With a cast of thousands, including Peter Cook, Ken Dodd, Dusty Springfield, Spike Milligan, Rolf Harris, Bruce Forsyth, and Reeves and Mortimer, this book reveals a world of comedians and cavorters, dancing girls, and crooners. From the early days of vaudeville, via the golden age of radio, live television spectaculars, the rise of the chat show, and alternative comedy, Louis Barfe pulls back the curtain of variety to reveal the world of light entertainment in all its glory.

In his trademark style, Richard Mabey weaves together science, art and memoirs (including his own) to show the weather's impact on our culture and national psyche. He rambles through the myths of Golden Summers and our persistent state of denial about the winter; the Impressionists' love affair with London smog, seasonal affective disorder (SAD - do we all get it?) and the mysteries of storm migraines; herrings falling like hail in Norfolk and Saharan dust reddening south-coast cars; moonbows, dog-suns, fog-mirages and Constable's clouds; the fact that English has more words for rain than Inuit has for snow; the curious eccentricity of country clothing and the mathematical behaviour of umbrella sales. We should never apologise for our obsession with the weather. It is one of the most profound influences on the way we live, and something we all experience in common. No wonder it's the natural subject for a greeting between total strangers: 'Turned out nice again.'

A sweeping history of how ecological challenges have shaped English society over the last sixty years. England’s Green explores how environmental concerns have shaped and reflected English national identity since the 1960s. From agriculture to leisure, climate change, folklore, archaeology, and religion, David Matless shows how national environmental debates connect to the local, regional, global, and postcolonial worlds. Moving across a breadth of material including government policy, popular music, ecological polemic, and television comedy, England’s Green shows the richness and complexity of English environmental culture. Along the way, Matless tracks how today’s debates over climate and nature, land, and culture, have been molded by events over the past sixty years.

They were Music Hall aristocracy. George Formby senior was the first Northern comedian to gain a national reputation. The great Marie Lloyd maintained there were only two performers she would turn out to see - and he was one of them.

Hollywood's Golden Era? I'd pick the period from 1939 through 1960. Here are 144 classic movies from this Golden Age of the Cinema, ranging (alphabetically) from "The Admiral Was a Lady" to "You Were Never Lovelier". Other films discussed in comprehensive detail (and with full background and release information) in this book include "The Adventures of Mark Twain", "The Chase", "Daisy Kenyon", "The Ghost of Frankenstein", "Humoresque", "In Old California", "Joan of Paris", "Letter from an Unknown Woman", "Magic Town", "Nightmare Alley", The Paradine Case", "Roughly Speaking", "The Scarlet Claw", "Where the Sidewalk Ends" and "You'll Never Get Rich".

Ey up, it's not only footie, pints and pies that are better up north - the humour also takes some beating. Whether it's comics like Peter Kay, Les Dawson and Victoria Wood, telly shows like Corrie and Open All Hours, or writers like Alan Bennett and Keith Waterhouse, the funniest and best-loved invariably hail from the land of perpetual drizzle (another thing they do better). This grand collection of northern wit is packed with these favourites and more. Likely lads and lippy lasses cast a wry eye on subjects close to the heart of every northerner, including - brass, grub, graft, courting, cricket, tittle-tattle and t'weather - adding up to a feast of northern hilarity.

A catch phrase is a well-known, frequently-used phrase or saying that has `caught on' or become popular over along period of time. It is often witty or philosophical and this Dictionary gathers together over 7,000 such phrases.

This first full-length study of modern British nature writing is timely and invaluable for literary scholarship in the environmental crisis.

In the first major academic work to examine British variety theatre, Double provides a detailed history of this art form and analyses its performance dynamics and techniques. Encompassing singers, comedians, dancers, magicians, ventriloquists and diverse speciality acts, this vibrant book draws on a series of new interviews with variety veterans.