Search results for ""author michael chaplin""

The magnificent story of a writer’s lifelong obsession with his city and its football club. When 5-year-old Michael Chaplin landed in a strange city of ships in the late 1950s, he looked in vain for something that would anchor him to it, make him feel at home. Then, one Saturday afternoon, it came: the roar of a crowd, and a football team to support. Young Michael became an avid Newcastle United fan, and has remained one–if sometimes disenchanted–for over sixty years. In this football memoir with a difference, the celebrated playwright and screenwriter tells the story of his six-decade love affair with the club, each chapter recreating an iconic Newcastle match: the players who graced the game, the managers in the dug-out, and the backdrop outside the stadium–both the changing face of Newcastle, and the ups and downs of Michael’s own life and career. This vivid, thoughtful and entertaining book is an absolute must-read for all Newcastle United supporters, and indeed–given that the club is often described as everyone’s second favourite–for football fans everywhere…

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The magnificent story of a writer’s lifelong obsession with his city and its football club. When 5-year-old Michael Chaplin landed in a strange city of ships in the late 1950s, he looked in vain for something that would anchor him to it, make him feel at home. Then, one Saturday afternoon, it came: the roar of a crowd, and a football team to support. Young Michael became an avid Newcastle United fan, and has remained one–if sometimes disenchanted–for over sixty years. In this football memoir with a difference, the celebrated playwright and screenwriter tells the story of his six-decade love affair with the club, each chapter recreating an iconic Newcastle match: the players who graced the game, the managers in the dug-out, and the backdrop outside the stadium–both the changing face of Newcastle, and the ups and downs of Michael’s own life and career. This vivid, thoughtful and entertaining book is an absolute must-read for all Newcastle United supporters, and indeed–given that the club is often described as everyone’s second favourite–for football fans everywhere…

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Charlie Chaplin grew up in and around the music hall. His parents, aunt and their friends all earned their precarious livings on the stage and Chaplin himself started out his career touring music halls with a dance troupe. His experiences of the culture of the music hall were a major influence, shaping his style of acting and the films he made, most famously Limelight, which tells the story of a failing variety performer and which evoked painful memories of his own past. Chaplin was horrified to see how performers' lives were ruined when their audience turned against them and he was relieved to exchange the stresses of live performance for screen comedy. Barry Anthony here tells the story of the lives and careers of Chaplin's family and their music-hall circle - from 'dashing' Eva Lester to the great Fred Karno and from Chaplin's parents Hannah Hill and Charles Chaplin to 'The Great Calvero' himself. He reveals the difficult and often-tragic lives of London's variety community in the late-Victorian and Edwardian years, a time of great change in the music hall and entertainment scene, and in doing so sheds important new light on the inspiration behind Chaplin's genius, providing a fascinatingly fresh perspective on this popular cultural icon of the twentieth century.

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Chris Mullin’s witty and irreverent take on contemporary politics adapted for the stage, reflecting three worlds during a time of crisis and change – the febrile political village of Westminster, the flash points of Africa which he toured as a minister, and the fragile community he served as an MP.

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