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456_21 | Brown's next graphic novel, Paying for It, came out during the 2011 election, in which he was running. Again he finished with the help of a Canada Council grant. It was a polemic promoting the decriminalization of prostitution, and attracted praise for its artistry and bare-all honesty, and criticism for its subject matter and Brown's perceived naïveté where brushes aside concerns about human trafficking and dismisses drug addiction as a myth. At about this time, Brown finally stated he didn't intend to finish his Gospel of Matthew, which had been on hiatus since 1997. |
456_22 | In 2016 Brown followed up Paying for It with Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus, made up of adaptations of stories from the Bible that Brown believes promote pro-prostitution attitudes among early Christians, and argues for the decriminalization of prostitution. Brown declared his research determined that Mary, mother of Jesus, was a prostitute, that early Christians practised prostitution, and that Jesus' Parable of the Talents should be read in a pro-prostitution light. Brown describes himself as a Christian who is "not at all concerned with imposing 'moral' values or religious laws on others" and believes that Biblical figures such as Abel and Job "find favour with God because they oppose his will or challenge him in some way".
Personal life
Religion |
456_23 | Brown was brought up in a Baptist household, and in his early twenties he began adapting the Gospels. Brown later said that this "was a matter of trying to figure out whether even believed the Christian claims—whether or not Jesus was divine". During this time, Brown went through periods where he considered himself an agnostic then a gnostic. Since then, Brown has consistently described himself as religious, but has alternated between periods of identifying as a Christian and simply believing in God. As of 2016, Brown describes himself as a Christian.
Politics |
456_24 | In the 1980s Brown expressed sympathy for left-wing politics, although he has stated his understanding of politics was not deep. He considered himself an anarchist until, while researching Louis Riel, he became interested in issues of property rights, especially influenced by his reading of Tom Bethell's The Noblest Triumph, a book which argues that the West owes its prosperity to having established strong property rights. Brown thus gained an interest in libertarianism–a belief that government should protect property rights (although, he says, not copyrights), and otherwise should mostly keep out of people's lives. After attending a few meetings of the Libertarian Party of Canada, he was asked to run for Parliament, and collected the 100 signatures necessary to appear on the ballot. |
456_25 | Brown ran as the Libertarian Party's candidate for the riding (or constituency) of Trinity—Spadina in the 2008 federal election. He came in fifth out of seven candidates. He stood in the same riding for the same party in the 2011 Canadian federal election, coming in fifth out of six candidates. The 2011 election coincided with the release of Paying for It, in which Brown talks about his frequenting prostitutes. He was worried his promotion of that topic in the media would make the Libertarian Party uncomfortable with having him run, but his official Party agent and the Ontario representative assured him that, as libertarians, they believed in individual freedom, and would continue to support his candidacy.
Personal relations |
456_26 | A longtime friend of fellow cartoonists Joe Matt and Seth, Brown has been regularly featured in their autobiographical comics over the years, and collaborated with them on various projects. The three were often mentioned together, and have been called "the Three Musketeers of alternative comics" and the "Toronto Three", forming "a kind of gutter rat pack trying to make it through their drawing boards in 1990s Toronto". Brown dedicated The Playboy to Seth, and Paying for It to Matt. Seth dedicated his graphic novel George Sprott to Brown ("Best Cartoonist, Best Friend"). |
456_27 | Brown had a long-term relationship with the musician, actress and media personality Sook-Yin Lee from 1992 until 1996. She is depicted in several of his comics. He moved to Vancouver for two years to be with her, and moved back to Toronto with her when she became a VJ for MuchMusic. He also drew the cover for her 1996 solo album Wigs 'n Guns. Brown's relationship with Lee is the last boyfriend/girlfriend relationship he had, as he explains in Paying for It. They remain good friends, and Brown has contributed artwork to her productions as recently as 2009's Year of the Carnivore.
Work
Thematic subjects |
456_28 | Throughout his early years as a cartoonist he mostly experimented with drawing on the darker side of his subconscious, basing his comedy on free-form association, much like the surrealist technique Automatism. An example of such methods in Brown's work can be found in short one-pagers where he randomly selects comic panels from other sources and then mixes them up, often altering the dialogue. This produced an experimental, absurdist effect in his early strips. |
456_29 | Brown first discusses mental illness in his strip "My Mother Was A Schizophrenic". In it, he puts forward the anti-psychiatric idea that what we call "schizophrenia" isn't a real disease at all, but instead a tool our society uses to deal with people who display socially unacceptable beliefs and behaviour. Inspired by the evangelical tracts of Jack T. Chick, Brown left Xeroxes of these strips at bus stops and phone booths around Toronto so its message would reach a wider audience. It first appeared in Underwater #4, and is also reprinted in the collection The Little Man. |
456_30 | Brown's Louis Riel book was inspired by the alleged mental instability of Riel, and Brown's own anarchist politics, and he began his research for the book in 1998. Over the course of researching for the book, he shifted his politics over the course of several years until he was a libertarian. Regarding anarchy, Brown has said, "I'm still an anarchist to the degree that I think we should be aiming towards an anarchist society but I don't think we can actually get there. We probably do need some degree of government."
Art style
Brown's drawing style has evolved and changed a lot throughout his career. He's been known to switch between using Rapidograph pens, dip pens, brushes, pencils and markers for his black-and-white cartooning, and has used paints for some colour covers (notably in Underwater).
Working method |
456_31 | Brown does not follow the tradition of drawing his comics by the page – he draws them one panel at a time, and then arranges them on the page. In the case of his acclaimed graphic novels The Playboy and I Never Liked You, this allowed him to rearrange the panels on the page as he saw fit. In the case of I Never Liked You, this resulted in a different page count in the book collection than was in the Yummy Fur serialization. The panels were slightly rearranged again when the "New Definitive Edition" of I Never Liked You was released in 2002. Brown depicted himself making comics in this way in the story Showing Helder in Yummy Fur #20 (also collected in The Little Man). Despite drawing his panels individually, he says his "brain doesn't tend to think in terms of one image at a time", so that he has difficulty coming up with one-image covers. |
456_32 | He has used a number of different drawing tools, including Rapidograph technical pens, markers, crowquill pens and ink brushes, the latter of which he has called his favourite tool, for its "fluid grace". For much of Ed the Happy Clown, he had artwork printed from photocopies of his pencils, which was faster for him than inking the work, and produced a more spontaneous feel, but in the end he turned away from this method, feeling it was "too raw".
Drawing influences
In an interview with Seth, Brown says his earliest childhood cartoon was an imitation of Doug Wright's Little Nipper. He frequently mentions Steve Gerber as amongst his foremost influences of his teenage years. From about the age of 20, Brown discovered the work of Robert Crumb and other underground artists, as well as class comic strip artists such as Harold Gray, whose influence is most evident in Brown's Louis Riel. |
456_33 | Brown often talks of contemporaries Seth, Joe Matt and Julie Doucet's influence on his work, especially during his autobiographical period. He also had been reading the Little Lulu Library around this time, and credit's the cartooning of Little Lulu'''s John Stanley and Seth with his desire to simplify his style during this period.
The stiff, stylized look of Fletcher Hanks' comics, reprints from Fantagraphics of which Brown had been reading around the time, was the primary influence on the style Brown used in Paying for It.
Bibliography
Series
Books
Title changes |
456_34 | Many of his books have undergone title changes, sometimes at the behest of his publisher, sometimes without his permission. Ed the Happy Clown: the Definitive Ed Book was given the Definitive title, despite the fact that he "didn't want to put that as the subtitle of the second edition. Vortex did it for marketing reasons." The Playboy was originally titled Disgust and then The Playboy Stories, and I Never Liked You was called Fuck (the German translation retains that title). Underwater was originally intended to appear in Yummy Fur, but Brown's new publisher felt they could attract more readers with a different title. Paying For It carries the sense of a double entendre that Brown dislikes–he would have preferred to call the book I Pay For Sex.
Illustration |
456_35 | Brown has also done a certain amount of illustration work. In 1998, he did the cover to Sphinx Productions' Comic Book Confidential #1; in 2005 he did the cover to True Porn 2 from Alternative Comics; and he illustrated the cover for Penguin Books' Deluxe Classics edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence. Brown illustrated the cover to the 11 July 2004, issue of The New York Times Magazine, an issue whose theme was graphic novels. He has done the cover for Sook-Yin Lee's 1996 solo album Wigs 'n' Guns (to which he also contributed lyrics for one song), and the poster for her film, Year of the Carnivore.
Collaborations
Brown provided the illustrations for the story "A Tribute to Bill Marks" in Harvey Pekar's American Splendor #15 in 1990, and "How This Forward Got Written" in The New American Splendor Anthology in 1991. |
456_36 | He inked Seth's pencils for the story "Them Changes" in Dennis Eichhorn's Real Stuff #6 in 1992, and shared artwork duties with Sook-Yin Lee on the story "The Not So Great Escape" in Real Stuff #16 in 1993.
He also inked Steve Bissette's pencils for the story "It Came From ... Higher Space!" in Alan Moore's 1963 #3 in 1993.
A jam piece with Dave Sim was included in the Cerebus World Tour Book in 1995.
Recognition
Over the years, Brown has received four Harvey Awards and numerous Harvey and Ignatz award nominations. "The autobiographical comics from Yummy Fur" placed on the Comics Journal's list of the 100 best comics of the century. Brown was inducted into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame, on 18 June 2011, at the Joe Shuster Awards in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Brown was one of the cartoonists to appear in the first volume of Fantagraphics' two-volume The Best Comics of the Decade (1990. ).
Awards
Nominations |
456_37 | See also
Alternative comics
The Beguiling
It's a Good Life, If You Don't WeakenReferences
Notes
Works cited
Brown, Chester. Ed the Happy Clown. Drawn & Quarterly. Nine issues (February 2005 – September 2006)(notes pages unnumbered, counted from first page of notes)
(in Swedish)
(followup at The Comics Journal, Notes to a Note on the Notes of Chester Brown)
part 2 3 4 5 6 7 8.
Also available online: parts 1 2 and 3.
Further readingChester Brown: Conversations'' by Dominick Grace and Eric Hoffman, with notes by Chester Brown, University Press of Mississippi, 2013
External links
News Briefs featuring Chester Brown at Drawn & Quarterly's website
Time.com interview with Chester Brown
CBC Arts Online article about Chester Brown's Ed The Happy Clown series
Chester Brown induction into CBC Arts Online's Alternative Canadian Walk of Fame
Audio interview of Brown by Seth |
456_38 | 1960 births
Living people
Alternative cartoonists
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American Splendor artists
Anglophone Quebec people
Anti-psychiatry
Canadian anarchists
Canadian cartoonists
Canadian Christians
Canadian comic strip cartoonists
Canadian comics artists
Canadian graphic novelists
Canadian libertarians
Christian libertarians
Christian writers
Film poster artists
Former Baptists
Harvey Award winners for Best Cartoonist
Harvey Award winners for Best Graphic Album
Harvey Award winners for Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work
Harvey Award winners for Best Writer
Inkpot Award winners
Libertarian Party of Canada candidates in the 2008 Canadian federal election
Libertarian Party of Canada candidates in the 2011 Canadian federal election
Obscenity controversies in comics
People from Châteauguay
Underground cartoonists
21st-century Canadian non-fiction writers
20th-century Canadian non-fiction writers |
457_0 | I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! returned for its fifteenth series on 15 November 2015 on ITV.
On 11 October 2015, a 5-second teaser aired on ITV for the first time, with more short trailers following, with Ant & Dec yelling "Let's get ready to jungle!", a pun on their well-known song "Let's Get Ready to Rhumble".
Geordie Shore'''s Vicky Pattison won the show on 6 December 2015, with Union J singer George Shelley finishing runner up.
This was the second time that a late-entry contestant had won the show, the first being Christopher Biggins in 2007.
Ant & Dec both returned as presenters of the main show, whilst Joe Swash and Laura Whitmore returned to present the ITV2 spin-off show, I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! NOW!, alongside David Morgan, who replaced Rob Beckett. |
457_1 | Celebrities
The celebrity cast line-up for the fifteenth series was confirmed on 9 November 2015. Spencer Matthews withdrew on 20 November, because of health issues. Lady Colin Campbell also withdrew on 1 December, also for medical reasons.
Results and elimination
Indicates that the celebrity was immune from the vote
Indicates that the celebrity received the most votes from the public
Indicates that the celebrity received the fewest votes and was eliminated immediately (no bottom two
Indicates that the celebrity was named as being in the bottom two
Indicates that the celebrity received the second fewest votes and were not named in the bottom two |
457_2 | Notes
The celebrities were split into four teams for a set of challenges to earn immunity; Green (Lady C, Susannah and Yvette), Pink (Duncan, George and Vicky), Purple (Brian, Jorgie and Tony) and Yellow (Chris, Ferne and Kieron). The Pink team won, earning immunity.
There was no elimination on Day 14, with the votes being carried over and added to the next day's results.
There was no elimination on Day 18, due to Lady C's withdrawal. Viewers were given refunds for their votes for Day 18 and lines were reopened for the impending Day 19 eviction.
The public were voting for who they wanted to win rather than to save. |
457_3 | Bushtucker trials
The contestants take part in daily trials to earn food. These trials aim to test both physical and mental abilities. The winner is usually determined by the number of stars collected during the trial, with each star representing a meal earned by the winning contestant for their camp mates. As of 2014, the public voted for who took part in the trials via the I'm a Celebrity...'' app, from iOS devices. From 2015, the public cannot vote via phone, and can also vote via Android devices.
The public voted for who they wanted to face the trial
The contestants decided who would face the trial
The trial was compulsory and neither the public nor celebrities decided who took part |
457_4 | Notes
The celebrities were split up into two teams, Red (George, Jorgie, Kieron, Lady C and Tony) and Yellow (Brian, Chris, Duncan, Susannah and Yvette), with Tony and Susannah picking the teams as captains. The teams then faced a series of challenges, which the yellow team won 2-1, therefore moving straight into 'Croc Creek', while the red team automatically faced the first bushtucker trial. Chris, ejected after the yellow team's challenge loss, joined them for the trial. The losing team also were up for the 2nd and 3rd Bushtucker Trials.
Lady C refused to take part in this bushtucker trial.
This was a head-to-head trial. Since Ferne won, she was allowed to immediately enter the camp; she chose Vicky to join her, meaning Spencer was forced to return to Snake Rock.
This was a head-to-head trial. Since Lady C won, she was allowed to return to Croc Creek, choosing George to take her place in Snake Rock.
Chris, Lady C and Tony were excluded from the trial on medical grounds. |
457_5 | Brian and Lady C were excluded from the trial on medical grounds.
This trial was previously meant for Lady C, however she refused to take part.
Tony was excluded from this trial on medical grounds. |
457_6 | Star count
Dingo Dollar challenges
Members from camp will take part in the challenge to win 'Dingo Dollars'. If they win them then they can then take the dollars to the 'Outback Shack', where they can exchange them for camp luxuries with Kiosk Keith. Two options are given and the celebrities can choose which they would like to win. However, to win their luxury, a question is asked to the celebrities still in camp via the telephone box. If the question is answered correctly, the celebrities can take the items back to camp. If wrong, they receive nothing and Kiosk Keith will close the shack.
The celebrities got the question correct
The celebrities got the question wrong
Notes
A storm hit the jungle during the challenge and the celebrities were evacuated to the Bush Telegraph, so Ferne and Jorgie were unable to complete the challenge. However, they were given the Dollars and went to the Outback Shack to spend them once the storm had passed. |
457_7 | Jungle Vending Machine
This year was the first ever time that a jungle vending machine was introduced. It was also the final time, as it has not returned since (2016-present). It was introduced in the 2nd episode, which Lady C and Yvette took part in. Lady C refused to take part, but Yvette was still allowed to. Due to her success in spelling out the correct word, which was later confirmed as 'Kangaroo', the celebrities received a key to unlock a door, which revealed a vending machine.
Ratings
Official ratings are taken from BARB.
References
External links
Episode list using the default LineColor
2015 British television seasons
15 |
458_0 | Ptyas mucosa, commonly known as the oriental ratsnake, Indian rat snake, darash or dhaman, is a common non-venomous species of colubrid snake found in parts of South and Southeast Asia. Dhamans are large snakes. Typical mature total length is around though some exceed . The record length for this species was , second only to their cousin Ptyas carinata among living colubrid snakes. Despite their large size, oriental ratsnakes are usually quite slender with even a specimen of commonly measuring only around in diameter. Furthermore, the average weight of ratsnakes caught in Java was around , though larger males of over (which average mildly larger of the two sexes in the species) may easily weigh over .<ref name= Auliya Their color varies from pale browns in dry regions to nearly black in moist forest areas. Rat snakes are diurnal, semi-arboreal, non-venomous, and fast-moving. Rat snakes eat a variety of prey and are frequently found in urban areas where rodents thrive. |
458_1 | Geographic range
Found in Afghanistan, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Cambodia, China (Zhejiang, Hubei, Jiangxi, Fujian, Guangdong, Hainan, Guangxi, Yunnan, Tibet, Hong Kong), Taiwan, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia (Sumatra, Java, Bali), Iran, Laos, West Malaysia, Nepal, Myanmar, Pakistan (Sindh area), Thailand, Turkmenistan and Vietnam.
Predators
Adult rat snakes have no natural predators, although younger specimens are the natural prey of King cobras that overlap them in their range. Juveniles fear birds of prey, larger reptiles, and mid-sized mammals. They are wary, quick to react, and fast-moving.
Rat snakes and related colubrids are aggressively hunted by humans in some areas of their range for skins and meat. Harvesting and trade regulations exist in China and Indonesia, but these regulations are often ignored.
Description
Description from Boulenger's Fauna of British India: Reptilia and Batrachia volume of 1890: |
458_2 | Snout obtuse, slightly projecting; eye large; rostral a little broader than deep, visible from above; suture between the internasals shorter than that between the prefrontals; frontal as long as its distance from the end of the snout, as long as the parietals or slightly shorter; usually three loreals; one large preocular, with a small subocular below; two postoculars; temporals 2+2; 8 Upper labials, fourth and fifth entering the eye; 5 Lower labials in contact with the anterior chin shields, which are shorter than the posterior; the latter in contact anteriorly. Dorsal scales in 17 rows at midbody, more or less strongly keeled on the posterior part of the body. Ventrals 190–208; anal divided; subcaudals 95–135, divided. Brown above, frequently with more or less distinct black crossbands on the posterior part of the body and on the tail; young usually with light crossbands on the front half of the body. Lower surface yellowish; the posterior ventral and the caudal shields may be edged |
458_3 | with black. |
458_4 | It is the second largest snake in Sri Lanka, after the Indian rock python.
Behavior
Rat snakes, though harmless to humans, are fast-moving, excitable snakes. In captivity, they are territorial and may defend their turf aggressively, attempting to startle or strike at passing objects. Rat snakes are diurnal and semi-arboreal. They inhabit forest floors, wetlands, rice paddies, farmland, and suburban areas where they prey upon small reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals. Adults, unusually for a colubrid, prefer to subdue their prey by sitting on it rather than by constricting, using body weight to weaken prey. |
458_5 | Rat snakes mate in late spring and early summer, though in tropical areas reproduction may take place year round. Males establish boundaries of territory using a ritualised test of strength in which they intertwine their bodies. The behaviour is sometime misread by observers as a "mating dance" between opposite-sex individuals. Females produce 6–15 eggs per clutch several weeks after mating.
Adult members of this species emit a growling sound and inflate their necks when threatened. This adaptation may represent mimicry of the king cobra or Indian cobra which overlaps this species in range. The resemblance often backfires in human settlements, though, as the harmless animal may be mistaken for a venomous snake and killed. |
458_6 | Nomenclature
The International Code for Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) directs that the grammatical gender of any given species name should follow logically from the gender of its associated genus name. As Ptyas is a feminine word form (from πτυάς, a Greek word for a venom-spitting snake), the proper form of the species name is mucosa (a Late Latin word meaning "slimy"). Reference materials older than 2004 often show the masculine form, mucosus, and the CITES list continues to list the species this way.
Gallery
References
Further reading |
458_7 | David, P., and I. Das. 2004. On the grammar of the gender of Ptyas Fitzinger, 1843 (Serpentes: Colubridae). Hamaddryad 28 (1 & 2): 113–116.
Günther, A. 1898. Notes on Indian Snakes in Captivity. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Series 7, 1: 30–31. (Zamenis mucosus, p. 30.)
Jan, G., & F. Sordelli. 1867. Iconographie générale des Ophidiens: Vingt-quatrième livraison. Baillière. Paris. Index + Plates I.–VI. ("Coryphodon Blumenbachi, Merr.", Plate III., Figures 2–4.)
Lazell, J.D. 1998. Morphology and the status of the snake genus Ptyas. Herpetological Review 29 (3): 134.
Linnaeus, C. 1858. Systema naturæ per regna tria naturæ, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, diferentiis, synonymis, locis. Tomus I. Editio Decima, Reformata. L. Salvius. Stockholm. 824 pp. (Coluber mucosus, p. 226.) |
458_8 | Morris, P.A. 1948. Boy's Book of Snakes: How to Recognize and Understand Them. A volume of the Humanizing Science Series, edited by Jacques Cattell. Ronald Press. New York. viii + 185 pp. ("The Indian Rat Snake", pp. 136–137, 181.)
Nixon, A.M.A., and S. Bhupathy. 2001. Notes on the occurrence of Dhaman (Ptyas mucosus) in the higher altitudes of Nilgiris, Western Ghats. Cobra (44): 30–31. |
458_9 | External links
Colubrids
Reptiles described in 1758
Reptiles of Afghanistan
Reptiles of Bangladesh
Reptiles of Cambodia
Reptiles of Central Asia
Reptiles of China
Reptiles of India
Reptiles of Indonesia
Reptiles of Iran
Reptiles of Laos
Reptiles of Myanmar
Reptiles of Nepal
Reptiles of Pakistan
Reptiles of Sri Lanka
Reptiles of Taiwan
Reptiles of Thailand
Reptiles of Vietnam
Snakes of Asia
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus
ceb:Ptyas korros
sv:Ptyas korros |
459_0 | Murray Melvin (born 10 August 1932) is an English author, actor and director, best known for his acting work with Joan Littlewood, Ken Russell and Stanley Kubrick. He is the author of two books: The Art of Theatre Workshop (2006) and The Theatre Royal, A History of the Building (2009).
Early years
Melvin was born in St. Pancras, London. The son of Hugh Victor Melvin and Maisie Winifred Driscoll, Melvin left his north London secondary school at the age of fourteen unable to master fractions but as head prefect, a qualification he says he gained by always having clean fingernails and well-combed hair. He started work as an office boy for a firm of travel agents off Oxford Street.
To help channel the energies of the young after the disturbing times of the war, his parents had helped to found a youth club in Hampstead, financed by the Co-operative Society of which they were longstanding members. A drama section formed with Melvin its most enthusiastic participant. |
459_1 | A short-lived job followed as an import and export clerk in a shipping office, during which he inadvertently exported quantities of goods to destinations that had not ordered them. This was followed by two unhappy years of National Service in the Royal Air Force (his father had served in the RAF during the Second World War).
He was employed as clerk and secretary to the director of the Royal Air Force sports board at the Air Ministry, then based at Adastral House in Kingsway. Knowing nothing about sport, he considered his clean fingernails, well combed hair and his father's service had done the trick. |
459_2 | At the Theatre Workshop
Melvin attended evening classes at the nearby City Literary Institute and studied drama, mime and classical Ballet. During an extended lunch break from the Ministry, he applied to Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop company at the Theatre Royal Stratford East and auditioned on stage singing and dancing for Littlewood and Gerry Raffles. On being asked to create a character he knew from life, he impersonated a rather rotund director of the sports board. Having ascertained that he had to return that afternoon to work for this character, Littlewood said to Gerry Raffles: "the poor little bugger, we must get him away from there" – which they did. |
459_3 | In October 1957, he became an assistant stage manager, theatre painter and general dogsbody to John Bury, the set designer, and he was cast in his first professional role as the Queen's Messenger in the then in rehearsal production of Macbeth. From the Scottish Court to a building site, his next performance was as a bricklayer in You Won't Always Be On Top, soon followed by a peasant in And the Wind Blew, Bellie in Pirandello's Man Beast and Virtue, Calisto in De Rojas's Celestina; Young Jodi Maynard in Paul Green's Unto Such Glory (all 1957) and then came the last play of the 1957–58 season which was to be the start of an extraordinary year in the history of Theatre Workshop and Melvin's career. He was cast as Geoffrey in Shelagh Delaney's play, A Taste of Honey. |
459_4 | After the summer break in 1958, he played the title role in the seminal production of Brendan Behan's The Hostage. Both scripts had been transformed in rehearsals by Joan Littlewood's painstaking and inspired methods of getting to the truth of the text and building a lively poetic and dangerous theatrical event. Though both plays were to blow a refreshing wind through the British theatre, neither play transferred to the West End immediately, so Melvin stayed on to play Scrooge's nephew in Joan Littlewood's adaptation of A Christmas Carol (1958).
In February 1959, A Taste of Honey opened at the Wyndham's Theatre and transferred to the Criterion some six months later. It was the hit of the season. Melvin reprised the role of Geoffrey in the 1961 film version directed by Tony Richardson (1961). He won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor in 1962 and was also nominated for the BAFTA "Most Promising Newcomer" award. |
459_5 | In April 1960, William Saroyan, on a world tour, stopped off in London where he wrote and directed a play for Theatre Workshop in which he cast Melvin as the leading character called Sam, the Highest Jumper of Them All. Then the troupe paid their annual visit to the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre for the Paris World Theatre Season with Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour in which he played Brainworm. Rehearsals then started for Stephen Lewis's Sparrows Can't Sing in which Melvin played the role of Knocker Jugg. The following year he transferred to the role Georgie Brimsdown for the film adaptation of the play. The film was directed by Joan Littlewood. |
459_6 | After a break of nearly two years, the company came together to create the musical, Oh, What a Lovely War! After its initial run at Stratford it went to the Paris Festival and won it. The company returned to the Wyndham's Theatre where the play won the Best Musical category in the Evening Standard Theatre Awards. Between the end of its London run and the opening at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York, the company visited the Edinburgh Festival with Shakespeare's Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, in which Melvin metamorphosed as Gadshill, Shallow, Vernon and the Earl of March. The production of Oh, What a Lovely War! in New York in 1964 was his last for Joan Littlewood and the Theatre Workshop Company. |
459_7 | The production attracted the interest of filmmakers, including Ken Russell and Lewis Gilbert. Melvin became a member of what has often been called the Ken Russell Repertory Company, appearing in many of Russell's films, including The Devils and The Boy Friend. Lewis Gilbert cast Melvin in H.M.S. Defiant (1962), alongside Dirk Bogarde, and in Alfie (1966), where he played Michael Caine's work friend, stealing petrol and taking photographs to sell to tourists. |
459_8 | The Ken Russell connection
Melvin appeared in Russell's BBC television version of Diary of a Nobody, which was filmed at the Ealing Studios on a specially built 'silent film' set. Alongside Melvin, who played the errant son, Lupin, were other actors from Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, including Bryan Pringle and Brian Murphy, who also became Russell regulars. Lupin's girlfriend in the film is played by Vivian Pickles, whose performance at the Royal Court Theatre in John Osborne's Plays for England had attracted national attention. |
459_9 | Melvin was seen in a cameo in the final scenes of Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World (1966), Ken Russell's film of Isadora Duncan, which starred Vivian Pickles as the great American dancer.
Melvin's best known role for Ken Russell was as Father Mignon in The Devils (1971). Mignon is the catalyst to the true-life horrors documented in the film. His appointment to the convent of Loudon, whose leading members were expecting Father Grandier (played by Oliver Reed), causes the nun's demonic condemnation of Grandier to spiral out of control.
After the film, Melvin directed two works by The Devils composer, Peter Maxwell Davies: the theatre piece Miss Donnithorne's Maggot and the opera The Martyrdom of St Magnus. Further work with Davies followed. He was the speaker in a production of Davies's Missa super l'homme armé and he played the Virgin in the premiere production of Davies's Notre Dame des Fleurs. |
459_10 | In Russell's The Boy Friend (1971), Melvin and another Theatre Workshop alumnus, Brian Murphy, are among the company players trying to catch the eye of a Hollywood producer who watches their provincial performance of Sandy Wilson's The Boy Friend. In the film, Melvin has a spectacular solo dance number in a caped French officer's outfit. He again had a cameo as Hector Berlioz in Ken Russell's Lisztomania (1975), as a test-run to a film about Berlioz which Russell was preparing.
He appeared in Russell's film about the poet, Samuel Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1978).
Returning with the French theme, Melvin played an enthusiastic French lawyer in Prisoner of Honour (1991), Ken Russell's film about the French Dreyfus Affair. |
459_11 | Melvin remained a lifelong friend of Ken Russell, and was often seen with Russell at festival screening of the director's films. At the Barbican screening of the director's cut of The Devils, 1 May 2011, Melvin and Ken Russell arrived together, with Melvin pushing Ken Russell's wheelchair.
Other film performances
Melvin had an important role as Reverend Samuel Runt in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975). In the video project "Stanley and Us", he talks about Kubrick's "57 takes (plus 20)".
He was reunited with his co-stars from the film version of A Taste of Honey, Rita Tushingham and Paul Danquah, in the swinging sixties comedy Smashing Time (1967), in which he and Danquah had cameo roles.
He co starred with Russell regular Oliver Reed in Richard Fleischer's film of The Prince and the Pauper, Crossed Swords (1977), and in Alberto Lattuada's four part television film Christopher Columbus (1985). |
459_12 | Peter Medak cast Melvin in five films: A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1972), starring Alan Bates; Ghost in the Noonday Sun (1973, starring Peter Sellers); The Krays (1990); Let Him Have It (1991); and as Dr. Chilip in David Copperfield (2000).
He has featured in two films by Christine Edzard, Little Dorrit (1988), and As You Like It (1992). As Monsieur Reyer, the musical director and conductor of the Opera Populaire, he was cast in Joel Schumacher's film adaptation of the musical The Phantom of the Opera (2004).
Television performances
He appeared in the very first episode of the television series The Avengers in 1960. |
459_13 | He played the Dauphin in Shaw's St. Joan, directed in 1966 by Waris Hussein. He played Bertold in a Theatre 625 production of Pirandello's Henry IV (1967) directed by Michael Hayes; Don Pietro in Peter Hammond's TV series based on The Little World of Don Camillo; and The Hermit in Mai Zetterling's production of William Tell. He also appeared in The Adventures of Don Quixote (1973) as the Barber in the BBC television film directed by Alvin Rakoff and starring Rex Harrison. |
459_14 | Melvin starred in The Tyrant King (1968), the six-part children's television series directed by Mike Hodges. He played a crucial role in the last two episodes of The Flaxton Boys (1973), where he plays the upper-class twit character Gerald Meder. In 1994, Melvin supplied the voice of the villain Lucius on the British children's animated TV series Oscar's Orchestra for the BBC and France 3. Melvin appeared in a Christmas Special episode of the BBC's Jonathan Creek called "The Black Canary" (1998)
In 2007 he appeared as the sinister Bilis Manger in the Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood, a role he has been reprising for Big Finish Productions since 2017. In July 2011 Melvin played the Professor in a short comedy/drama called The Grey Mile, a story about two ex-master criminals who are now confined to a care home. |
459_15 | Other work
Melvin was a founder member of the Actors' Centre and was its chairman for four years during which time he started a centre in Manchester in honour of Joan Littlewood and the Theatre Workshop.
As a theatre director, he has worked across all genres including opera, recital, drama and comedy. He directed the first productions of three of Graeme Garden's perennially popular pantomimes.
In 1991, thirty four years after first making the tea and sweeping the stage at the Theatre Royal, he was invited to become a member of the board of the theatre, a position he held until 2011. It is partly in this role that he is becoming widely known as a learned and popular theatre and film historian — he can be seen and heard, for example, on the BFI DVD release of the Bill Douglas Trilogy. |
459_16 | In 1992, he became the Theatre Royal's voluntary archivist and in 2009 he was appointed a member of the Theatre Workshop Trust. He led the successful campaign to erect a statue of Joan Littlewood in Theatre Square at Stratford.
On 18 July 2013, he was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Arts by De Montfort University and in July 2015 he was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Essex. In September 2016 he received an Honorary Fellowship from the Rose Bruford College
Several commercial available audio recordings have been made featuring Murray Melvin. These include four plays on LPs produced by Caedmon Records (Two Gentlemen of Verona (1965); A Midsummer Night's Dream; Bernard Shaw's St. Joan (1966); The Poetry of Kipling). His performance in Oh, What a Lovely War is available on Decca Records (1969). |
459_17 | In 2007, he narrated Tales of the Supernatural Volume 3 by M. R. James for Fantom Films. This was followed in 2009 by M.R. James - A Ghost Story for Christmas, and in 2011 and 2012 by two recordings of Wilkie Collins: Supernatural Stories, Volumes 2 & 3 and The Dark Shadows Legend :The Happier Dead.
Selected filmography |
459_18 | The Criminal (1960) - Antlers
Suspect (1960) - Teddy Boy
A Taste of Honey (1961) - Geoffrey Ingham
Petticoat Pirates (1961) - Kenneth
Solo for Sparrow (1962) - Larkin
H.M.S. Defiant (1962) - Wagstaffe
Sparrows Can't Sing (1963) - Georgie
The Ceremony (1963) - First Gendaime
Alfie (1966) - Nat
Kaleidoscope (1966) - Aimes
Smashing Time (1967) - 1st Exquisite
The Fixer (1968) - Priest
Start the Revolution Without Me (1970) - Blind Man
The Devils (1971) - Mignon
The Boy Friend (1971) - Alphonse
A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1972) - Doctor
Gawain and the Green Knight (1973) - Seneschal
Ghost in the Noonday Sun (1973) - Hamidos
Ghost Story (1974) - Mc Fayden
Lisztomania (1975) - Hector Berlioz
Barry Lyndon (1975) - Rev. Samuel Runt
Shout at the Devil (1976) - Lt. Phipps
The Bawdy Adventures of Tom Jones (1976) - Blifil
The Ballad of Salomon Pavey (1977)
Gulliver's Travels (voice, 1977)
Joseph Andrews (1977) - Beau Didapper |
459_19 | The Prince and the Pauper (1977) - Prince's Dresser
Stories from a Flying Trunk (1979) - Hans Christian Andersen
Nutcracker (1982) - Leopold
Sacred Hearts (1985) - Father Power
Christopher Columbus (1985) - Father Linares
Comrades (1986) - Clerk
Funny Boy (1987) - Arthur
Little Dorrit (1988) - Dancing Master
Testimony (1988) - Film Editor
Slipstream (1989) - Man on Stairs
The Krays (1990) - Newsagent
The Fool (1990) - Jeremy Ruttle
Let Him Have It (1991) - Secondary School Teacher
Prisoner of Honour (1991) - Bertillon
As You Like It (1992) - Sir Oliver Martext
Princess Caraboo (1994) - Lord Motley
England, My England (1995) - Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury
Alice in Wonderland (1999) - Chief Executioner
The Emperor's New Clothes (2001) - Antommarchi
The Phantom of the Opera (2004) - Reyer
The Grey Mile (2012) - Professor Worth
The Lost City of Z (2016) - Lord James Bernard |
459_20 | Selected theatre performances (as an actor) |
459_21 | Queen's Messenger in Shakespeare's Macbeth (1957)
Calisto in De Roja's La Celestina (1958)
Jodie in Paul Green's Unto Such Glory (1958)
Scrooge's Nephew in Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1958)
Geoffrey in Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey (1958)
Leslie in Brendan Behan's The Hostage (1958)
Sam in William Saroyan's Sam, The Highest Jumper of Them All
Brainworm in Ben Johnson's Every Man in His Humour (1960)
Gadshill, Shallow, Earl of March and Vernon in Shakespeare's Henry IV (Pts 1 & 2) (1960)
Knocker in Stephen Lewis's Sparrers Can't Sing (1960)
Theatre Workshop's Company musical Oh, What a Lovely War (1963)
Waterhouse and Hall's revue England Our England (1963)
Adolphus in Bernard Shaw's Trifles and Tomfooleries (1967)
Boy in Arthur Kopit's Oh Dad. Poor Dad (1965)
Bouzin in Georges Feydeau's Cat Among the Pigeons (adapted by John Mortimer) (1969)
Dufausset in Georges Feydeau's The Pig in a Poke
Gilbert in Willis Hall's Kidnapped at Christmas (1975) |
459_22 | Dorset in Rosemary Anne Sisson's The Dark Horse (1978)
Arthur Deakin in Ridley's The Ghost Train
The Dauphin in Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan
Charlie Boy in Iain Blair's Mulligan's Last Case
Etienne in Georges Feydeau's French Dressing
The Spirits of Christmas in Musgrave's Opera A Christmas Carol
Ko-Ko in Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado
Fiddler in Henry Living's Don't Touch Him He Might Resent It
Backbite in Sheridan's A School For Scandal
Ephraim Smooth in O'Keefe's Wild Oats
Jacopone in Peter Barnes's Sunsets and Glories (1990)
Anton Zagorestky in Griboyedov/Anthony Burgess' Chatsky (or The Importance of Being Stupid) (1993)
Konrad in Ludwig Holberg/Kenneth McLeish's Jeppe of the Hill (1994)
Father Domingo in Schiller's Don Carlos
Ratty in Willis Hall's Musical version of The Wind In The Willows
Hopkins in Patrick Prior's The Lodger
Oliver Nashwick in Rodney Ackland's After October (1997)
The Priest in Schiller's The Robbers (1998)
Coupler in John Vanburgh's The Relapse (1998) |
459_23 | Don Perlimpin in Lorca's The Love of Don Perlimplín and Belisa in the Garden
Burrus in Racine's Brittanicus
Cool in Boucicault's London Assurance
Tireseas and Chorus in Seamus Heaney's The Burial at Thebes (2008) |
459_24 | Selected music theatre performances
Narrator, Walton's Facade
Narrator, The Poetry And Songs of Leo Aylen
Narrator, Geoffrey King's King Arthur's Dream
Devil, Stravinsky's The Soldiers Tale
Narrator, Stravinsky's The Soldiers Tale
Performer, Maxwell Davies's Missa super l'homme armé
Virgin, Maxwell Davies's Notre Dame Des Fleur
Da Ponte Rennison & Melvins Roses and Laurels
Selected theatre and opera performances as a director
Miss Donnithorne's Magot (1976)
The Martydom of St. Magnus (1977)
The Raft of the Medusa (1977)
The Mime of Nick, Mick and the Maggies (1978)
Cinderella (1979)
Aladdin (1980)
Quack Quack (1980)
The Sleeping Beauty (1984)
Don't Touch Him, He Might Resent It (1982)
Jack The Giant Killer (1985)
Puss in Boots (1986)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1987)
Sinbad The Sailor (1987)
Brotherly Love (1988)
Selected television performances |
459_25 | Salesman in Small Fish Are Sweet (1959)
Lupin in The Diary of a Nobody (1964)
Dauphin in St. Joan (Shaw)
Turgis in Angel Pavement
Teddy Boy in Paradise Street Series
Reporter in Isadora Duncan (1966)
Bertold in Henry IV (Pirandello, 1967)
Thumb in The Memorandum (1967)
Hoopdriver in The Wheels of Chance
Robert Lovell in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Nathaniel Giles in The Ballad of Salomon Pavey (1977)
Don Pietro in The Little World of Dom Camillo
The Devil in The Soldier's Tale
Spirits of Christmas in A Christmas Carol
Jack Spratt in Bulman
Hermit in William Tell (1992)
Ignatius in T. Bag and the Sunstones Of Montezuma (episode One Million Years B.C.)
Clerk in Doomsday Gun (1994)
Roger Parry in Cone Zones (episode One for the Money, 1985)
Lord Shaftesbury in England, My England
Lucius in Oscar's Orchestra
Architect in The Village
Delamere in Bugs
Lionel in Jonathan Creek
Caravaggio in Starhunter Series
Da Ponte in The Genius of Mozart |
459_26 | King of the Knight in Tom's Christmas Tree (2006)
Librarian in The Village
Bilis Manger in Torchwood (2006) |
459_27 | Recognition
Honorary Doctorate of Arts. De Montfort University 18 July 2013
Honorary Degree. University of Essex 17 July 2015
Honorary Fellowship. Rose Bruford College 16 September 2016
References
Bibliography
The Art of the Theatre Workshop, compiled and introduced by Murray Melvin (2006)
The Theatre Royal. A History of the Building, Murray Melvin (2009)
The Authorised Biography of Ken Russell, Vol 1. Becoming Ken Russell, Paul Sutton (2012).
External links
1932 births
English male film actors
English male stage actors
Living people
Male actors from London
20th-century English male actors
21st-century English male actors
Royal Air Force airmen
Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor winners |
460_0 | A Quiver Full of Arrows is a 1980 collection of twelve short stories by British writer and politician Jeffrey Archer.
From London to China, and New York to Nigeria, Jeffrey Archer takes the reader on a tour of ancient heirlooms and modern romance, of cutthroat business and kindly strangers, of lives lived in the realms of power and lives freed from the gloom of oppression. Fortunes are made and squandered, honor betrayed and redeemed, and love lost and rediscovered. (Worldcat.org)
Stories
The Chinese Statue |
460_1 | The story concerns a statuette originating from the Ming Dynasty. The statuette was brought to London by Sir Alexander who kept it in his family for generations. Each of his heirs – civil servants and army officers alike – keep the statuette very safely and in great glory until the latest descendant of Sir Alexander Heathcote, forced upon very tough times due to reckless gambling, decides to sell the statuette. He discovers to his shock that the statuette is a fake. Just as he contemplates suicide, he also finds out that the base of the statuette is authentic and he makes close to twenty thousand guineas on its sale.
The Coup |
460_2 | Eduardo De Silveria and Manuel Rodrigues, rival construction magnates from Brazil, arrive in Nigeria. Eduardo is hoping to receive the contract for building the city of Abuja while Manuel is there for a port contract. A coup owing to Colonel Dimka who assassinates the president General Muhammad causes all the flights out of Nigeria to be cancelled and both Eduardo and Manuel are forced to spend time together locked out from the world. During this time they discover a friendship and at the end of the period become good friends and even business partners.
The First Miracle |
460_3 | Pontius Pilate, son of the governor of the Judea Province, is sent by his mother to buy three pomegranates and a chicken. In the town of Bethlehem he meets Joseph and Mary, just before the birth of Jesus Christ. He is mesmerized by the presence of Mary and offers all his food items to her. On the way back he sees the three wise men (the Magi) and give them the pomegranates. When he arrives home very late his authoritarian father demands the truth from Pontius and refuses to believe his story. His father whips him and sends him to bed.
His mother is also reluctant to believe his story but when she comes to apply balm on his wounds she discovers that all his wounds have miraculously healed. She walks out the room believing him.
The Perfect Gentleman |
460_4 | Edward Shrimpton is met by the author at a local club. Shrimpton was an ace player of backgammon for the club, considered to be the best. He was defeated by Harry Newman however on the eve of a major club championship which was puzzling as Newman was a good player but not in Shrimpton's league. Harry Newman had suffered a lot. His wife had left him for a partner, his partner had stolen his share of money and he was nearly destitute. Yet after this win, Harry had gone from success to success with amazing ease.
When the author met Shrimpton, he found out that he had intentionally made Newman win, to give him some hope, and did not care about any recognition in the matter, continuing to claim that Newman won because of his own talents, making Shrimpton a "perfect gentleman".
One Night Stand |
460_5 | Michael and Adrian run into Debbie in New York. They are both Londoners who had bought travelled in New York, and decide between themselves to have a one-night stand with Debbie. They also share a code that whoever returns to New York gets to have a one-night stand with Debbie.
Michael returns to New York, calls Debbie, and the couple have a one-night stand. As Michael turns to leave, Debbie informs him to his horror that Debbie herself had decided to have a one-night stand, and deciding to ignore New Yorkers who would think she was easy, had made a decision that whichever one of Michael or Adrian came to New York, she would have a one-night stand with him.
The Century
An unnamed Oxonian has an ambition to succeed as a cricketer for Oxford and follow his famous cricketer father's footsteps. He wishes to make a name for himself in the Oxford vs Cambridge cricket match. |
460_6 | In his first year, he makes the team and has a terrific season but somehow injures his finger before the final match. In his second year he is in poor form and asks his captain to drop him from the finals. In his third year, he is the captain.
He struggles with the ball and with the bat getting out cheaply for a duck in the first innings. In his second innings - set a total of 214 to get - he struggles and nearly gets out, but after hooking a boundary, begins to score runs briskly. At his score on 99, he is stranded in the middle of the crease and the ball is with the opposition captain Robin Oakley, who, instead of running the captain out and thereby putting Cambridge in a winning position, chooses to allow the captain to go back to the crease. The captain hits a boundary, scores his hundred and deliberately gets out hit wicket to honour the opposition.
The match ends in a draw as rain pours down, thereby being the ideal situation expected for one and all. |
460_7 | The story is reportedly based on the famous Indian cricketer Mansoor Ali Khan "Tiger" Pataudi (also known as the Nawab of Pataudi). Pataudi was a student at Oxford, and was involved in a serious car accident in which he lost the use of his right eye.
Broken Routine
Septimus Horatio Cornwallis is a normal man who has a pretty common routine. He is a claims adjuster with an insurance company. His extremely tight routine is badly affected one day when he is asked to stay late. He returns home in a packed train, when he discovers that a young hoodlum has misappropriated his cigarettes and his newspaper. He decides to confront the young man, and smokes his cigarettes one after the other. The young man does the same and it becomes a contest. Finally Septimus, feeling that he has taught the young man a lesson, opens his briefcase to find his cigarettes and paper intact, implying that he has actually been smoking the young man's cigarettes and been abusing the young man's paper. |
460_8 | Henry's Hiccup
Henry is the son of the Grand Pasha of Egypt. He is a millionaire living in London but is used to everything being done by his manservant Barker. He has done nothing in his life, and so has no knowledge of travel or of making arrangements.
During the war he stays in America. When he returns, he marries Victoria. During their honeymoon, without Barker, Henry runs into one difficulty after another, traveling third class by train and ship to France and staying in a small room in the George V without making arrangements.
In the end a flower girl who knew him sarcastically gives him flowers for his wife when she realises that he has no money and forgot to bring any.
A Matter of Principle
Sir Hamish Graham was brought up in the 1950s. He is an uncompromising Scot who is honest and talented and hardworking, but also narrow minded and pompous. In the 1970s his construction company is not doing too well, when he is given a Mexican contract. |
460_9 | He refuses to believe that an agent, Victor Perez, is required to be appointed, to whom ten percent of the contract price must be paid and that this percentage is actually the minister's cut. He visits the minister and insists on knowing the full details and simply refuses to believe any version of the minister, who tells him that Victor's father once, at great personal risk, saved an injured soldier, which was why the government gives him the privileges of getting money from tenders. Later, when Graham does not understand, the Minister realizes that Sir Hamish is not a man who can do business the Mexican way and sends him out. In the end, the minister is shown to be limping, revealing that he was the injured soldier.
Old Love |
460_10 | The story follows two students, William Hatchard and Phillippa Jameson, of English literature from Oxford in the 1930s. They both fell in enmity with each other at first sight. The mutual hatred began a fierce sense of competition which enabled them to outshine their contemporaries, but to remain neck-to-neck with each other. Their rivalry is to be decided by the Charles Oldham Prize. Phillipa's father dies, William drives her to the funeral, and the two fall in love.
Their love is decided by the Charles Oldham which both of them share. They get married and are deeply in love, their love expressed by sarcastic remarks. They rise to become phenomenal successes in their own fields, becoming professors and teaching chairs of Oxford in English Literature, and receiving knighthoods. |
460_11 | One day William and Phillipa have an argument on a crossword puzzle on the existence of the word 'Whymwham'. Phillipa dies of a heart attack after William leaves for College. When William finds this out, he shoots himself, leaving a note saying, 'Forgive me, but I had to let her know.' He could not bear to live without her and rumor had it that they were never apart for more than a few hours.
On 10 May 1987, Love Song, a two-part Masterpiece Theater presentation, was produced based on the story, with Michael Kitchen as William and Diana Hardcastle as Phillippa. The play was produced by Richard Bennett.
The Hungarian Professor
After the revolution, the writer meets a professor in Hungary who knows more about England than the writer himself, who hails from London. The professor's interest in London touches the writer; he realizes that the professor died without achieving his dream to visit England.
The Luncheon |
460_12 | A writer meets Susan at a literary party. He remembers a luncheon date with her when he was struggling to make ends meet. Susan was a chatty type who invited him to lunch, which cost him his entire savings account fortune. He attended the lunch as he believed Susan's husband was a popular producer but she kept this fact from him till the very end, when she confessed that she had divorced him and was married to the owner of the very restaurant where the writer had spent all of his money.
"The Luncheon" was later made into an episode of the TV series ''Tales of the Unexpected".
References
Jeffrey Archer's official website
Archer, Jeffrey: A Quiver Full of Arrows
Short story collections by Jeffrey Archer
1980 short story collections
Hodder & Stoughton books |
461_0 | Manchuria is a region in East Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, "Manchuria" can refer either to a region falling entirely within present-day China, or to a larger region today divided between Northeast China and the Russian Far East. To differentiate between the two parts following the latter definition, the Russian part is also known as Outer Manchuria, while the Chinese part is known as Inner Manchuria.
Manchuria is the homeland of the Manchu people. "Manchu" is a name introduced by Khan Hong Taiji of the Later Jin in 1636 for the Jurchen people, a Tungusic people. The Manchus took power in 17th-century China, establishing the Qing dynasty that lasted until 1912.
The population grew from about 1 million in 1750 to 5 million in 1850 and to 14 million in 1900, largely because of the immigration of Chinese farmers. |
461_1 | Lying at the juncture of the Chinese, Japanese and Russian spheres of influence, Manchuria has been a hotbed of conflict since the late-19th century. The Russian Empire established control over the northern part of Manchuria in 1860 (Beijing Treaty); it built (1897-1902) the Chinese Eastern Railway to consolidate its control. Disputes over Manchuria and Korea led to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. The Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931, setting up the puppet state of Manchukuo which became a centerpiece of the fast-growing Empire of Japan. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945 led to the rapid collapse of Japanese rule, and the Soviets restored the region of Inner Manchuria to Chinese rule: Manchuria served as a base of operations for the Mao Zedong's People's Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War, which led to the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. In the Korean War of 1950-1953, Chinese forces used Manchuria as a base to assist North Korea against |
461_2 | the United Nations Command forces. During the Sino–Soviet split Manchuria became a matter of contention, escalating to the Sino–Soviet border conflict in 1969. The Sino-Russian border dispute was resolved diplomatically only in 2004. |
461_3 | In recent years scholars have studied 20th-century Manchuria extensively, while paying less attention to the earlier period.
Prehistory
Neolithic sites located in the region of Manchuria are represented by the Xinglongwa culture, Xinle culture and Hongshan culture.
Early history
Antiquity to Tang dynasty
At various times in the history, Han dynasty, Cao Wei dynasty, Western Jin dynasty, Tang dynasty and some other minor kingdoms of China had established control in parts of Manchuria. Various kingdoms of proto-Korean existed in central-southern Manchuria, such as Gojoseon, Buyeo, Goguryeo.
Manchuria was the homeland of several Tungusic tribes, including the Ulchs and Nani. Various ethnic groups and their respective kingdoms, including the Sushen, Donghu, Xianbei, Wuhuan, Mohe and Khitan have risen to power in Manchuria.
Balhae |
461_4 | From 698 to 926, the kingdom of Balhae occupied Manchuria, northern Korean peninsula and Primorsky Krai. Balhae was composed predominantly of Goguryeo language and Tungusic-speaking peoples, and was an early feudal medieval state of Eastern Asia, which developed its industry, agriculture, animal husbandry, and had its own cultural traditions and art. People of Balhae maintained political, economic and cultural contacts with the Chinese Tang dynasty, as well as Japan.
Primorsky Krai settled at this moment by Northern Mohe tribes were incorporated to Balhae Kingdom under King Seon's reign (818–830) and put Balhae territory at its height. After subduing the Yulou Mohe (Hangul: Hanja/Hanzi: pinyin: ) first and the Yuexi Mohe (Hangul: Hanja/Hanzi: pinyin: ) thereafter, King Seon administrated their territories by creating four prefectures : Solbin Prefecture, Jeongli Prefecture, Anbyeon Prefecture and Anwon Prefecture.
Liao and Jin |
461_5 | With the Song dynasty to the south, the Khitan people of Western Manchuria, who probably spoke a language related to the Mongolic languages, created the Liao dynasty in Inner and Outer Mongolia and conquered the region of Manchuria, and went on to control the adjacent part of the Sixteen Prefectures in Northern China as well. |
461_6 | In the early 12th century the Tungusic Jurchen people (the ancestors of the later Manchu people) originally lived in the forests in the eastern borderlands of the Liao Empire, and were Liao's tributaries, overthrew the Liao and formed the Jin dynasty (1115–1234). They went on to control parts of Northern China and Mongolia after a series of successful military campaigns. Most of the surviving Khitan either assimilated into the bulk of the Han Chinese and Jurchen population, or moved to Central Asia. However, according to DNA tests conducted by Liu Fengzhu of the Nationalities Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Daur people, still living in northern Manchuria (northeast China 东北), are also descendants of the Khitans. |
461_7 | The first Jin capital, Shangjing, located on the Ashi River within modern Harbin, was originally not much more than the city of tents, but in 1124 the second Jin emperor Wuqimai starting a major construction project, having his Chinese chief architect, Lu Yanlun, build a new city at this site, emulating, on a smaller scale, the Northern Song capital Bianjing (Kaifeng). When Bianjing fell to Jin troops in 1127, thousands of captured Song aristocrats (including the two Song emperors), scholars, craftsmen and entertainers, along with the treasures of the Song capital, were all taken to Shangjing (the Upper Capital) by the winners. |
461_8 | Although the Jurchen ruler Wanyan Liang, spurred on by his aspirations to become the ruler of all China, moved the Jin capital from Shangjing to Yanjing (now Beijing) in 1153, and had the Shangjing palaces destroyed in 1157, the city regained a degree of significance under Wanyan Liang's successor, Emperor Shizong, who enjoyed visiting the region to get in touch with his Jurchen roots.
The capital of the Jin, Zhongdu, was captured by the Mongols in 1215 at the Battle of Zhongdu. The Jin then moved their capital to Kaifeng, which fell to Mongols in 1233. In 1234, the Jin dynasty collapsed after the siege of Caizhou. The last emperor of the Jin, Emperor Mo, was killed while fighting the Mongols who had breached the walls of the city. Days earlier, his predecessor, Emperor Aizong, committed suicide because he was unable to escape the besieged city.
Mongols and the Yuan dynasty |
461_9 | In 1211, after the conquest of Western Xia, Genghis Khan mobilized an army to conquer the Jin dynasty. His general Jebe and brother Qasar were ordered to reduce the Jurchen cities in Manchuria. They successfully destroyed the Jin forts there. The Khitans under Yelü Liuge declared their allegiance to Genghis Khan and established nominally autonomous state in Manchuria in 1213. However, the Jin forces dispatched a punitive expedition against them. Jebe went there again and the Mongols pushed out the Jins. |
461_10 | The Jin general, Puxian Wannu, rebelled against the Jin dynasty and founded the kingdom of Eastern Xia in Dongjing (Liaoyang) in 1215. He assumed the title Tianwang (; lit. Heavenly King) and the era name Tiantai (). Puxian Wannu allied with the Mongols in order to secure his position. However, he revolted in 1222 after that and fled to an island while the Mongol army invaded Liaoxi, Liaodong, and Khorazm. As a result of an internal strife among the Khitans, they failed to accept Yelü Liuge's rule and revolted against the Mongol Empire. Fearing of the Mongol pressure, those Khitans fled to Goryeo without permission. But they were defeated by the Mongol-Korean alliance. Genghis Khan (1206–1227) gave his brothers and Muqali Chinese districts in Manchuria. |
461_11 | Ögedei Khan's son Güyük crushed the Eastern Xia dynasty in 1233, pacifying southern Manchuria. Some time after 1234 Ögedei also subdued the Water Tatars in northern part of the region and began to receive falcons, harems and furs as taxation. The Mongols suppressed the Water Tatar rebellion in 1237. In Manchuria and Siberia, the Mongols used dogsled relays for their yam. The capital city Karakorum directly controlled Manchuria until the 1260s.
During the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), established by Kublai Khan by renaming his empire to "Great Yuan" in 1271, Manchuria was administered under the Liaoyang province. Descendants of Genghis Khan's brothers such as Belgutei and Hasar ruled the area under the Great Khans. The Mongols eagerly adopted new artillery and technologies. The world's earliest known firearm is the Heilongjiang hand cannon, dated 1288, which was found in Mongol-held Manchuria. |
461_12 | After the expulsion of the Mongols from China, the Jurchen clans remained loyal to Toghan Temür, the last Yuan emperor. In 1375, Naghachu, a Mongol commander of the Mongolia-based Northern Yuan dynasty in Liaoyang province invaded Liaodong with aims of restoring the Mongols to power. Although he continued to hold southern Manchuria, Naghachu finally surrendered to the Ming dynasty in 1387. In order to protect the northern border areas the Ming decided to "pacify" the Jurchens in order to deal with its problems with Yuan remnants along its northern border. The Ming solidified control only under Yongle Emperor (1402–1424).
Ming dynasty |
461_13 | The Ming dynasty took control of Liaoning in 1371, just three years after the expulsion of the Mongols from Beijing. During the reign of the Yongle Emperor in the early 15th century, efforts were made to expand Chinese control throughout entire Manchuria by establishing the Nurgan Regional Military Commission. Mighty river fleets were built in Jilin City, and sailed several times between 1409 and ca. 1432, commanded by the eunuch Yishiha down the Songhua and the Amur all the way to the mouth of the Amur, getting the chieftains of the local tribes to swear allegiance to the Ming rulers. |
461_14 | Soon after the death of the Yongle Emperor the expansion policy of the Ming was replaced with that of retrenchment in southern Manchuria (Liaodong). Around 1442, a defence wall was constructed to defend the northwestern frontier of Liaodong from a possible threat from the Jurched-Mongol Oriyanghan. In 1467–68 the wall was expanded to protect the region from the northeast as well, against attacks from Jianzhou Jurchens. Although similar in purpose to the Great Wall of China, this "Liaodong Wall" was of a simpler design. While stones and tiles were used in some parts, most of the wall was in fact simply an earthen dike with moats on both sides.
Chinese cultural and religious influence such as Chinese New Year, the "Chinese god", Chinese motifs like the dragon, spirals, scrolls, and material goods like agriculture, husbandry, heating, iron cooking pots, silk, and cotton spread among the Amur natives like the Udeghes, Ulchis, and Nanais. |
461_15 | Starting in the 1580s, a Jianzhou Jurchens chieftain Nurhaci (1558–1626), originally based in the Hurha River valley northeast of the Ming Liaodong Wall, started to unify Jurchen tribes of the region. Over the next several decades, the Jurchen (later to be called Manchu), took control over most of Manchuria, the cities of the Ming Liaodong falling to the Jurchen one after another. In 1616, Nurhaci declared himself a khan, and founded the Later Jin dynasty (which his successors renamed in 1636 to Qing dynasty).
Qing dynasty
The process of unification of the Jurchen people completed by Nurhaci was followed by his son's, Hong Taiji, energetic expansion into Outer Manchuria. The conquest of the Amur basin people was completed after the defeat of the Evenk chief Bombogor, in 1640. |
461_16 | In 1644, the Manchus took Beijing, overthrowing the Ming dynasty and soon established the Qing dynasty rule (1644–1912) over all of China. The Manchus ruled all of China, but they treated their homeland of Manchuria to a special status and ruled it separately. The "Banner" system that in China involved military units originated in Manchuria and was used as a form of government.
During the Qing dynasty, the area of Manchuria was known as the "three eastern provinces" (東三省, dong san sheng) since 1683 when Jilin and Heilongjiang were separated even though it was not until 1907 that they were turned into actual provinces. The area of Manchuria was then converted into three provinces by the late Qing government in 1907. |
461_17 | For decades the Manchu rulers tried to prevent large-scale immigration of Han Chinese, but they failed and the southern parts developed agricultural and social patterns similar to those of North China. Manchuria's population grew from about 1 million in 1750 to 5 million in 1850 and 14 million in 1900, largely because of the immigration of Chinese farmers. The Manchus became a small element in their homeland, although they retained political control until 1900. |
461_18 | The region was separated from China proper by the Inner Willow Palisade, a ditch and embankment planted with willows intended to restrict the movement of the Han Chinese into Manchuria during the Qing dynasty, as the area was off-limits to the Han until the Qing started colonizing the area with them later on in the dynasty's rule. This movement of the Han Chinese to Manchuria is called Chuang Guandong. The Manchu area was still separated from modern-day Inner Mongolia by the Outer Willow Palisade, which kept the Manchu and the Mongols separate. |
461_19 | However, the Qing rule saw a massive increase of Han Chinese settlement, both legal and illegal, in Manchuria. As Manchu landlords needed the Han peasants to rent their land and grow grain, most Han migrants were not evicted. During the 18th century, Han peasants farmed 500,000 hectares of privately owned land in Manchuria and 203,583 hectares of lands which were part of courier stations, noble estates, and banner lands, in garrisons and towns in Manchuria the Han Chinese made up 80% of the population. Han farmers were resettled from north China by the Qing to the area along the Liao River in order to restore the land to cultivation. |
461_20 | To the north, the boundary with Russian Siberia was fixed by the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) as running along the watershed of the Stanovoy Mountains. South of the Stanovoy Mountains, the basin of the Amur and its tributaries belonged to the Qing Empire. North of the Stanovoy Mountains, the Uda Valley and Siberia belonged to the Russian Empire. In 1858, a weakening Qing Empire was forced to cede Manchuria north of the Amur to Russia under the Treaty of Aigun; however, Qing subjects were allowed to continue to reside, under the Qing authority, in a small region on the now-Russian side of the river, known as the Sixty-Four Villages East of the River. |
461_21 | In 1860, at the Convention of Peking, the Russians managed to annex a further large slice of Manchuria, east of the Ussuri River. As a result, Manchuria was divided into a Russian half known as "Outer Manchuria", and a remaining Chinese half known as "Inner Manchuria". In modern literature, "Manchuria" usually refers to Inner (Chinese) Manchuria. (cf. Inner and Outer Mongolia). As a result of the Treaties of Aigun and Peking, China lost access to the Sea of Japan. The Qing government began to actively encourage Han Chinese citizens to move into Manchuria since then. |
461_22 | The Manza War in 1868 was the first attempt by Russia to expel Chinese from territory it controlled. Hostilities broke out around Vladivostok when the Russians tried to shut off gold mining operations and expel Chinese workers there. The Chinese resisted a Russian attempt to take Askold Island and in response, 2 Russian military stations and 3 Russian towns were attacked by the Chinese, and the Russians failed to oust the Chinese. However, the Russians finally managed it from them in 1892
History after 1860
By the 19th century, Manchu rule had become increasingly sinicized and, along with other borderlands of the Qing Empire such as Mongolia and Tibet, came under the influence of Japan and the European powers as the Qing dynasty grew weaker and weaker.
Russian and Japanese encroachment |
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