Download or read book James Bridie written by Helen L. Luyben and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2016-11-11 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This critical analysis of twelve of the plays of James Bridie (1885-1951) illustrates that throughout Bridie's work there exists a philosophical continuity which can be traced through three stages of moral awareness and which when recognized goes far in defining Bridie's genius. Bridie, as the study attempts to show, was essentially a moralist, and his plays are in a special sense morality plays; thus his original use of religious myth is explored, particularly his use of the myth of the fall from innocence. Bridie's first play, The Switchback uses the myth of Adam's temptation and fall to tell the story of a Scottish physician's struggle to meet both self and social responsibilities. Four other plays, Tobias and the Angel, The Girl Who Did Not Want to Go to Kuala Lampur, Marriage Is No Joke, and The Black Eye, again deal with the Fall, this time with innocent Adams who remain oblivious of the demons tempting them to leave their particular Garden of Eden. The discussion of Tobias also introduces Bridie's use of the Prodigal Son story. The disillusionment of experienced Adams is studied in the late plays; the disillusioned Adam of the last Play, The Baikie Charivari, seems to be a modern-day Pontius Pilate. Aside from exploring the mythical content of the plays, Helen L. Luyben defends Bridie as a craftsman against accusations that he was a bungler. She maintains that the structure of the plays is not diffuse but carefully plotted, as is apparent in the conscious use of myth (supported by a metaphysical use of language) and in the common structural techniques found throughout the plays. As Bridie's morality goes beyond the limits of logic, so his structure disregards the limitations of realistic drama, demanding dramatic forms—farce and fantasy—which will encompass the illogical and portray a higher reality than the realistic form. Thus his language operates both on a literal and poetic plane. Finally, Bridie's moral affinity with Shaw and Ibsen is explored, not with the intention of tracing literal borrowing, but to clarify Bridie's philosophical and dramatic intention.

Download or read book Alastair Sim written by Mark Simpson and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2011-10-24 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alastair Sim was an enigmatic character both on and off the screen. His idiosyncratic style of acting in films such as The Belles of St Trinian's endeared him to a cinema-going audience desperate to escape the day-to-day dreariness of an invasive, bureaucratic post-war Britain. In private, he was a curiously contradictory character, prejudiced and yet tolerant, thoughtful but sometimes inconsiderate. To examine the life of this extraordinary man, this biography contains original contributions from around thirty actors and actresses, including Sir Ian McKellen and Ronnie Corbett. It is supported by extensive research, including interviews with the playwright Christopher Fry, the television producer John Howard Davies and actors who appeared on stage with Alastair as far back as the 1940s. This book also explores Alastair's life outside of films, including his marriage to Naomi Sim (whom he first met when she was twelve), his career as an elocution teacher, his extensive work on stage (including his theatrical endeavours with James Bridie), his championship of youth and his stalwart refusal to sign autographs. Alastair Sim offers a rare and fascinating insight into the life of one of Britain's most respected and best-loved actors.

Download or read book Edinburgh Festivals written by Angela Bartie and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2014-05-14 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the 'culture wars' of 1945-1970 and is the first major study of the origins and development of this leading annual arts extravaganza.

Download or read book Edinburgh Companion to Scottish Drama written by Ian Brown and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-16 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ideal guide for students and theatre-lovers alike, the Companion explores the longstanding and vibrant Scottish dramatic tradition and the important developments in Scottish dramatic writing and theatre over the last hundred years.

Download or read book The Bible and Modern British Drama written by Mary F. Brewer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-10-02 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bible and Modern British Drama: 1930 to the Present Day is the first full-length study to explore how playwrights in the modern period have adapted popular biblical stories, such as Abraham and Isaac, Moses and the Exodus from Egypt, and the life and death of Jesus, for the stage. The book offers detailed and accessible interpretations of the work of well-known dramatists such as Christopher Fry, Howard Brenton, and Steven Berkoff, alongside the work of writers whose plays have been neglected in recent criticism, such as James Bridie and Laurence Housman. The drama is analysed within the context of changes in religious belief and practice over the course of the modern period in Britain, comparing plays that approach the Bible from a traditional religious perspective with those that offer alternative viewpoints on the text, including the voices of gay, feminist, black, Jewish, and Muslim dramatists. In doing so, the author offers a broad and in-depth exploration that is grounded in current scholarship, ranging from the past to present, across boundaries of race and gender. Ideal for students, researchers, and general readers interested in understanding how the Bible has served as an important source text for British playwrights in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, The Bible and Modern British Drama shows how Bible-based drama has been influential in creating and disseminating ideas of what constitutes a "good" life, both on an individual and social level.

Download or read book Scotland s Books written by Robert Crawford and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-30 with total page 848 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Treasure Island to Trainspotting, Scotland's rich literary tradition has influenced writing across centuries and cultures far beyond its borders. Here, for the first time, is a single volume presenting the glories of fifteen centuries of Scottish literature. In Scotland's Books the much loved poet Robert Crawford tells the story of Scottish imaginative writing and its relationship to the country's history. Stretching from the medieval masterpieces of St. Columba's Iona - the earliest surviving Scottish work - to the energetic world of twenty-first-century writing by authors such as Ali Smith and James Kelman, this outstanding account traces the development of literature in Scotland and explores the cultural, linguistic and literary heritage of the nation. It includes extracts from the writing discussed to give a flavor of the original work, and its new research ranges from specially made translations of ancient poems to previously unpublished material from the Scottish Enlightenment and interviews with living writers. Informative and readable, this is the definitive single-volume guide to the marvelous legacy of Scottish literature.

Download or read book In the Front Line written by Alec Glen and published by Birlinn. This book was released on 2013-08-15 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This memoir by a Scottish doctor who was born and went on to work in Govan was found among family papers long after his death in 1972. Less an account of the author's inner life, it is a graphic narrative, by a practitioner in the hospitals and homes of a major city, of hands-on medical care during much of the twentieth century. After training as a medical student on the wards of Glasgow hospitals, at the outbreak of the First World War the young doctor joined the army and served as a medical officer for the duration. Early on he provides a shattering account of the hopeless slaughter at Gallipoli,where he survived almost certain death many times as his companions fell around him. Only 100 men survived of his battalion of 1,000. His later service in the Middle East and Mesopotamia is an astonishing tale of courage and endurance, interwoven with spells of leave, during which the Scot encountered exotic experiences undreamed of in Govan. After the war Glen became a GP in Govan, one of the poorest areas in Britain, at a time long before the National Health Service. Preventable illnesses were often a death sentence for old and young alike. The extremes of poverty and suffering he witnessed brought home to him that he was in the front line once more, but in a different kind of warfare. The Second World War brought new challenges, and a post-war transformation when the NHS was finally came into being. Glen's shrewd commentary on the birth-pangs of the new institution provides valuable insights for the ongoing debate about this most controversial of public services.

Download or read book The Doctor Dissected written by Caroline McCracken-Flesher and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-27 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A series of bizarre disappearances filled the citizens of early nineteenth-century Scotland with terror. When the perpetrators were finally apprehended in 1828, their motive roiled the nation: William Burke and William Hare had murdered for profit. The cadavers supplied a ready payout, courtesy of Dr. Robert Knox, who was desperate for anatomical subjects. Nearly two hundred years later, these scandalous murders continue to fire imagination in Scotland and beyond. From the start, the sensational events provoked artists and writers. While Sir Walter Scott resisted public comment, his correspondence gives his trenchant private opinion and shows him working busily behind the scenes and against the doctor. Many more mined the news outright. Serial novelist David Pae exploited the disturbance to lobby for religious belief in an increasingly secular world. A subsequent generation resurrected the grisly drama as fodder for the Victorian gothic-the murders figure prominently in Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Body Snatcher" and, more obliquely, in Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The twentieth century saw the specters of Burke and Hare emerge in James Bridie's play The Anatomist, Hollywood horror films, television programs like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and Frankensteinian retellings from Alasdair Gray. In this century, the story has been picked up by Smallville and Doctor Who. Recent allusions and reenactments range from the somber-in popular detective fiction by Ian Rankin-to the dark, camp comedy of Fringe Festival performances and the slapstick of John Landis's Burke and Hare. Featuring over thirty images and canvassing a wide range of media-from contemporary newspaper accounts and private correspondence to Japanese comic books and videogames-The Doctor Dissected analyzes the afterlife of this national trauma and considers its singular place in Scottish history.

Download or read book Encyclopedia of British Writers 1800 to the Present written by George Stade and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2010-05-12 with total page 593 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains alphabetically arranged entries that provide biographical and critical information on major and lesser-known nineteenth- and twentieth-century British writers, and includes articles on key schools of literature, and genres.

Download or read book Edinburgh s Festivals written by David Pollock and published by Luath Press Ltd. This book was released on 2023-08-04 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In August 1947, an émigré Austrian opera impresario launched the Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama to heal the scars of the Second World War through a celebration of the arts. At the same time, a socialist theatre group from Glasgow and other amateur companies protested their exclusion from the festival by performing anyway, inventing the concept of 'fringe' theatre. Now the annual celebration known collectively as the Edinburgh Festival is the largest arts festival in the world, incorporating events dedicated to theatre, film, art, literature, comedy, dance, jazz and even military pageantry. It has launched careers – from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in Beyond the Fringe to Phoebe Waller-Bridge with Fleabag – mirrored the political and social mood of its times, shaped the city of Edinburgh around it and welcomed a huge all-star cast, including Orson Welles, Grace Kelly, Yehudi Menuhin and Mark E Smith's The Fall and many many more. This is its story.

Download or read book Isn t All This Bloody written by Trevor Royle and published by Birlinn. This book was released on 2014-08-03 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As in the rest of Britain, the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 was met in Scotland with excitement and relief. In the field of literature too, the initial response was positive. Kailyard fiction and the Celtic Twilight were left behind as artless verses, patriotic articles and short stories flooded into print. But as the war progressed things changed and a more complex picture emerged - the patriotism and braggadocio was counterpointed by writers who saw the futility and horror of war. In this book, acclaimed military historian Trevor Royle introduces a huge range of literary material - including poetry, prose, fiction, non-fiction, letters and articles - by Scottish writers. The result is a fascinating picture which shows how war affected not only those who fought at the front, but also those at home, and how it led to profound changes - not least in the forging of the Scottish literary Renaissance and the rise of nationalism. Writers include; John Buchan, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Douglas Haig, Ian Hay, Harry Lauder, Hugh MacDiarmaid, Naomi Mitchison, Neil Munro, John Reith, Saki (H.H. Munro)

Download or read book Women in Hats written by Judy Sheehan and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2008-04-29 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a sparkling novel that calls to mind Carrie Fisher’s Postcards from the Edge, Judy Sheehan has written a story full of humor and heart, wisdom and hope, about the rich, often fraught relationship between mothers and their daughters. A successful theater director in New York, Leigh Majors has worked hard to become more than just “the daughter of the famous Bridie Hart.” But Leigh’s orderly world is turned upside down when she receives a very special birthday gift from her husband: a Broadway-ready play entitled Women in Hats . . . and her overbearing mother demands to play the starring role. Bridie ruled the red carpet during the golden age of Hollywood, but off-camera, she loved the highball (and her own way) a little too much. Now, as Bridie tries to reinsert herself into Leigh’s life, the estranged pair must work together amid a crazy cast of characters to create what could be Broadway’s next major hit, even as they unearth painful memories from their troubled past. But before the curtain rises, Leigh will discover that the biggest drama of all just may be her own life. Praise for Judy Sheehan’s . . . And Baby Makes Two “A gift from the writing gods.” –Cleveland Plain Dealer “Perceptive, moving, and often comic . . . replete with intrigue, delicious little surprises, and high emotion.” –The Christian Science Monitor “Sheehan has the magical touch. . . . A wonderfully engaging tale.” –Oklahoma Gazette www.judysheehan.com From the Trade Paperback edition.

Download or read book The National Union Catalog Pre 1956 Imprints written by and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 712 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Scottish Postbag written by George Bruce and published by The Saltire Society. This book was released on 2002 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this work, Bruce and Scott have compiled a selection of Scottish letters covering eight centuries and involving many of the great historical, literary and political figures in Scotland's past.

Download or read book Theatre of Conscience 1939 53 written by Peter Billingham and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theatres of Conscience offers an invaluable and essential insight into four touring British theatre companies whose work and contributions to post-war British theatre have largely gone unnoticed. Combining a rigorous scholarly evaluation of their work and their broadly ideological and ethical contribution to wider post-war developments in British theatre. Peter Billingham offers the reader a unique insight into four companies which, motivated by enthusiasm, principles and creative innovation, sought to take the theatre of conscience to theatre-less communities in wartime Britain and during the following decade. Contemporaries of - amongst others - Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, the Pilgrim Players, the Adelphi Players, the Compass Players and the Century Theatre represent a significant but rather overlooked phase in the development of twentieth-century British theatre.

Download or read book Josephine Tey written by Jennifer Morag Henderson and published by Sandstone Press Ltd. This book was released on 2021-11-04 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Josephine Tey was the pen-name of Elizabeth MacKintosh (1896-1952). Born in Inverness, MacKintosh lived several lives: Best known as Golden Age Crime Fiction writer Tey, she was also successful novelist and playwright Gordon Daviot. During her exceptional career, she had plays on simultaneously in the West End in London and on Broadway, and even wrote for Hollywood, all from her home in the north of Scotland.Celebrating the 125th anniversary of MacKintosh's birth, this updated edition of the definitive biography includes a new preface.

Download or read book George Bernard Shaw written by T. F. Evans and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-04 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This set comprises 40 volumes covering nineteenth and twentieth century European and American authors. These volumes will be available as a complete set, mini boxed sets (by theme) or as individual volumes. This second set compliments the first 68 volume set of Critical Heritage published by Routledge in October 1995.