Bob the Brit

Archive for the ‘Entertainment’ Category

Piccadilly – gives its name to a major thoughfare, a major traffic intersection (or ‘circus’) and an area in London’s West End.

Piccadilly Circus lies at the eastern end of Piccadilly – a two mile thoroughfare that runs east/west to Hyde Park Corner – and forms the junction of Piccadilly, Regent Street, Shaftesbury Avenue and Coventry Street – that leads in turn to Leicester Square and Haymarket.

As such a busy intersection it has become part of the language ‘It’s like Piccadilly Circus in here today” much as Grand Central Station has in the US.

The two main features of Piccadilly Circus are the statue of ‘Eros’ and the vast illuminated signs that surround the circus.

Other landmarks include Lillywhites – a major Sporting goods store and the former Tower Records, empty at the time of writing.

Piccadilly itself takes its name from the flamboyant ‘piccadil’ collars that were the source of the fortune of a tailor – Robert Baker – who named his London home ‘Pickadil House’. By the mid 18th century the whole area was known as Piccadilly and Piccadilly Circus – to link to John Nash’s Regent Street  – was created in the early 19th century.

EROS

The statue of Eros (actually his twin brother Anteros) was originally the centrepiece of the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain, which stood in the centre of the circus – a circular traffic island or ’roundabout’ as we Brits call them. The road layout was changed after the second world war and the statue (without its supporting fountain) was moved to its current position. The original positioning of the statue had Eros’ bow pointing to the Earl of Shaftesbury’s country seat in Dorset, while the arrow pointed to Shaftesbury Avenue.

The Earl of Shaftesbury himself (actually the 7th Earl) lived from 1801-1885; he was a politician for many years and a leading philanthropist – particularly in the fields of Social and Work-Place reform.

The statue, by Albert Gilbert , caused a scandal when it was first unveiled, depicting a winged, naked male archer. Victorian morals at the time suggested that a depiction of a naked male was inappropriate in such a public venue. The statue is unusually cast in Aluminium and while this was innovative when the statue was unveiled in 1892, pollution has meant that the statue has needed extensive restoration over the years.

‘Eros’ remains one of London’s best known landmarks and is still a popular meeting place.

ILLUMINATED SIGNS

Almost every film that needs to establish a location as being in London, particularly at night, features footage of the ‘neon’ signs in Piccadilly Circus. The first illuminated signs appeared at the start of the 20th Century, and many – such as the Coca Cola sign have been in place for many years – since 1955 in the case of the Coke sign, although the lighting technologies have changed over the years. Many of the signs these days are complex LED panel displays.

The signs have been extinguished on a couple of occasions – on the death of wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill in 1965 and the death of Princess Diana in 1997.

FURTHER AFIELD

Slightly south of Piccadilly, and running parallel, is Jermyn Street, long associated with fashion accessories for gentlemen, particularly the makers of fine shirts.

 The almost legendary companies of Turnbull and Asser (estd . 1885) and Hilditch and Key (estd. 1899) make bespoke shirts from their Jermyn Street stores.  Although a word of warning – the building numbering system in Jermyn Street is eccentric, to say the least.

Further west along Piccadilly, Fortnum and Mason and the Ritz Hotel lie on the south side, the Burlington Arcade and Royal Academy of Arts on the north side – both near Green Park underground station. While at the far west end of Piccadilly the original Hard Rock Cafe (opened June 1971) occupies the site of a former Rolls Royce showroom on the north side.

Some things, while not necessarily ‘tourist traps’ exist purely for the tourist industry. How many New Yorkers visit the top of the Empire State Building?

The Mousetrap is a case in point; a murder mystery by Dame Agatha Christie, set in a country house with the usual selection of suspicious characters. It was first staged in London at the New Ambassadors theater in May 1952 where it ran until until 1974 when it transferred to the St Martin’s theatre.

This constitutes a ‘first run’ of nearly sixty years and nearly 25,000 performances and while thousands of actors and actresses have performed, only one has been heard in every performance – the recorded voice of Dereck Guyler.

Despite its longevity, I have yet to meet a single Brit who has seen it, or has any intention of seeing it.

As such it exists, seemingly in perpetuity, purely as a tourist attraction. But there you go.

While the Irish celebrate St Patrick’s day on March 17th, and Americans celebrate their independence on July 4th, the English have their own patron saint, and his day is celebrated on April 23rd.

In recent years the flag of Saint George (a red cross on a white ground) has been hijacked by extreme nationalists, it was recently announced by Boris Johnson – the Mayor of London – that London would celebrate St George’s day in 2009.

St. George is believed to have been born in Cappadocia (Eastern Turkey) in 270 AD, his parents were Christian and remained Christian, despite becoming a renowned Roman soldier serving a pagan emperor – Diocletian.

When the pagan Emperor Diocletian started persecuting Christians, St. George pleaded with the Emperor to spare their lives. The Emperor ignored these pleas and actually tortured St. George in an attempt to make him deny his Christian faith.

St George was beheaded near Lydda in Palestine on 23rd April 303 AD his faith undenied.

The most famous legend about St George is that he defeated a dragon in Libya that was partial to devouring maidens. This legend was concocted in the middle ages and, you might be surprised to learn,  has no foundation in fact – not only had St George been dead for nine hundred years, but there are no records of dragons in Libya at that time.

As well as being the patron saint of England, St George is also the patron saint of Aragon, Catalonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal and Prague, amongst others.

There’s another reason for Brit’s to celebrate April 23rd, it marks William Shakespeare’s birthday (1564) and also the day on which he died (1616).

 

The ‘Carry On’ films were a series of 29 comedy films made between 1959 and 1979, but the ‘golden age’ is generally considered to be the mid to late sixties.

Each film was based on a simple theme ‘Carry on Doctor’, ‘Carry on Cowboy’, ‘Carry on Teacher’ and so on that formed the framework for a series of comic mishaps.

The films were largely based on innuendo, and smutty ‘school boy’ humour, and fell out of favour in the more politically correct climate of the 1980′s but recently they have been recognised as minor classics in their own way.

They were generally made on a minimal budget (and it showed) and included an ensemble of performers who, while virtually unknown internationally, became household names in Britain.

These included:

·         Sid James

·         Kenneth Williams

·         Barbara Windsor

·         Charles Hawtrey

·         Bernard Bresslaw

·         Kenneth Connor

·         Hattie Jacques

Other British comedy ‘stars’ featured in the series, often appearing several times but the core ‘Carry On’ team continued throughout, providing a familiar format that was comfortable with the viewing public.  

A couple of ‘Carry On’ films – “Carry On – Don’t Lose Your Head” and “Carry On – Follow That Camel”  were made in the mid sixties with a view to breaking into the American market, parachuting Phil Silvers into a lead role. That the transatlantic experiment ceased after two films is indicative that they failed in their objective.

A further carry on film ‘Carry On Columbus’ was made in 1992 to cash in on the 500th anniversary of Columbus sailing, featuring younger comedians. Another film ‘Carry on London’ has been in pre-production for several years, but as most of the original team are no longer with us, it’s unlikely that it will satisfy the fans of the genre.

‘Carry On Cabby’ (1963) provides an interesting insight to the Britain of the early sixties while ‘Carry On Cleo’ (1964) contains what has been voted the funniest comedy movie line ever: “Infamy! Infamy! they’ve all got it in for me!” (by Kenneth Williams as an unlikely Julius Caesar)

The BBC, also known as ‘The Beeb’ is the British Broadcasting Corporation, founded back in the 1920s. It broadcasts Radio and Television locally, nationally and globally. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House at Langham Place, just north of Oxford Circus.

 

 The BBC is funded, for the most part by an annual Licence Fee. This is compulsory and costs over a hundred and thirty pounds, while this tends to be unpopular, it ensures the BBC remains independent of outside influence from advertisers and so on, and means that Brits have some sense of ownership.

 

 

Locally it broadcasts forty local radio stations that take their name from the area they serve… ‘BBC Oxford’, ‘BBC Essex’ and so on. Whilst fairly staid they’re reliable sources of information in the event of bad weather – reporting school closures in the event of heavy snow and so on.

Nationally there are five radio stations, numbered 1 through 5, that broadcast on traditional FM frequencies with a further five broadcast through DAB Digital Radio, Digital TV and internet streaming.

The BBC’s Radio Channels are :

• Radio 1: broadcasts contemporary pop and rock music – aimed at a youth market – under 25 for the most part.
• Radio 2: aimed at the over twenty fives, broadcasts a broad spectrum of music, it’s the most popular of the stations and some of the broadcasters – such as Sir Terry Wogan – are national intuitions.
• Radio 3: classical music and high brow arts.
• Radio 4: news and current affairs.
• Radio 5 Live: News and Sports.

The BBC’s Digital Channels are:

• 1Xtra: urban music.
• Radio 5 Live Sports Extra: additional sports events coverage.
• 6 Music: less mainstream music, rock, punk and reggae, plus older concert performances from the BBC’s archives.
• Radio 7: classic comedy and drama, again culled from the BBC’s extensive sound archives.
• Asian Network: as the name suggests, a radio network aimed at Britain’s sizeable population of people of Asian extraction – the Brit equivalent of a Latino radio station in California or Florida.

The BBC broadcasts its TV stations from its ‘Televison Centre’ in Shepherds Bush, West London. It has two TV stations that broadcast on analogue terrestrial signals, with a further seven ‘digital’ channels available by ‘Freeview’ DVB Digital Broadcasting or by cable/satellite feeds.

 

BBC Television Centre

The BBC’s Television Channels are :

• BBC 1 – the mainstream channel that broadcasts BBC News, entertainment, game shows, soap operas etc.
• BBC 2 - slightly more upmarket, broadcasts more documentaries and arts programmes than BBC1.

The digital channels are :

• BBC 3 – mainly youth oriented, new comedy shows and so on.
• BBC 4 – even more highbrow than BBC2 showing specialist documentaries and serious drama.
• BBC HD – broadcasting selected programmes in ‘High Definition’
• BBC News – 24 hour rolling news coverage
• BBC Parliament – dedicated politics channel
• CBBC – Children’s programmes, aimed at the over sixes.
• CBeebies – Children’s channel for the under sixes.