Newcastle upon Tyne

The Theatre Royal is a Grade I listed building situated on Grey Street in Newcastle upon Tyne. It was designed by local architects John and Benjamin... Green as part of Richard Grainger's grand design for the centre of Newcastle, and was opened on 20 February 1837 with a performance of The Merchant of Venice. Following a performance of William Shakespeare's play Macbeth, a huge fire destroyed the interior of the building in 1899. It had its interior redesigned by Frank Matcham and reopened on 31 December 1901. The theatre's restaurant is named after Matcham. Externally, the building is exactly as it was when it was first built. It underwent a major refurbishment and restoration in the latter part of the 1980s, reopening on 11 January 1988 with a performance of A Man For All Seasons starring Charlton Heston. The Theatre Royal went dark on 14th March 2011 due to a major restoration of the auditorium, box office, bars and restaurant. The restoration will restore the theatre to the original 1901 Frank Matcham Edwardian interior. The whole interior was stripped apart from the original plaster work which was carefully preserved but all the seats, carpets and technical equipment was removed.
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St Nicholas's Cathedral is a Church of England cathedral in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Its full title is The Cathedral Church of St Nicholas... Newcastle upon Tyne. It is the seat of the Bishop of Newcastle and is the mother church of the Diocese of Newcastle, the most northerly diocese of the Anglican Church in England, which reaches from the River Tyne as far north as Berwick-upon-Tweed and as far west as Alston in Cumbria. Newcastle Cathedral is the second tallest religious building in Newcastle and the sixth tallest structure in the city overall. The cathedral is named after St Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors and boats. It was originally a parish church, built in 1091, but this was destroyed in a fire in 1216. It was rebuilt in 1359 and became a cathedral in 1882 when the Diocese of Newcastle was created by Queen Victoria. The cathedral is notable for its unusual lantern spire, which was constructed in 1448. For hundreds of years, it was a main navigation point for ships using the River Tyne. At its base the tower measures 36 ft 9 in by 35 ft and it is 196 ft 6 in from the base to the top of the steeple.
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Jesmond Dene House is a 19th century mansion house at Jesmond Dene, Newcastle upon Tyne, England which is now a hotel. It is a Grade II listed... building. The house was built in 1822 to designs by architect John Dobson at Jesmond Dene for Thomas Emerson Headlam, a physician and Mayor of Newcastle in 1837 and 1845. In about 1857 Lord Armstrong, a wealthy industrialist, bought the property. He landscaped and developed the adjacent Jesmond Dene valley into a woodland park and garden Armstrong moved to live at Cragside and in 1871 sold the house to his business partner Andrew Noble and in 1883 donated the adjoining Jesmond Dene to the City of Newcastle upon Tyne. Noble carried out extensive alterations and extensions to the house in 1897, with the assistance of architect FW Rich, including a new west wing, a great hall and a Gothic-style porch Following the death of Noble's widow in 1927 the house was put to various uses, including a college, a civil defence establishment, a seminary and a residential school, before becoming a hotel following its restoration and refurbishment in 2005.
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The Great North Museum is a visitor attraction in Newcastle upon Tyne in North East England. It features two venues: the Great North Museum: Hancock... and the Hatton Gallery. Both the Hatton Gallery and the Hancock Museum are currently open. The £26 million Great North Museum project is a partnership between Newcastle University, Tyne & Wear Museums, Newcastle City Council, the Natural History Society of Northumbria and the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne. The Great North Museum project has been made possible with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, TyneWear Partnership, One NorthEast, the European Regional Development Fund, Newcastle University, Newcastle City Council, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Wolfson Foundation and The Northern Rock Foundation, as well as numerous other trusts and foundations. The building architects were Terry Farrell and Partners; Sir Terry Farrell is a native of Newcastle, and had previously been a student at Newcastle University. On 21 November 2008 the 'Be Part of It' campaign was launched, and it was announced that the Great North Museum: Hancock would be opening in 2009.
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Kevin Whately is an English actor. Whately is known for his starring role as Neville Hope in the British television comedy Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, his... role as Dr Jack Kerruish in the drama series Peak Practice, and as Robert "Robbie" Lewis in the crime dramas Inspector Morse and Lewis. Whately is from Humshaugh, near Hexham, Northumberland. His mother, Mary , was a teacher and his father, Richard, was a Commander in the Royal Navy. His maternal grandmother, Doris Phillips, was a professional concert singer and his great-great-grandfather, Richard Whately, was Anglican Archbishop of Dublin. The BBC documentary Who Do You Think You Are?, broadcast on 2 March 2009, also revealed that Whately is a descendant, on his paternal side, of Thomas Whately of Nonsuch Park, a leading London merchant, English politician and writer who became a director of the Bank of England, and of Major Robert Thompson, a pioneer tobacco plantation owner in Virginia who was a staunch supporter of the Parliamentarian cause at the time of the English Commonwealth.
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Timothy Malcolm Healy is an English actor. He is probably best known for playing Dennis Patterson in the television series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, and... Les/Lesley in the ITV comedy-drama series Benidorm. In 1982 he appeared in A Captain's Tale, depicting the triumph of West Auckland F.C. in the Sir Thomas Lipton Cup. During the mid-80s, Healy played Barney Bodger, the blundering handyman in the Children's ITV series Tickle on the Tum and became a great favourite with young viewers. In the early-1990s he appeared as a cockney ex-pat in the BBC1 series Boys From The Bush and played a binman in Common as Muck, a BBC TV series. In 2001 he appeared in the surreal BBC situation comedy Breeze Block, playing the head of a strange family. Healy had high hopes for the series, but was reportedly upset when it was only screened on the digital channel BBC Choice and never broadcast on BBC One or BBC Two. He starred as a folk musician in the first episode of comedy series, Phoenix Nights.
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Eric Victor Burdon is an English singer-songwriter best known as a member and vocalist of rock band The Animals, and the funk rock band War and for... his aggressive stage performance. He was ranked 57th in Rolling Stone's list - The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. Burdon was lead singer of The Animals, formed during 1962 in Newcastle, England. The original band was the Alan Price Combo which formed in 1958. They became the Animals shortly after Burdon joined the band. They combined electric blues with rock and in the USA were one of the leading bands of the British Invasion. Along with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Dave Clark Five, and The Kinks, the group introduced British music and fashion. Burdon's powerful voice can be heard in The Animals singles "The House of the Rising Sun", "Sky Pilot", "Monterey", "I'm Crying", "Boom Boom", "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", "Bring It On Home to Me", "Baby Let Me Take You Home", "It's My Life", "We Gotta Get out of This Place", "Don't Bring Me Down", and "See See Rider". By late 1966 the other original members, including keyboardist Alan Price, had left.
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Anthony David "Ant" McPartlin is one half of the English comedy and television presenting duo Ant & Dec, with the other being Declan Donnelly.... He came to prominence in the children's drama series Byker Grove and as one half of the pop music duo PJ & Duncan. Since then, Ant & Dec have had a very successful career as TV presenters, presenting programmes such as SMTV Live, Friends Like These, Pop Idol, I'm a CelebrityGet Me Out of Here!, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Britain's Got Talent, PokerFace, Push the Button, Red or Black? and Text Santa. They have also returned to acting, starring in a 2002 Tribute to The Likely Lads and the 2006 film Alien Autopsy. Ant's first appearance on television was on the children's workshop programme Why Don't You? but he rose to prominence playing PJ in the Children's BBC series Byker Grove. It was here that he first met Declan Donnelly, who was cast in the part of Duncan, and real life mirrored the programme as the two became best friends both on set and off. In the guise of "PJ & Duncan AKA", they had a number of hit records, starting with "Tonight I'm Free", a song that they had performed on the show.
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Declan Joseph Oliver "Dec" Donnelly is one half of the English acting and TV presenting duo Ant & Dec, with the other being Anthony McPartlin.... He came to prominence in the children's drama series Byker Grove and as one half of the pop music duo PJ & Duncan. Since then, Ant & Dec have had a very successful career as TV presenters, presenting programmes such as SMTV Live, Friends Like These, Pop Idol, I'm a CelebrityGet Me Out of Here!, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Britain's Got Talent, PokerFace, Push the Button Red or Black? and Text Santa. They returned to acting, starring in a 2002 Tribute to The Likely Lads and the 2006 film Alien Autopsy. Donnelly is the youngest of seven children born to Irish emigrants, Anne and the now deceased Alphonsus Donnelly . He has three brothers: Martin, Eamonn and Dermott , and three sisters: Patricia, Moyra and Camalia. His parents hailed from Draperstown, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, migrated to Newcastle, where they bought a house in 1958. Donnelly attended St Michael's Roman Catholic Primary School and St Cuthbert's High School, which he left with 8 GCSEs.
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Bryan James "Chas" Chandler was an English musician, record producer and manager of several successful music acts. Born at 35 Second Avenue, Heaton,... Newcastle-upon-Tyne, he began his career playing bass guitar in a trio with Alan Price. After vocalist Eric Burdon joined them the group was renamed The Animals and became one of the most successful R&B bands ever. Chandler's best known bass lines are the opening riffs of their 1965 hits "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" and "It's My Life". Chandler was also the most prominent of the group's backing vocalists and did occasional songwriting with Burdon. After the group split up in late 1966, Chandler became manager of Jimi Hendrix, bringing him to England and recruiting other musicians to form The Jimi Hendrix Experience. He also produced their first two albums, and was instrumental in introducing Hendrix to Eric Clapton. It was through this introduction that Hendrix got a chance to play with Clapton and Cream on stage. Chandler then went on to manage and produce the English rock band Slade for twelve years, during which time they achieved 7 number one chart hits in the U.K.
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George Leybourne a Lion comique of the British Victorian Music Hall who, for much of his career, was known by the title of one of his songs,... Champagne Charlie. Another of his songs, and one that can still be heard today, is The Flying Trapeze, or The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze. George Leybourne was born in Gateshead, however at an early age he and his family moved to live in London. Before he went on the music halls he worked as an engineer in, amongst other places, the South West of England. For his early music hall appearances in the North of England, including Liverpool and Newcastle he used the stage-name Joe Saunders a fact which, in the past, has caused much confusion as to his real name. His first documented appearance in London using his real name of George Leybourne was at the Bedford Music Hall in 1863, but it is known that he had appeared in some of the smaller East-End venues in the months before this. In 1866 with composer Alfred Lee, he wrote Champagne Charlie, premiering it in Leeds in the August of that year.
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Kevin Whately is an English actor. Whately is known for his starring role as Neville Hope in the British television comedy Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, his... role as Dr Jack Kerruish in the drama series Peak Practice, and as Robert "Robbie" Lewis in the crime dramas Inspector Morse and Lewis. Whately is from Humshaugh, near Hexham, Northumberland. His mother, Mary , was a teacher and his father, Richard, was a Commander in the Royal Navy. His maternal grandmother, Doris Phillips, was a professional concert singer and his great-great-grandfather, Richard Whately, was Anglican Archbishop of Dublin. The BBC documentary Who Do You Think You Are?, broadcast on 2 March 2009, also revealed that Whately is a descendant, on his paternal side, of Thomas Whately of Nonsuch Park, a leading London merchant, English politician and writer who became a director of the Bank of England, and of Major Robert Thompson, a pioneer tobacco plantation owner in Virginia who was a staunch supporter of the Parliamentarian cause at the time of the English Commonwealth.
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Anthony David "Ant" McPartlin is one half of the English comedy and television presenting duo Ant & Dec, with the other being Declan Donnelly.... He came to prominence in the children's drama series Byker Grove and as one half of the pop music duo PJ & Duncan. Since then, Ant & Dec have had a very successful career as TV presenters, presenting programmes such as SMTV Live, Friends Like These, Pop Idol, I'm a CelebrityGet Me Out of Here!, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Britain's Got Talent, PokerFace, Push the Button, Red or Black? and Text Santa. They have also returned to acting, starring in a 2002 Tribute to The Likely Lads and the 2006 film Alien Autopsy. Ant's first appearance on television was on the children's workshop programme Why Don't You? but he rose to prominence playing PJ in the Children's BBC series Byker Grove. It was here that he first met Declan Donnelly, who was cast in the part of Duncan, and real life mirrored the programme as the two became best friends both on set and off. In the guise of "PJ & Duncan AKA", they had a number of hit records, starting with "Tonight I'm Free", a song that they had performed on the show.
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Declan Joseph Oliver "Dec" Donnelly is one half of the English acting and TV presenting duo Ant & Dec, with the other being Anthony McPartlin.... He came to prominence in the children's drama series Byker Grove and as one half of the pop music duo PJ & Duncan. Since then, Ant & Dec have had a very successful career as TV presenters, presenting programmes such as SMTV Live, Friends Like These, Pop Idol, I'm a CelebrityGet Me Out of Here!, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Britain's Got Talent, PokerFace, Push the Button Red or Black? and Text Santa. They returned to acting, starring in a 2002 Tribute to The Likely Lads and the 2006 film Alien Autopsy. Donnelly is the youngest of seven children born to Irish emigrants, Anne and the now deceased Alphonsus Donnelly . He has three brothers: Martin, Eamonn and Dermott , and three sisters: Patricia, Moyra and Camalia. His parents hailed from Draperstown, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, migrated to Newcastle, where they bought a house in 1958. Donnelly attended St Michael's Roman Catholic Primary School and St Cuthbert's High School, which he left with 8 GCSEs.
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Ian La Frenais, OBE, , is an English writer best known for his creative partnership with Dick Clement. They are most famous for television series... including, The Likely Lads, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, Porridge, Lovejoy and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. His father was an accountant and as a child at Park Primary School in Whitley Bay he enjoyed art and writing. He then attended Dame Allan's Boys School, Newcastle upon Tyne and completed his National Service in the British Army. After working as a salesman for a tobacco company he began composing songs for a weekly satirical programmme on Tyne Tees Television and moved to London where he worked for a market research company. In addition toThe Likely Lads, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, Porridge, Lovejoy and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet they have also written various other work for TV and a number of films. Their works include; The Commitments , Still Crazy, Goal!, Flushed Away, Across the Universe and cinema versions of some of their own TV programmes. Since 1984, he has been married to artist Doris Vartan, the mother of actor Michael Vartan.
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Cheryl Ann Cole , known professionally as Cheryl, is an English pop and R&B recording artist, songwriter, dancer and model. She rose to fame in... late 2002 when she auditioned for the reality television show Popstars: The Rivals on ITV. The programme announced that Cole had won a place as a member of the girl group, Girls Aloud. Cole has been part of the group's twenty consecutive top-ten singles in the UK and five platinum albums and earned five BRIT Award nominations from 2005 to 2010. In 2009, Girls Aloud won "Best Single" with their song "The Promise". In 2009, Girls Aloud announced their musical hiatus and Cole went on to release two solo albums, which both went to number one in the UK: 3 Words and Messy Little Raindrops . She achieved a number of hits, including two number one singles: "Fight for This Love" and "Promise This". Cole is set to release her third solo album A Million Lights on the 18 June 2012, with lead single "Call My Name" being released on the 10 June 2012.
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