The name Peter Keogh may not be instantly recognisable to many people but he was married to one of the most popular British comedy actresses of the 1980s, Su Pollard. My Hi-De-High Life documents the story of how an unknown gay drifter from Australia came to live the celebrity life in London and mix with some of the most iconic stars of the time. This autobiography details the abuse in Peter's early life, his struggle to come to terms with his sexuality, different jobs, his travels, involvement with the theatre, tempestuous relationships and subsequent arrival in London, where he met and married Hi-de-Hi star Su Pollard. In this no holds barred account Peter spills the beans on his life with Su, his arrest and trial for theft, meeting Princess Diana and living the high life with well-known household names of the time. He goes on to document his subsequent divorce from Su, living in America and working with film legend Debbie Reynolds. This book is a fast-paced read about Peter's rollercoaster ride of a life that you won’t want to put down.
(Easy Piano Songbook). Play 50 of your favorite songs in the easiest of piano arrangements! Enjoy jazz standards presented simply, with lyrics. You'll find something for everyone! Songs include: As Time Goes By * Blue Moon * Here's That Rainy Day * It Had to Be You * Love Is Here to Stay * Mack the Knife * The Nearness of You * On Green Dolphin Street * Sing, Sing, Sing * Someone to Watch over Me * Sweet Georgia Brown * You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To * and more.
With its unparalleled coverage of English slang of all types (from 18th-century cant to contemporary gay slang), and its uncluttered editorial apparatus, Cassell's Dictionary of Slang was warmly received when its first edition appeared in 1998. 'Brilliant.' said Mark Lawson on BBC2's The Late Review; 'This is a terrific piece of work - learned, entertaining, funny, stimulating' said Jonathan Meades in The Evening Standard.But now the world's best single-volume dictionary of English slang is about to get even better. Jonathon Green has spent the last seven years on a vast project: to research in depth the English slang vocabulary and to hunt down and record written instances of the use of as many slang words as possible. This has entailed trawling through more than 4000 books - plus song lyrics, TV and movie scripts, and many newspapers and magazines - for relevant material. The research has thrown up some fascinating results
A comprehensive anthology bringing together more than one thousand of the best American and English song lyrics of the twentieth century; an extraordinary celebration of a unique art form and an indispensable reference work and history that celebrates one of the twentieth century’s most enduring and cherished legacies. Reading Lyrics begins with the first masters of the colloquial phrase, including George M. Cohan (“Give My Regards to Broadway”), P. G. Wodehouse (“Till the Clouds Roll By”), and Irving Berlin, whose versatility and career span the period from “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” to “Annie Get Your Gun” and beyond. The Broadway musical emerges as a distinct dramatic form in the 1920s and 1930s, its evolution propelled by a trio of lyricists—Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin, and Lorenz Hart—whose explorations of the psychological and emotional nuances of falling in and out of love have lost none of their wit and sophistication. Their songs, including “Night and Day,” “The Man I Love,” and “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” have become standards performed and recorded by generation after generation of singers. The lure of Broadway and Hollywood and the performing genius of such artists as Al Jolson, Fred Astaire, Ethel Waters, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, and Ethel Merman inspired a remarkable array of talented writers, including Dorothy Fields (“A Fine Romance,” “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love”), Frank Loesser (“Guys and Dolls”), Oscar Hammerstein II (from the groundbreaking “Show Boat” of 1927 through his extraordinary collaboration with Richard Rodgers), Johnny Mercer, Yip Harburg, Andy Razaf, Noël Coward, and Stephen Sondheim. Reading Lyrics also celebrates the work of dozens of superb craftsmen whose songs remain known, but who today are themselves less known—writers like Haven Gillespie (whose “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” may be the most widely recorded song of its era); Herman Hupfeld (not only the composer/lyricist of “As Time Goes By” but also of “Are You Makin’ Any Money?” and “When Yuba Plays the Rumba on the Tuba”); the great light versifier Ogden Nash (“Speak Low,” “I’m a Stranger Here Myself,” and, yes, “The Sea-Gull and the Ea-Gull”); Don Raye (“Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” “Mister Five by Five,” and, of course, “Milkman, Keep Those Bottles Quiet”); Bobby Troup (“Route 66”); Billy Strayhorn (not only for the omnipresent “Lush Life” but for “Something to Live For” and “A Lonely Coed”); Peggy Lee (not only a superb singer but also an original and appealing lyricist); and the unique Dave Frishberg (“I’m Hip,” “Peel Me a Grape,” “Van Lingo Mungo”). The lyricists are presented chronologically, each introduced by a succinct biography and the incisive commentary of Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball.
Offers an analysis of the four collaborative sitcoms of Jimmy Perry and David Croft, 'Dad's Army', 'It Ain't half Hot, Mum!', 'Hi-de-Hi!' and 'You Rang M'Lord?'. Considers the themes and ideas that run through the series in terms of their representation of class and gender, and in terms of other sitcoms and cultures which produced them.
