Top Hat

Top Hat is a 1935 American screwball musical comedy film in which Fred Astaire plays an American dancer named Jerry Travers, who comes to London to star in a show produced by Horace Hardwick (Edward Everett Horton). He meets and attempts to impress Dale Tremont (Ginger Rogers) to win her affection. The film also features Eric Blore as Hardwick's valet Bates, Erik Rhodes as Alberto Beddini, a fashion designer and rival for Dale's affections, and Helen Broderick as Hardwick's long-suffering wife Madge.

The film was written by Allan Scott and Dwight Taylor. It was directed by Mark Sandrich. The songs were written by Irving Berlin. "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" and "Cheek to Cheek" have become American song classics. It has been nostalgically referred to — particularly its "Cheek to Cheek" segment — in many films, including The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) and The Green Mile (1999).

Top Hat was the most successful picture of Astaire and Rogers' partnership (and Astaire's second most successful picture after Easter Parade), achieving second place in worldwide box-office receipts for 1935. While some dance critics maintain that Swing Time contained a finer set of dances,Top Hat remains, to this day, the partnership's best-known work.

List of Tugs characters

Tugs, a 1988 British children's television series created by the producers of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, Robert D. Cardona and David Mitton, features two groups of anthropomorphized tugboat fleets: the Star Fleet and the Z-Stacks. They compete against each other in the fictional town of Bigg City Port.

In the North American adaptation, Salty's Lighthouse, the stories were re-purposed for a younger audience. The two groups were no longer rival tug fleets, and the characters underwent various changes. Sunshine, Captain Star, and Little Ditcher were considered female. Sunshine became the sister of fellow switcher Ten Cents. British accents were changed to American accents. Some names were changed, for instance, Big Mac became Big Stack, O.J. became Otis, and Zebedee became Zeebee.

Star Fleet

The Star Fleet is a group who aims to work together on getting and fulfilling port contracts. It is led by Captain Star. Its symbol is a red funnel with blue and white stripes around the top. Fleet members also carry a red flag with a white star. Reporting to Captain Star are seven tugs, each of which has a numbered smoke stack. In "Regatta", Grampus the submarine becomes a member of Star Fleet. The Star Fleet tugs are modeled after the San Francisco tugs of the 1920s.

Top Hat (musical)

Top Hat the Musical is a 2011 stage musical based on the 1935 film of the same name, featuring music and lyrics by Irving Berlin with additional orchestration by Chris Walker. The show opened on 16 August 2011 at the Milton Keynes Theatre, touring the United Kingdom before transferring to the Aldwych Theatre in London's West End. Top Hat won multiple 2013 Laurence Olivier Awards after receiving seven nominations. The musical closed in London on 26 October 2013, with a UK and Ireland tour commencing in August 2014.

Background

The musical is based on the 1935 film of the same name, with music by Irving Berlin. It took the show's producer, Kenny Wax, sixteen months to obtain the rights from Berlin's estate to adapt the film into a stage musical. A first read-through of the adapted script was held at Sadler's Wells in November 2010, and it was performed for the first time 76 years after the original film. The show features fourteen songs by Berlin, six more songs than the original production. Featuring a 31-person cast, the production was adapted from the original screenplay by Matthew White and Howard Jacques. The show was directed by White with choreography by Bill Deamer, set designs by Hildegard Bechtler, costume design by Jon Morrell, lighting by Peter Mumford, sound by Gareth Owen, new orchestrations by Chris Walker and musical supervision by Richard Balcombe.