Jean Anouilh
Writing
Biography
Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh (23 June 1910 – 3 October 1987) was a French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1944 play Antigone, an adaptation of Sophocles' classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal Pétain's Vichy government. His plays are less experimental than those of his contemporaries, having clearly organized plot and eloquent dialogue. One of France's most prolific writers after World War II, much of Anouilh's work deals with themes of maintaining integrity in a world of moral compromise. Anouilh was born in Cérisole, a small village on the outskirts of Bordeaux, and had Basque ancestry. His father, François Anouilh, was a tailor, and Anouilh maintained that he inherited from him a pride in conscientious craftmanship. He may owe his artistic bent to his mother, Marie-Magdeleine, a violinist who supplemented the family's meager income by playing summer seasons in the casino orchestra in the nearby seaside resort of Arcachon. Marie-Magdeleine worked the night shifts in the music-hall orchestras and sometimes accompanied stage presentations, affording Anouilh ample opportunity to absorb the dramatic performances from backstage. He often attended rehearsals and solicited the resident authors to let him read scripts until bedtime. He first tried his hand at playwriting here, at the age of 12, though his earliest works do not survive. In 1918 the family moved to Paris where the young Anouilh received his secondary education at the Lycée Chaptal. Jean-Louis Barrault, later a major French director, was a pupil there at the same time and recalls Anouilh as an intense, rather dandified figure who hardly noticed a boy some two years younger than himself. He earned acceptance into the law school at the Sorbonne but, unable to support himself financially, he left after just 18 months to seek work as a copywriter at the advertising agency Publicité Damour. He liked the work, and spoke more than once with wry approval of the lessons in the classical virtues of brevity and precision of language he learned while drafting advertising copy. ... Source: Article "Jean Anouilh" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Known For
An anthology series of television plays which aired on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured.
The Wednesday Play
ITV Playhouse is a British comedy-drama TV series that ran from 1967 to 1983, which featured contributions from playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Rhys Adrian and Alan Sharp. The series began in black and white, but was later shot in colour and was produced by various companies for the ITV network, a format that would inspire Dramarama. Actors appearing in the series included Leslie Anderson, Gwen Nelson, Ricky Alleyne, Pat Heywood, Michael Elphick, Ian Hendry, Edward Woodward, Margaret Lockwood, Jessie Matthews and Lloyd Peters.
ITV Playhouse
Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.
Theatre 625
No description available.
Midi trente
Anthology series of half hour plays produced in BBC's Television Centre's studios.
Centre Play
Thomas Becket, Henry II's longtime advisor, finds his friendship with the debauched king corroding when he is unwillingly appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury in an attempt to gain absolute loyalty from the Church.
Becket
In Imperial Russia, Anna, wife of the officer Karenin, goes to Moscow to visit her brother. On the way, she meets charming cavalry officer Vronsky, to whom she's immediately attracted. But in St. Petersburg’s high society, a relationship like this could destroy a woman’s reputation.
Anna Karenina
No description available.
Histoire du Chevalier Des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut
The life of Vincent de Paul, the 17th-century author and priest who founded two religious orders.
Monsieur Vincent
From beyond the grave, celebrated playwright Antoine d'Anthac gathers all his friends who have appeared over the years in his play 'Eurydice'. These actors watch a recording performed by a young acting company, La Compagnie de la Colombe. Do love, life, death and love after death still have any place on a theater stage? It's up to them to decide. And the surprises have only just begun...
You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet
The story of an apartment in Paris and the various people that occupy it over the years.
A Time for Loving
General Fitzhugh, an ageing Lothario has an over-active eye for a pretty woman. Despite a long and satisfying career as a seducer extraordinaire, something always seems to get in the way of his bedding the breathtakingly lovely Ghislaine, a more-than-willing town local.
Waltz of the Toreadors
In a chain reaction of romantic adventures, various people play musical beds in a remake of Max Ophul's "La Ronde."
Circle of Love
The novelist Loïc Limousin knew the turbulent past of Marie-Martine and he extracted the material for a novel from which the young girl risks paying the price. After the drama that had thrown her in prison, she met a brave boy ready to make his life with her. Will the scandal separate them?
Marie-Martine
In the 15th century, the ship carrying twins Viola and Sebastian is shipwrecked. Viola washes ashore in Illyria, believing herself to be the sole survivor. To better defend herself against the pitfalls of life, she disguises herself as a man and enters the court of Duke Orsino as a page named Cesario...
La Nuit des rois
France, July 1782. During her birthday, the beautiful young Marchioness Caroline meets the attractive soldier Gaston. It's love at first sight but Gaston does not wish to make a commitment because a military career waits for him. Caroline marries then a politician but the French Revolution bursts and Caroline has to run away to escape the guillotine. By running away she meets Gaston again who decides to help her.
Dear Caroline
A young woman named Julia brings her fiance and his mother to a village in India to meet her father and brother. Hospitality proves in short supply and things take a turn for the worse when Julia's seductive younger sister arrives.
Monsoon
At the beginning of World War I in a village in the country of La Marne, two families are against the marriage of their children. The war changes the positions.
The Mayor's Dilemma
Julien Paluch is principled in everything: in his work and in his life. The formula "genius and debauchery" is not for him. His fanatical passion for new theatrical ideas attracts a wide variety of people to him. But one day in the director's life there comes a moment when Palyush begins to doubt that he is talented, and that his actions and relationships with people were selfless, sincere, and humane.
Don't Wake Up Madam
Adaptation of Jean Anouilh's 1952 play about Joan of Arc, the young girl who led the French to victory against the English in the Hundred Years' War.