in front of tired soldiers in inhospitable climes - often after arduous journeys in pitching troopships and jouncing trucks - could be one of the more challenging engagements, ENSA managed to introduce millions to classical music and ballet as well as stand-up comedy. The sheer scale of the war meant not every battalion could receive a visit from Tommy Trinder or Joyce Grenfell; in fact, so many mediocre end-of-the-pier variety acts seized the chance of exemption from national service and a comfortable salary that from Italy to North Africa ENSA also came to stand for 'Every Night Something Awful'. But when Allied troops landed in Normandy in 1944, George Formby, remarkably, followed close behind, while a distinguished troupe under Laurence Olivier was performing Shakespeare to British soldiers in Hamburg within weeks of the German surrender. By the time the war ended well over 2 million performances had been given to over 500 million people, and four out of five members of the show business profession had worked for ENSA at some point. Most of them had the time of their lives. Now, Andy Merriman has talked to surviving ENSA veterans from Vera Lynn to Dame Beryl Grey, to piece together the extraordinary adventures of the ordinary men and women sent out across the world, from dusty Egypt to sweltering Burma, whose contribution to the war effort was song, dance and laughter. ., Aurum Press Ltd, 2013, 3<

2013, ISBN: 9781845136185

Gebundene Ausgabe

Victoria BC: Trafford Publishing, 2006. Paperback. Very Good. 229 p.; personal and professional memoir in two volumes. Volume One also available. VG condition., Trafford Publishing, 2… Mehr…

Victoria BC: Trafford Publishing, 2006. Paperback. Very Good. 229 p.; personal and professional memoir in two volumes. Volume One also available. VG condition., Trafford Publishing, 2006, 3, Victoria BC: Trafford Publishing, 2006. Paperback. rwo. 233 p.; personal and professional memoir in two volumes. Volume Two also available. VG condition., Trafford Publishing, 2006, 0, Aurum Press Ltd. Very Good/Very Good. 2013. First Edition. Hard Cover. 8vo 1845136187 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Red cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine. No ownership marks. Photographs on plates. 304 pages clean and tight. 'Entertainment' wrote the impresario Sir Oswald Stoll to The Times when war broke out in in 1939, 'is necessary to the morale of the people.' And none more so than the armed forces posted around the globe to fight for their country in the Second World War. And so was born the Entertainment National Services Association, or ENSA, under the indefatigable leadership of Mr Basil Dean - to send the nation's best singers, dancers, musicians and comedians, from Noel Coward to Gracie Fields, to entertain the troops, however far away. The war gave a first break to such postwar stars as Tommy Cooper and Frankie Howerd, as well as enshrining the young Vera Lynn forever as the forces' sweetheart. While getting up on stage in front of tired soldiers in inhospitable climes - often after arduous journeys in pitching troopships and jouncing trucks - could be one of the more challenging engagements, ENSA managed to introduce millions to classical music and ballet as well as stand-up comedy. The sheer scale of the war meant not every battalion could receive a visit from Tommy Trinder or Joyce Grenfell; in fact, so many mediocre end-of-the-pier variety acts seized the chance of exemption from national service and a comfortable salary that from Italy to North Africa ENSA also came to stand for 'Every Night Something Awful'. But when Allied troops landed in Normandy in 1944, George Formby, remarkably, followed close behind, while a distinguished troupe under Laurence Olivier was performing Shakespeare to British soldiers in Hamburg within weeks of the German surrender. By the time the war ended well over 2 million performances had been given to over 500 million people, and four out of five members of the show business profession had worked for ENSA at some point. Most of them had the time of their lives. Now, Andy Merriman has talked to surviving ENSA veterans from Vera Lynn to Dame Beryl Grey, to piece together the extraordinary adventures of the ordinary men and women sent out across the world, from dusty Egypt to sweltering Burma, whose contribution to the war effort was song, dance and laughter. ., Aurum Press Ltd, 2013, 3<

2013, ISBN: 9781845136185

Gebundene Ausgabe

London: Methuen Drama, 1994. 3rd printing. MM paperback in glossy photo illus wraps.. Fine w a few readers notes, mostly clean, no spine creases.. Hilarious satirical play on police cor… Mehr…

London: Methuen Drama, 1994. 3rd printing. MM paperback in glossy photo illus wraps.. Fine w a few readers notes, mostly clean, no spine creases.. Hilarious satirical play on police corruption in Italy. Bright crisp PB copy. 80 pp, b/w author photo., Methuen Drama, 1994, 5, Aurum Press Ltd. Very Good/Very Good. 2013. First Edition. Hard Cover. 8vo 1845136187 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Red cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine. No ownership marks. Photographs on plates. 304 pages clean and tight. 'Entertainment' wrote the impresario Sir Oswald Stoll to The Times when war broke out in in 1939, 'is necessary to the morale of the people.' And none more so than the armed forces posted around the globe to fight for their country in the Second World War. And so was born the Entertainment National Services Association, or ENSA, under the indefatigable leadership of Mr Basil Dean - to send the nation's best singers, dancers, musicians and comedians, from Noel Coward to Gracie Fields, to entertain the troops, however far away. The war gave a first break to such postwar stars as Tommy Cooper and Frankie Howerd, as well as enshrining the young Vera Lynn forever as the forces' sweetheart. While getting up on stage in front of tired soldiers in inhospitable climes - often after arduous journeys in pitching troopships and jouncing trucks - could be one of the more challenging engagements, ENSA managed to introduce millions to classical music and ballet as well as stand-up comedy. The sheer scale of the war meant not every battalion could receive a visit from Tommy Trinder or Joyce Grenfell; in fact, so many mediocre end-of-the-pier variety acts seized the chance of exemption from national service and a comfortable salary that from Italy to North Africa ENSA also came to stand for 'Every Night Something Awful'. But when Allied troops landed in Normandy in 1944, George Formby, remarkably, followed close behind, while a distinguished troupe under Laurence Olivier was performing Shakespeare to British soldiers in Hamburg within weeks of the German surrender. By the time the war ended well over 2 million performances had been given to over 500 million people, and four out of five members of the show business profession had worked for ENSA at some point. Most of them had the time of their lives. Now, Andy Merriman has talked to surviving ENSA veterans from Vera Lynn to Dame Beryl Grey, to piece together the extraordinary adventures of the ordinary men and women sent out across the world, from dusty Egypt to sweltering Burma, whose contribution to the war effort was song, dance and laughter. ., Aurum Press Ltd, 2013, 3<

2013, ISBN: 9781845136185

Aurum Press Ltd. Very Good/Very Good. 2013. First Edition. Hard Cover. 8vo 1845136187 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Red cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine. No ownership m… Mehr…

Aurum Press Ltd. Very Good/Very Good. 2013. First Edition. Hard Cover. 8vo 1845136187 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Red cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine. No ownership marks. Photographs on plates. 304 pages clean and tight. 'Entertainment' wrote the impresario Sir Oswald Stoll to The Times when war broke out in in 1939, 'is necessary to the morale of the people.' And none more so than the armed forces posted around the globe to fight for their country in the Second World War. And so was born the Entertainment National Services Association, or ENSA, under the indefatigable leadership of Mr Basil Dean - to send the nation's best singers, dancers, musicians and comedians, from Noel Coward to Gracie Fields, to entertain the troops, however far away. The war gave a first break to such postwar stars as Tommy Cooper and Frankie Howerd, as well as enshrining the young Vera Lynn forever as the forces' sweetheart. While getting up on stage in front of tired soldiers in inhospitable climes - often after arduous journeys in pitching troopships and jouncing trucks - could be one of the more challenging engagements, ENSA managed to introduce millions to classical music and ballet as well as stand-up comedy. The sheer scale of the war meant not every battalion could receive a visit from Tommy Trinder or Joyce Grenfell; in fact, so many mediocre end-of-the-pier variety acts seized the chance of exemption from national service and a comfortable salary that from Italy to North Africa ENSA also came to stand for 'Every Night Something Awful'. But when Allied troops landed in Normandy in 1944, George Formby, remarkably, followed close behind, while a distinguished troupe under Laurence Olivier was performing Shakespeare to British soldiers in Hamburg within weeks of the German surrender. By the time the war ended well over 2 million performances had been given to over 500 million people, and four out of five members of the show business profession had worked for ENSA at some point. Most of them had the time of their lives. Now, Andy Merriman has talked to surviving ENSA veterans from Vera Lynn to Dame Beryl Grey, to piece together the extraordinary adventures of the ordinary men and women sent out across the world, from dusty Egypt to sweltering Burma, whose contribution to the war effort was song, dance and laughter. ., Aurum Press Ltd, 2013, 3<

2013, ISBN: 1845136187

Gebundene Ausgabe

[EAN: 9781845136185], Gebraucht, sehr guter Zustand, [PU: Aurum Press Ltd], Jacket, Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Red cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine. No ownership marks… Mehr…

[EAN: 9781845136185], Gebraucht, sehr guter Zustand, [PU: Aurum Press Ltd], Jacket, Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Red cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine. No ownership marks. Photographs on plates. 304 pages clean and tight. 'Entertainment' wrote the impresario Sir Oswald Stoll to The Times when war broke out in in 1939, 'is necessary to the morale of the people.' And none more so than the armed forces posted around the globe to fight for their country in the Second World War. And so was born the Entertainment National Services Association, or ENSA, under the indefatigable leadership of Mr Basil Dean - to send the nation's best singers, dancers, musicians and comedians, from Noel Coward to Gracie Fields, to entertain the troops, however far away. The war gave a first break to such postwar stars as Tommy Cooper and Frankie Howerd, as well as enshrining the young Vera Lynn forever as the forces' sweetheart. While getting up on stage in front of tired soldiers in inhospitable climes - often after arduous journeys in pitching troopships and jouncing trucks - could be one of the more challenging engagements, ENSA managed to introduce millions to classical music and ballet as well as stand-up comedy. The sheer scale of the war meant not every battalion could receive a visit from Tommy Trinder or Joyce Grenfell; in fact, so many mediocre end-of-the-pier variety acts seized the chance of exemption from national service and a comfortable salary that from Italy to North Africa ENSA also came to stand for 'Every Night Something Awful'. But when Allied troops landed in Normandy in 1944, George Formby, remarkably, followed close behind, while a distinguished troupe under Laurence Olivier was performing Shakespeare to British soldiers in Hamburg within weeks of the German surrender. By the time the war ended well over 2 million performances had been given to over 500 million people, and four out of five members of the show business profession had worked for ENSA at some point. Most of them had the time of their lives. Now, Andy Merriman has talked to surviving ENSA veterans from Vera Lynn to Dame Beryl Grey, to piece together the extraordinary adventures of the ordinary men and women sent out across the world, from dusty Egypt to sweltering Burma, whose contribution to the war effort was song, dance and laughter. Size: 8vo, Books<