Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: Who wrote the Blackadder theme song?
The opening sequence features various depictions and photographs of historical scenes, edited to contain a Blackadder, accompanied by a full orchestral version of the Howard Goodall's "Blackadder" theme. The closing theme is a reprisal of the heroic version of the first series, with new lyrics sung by Giles Underwood; the lyrics appear onscreen with Blackadder's head as a bouncing ball.
Upon returning to England, he earned a living as a jazz and skiffle musician in London clubs. An accomplished guitarist and pianist, in the 1950s, he jammed with the Vipers Skiffle Group at the 2 I's club in London with his friend Tommy Steele. Pratt can be seen jamming skiffle on a 1950s Pathé News clip with other musicians of the era including members of the Shadows. A successful songwriter, Mike collaborated with Bart and Steele on many of Steele's early hits in the late 1950s and early '60s. To enable Steele to start to film his life story, co-writers Steele, Bart and Pratt, wrote twelve songs in seven days. A Steele-Pratt collaboration, "A Handful of Songs", originally a hit for Tommy Steele in 1957, became the theme tune to a long-running Granada Television children's programme of the same name in the late 1970s. They also contributed to the writing of the song "Rock with the Caveman". Bart and Pratt received the 1957 Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for "Little White Bull". He won a further Ivor Novello award for "Handful of Songs". In 1961, he wrote the music and lyrics for "The Big Client", a play which was produced at the Bristol Old Vic from 28 November 1961.
That year, the producers of ABC-TV's successful situation comedy "Happy Days" decided to replace its theme song, Bill Haley and the Comets' "Rock Around the Clock", with a new song written especially for the show. The tune was written by Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox, who also wrote themes for "Love, American Style", "Wonder Woman", "Laverne & Shirley", and "The Love Boat". Omartian was chosen to produce the song, and he recommended Pratt & McClain to record it. Multiple short arrangements were produced for the show and its promotional vehicles, and a full-length version was recorded for popular release.
A long-standing rumor claimed that the bassline for the Spider-Man theme was performed by jazz musician Charles Mingus, however, Ralph Bakshi confirmed the rumor as being erroneous, stating that Mingus did not perform on the theme song.
Greenaway was one of the composers commissioned to write music for the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant in 2012 in honour of the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II. The piece, entitled "The New Water Music", was inspired by the George Frederic Handel's Water Music and contained movements by several modern British composers working under the direction of Greenaway. After the pageant, Greenaway was critical of the BBC coverage of the pageant as the live broadcast did not feature the performance at all. In his personal blog, he expressed the view that the presenters had focused on interviewing celebrities while ignoring the musicians completely.
Sir Thursday is a young adult fantasy novel written by Australian author Garth Nix. It is the fourth book in The Keys to the Kingdom series, and was released in March 2006. Sir Thursday continues from the preceding book, following the adventures of Arthur Penhaligon as he attempts to retrieve the Fourth key of the Kingdom, and claim mastership of The Great Maze. As with the other books in the series, the theme of 'seven' is prevalent, along with the themes of sin and virtue. The book received generally favourable critical response, but was criticised for a slow pace, among other issues.
The theme music of "Prison Break" and the incidental music of each episode was composed by Ramin Djawadi. The score for the first two seasons is featured in the "Prison Break: Original Television Soundtrack", which was released on August 28, 2007. Djawadi and Ferry Corsten produced a remix of the theme music titled "Prison Break Theme (Ferry Corsten Breakout Mix)" as a single, which was released by Fox Music in 2006. In Europe, rapper Faf Larage's song "Pas le temps" is used by television network M6 in France and by RTL-TVI in Belgium to replace the show's original theme music in the title sequence, which generated publicity and helped to localize the show.
Beauty and the Beast: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the official soundtrack album to the 1991 Disney animated feature film, "Beauty and the Beast". Originally released on October 24, 1991, by Walt Disney Records, the album's first half – tracks 2 to 9 – generally contains the film's musical numbers, all of which were written by composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman, while its latter half – tracks 10 to 14 – features its musical score, composed solely by Menken. While the majority of the album's content remains within the musical theatre genre, its songs have also been influenced by French, classical, pop and Broadway music. Credited to Various Artists, "Beauty and the Beast: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" features performances by the film's main cast – Paige O'Hara, Richard White, Jesse Corti, Jerry Orbach, Angela Lansbury and Robby Benson – in order of appearance. Additionally, the album features recording artists Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson, who perform a pop rendition of the film's title and theme song, "Beauty and the Beast", which simultaneously serves as the soundtrack's only single.
The lyric, written by "Cats" director Trevor Nunn, was loosely based on T. S. Eliot's poems "Preludes" and 
"Rhapsody on a Windy Night"." Andrew Lloyd Webber's former writing partner Tim Rice and contemporary collaborator Don Black submitted a lyric to the show's producers for consideration, although Nunn's version was favoured. Elaine Paige has said that she sang a different lyric to the tune of "Memory" for the first ten previews of "Cats".
Fancy has played diverse roles on stages all around England. He began his professional career by returning to the Chichester Festival Theatre in the repertory company where he had a nightly fight sequence with Donald Sinden in "The Scarlet Pimpernel", directed by Nicholas Hytner. Fancy has acted on the fringe at the White Bear Theatre, King's Head Theatre and twice at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe where he took a one-man Shakespeare-based piece on the subject of Jack Cade, who was the leader of a popular revolt in 1450 during the reign of King Henry VI of England. 
Other leading roles include Bill Sykes in "Oliver Twist" at the Bristol Old Vic directed by Phyllida Lloyd, Dussel in "The Dreams of Anne Frank" at the Polka Children’s Theatre, Willy Mossop in "Hobson’s Choice" at the Derby Playhouse and Bob Cratchit in "A Christmas Carol" at Clwyd Theatr Cymru.
"The Legend of Zelda Theme" is a recurring piece of music that was created for the first game of the franchise. The composer and sound director of the series, Koji Kondo, initially planned to use Maurice Ravel's "Boléro" as the game's title theme, but was forced to change it when he learned, late in the game's development cycle, that the copyright for the orchestral piece had not yet expired. As a result, Kondo wrote a new arrangement of the overworld theme within one day. The "Zelda Theme" has topped ScrewAttack's "Top Ten Videogame Themes Ever" list.
"Something There" is a song written by lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken for Walt Disney Pictures 30th animated feature film "Beauty and the Beast" (1991). Sung by the majority of the film's main cast, the song was recorded by American actors Paige O'Hara as Belle and Robby Benson as the Beast via voice over, featuring actors Jerry Orbach, Angela Lansbury and David Ogden Stiers as Lumiere, Mrs. Potts and Cogsworth, respectively. The only song performed by the Beast, "Something There" is heard midway through "Beauty and the Beast "during a scene in which Belle and the Beast finally begin to acknowledge their feelings for each other.
Mykola Leontovych's Shchedryk is his most well-known piece. In its English version as a Christmas carol, it is known as the holiday favourite "Carol of the Bells". It is famous for its four-note ostinato motif and has been arranged over 150 times since 2004. The original Ukrainian text of Shchedryk used hemiola, a shifting of accents within each measure between 6/8 and 3/4, which is lost in the English versions. The most popular English adaptation was composed in 1936 by Peter J Wilhousky who was influenced by the culture of his Eastern European parents and the traditional Christian story of carols ringing out at the birth of Jesus, although other English adaptations of the song were also made in 1947 by M. L. Holman, 1957, and 1972.
The tour of "Blithe Spirit", starring (newly titled) Dame Angela Lansbury, then went to London's West End in early 2014. This was accompanied by an appearance at a special cabaret (organised by co-star Janie Dee) at the Cafe de Paris, where Simon sang "Mad Dogs and Englishmen". When the West End performance ended, in June, he immediately went into the role of 'Emperor Joseph II' in "Amadeus", starring Rupert Everett. This was followed by BBC Radio appearances in Neil Gaiman and Terry Prachett's "Good Omens", directed by Dirk Maggs and "Doctor Who" with Tom Baker.
The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare first published in 1602, though believed to have been written in or before 1597. The Windsor of the play's title is a reference to the town of Windsor, also the location of Windsor Castle, in Berkshire, England. Though nominally set in the reign of Henry IV, the play makes no pretense to exist outside contemporary Elizabethan era English middle class life. It features the character Sir John Falstaff, the fat knight who had previously been featured in "Henry IV, Part 1" and "Part 2". It has been adapted for the opera on several occasions. The play is one of Shakespeare's lesser-regarded works among literary critics.
The Nightmare Before Christmas (also known as Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas) is a 1993 American stop-motion animated musical dark fantasy Halloween-Christmas film directed by Henry Selick, and produced and conceived by Tim Burton. It tells the story of Jack Skellington, the King of "Halloween Town" who stumbles through a portal to "Christmas Town" and decides to celebrate the holiday. Danny Elfman wrote the songs and score, and provided the singing voice of Jack. The principal voice cast also includes Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara, William Hickey, Ken Page, Paul Reubens, Glenn Shadix, and Ed Ivory.
The "Batman" television series, starring Adam West, premiered in January 1966 on the ABC television network. Inflected with a camp sense of humor, the show became a pop culture phenomenon. In his memoir, "Back to the Batcave", West notes his dislike for the term 'camp' as it was applied to the 1960s series, opining that the show was instead a farce or lampoon, and a deliberate one, at that. The series ran for 120 episodes; ending in 1968. In between the first and second season of the "Batman" television series, the cast and crew made the theatrical film "Batman" (1966). The Who recorded the theme song from the "Batman" show for their 1966 EP Ready Steady Who, and The Kinks performed the theme song on their 1967 album Live at Kelvin Hall.
Bleak House is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, first published as a serial of 20 episodes between March 1852 and September 1853. The novel has many characters and several sub-plots, and the story is told partly by the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and partly by an omniscient narrator. At the centre of "Bleak House" is a long-running legal case in the Court of Chancery, "Jarndyce and Jarndyce", which came about because a testator wrote several conflicting wills. In a preface to the 1853 first edition, Dickens claimed there were many actual precedents for his fictional case. One such was probably the Thellusson v Woodford case in which a will read in 1797 was contested and not determined until 1859. Though the legal profession criticised Dickens's satire as exaggerated, this novel helped support a judicial reform movement which culminated in the enactment of legal reform in the 1870s.
The music was composed primarily by Koji Kondo, with three tracks written by Toru Minegishi. The soundtrack largely consists of reworked music from "Ocarina of Time", complemented with other traditional "Zelda" music such as the "Overworld Theme" and new material. Kondo describes the music as having "an exotic Chinese-opera sound". As the three-day cycle progresses, the theme song of Clock Town changes between three variations, one for each day. IGN relates the shift in music to a shift in the game's atmosphere, saying that the quickened tempo of the Clock Town music on the second day conveys a sense of time passing quickly. The soundtrack was released on June 23, 2000, featuring 112 tracks from the game over two compact discs.
Blaxploitation is a mix of the words black and exploitation. It makes a point to enforce stereotypes that have been afflicted on African Americans by the so-called white media. The first movie to be considered blaxploitation was "Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song" (1971). Melvin Van Peebles directed, produced, and took the lead role of this hyper sexual film. It is about a male prostitute who is out to fight "[the man]" (white oppression). It spanned a new type of film genre that evolved all the way to what is now the urban blaxploitation horror films of the 21st century.
The Cobhams appear to have intervened while Shakespeare was in the process of writing either "The Merry Wives of Windsor" or the second part of "Henry IV". The first part of "Henry IV" was probably written and performed in 1596, and the name Oldcastle had almost certainly been allowed by Master of the Revels Edmund Tilney. William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham may have become aware of the offensive representation after a public performance; he may also have learned of it while it was being prepared for a court performance (Cobham was at that time Lord Chamberlain). As father-in-law to the newly widowed Robert Cecil, Cobham certainly possessed the influence at court to get his complaint heard quickly. Shakespeare may have included a sly retaliation against the complaint in his play "The Merry Wives of Windsor" (published after the Henry IV series). In the play, the paranoid, jealous Master Ford uses the alias "Brook" to fool Falstaff, perhaps in reference to William Brooke. At any rate, the name is Falstaff in the "Henry IV, Part 1" quarto, of 1598, and the epilogue to the second part, published in 1600, contains this clarification:
Although each series is set in a different era, all follow the misfortunes of Edmund Blackadder (played by Atkinson), who in each is a member of a British family dynasty present at many significant periods and places in British history. It is implied in each series that the Blackadder character is a descendant of the previous one (the end theme lyrics of series 2, episode "Head", specify that he is the great-grandson of the previous), although it is never specified how or when any of the Blackadders (who are usually bachelors) managed to father children.
The opening theme is this time a minuet played on a harpsichord, oboe and cello over close-ups of Blackadder searching a bookcase. The credits and title appear on the books' spines, and each has a condition and script to match each character, for example Baldrick's is plain and in poor condition. Other amusing interspersed titles include "From Black Death to Blackadder", "The Blackobite Rebellion of 1745", "The Encyclopædia Blackaddica" and "Landscape Gardening" by Capability Brownadder. Hidden inside a hollow book, he finds a romance novel (complete with cover art) bearing the title of the particular episode. The closing credits are presented in the style of a theatre programme from a Regency-era play, and with an accordion closing theme that samples the melody of the original theme.
Elton and Curtis were inspired to write "Blackadder Goes Forth" upon finding World War I to be apt for a situation comedy. This series, which dealt with greater, darker themes than prior "Blackadder" episodes, was praised for Curtis's and Elton's scripts, in particular the final episode. Before writing the series, the pair read about the war and found that:
In 1989, the Band and fifty members of the old 3rd Battalion were featured in the opening and closing sequences of BBC historical sitcom "Blackadder Goes Forth" with the band, men and actors Rowan Atkinson, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Tony Robinson and Tim McInnerny dressed in World War I period uniforms marching to "The British Grenadiers" and the "Blackadder" theme song. It was shot on location at the former Colchester Cavalry Barracks.