Entertainment Category
The Olivier Awards
Sir Laurence Olivier (1907-89) was born in Surrey and became a highly revered, indeed legendary, Shakespearean actor…
Pub quiz nights
In the 1970s, pubs were seeing their businesses decline due to people staying in to watch television…
Queen
The rock band Queen was formed by lead vocalist extraordinaire, pianist and guitarist Freddie Mercury (1946-91), lead…
Pink Floyd
Active from 1965 to 1995, Pink Floyd set the standard for pyrotechnics at rock concerts and were…
Harry Potter
The ‘Harry Potter‘ series of seven fantasy novels was written by Joanne Rowling (pen name J.K. Rowling)…
The Who
The Who have two surviving members of the original band ~ singer Roger Daltrey (1944-) and songwriter-guitarist…
Fanny Cradock, TV chef
Fanny Cradock (1909-94) was not quite the first TV chef to grace British screens, but she could…
Dire Straits
To be ‘in dire straits’ means to be in a poor state, but many people would instead…
Sir Tom Jones
Sir Tom Jones, OBE, was born into a mining family in Pontypridd, South Wales, in 1940 as…
Monty Python’s Flying Circus
Two graduates from Oxford (Michael Palin and Terry Jones), three from Cambridge (John Cleese, Graham Chapman and…
Eurovision
The Eurovision Song Contest was first staged by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) in 1956 in Switzerland.…
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) was an award-winning star of silent films in his trademark character, ‘the tramp’.…