The minister of silly walks, the dead parrot, banter in a cheese shop - here is every silly, satirical skit, every snide insult, every saucy aside.

    However the money goes to someone he doesn't know - a man who lives in hospital and is the brother Charlie never knew he had. The two meet and so starts a surprising new life for both of them. A deeply emotional story and also a major film starring Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman.

    A fascinating portrait of an ancient nation mired in superstition, magic, and mythology as it emerges into the modern era.

    Presents the screenplay of the classic cult film by Bruce Robinson, with an introduction by the director.

    

    MYSTERY: What is the secret that lies behind its charming, ruthless, mysterious creator, Julian Morell - and why when he dies does he split the family inheritance between his family and a complete stranger? GLAMOUR: Here are the designer interiors, the jewels, pictures, cars and to-die-for couture of the rich and the super-rich - the glittering, fabulous world Julian created for himself, and the six powerful women who loved him. PASSION: A love story, poignant, sexy, tempestuous, spanning thirty years, a mother, a mistress, a wife and a daughter, but always overshadowed by. . . old sins.

    Lewis and American poet Joy Gresham. Shadowlands shows how love, and the risk of loss, transformed this great man's relationships, even with God. An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring: Arthur Hanket, Harriet Harris, Nicholas Hormann, Martin Jarvis, Christopher Neame, Kenneth Schmidt, W. Morgan Sheppard

    homicide cop in a seedy raincoat: Lt. Columbo, as portrayed by Peter Falk. 50 photos.

    Romantically attached, they continue to exchange letters through the boarding school and college years—where Andy goes on to excel at Yale and law school, while Melissa flunks out of a series of "good schools." While Andy is off at war Melissa marries, but her attachment to Andy remains strong and she continues to keep in touch as he marries, becomes a successful attorney, gets involved in politics and, eventually, is elected to the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, her marriage in tatters, Melissa dabbles in art and gigolos, drinks more than she should, and becomes estranged from her children. Eventually she and Andy do become involved in a brief affair, but it is really too late for both of them. However Andy's last letter, written to her mother after Melissa's untimely death, makes it eloquently clear how much they really meant, and gave to, each other over the years—physically apart, perhaps, but spiritually as close as only true lovers can be.

    As a blizzard rages outside, a lonely figure, Henry Harry, lies sleeping under a heap of blankets. Suddenly, he is awakened by the insistent knocking of an unexpected visitor who turns out to be Rosannah DeLuce, a distraught young woman who has fled all the way from Arizona to escape her impending marriage, and who bursts into the cabin dressed in full bridal regalia. Exhausted, she throws herself on Henry's mercy, but after sleeping for two days straight, her vigor and combativeness return. Both characters, it develops, have been wounded and embittered by life, and both are refugees from so-called civilization. Thrown together in the confines of the snowbound cabin, they alternately repel and attract each other as, in theatrically vivid exchanges, they explore the pain of the past and, in time, consider the possibilities of the present. In the end their very isolation proves to be the catalyst that allows them to break through the web of old griefs and bitter feelings that beset them both and to reach out for the solace and sanctuary that only hard-won understanding, self-awareness and compassion for the plight of others can bestow.

    "In an age when the lexicon of cinema is largely visual," noted Samuel G. Freedman in the New York Times Magazine, "Foote writes films. He stresses dialogue and character development rather than spectacle or even traditional narrative."Each of the three screenplays sprang from a different origin. One was adapted from the novel by Harper Lee, who later wrote, "If the integrity of a film adaptation is measured by the degree to which the novelist's intent is preserved, Mr. Foote's screenplay should be studied as a classic." Tender Mercies was conceived for the screen, and The Trip to Bountiful came from Foote's own stage and television play. While each demanded solutions to different cinematic problems, all are marked by Foote's own mastery of the screenwriting form, as well as his understanding of human relationships. All three show a modern Chekhov at work, revealing the deep currents of American society through the simplest details of daily life.

    Collecting found stories as part of her ongoing “People Pieces” series, she has created a remarkable distillation of the rhythms and nuances of a specific landscape that proves common to us all. These fifty-four monologues and dialogues are statements of life from the region of the heart.“The pieces all come from people. I never sat my desk and made them up. I heard the heart of each of them somewhere. A grocery store line. A beauty shop. The emergency room. A neighbor across her clothesline to another neighbor. I am an eavesdropper and I practiced being invisible to get them.” – Jo Carson, from the Preface.JO CARSON is an author of poems, plays, short stories and essays who lives and works in Johnson City, Tennessee. She has toured internationally with Stories I Ain’t Told Nobody Yet and her play, Daytrips, has been widely produced. Ms. Carson has been a regular commentator on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”

    

    

    

    In Kill the Story, the pair expose a blackmail/shoplifting operation in one of the sororities at Amanda's trendy private high school. In Play Dead, Amanda and her friends become part of a professional theater company in order to solve an attempted murder.

    His best-known plays include The Castle, Scenes from an Execution and The Possibilities. All of his plays are emotionally highly charged, intellectually stimulating and far removed from the theatrical conventions of what he terms ‘the Establishment Theatre’. These fragments, essays, thoughts and poems on the nature of theatre likewise reject the constraints of ‘objective’ academic theatre criticism. They explore the collision (and collusion) of intellect and artistry in the creative act. This book is more than a collection of essays: it is a cultural manifesto for Barker’s own ‘Theatre of Catastrophe’.

    Peel. The Avengers' world was always full of upper-class derring-do, a place of distinctly elegant high jinks-all portrayed with tongue firmly in cheek.Now, television historian Dave Rogers has assembled into one volume the complete history of this long-running program, from the early episodes featuring Ian Hendry, through the glory days of Diana Rigg, to The New Avengers-and beyond. Drawing on extensive interviews with such Avengers cast members as Linda Thorson ("Tara King"), Patrick Newell ("Mother"), Honor Blackman ("Cathy Gale"), and, of course, Patrick Macnee-plus several of the show's writers-this volume provides:-An overview of the series-A complete, show-by-show episode guide-A comprehensive collectors' guide to Avengers memorabilia-More than 200 photographs of England's classiest crime fighters-And an introduction by Avengers producer Brian Clemens.So kick back, uncork a bottle of vintage '28, and relive the dashing adventures of England's high-class heroes!

    The Danton Case depicts the battle for power between two exceptional individuals: the corrupt sentimental idealist, Danton, and the incorruptible genius of the Revolution, Robespierre. Thermidor shows the final playing out of this drama, as Robespierre, left alone with the heroic absolutist Saint-Just, foresees the ruin of himself and his cause, and in his despair predicts that hatred, war, and capitalism will steal the Revolution and corrupt nineteenth-century man.

    This stage adaptation of Laclos' novel of decadence and corruption in pre-revolutionary France concerning the conspiracy between the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont to debauch a young girl, has now transferred to the screen.

    

    At the height of his career, he often performed in six different plays on six consecutive days. He stopped reinventing himself when he died on April 23, 1616, but, as Gary Taylor tells us in this bold, provocative, irreverent history of Shakespeare's reputation through the ages, we have been reinventing him ever since. Taylor, who sparked a worldwide controversy in 1985 by announcing his discovery of a new Shakespeare poem Shall I die?, presents a brilliantly argued, wryly humorous discussion of the ways in which society reinvents Shakespeare--and to some extent all great literature--to suit its own ends. He reveals how Shakespeare's reputation has benefited from such diverse and unpredictable factors as the dearth of new plays after the Restoration; the decline of tragedy in the eighteenth century, when, as Taylor puts it, Shakespeare was kept on the menu because he was the only serious dish [the repertoire companies] knew how to cook; the changing social status of women in the nineteenth century; England's longstanding rivalry with France, which turned Shakespeare into the great advocate of conservative British values; and the current trend in academia toward shockingly unorthodox views, which has turned Shakespeare into the great ally of radical Marxist and feminist critics. Through the centuries, critics have cited the same Shakespeare--often the very same play--as the supporter of a vast array of world views. Examining each period's method of invoking the Bard's greatness to support a series of conflicting values, Taylor questions what actually constitutes greatness. He insists on examining the criteria of each epoch on its own terms in order to demonstrate how literary criticism can often become the most telling form of social commentary. Reinventing Shakespeare offers nothing less than a major reevaluation of Shakespeare, his writing, his place in world history, and the very bases of aesthetic judgment.

    John Tigue, Ph.D., Daemen College

    

    Young children in particular will enjoy reading the stories—or having them read—both as lovely fairy tales and to help them share in the magic of a real dramatic performance.Here are the romantic arabesques of Giselle and the classical attitudes of The Sleeping Beauty. Sets, costumes, and lighting are re-created to give the true flavor of authentic productions and to approximate, as fully as possible, the experience of attending the ballet oneself.

    A collection of plays.

    Wishing to spare Freeman and tame the sword's malevolent spirit, Tiger Orchid, Freeman's wife, takes the blade to Kowloon to train with a legendary swordmaster. But she'll need to find him in Kowloon Castle, a slum so riddled with crime and destitution that it does not officially exist. But its dangers are all too real, and even a possessed sword may not be enough to stop a gun-toting criminal army bent on selling Tiger Orchid into slavery!Written by the legendary Kazuo Koike, creator of Lone Wolf and Cub, and illustrated by the incomparable Ryoichi Ikegami, Crying Freeman is adult manga at its most challenging: dark, violent, morally complex, erotically charged and regarded worldwide as one of the classics of adult graphic fiction.

    In Laughing Wild, two comic monologues evolve into a man and a woman’s shared nightmare of modern life and the isolation it creates. From her turf battles at the supermarket to the desperate clichés of self-affirmation he learns at his “per­sonality workshop,” they run the gamut of everyday life’s small brutalizations until they meet, with disastrous inevitability, at the Harmonic Convergence in Central Park.

    They share their feelings about the pain and uncertainty and the challenges posed by such illnesses as cancer, severe burns and cystic fibrosis.

    A. McKevett, author of the beloved Savannah Reid Mysteries, comes a rich, epic tale of Ireland during her darkest days. The world named the catastrophe, “The Irish Potato Famine.” The children of Éire simply called it, “The Great Hunger.“ But amid that terrible darkness a light of hope burned in a man determined to fulfill his destiny. Despite the betrayals of those dearest to his heart and the sorrows overwhelming his precious Ireland, Michael McKevett continued to carve. With scarred, bloodstained hands, he created beautiful carousel horses that swept his troubled neighbors away, if only for a few moments, into the Land of the Ever Young. But could he keep his dream and his family alive long enough for the sunlight to return? Originally published 25 years ago, this story of love, courage, and the strength of the human spirit remains McKevett’s finest work.

    Also includes: Don't You Ever Call Me Anything but Mother and The Man in the Moon.

    Vaudeville was a meeting place, an inclusive form of theatre that flourished especially in New York, where it fostered cultural exchange among the city's ethnic groups. In The Voice of the City, Mr. Snyder reconstructs the famous acts, describes the different theatres, and shows how entrepreneurs created a near monopoly over bookings, theatres, and performers. He also gives us vaudeville's decline, its audiences usurped by musical comedy, radio, and the movies. "A fascinating and highly readable social history....By exploring the place of vaudeville in the neighborhoods and in the city central theatre district, Robert Snyder brilliantly illuminates the way city culture was made and worked in the lives of people at the turn of the century."-Thomas Bender. "The most authoritative book on American vaudeville...also a remarkably good read, filled with colorful details and incisive commentary on American popular culture in the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century."-David Nasaw.

    A taut, convoluted plot and imaginative direction made the independent release a word-of-mouth hit and established the Coen brothers' reputation for originality. Actors John Getz, Frances McDormand, and Dan Hedaya appear in the story in which a woman commits adultery, and her enraged husband hires a killer for revenge. Blackmail, violence, and mistaken assumptions lead to an edgy, exhilarating climax.