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Alan Bennett - Double Bill

Author : Alan Bennett

Performed By : Various

Publisher : BBC Audiobooks Ltd

Runtime : 2 hours 10 minutes

Categories : Dramatizations
Comedy
Humor
Drama
British

Our Price : $18.49

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Patricia Routledge , Sir John Gielgud , Alan Bennett and Paul Eddington star in two plays as broadcast on BBC Radio 4

 

A Woman of No Importance - In this brilliant forerunner to Bennett's series of Talking Heads monologues, Patricia Routledge plays Margaret Schofield. a woman whose existence has long revolved around the gossip and minutiae of office life. As she recounts the events leading up to her first bout of tummy trouble, there is little hint of the developments ahead — or of the moving portrayal of brave and inevitable decline which writer and performer create between them.

Forty Years On - This BBC Radio 4 version of Alan Bennett's most popular stage play stars Sir John Gielgud , Paul Eddington , Bennett himself and other members of the original West End cast. Having been at Albion House for fifty years, man and boy the Headmaster is now retiring. Taking part in the end-of-term entertainment for the last time, he is outraged to find his beloved standards being mocked. A kaleidoscopic comedy, Forty Years On is part parody and part nostalgia for a fading English tradition.

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History of the Musical, The

Author : Richard Fawkes

Performed By : Kim Criswell

Publisher : Select Music & Distribution

Runtime : 5 hours 15 minutes

Categories : Social & Economic
Music Related
Music Related

Our Price : $18.75

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The musical is one of the great art forms of the 20th century. Showboat Anything Goes, Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma!, West Side Story, The Sound of Music, Oliver, Cabaret - one masterpiece after another packed the theatres on Broadway, in London's West End and around the world. And it made a successful transfer to the cinema. A truly popular art, the musical closely reflected society and its needs - sometimes providing a message and often providing a much-needed romantic escape.

Richard Fawkes traces the development of the musical, from its origins in European light opera and operetta to its transformation in the hands of the great American song composers and lyricists - among them Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe. The talent of Lloyd Webber and Sondheim has assured that in the 21st century, it is as lively as ever.

The History of The Musical is presented by the vivacious singer Kim Criswell, who starred in Cats, sang on Broadway, won awards for her recordings and has lived and breathed the musical since she was a young girl.

It is an enthralling story - and it is told with nearly 100 famous musical extracts.