REading and use of english part 7

The documentary featured interviews with many of the top scientists in the field. [2] __________________________. But the story was far from funny, and many viewers wrote to the BBC to complain about its depressing ending.

• It was watched by 8 million people.

• One was Simon Baron-Cohen, brother of the famous comedian.

Once upon a time there was a boy named Jack. [1] __________________________. Then he died.

• He ate all the chocolate in London.

• Their house was on a hill.

The website was not immediately popular. [3] __________________________.

• However, in 2014 visitor numbers surged and it briefly became the number 1 site in its category.

• In 2014 visitor numbers surged and it briefly became the number 1 site in its category.

In the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood, actors and actresses were tied to restrictive contracts that put their interests below the interests of the movie studios. [4] __________________________.

• These days, however, they are free to choose projects that interest them.

• More movies are now made in India than in Los Angeles.

Retail street theatre was all the rage in the 1920s. ‘Audiences’ would throng the pavement outside Selfridge’s store in London just to gawp at the display beyond acres of plate glass. As a show, it made any production of Chekhov seem action-packed by comparison. Yet Gordon Selfridge, who came to these shores from the US and opened on Oxford Street exactly 100 years ago, was at the cutting edge of what Dr Rebecca Scragg from the history of art department at Warwick University calls ‘a mini-revolution’ in the art of window dressing.

• Some of the photographic evidence unearthed by Scragg after her trawl through the trade journals is quite spectacular. One EJ Labussier, an employee of Selfridge’s, won the Drapers Record trophy for his imaginative use of organdie, a slightly stiff fabric that was particularly popular with the dressmakers of the day.

• “Selfridge’s remains an exception,” she concedes, “even if it’s difficult today to imagine the store coming up with a spectacular Rococo setting to display something as mundane as a collection of white handkerchiefs.” No doubt it brought sighs, even gasps, from those with their noses almost pressed up against the window but could it really be taken too seriously?

• Scragg describes herself as “a historian of art and visual culture with an interest in the reception of art”. “This interest in window displays evolved from my PhD on British art in the 1920s,” she says. “I started by looking at exhibitions in shops and that led on to the way that the shops themselves were moving into new forms of design.”

• One of the illustrations she will include is a 1920s photograph of a bus proceeding towards Selfridge’s with an advertisement for ‘self-denial week’ on the side. For many of those in the crowds on the pavement, self-denial was a given. They couldn’t afford to spend.

• “He was trying to aestheticise retailing,” she explains. “The Brits were so far behind the Americans, the French and the Germans in this respect that it was another decade before they fully realised its importance.”

“As Britain struggled to regain economic stability after the war, the importance of the new mass commerce to the country’s recovery was recognised,” says Rebecca. “Finally understood was the need to use the display windows to full advantage as an advertising medium to attract trade. The new style of window dressing that came into its own after the armistice took inspiration from the theatre and the fine and decorative arts. It involved flamboyant design and drew huge crowds.”

• Some of the photographic evidence unearthed by Scragg after her trawl through the trade journals is quite spectacular. One EJ Labussier, an employee of Selfridge’s, won the Drapers Record trophy for his imaginative use of organdie, a slightly stiff fabric that was particularly popular with the dressmakers of the day.

• “Selfridge’s remains an exception,” she concedes, “even if it’s difficult today to imagine the store coming up with a spectacular Rococo setting to display something as mundane as a collection of white handkerchiefs.” No doubt it brought sighs, even gasps, from those with their noses almost pressed up against the window but could it really be taken too seriously?

• Scragg describes herself as “a historian of art and visual culture with an interest in the reception of art”. “This interest in window displays evolved from my PhD on British art in the 1920s,” she says. “I started by looking at exhibitions in shops and that led on to the way that the shops themselves were moving into new forms of design.”

• One of the illustrations she will include is a 1920s photograph of a bus proceeding towards Selfridge’s with an advertisement for ‘self-denial week’ on the side. For many of those in the crowds on the pavement, self-denial was a given. They couldn’t afford to spend.

• The big department store continues to uphold the tradition of presenting lavish and eye-catching window displays today and uses the best artists and designers to create and dress them. Advances in technology have meant that the displays grow ever more spectacular.