Coordinates: 51°30′53″N 0°07′48″W / 51.5147°N 0.1301°W / 51.5147; -0.1301

Foyles in 2006

W & G Foyle Ltd. (usually called simply Foyles) is a book seller known for is flagship store at 113–119 Charing Cross Road, London, England. Foyles was once listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest bookshop in terms of shelf area (30 miles/50 kilometres) and number of titles on display.^[1] In the past, it was famed for its anachronistic, eccentric and sometimes infuriating business practices, so much that they made it a tourist attraction.^[2] It has since become more modernised, including the establishment of an online store.^[3]

History[link]

The business was founded in 1903 by brothers William and Gilbert Foyle. After failing entrance exams for the civil service, the brothers offered their redundant text books for sale and were inundated by offers. This inspired them to launch a second-hand book business from home.^[2] Flushed with success, they opened a small shop on Station Parade in Queen’s Road, Peckham, where they painted "With all Faith" in gilt letters above the door. In 1904 they opened their first West End shop at 16 Cecil Court and a year later were able to take on their first member of staff (who promptly disappeared with the weekly takings). By 1906 they were at 135 Charing Cross Road, by which time they were described as London's largest educational booksellers. Not long later they moved into one of the buildings at 119 Charing Cross Road, where Foyles remains to this day. Part of additional adjacent buildings that they also acquired in Manette Street was the site of the Old Goldbeater's House.^[4]

In October 1930, Christina Foyle, daughter of founder William, initiated the literary luncheons which continue to the present day. In the first 80 years, 700 luncheons were held, hosting more than 1000 authors and 500,000 guests.^[5] Speakers and guests of honour at these luncheons have included all the great literary figures, and celebrities from the world of politics, the media, the military and the theatre. They have included all the British Prime Ministers since the Second World War except Winston Churchill, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron, some, such as Margaret Thatcher, several times, as well as Prince Philip, General de Gaulle, General Sikorski and the Emperor Haile Selassie. The store now also holds a large number of evening literary events throughout the year.^[1]

In 1945, control of the shop passed to Christina. It was under her that the shop stagnated, with little investment and poorly paid staff who could be fired on a whim.^[1] She also refused to install any modern conveniences such as electronic tills or calculators; nor would orders be taken by phone. However, the shop excelled in other fields:- Expensive books ordered from as far off as Germany were sent with a bill without prepayment.

The store operated a payment system that required customers to queue three times: to collect an invoice for a book, to pay the invoice, then to collect the book, simply because sales staff were not allowed to handle cash.^[6] Equally mystifying to customers was a shelving arrangement that categorized books by publisher, rather than by topic or author.^[1] A quote of this period is: "Imagine Kafka had gone into the book trade." In the 1980s, rival bookshop, Dillons, placed an advertisement saying "Foyled again? Try Dillons" in a bus shelter opposite Foyles.^[2]

Renovation[link]

After the death of owner Christina Foyle in 1999 and the passing of control to her nephew Christopher, Foyles' shop and practices were modernised. Christopher Foyle was also, from 1978 until 2008, the Chairman and CEO of aviation companies Air Foyle & Air Foyle HeavyLift, was Chairman and later Deputy President of the Air League, was a Trustee of the Foyle Foundation, and is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, a Liveryman of the Guild of Air Pilots and a Deputy Lord Lieutenant for Essex.^[7]

Whereas the shop used to sell second-hand and new books side-by-side on the same shelves, it now primarily sells books in print as do other large chain bookshops, but with a considerably larger range of titles on every subject. In addition, it now sells second–hand and out-of-print books together with new books in its Art, History and Archaeology Departments. The heavily weathered panelling of Foyles' past has been replaced by a red-plastic-with-grey-metal-and-beech interior. Most of these changes took place between 2003 and 2005.

Expansion[link]

In 2001, the Silver Moon Bookshop, a well–known feminist bookshop, was incorporated into Foyles after rising rents on its Charing Cross road premises forced it to close.^[8]

In 2005, Foyles opened a branch at the Royal Festival Hall on London's South Bank and in 2006 Foyles was awarded the concession to run the book departments in Selfridges' London Oxford Street and Manchester stores, but these closed in February 2009. In February 2008 it opened the only bookshop in the newly refurbished St Pancras railway station, which became the Eurostar London terminal. Foyles also opened a branch in the enormous new Westfield shopping centre, which opened on 30 October 2008 in White City, West London.^[9] It opened a new 'Booktique' store at London's One New Change shopping centre in October 2010.^[10], and in 2011 opened its first out-of-London bookshop since before the Second World War, in Bristol. In October 2011, it opened its second Westfield Shopping Mall bookshop, in Stratford East London, adjacent to the Olympic Stadium.

In late–2011, the sale was announced of the lease on the flagship building that Foyles has occupied for over a century. It is planned to move the business to the adjacent building (formerly occupied by the Central St Martins College of Art and Design) in late–2013 or early–2014, with London-based architects Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands providing a new flagship store design.^[11]

Foyles has over 100,000 electronic book titles for sale on its website.

Awards[link]

Foyles has earned the following awards^{[citation needed]}:

• 2002 Independent Bookseller of the Year;
• 2005 Academic Bookseller of the Year;
• 2006 London Independent Bookseller of the Year
• 2008 Chain Bookselling Company of the Year, 2008 Bookseller of the Year ^[12]
• 2010 Bookseller of the Year

Floor directory[link]

Charing Cross Road store
Floor 3	The Gallery, CDs - Classical & Jazz, DVDs, Music Books, Printed & Sheet Music, Ray's Jazz Music & Books
Floor 2	Art & Design, EFL, GLBT, History & Politics, Humanities, Languages, Linguistics & Literary Criticism, Philosophy, Reference, Sociology, Theology, Toilets
Floor 1	The Café & Ray's Jazz Stage, Computing, Cookery, Earth Sciences, Education, Foreign Languages (including Grant & Cutler) Engineering, DIY & Trades, Natural History, Sciences, Sport, Technical, Transport
Floor 0 (Ground)	Audio Books, Children's, Drama & Film, Fiction, Gifts & Stationery, Humour, Information, London, Poetry, Travel, Young Adult
Floor -1 (Lower Ground)	Customer Service & Order Collection, Business, health, Law, Medical, MBS

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Foyles

External links[link]

• Foyles Bookshop website
• Book trade labels commonly found used and old books bought from Foyles
• Host for a series of literary events at part of Pride London Festival Fortnight 20th June - 4th July 2009

Roger Allam
Born	(1953-10-26) 26 October 1953 (age 58) London, England, U.K.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1981 – present
Spouse	Rebecca Saire
Website
http://www.rogerallam.co.uk

Roger Allam (born 26 October 1953) is an English actor, known primarily for his stage career, although he has performed in film and television. He played Inspector Javert in the original London production of the stage musical Les Misérables.

Life and career[link]

He has been nominated four times for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor, winning twice. He has also been nominated for, and won, the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor.

He played as Mercutio, in the Royal Shakespeare Company, in 1983. He has also appeared in many radio dramas for the BBC. In 2001, he starred in BBC Radio 4's adaptation of Les Misérables, as Valjean. In 2000 he played Hitler at the Royal National Theatre in David Edgar's Speer. He won an Olivier Award as Best Actor 2001, for his role as Captain Terri Denis in a revival of Privates on Parade, opening in December 2001 at the Donmar Warehouse, Covent Garden. In November 2002 at the Comedy Theatre he co-starred with Gillian Anderson in Michael Weller's romantic comedy What the Night Is For.

In 2003, he starred as former West German federal chancellor Willy Brandt in Michael Frayn's play Democracy which opened at the Cottesloe, in the Royal National Theatre. He stayed with the show for its transfer to the West End. In December 2004 and January 2005, Allam appeared as the villainous Abanazar in a pantomime of Aladdin at the Old Vic theatre, co-starring Ian McKellen, Maureen Lipman and Sam Kelly. He reprised this role at the Old Vic, once again with Ian McKellen and Frances Barber in 2006-7.

In August 2005, Allam appeared in Blackbird by David Harrower alongside Jodhi May at the Edinburgh Festival in a production by German star director Peter Stein. The play got a transfer to the Albery Theatre in London in February 2006. Blackbird subsequently won a best new play award.

He also found time in 2006 to appear in Stephen Frears' The Queen, starring Oscar-winner Dame Helen Mirren, as the Queen's private secretary.

In February 2007, he was the 1960s farce Boeing Boeing at the Comedy Theatre in the West End, co-starring Mark Rylance, Frances de la Tour and Tamzin Outhwaite.

In January 2007, he appeared for the first time as Peter Mannion MP in the special episode of the BBC comedy The Thick of It. He went on to reprise his role in the second special aired in July 2007 and in the extra 15 minute episode shown via the BBC red button. He has carried on with this role as a regular character in the subsequent series.

In 2008, Allam played the role of Max Reinhardt, the Salzburg Festival impresario in Michael Frayn's play Afterlife, the production staged by Michael Blakemore on the National Theatre's Lyttelton stage.^[1]

In 2009, Allam played Albin/Zaza in La Cage aux Folles at the Playhouse in London.

Allam played Falstaff in Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2 at Shakespeare's Globe, in the 2010 season.^[2] He won the Olivier Award for Best Actor.^[3]

In October 2010, Allam was reunitied with his former cast mates from Les Miserables in the 25th anniversary concert for a performance of "One Day More".

In April 2012 he starred as Uncle Vanya in the play by Anton Tchechov at the Chichester Festival Theatre.

Roger has also reteamed with Stephen Frears in Tamara Drewe, the film version of Posy Simmond's popular comic strip. Allam plays the self-centred and serially unfaithful crime novelist, Nicholas Hardiment, who is bewitched by London journalist Tamara Drewe, played by Gemma Arterton. The film received critical buzz at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival and the Mail on Sunday described his performance as 'wonderfully sleazy'. Tamara Drewe opens in British cinemas on 10 September.

In the closing chapter of his Timebends autobiography (1987) Arthur Miller writes of Allam: "To play Adrian....in the 1986 Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Archbishop's Ceiling, Roger Allam gave up the leading role as Javert in the monster hit Les Misérables because he had done it over sixty times and thought my play more challenging for him at that moment of his career. Nor did he consider his decision a particularly courageous one. This is part of what a theatre culture means and it is something few New York actors would have the sense of security even to dream of doing."

Filmography[link]

Radio[link]

• The King's General (1992 BBC Radio 4 adaptation) as Sir Richard Grenvile.^[5]
• The Man In The Elephant Mask (1997 BBC Radio 4 series) Joseph Merrick.^[6]
• Cabin Pressure (2008 BBC Radio 4 series) First Officer Douglas Richardson.^[7]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Roger Allam fansite
• Roger Allam at the Internet Broadway Database
• Roger Allam at the Internet Movie Database
• darkestnight: the works of Alain Boubil & Claude-Michel Schönberg

Max Brown (born 10 February 1981) is an English actor. He was born in Ilkley, Yorkshire, England, but spent most of his childhood in the town of Shrewsbury, Shropshire, which he refers to as his home.

Early life[link]

He grew up in Shrewsbury with his family; he has two sisters, Chloe and Phoebe. According to an interview, Max Brown's father is a civil servant and his mother a governor at a family support charity. Brown was drawn to acting from an early age after moving schools at a young age. He performed in plays regularly at the local Music Hall in Shrewsbury.

Career[link]

He first appeared on screens playing the heartthrob Danny Hartston in Grange Hill (2001). He has gone on to appear in many popular TV shows, including Grange Hill, Crossroads, Hollyoaks, Heartbeat, Mistresses, Foyle's War and The Tudors.

He has also been seen in films including Turistas and Daylight Robbery. In 2010 he played the role of Wagner in Flutter, a British independent comedy, and more recently was cast as MI5 Piracy and Terrorism case officer, Dimitri Levendis, in BBC1's serial drama Spooks until its final season.

Filmography[link]

Films[link]

TV[link]

Personal life[link]

Brown was married to actress Pollyanna Rose on 18 December 2005 (whom he had dated for the previous five years); the marriage ended in divorce on 15 May 2008.^[1] He now lives with Annabelle Horsey, a Sherborne-educated former model, studying to be a chef at Leiths School of Food and Wine.^[1]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Max Brown at the Internet Movie Database
• http://www.grangehillfans.co.uk/starfile/brown.php

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (May 2009)

Michael Kitchen (born 31 October 1948) is an English actor and television producer, best known for his starring role as DCS Foyle in the British TV series Foyle's War.

Early life[link]

Kitchen was born in Leicester. As a young boy (circa 1960) he was head chorister in the Church of the Martyrs choir where he was a regular soloist. He worked with the National Youth Theatre and the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry before attending the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. In 1969, while still at RADA, he won the "Emile Littler Award" for 'outstanding talent and aptitude for the professional theatre'.

Career[link]

Television and film[link]

Michael Kitchen was discovered at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) by Top Talent Agent Peter Froggatt of Plant & Froggatt Ltd. Since the early 1970s, Kitchen has been a fixture of UK television. His early appearances include roles in Play for Today (Hell's Angels by David Agnew, 1971), Thriller and Beasts. He then played the role of Martin in the original production of Dennis Potter's Brimstone and Treacle; Peter in Stephen Poliakoff's Caught on a Train; Edmund in the BBC Television Shakespeare production of King Lear; the Antipholi in the same series' production of The Comedy of Errors; Private Bamforth in the 1979 BBC television play of The Long and the Short and the Tall; Rochus Misch in The Bunker; In 1993 he appeared in an episode of the BBC Police TV-series Between the Lines; in Berkeley Cole in Out of Africa, the King of the United Kingdom in To Play the King (1996) (a character recognisably modeled on Prince Charles); and a recurring role as Bill Tanner in the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies GoldenEye and The World Is Not Enough. Other films include Enchanted April (1992), Fatherland (1994), The Hanging Gale (1995), Kidnapped (1995), Mrs. Dalloway (1997), The Railway Children (1999), Proof of Life (2000) as Ian Havery and My Week with Marilyn (2011).

Since 2002, Kitchen has starred in the ITV mystery-drama Foyle's War as the lead character, DCS Christopher Foyle. He is also a producer for the show.

Other noted appearances include Dandelion Dead (1994), A Royal Scandal (1996), The Last Contract (Sista Kontraktet,1998) a Swedish film about the assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme, Paul Abbott's Alibi in 2003, Andrew Davies' dramatisation of Falling in 2005, ITV's three-part drama series Mobile (2007) and Channel 4's phone hacking comedy Hacks (2012). He has guest-starred in roles in other popular British television shows such as The Professionals, Minder, Chancer, Inspector Morse, A Touch of Frost, Between The Lines, Pie in the Sky and Dalziel and Pascoe. Kitchen played Richard Crane in Reckless. His portrayal of a cheating, cuckolded husband is superb and allows the otherwise stiff-upper-lipped Kitchen rare emotional range.

Theatre[link]

Kitchen is also a noted actor in British theatre. His roles have ranged from Ptolemy in Caesar and Cleopatra at the Belgrade Theatre in 1966 to Will in Howard Brenton's Magnificence at the Royal Court in 1973, to William Hogarth in Nick Dear's The Art of Success in 1986/87.

He played Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet for the RSC at Stratford and was a member of The National Theatre Company and the Young Vic, where he played Iago in Othello. In 1974 he appeared at Laurence Olivier's National Theatre in the play Spring Awakening, opposite Peter Firth, Jenny Agutter, Beryl Reid and Cyril Cusack. Later he appeared opposite Sir Ralph Richardson and Sir John Gielgud in Harold Pinter's No Man's Land, directed by Peter Hall.^[1] In 1981 he played Melchior, the manservant of Zangler, in Tom Stoppard's play On the Razzle.^[2] In 1984 he played the cabin steward Dvornicheck in Tom Stoppard's play Rough Crossing.^[3][4]

Personal life[link]

Kitchen is married to Rowena Miller, whom he met while she was a dresser at the RSC in the late 80s. They have two sons. Kitchen values his privacy and rarely gives interviews.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Michael Kitchen at the Internet Movie Database
• Michael Kitchen at BFI Film & TV Database
• Michael Kitchen in Foyle's War
• Michael Kitchen Messageboard