Entertain Me with Colour Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Scarlet Pimpernel

This play, based on the novel of the same name by Baroness Orczy, was not a success initially. With a rewritten last act, however, it took off, and it and the novel became such a success that Fred Terry, the actor who played the daring Pimpernel, continued to act in that role for the rest of his life.

The storyline is set during the period of the French Revolution. The English hero of the work, Sir Percy Blakeney, in his secret disguise of the Scarlet Pimpernel, daringly rescues many people doomed to have their heads lopped off by the guillotine. To protect his identity, he adopts the daily persona of a somewhat dim-witted man about town who has become everything his wife dislikes.

She of course has no idea as to his secret life, but when she finally learns of his identity, she rushes to save him from an act of betrayal, swoons in his arms, they fall in love once more and all ends most unrealistically, but very satisfactorily, ever after.

This play was accepted as a work while its author was still awaiting a decision on its publication as a novel, but it was the play that was first presented to the public. Such was its popularity that it generated enormous sales of the follow up novel.

Answer: Jean Simmons

"The Blue Lagoon" (1949) movie version tells the story of two children, Emmeline and Michael, who have survived a shipwreck with the aid of an old sailor named Paddy Button. After Paddy teaches the children to survive by living off the island, he dies and leave the children to their own devices.

They grow up, fall in love, and eventually have a baby. Deciding the island is no place to bring up a child, they decide to try to find their way back home and set off in their small manufactured craft far away beyond the horizon.

When found by a passing ship, after days of being becalmed and with their provisions having run out, viewers are left unsure whether the small family has survived or not. It's a most annoying ending to an otherwise engrossing tale.

In the 1949 version of the movie, Jean Simmons and Donald Huston star as the grown up children, while Noel Purcell stars briefly as their Irish guardian angel.

Answer: Blueberry Hill

With the music written by Vincent Rose and the lyrics by Larry Stock and Al Lewis, the most popular version of this song was that made by the Glenn Miller Orchestra in 1940. It reached number one on the music charts of the time. It was the 1956 version by Fats Domino however that saw the song becoming a rock and roll standard, with the ultimate recognition of same seeing it listed in the "Rolling Stone" magazine as one of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Played by a good band at the correct tempo and with the beat really emphasised, this really is a great old rock and roll number.

Answer: Aviators

Based on the comic book series of the same name, this radio show began broadcasting in 1926, and, incredibly so, was still going strong in 1956. It went to air every Wednesday afternoon for thirty minutes, just long enough for the lead characters to see another situation that needed intervention, and to provide that intervention just in the nick of time.

The leader of the group was the enigmatic Blackhawk himself, and the squadron he headed was called, unsurprisingly, the Blackhawk Squadron. They operated from a hidden island called - wait for it - Blackhawk Island. Oh the villains they encountered and defeated, the wicked forces of evil, femme fatales galore - all overcome in the space of thirty minutes every week! Enough of a mix to keep their fans glued eagerly to those radio sets for years.

At its most popular, the comic book series on which this show was based, outsold even the extremely popular Superman comics.

Answer: One

"Red Dwarf" is set on a spaceship that was designed for mining purposes, some three million years after radiation exposure has killed all but one human occupant on board. Dave, the sole human, has been released from long term stasis by Holly, the computer.

Other regular stars on the series include a hologram of Dave's old bunkmate, Arnold (they both detest each other), Cat (a humanoid life form descended from Dave's old cat, Frankenstein), and a service android named Kryten. In the more recent of the series, a new character, Kristine, has been introduced. An old girlfriend of Dave, she now exists only in another reality.

Not to everyone's taste, this series has seen the birth of four novels, a radio show as well, and various other merchandise.

Answer: Marlene Dietrich

This film is so melodramatic and woefully over-acted that it simply is a must to see. It's the classic example of stage actors attempting to bring the same manner of over-exaggerated facial expressions and physical gestures to the medium of film which requires far more subtlety of acting in both. Based on a novel, "Professor Unrat" ("Professor Garbage" is the translation) by Heinrich Mann which was written in 1905, it tells the story of a respectable professor at a boys school who is brought low by his consuming passion for Lola-Lola, a performer at a local establishment known as "The Blue Angel". While it did nothing for the career of the actor, Emil Jannings, who well and truly over-played the role of the professor, it was the film that propelled Marlene Dietrich (Lola-Lola) to fame. Her rendition of the fantastic old song, "Falling in Love Again" in her delectable German accent in the film became the theme song forever after associated with this slithering, sensual, impossible-to-resist big star of the silver screen. It's the most excellent number to ham it up as much as one likes. Here are its lyrics:

"Falling in love again
Never wanted to
What am I to do?
I can't help it

Love's always been my game
Play it how I may
I was made that way
I can't help it

Men cluster to me
Like moths around a flame
And if their wings burn
I know I'm not to blame

Falling in love again
Never wanted to
What am I to do?
I just can't help it"

Answer: The Log of the Black Parrot

How they could go from such an evocative name as "Voyage of the Scarlet Queen" (1947-1948) to the hilarious title "The Log of the Black Parrot" is anybody's guess. It bombed straight away and never made it past the audition. No wonder. The voyages and adventures undertaken by the Scarlet Queen were great old yarns in an excellent production from all accounts and it's surprising that it lasted only a year.

Many people have likened it to the later production of the extraordinarily popular "Star Trek" television series because of the similarity in the story lines each time.

A daring ship's captain valiantly battling with villains and wicked women right throughout the galaxy - who could resist that? The Scarlet Queen however stayed safely on the earth's oceans.

In 1975, a television pilot called "The Log of the Black Pearl" was based on the same premise as that long ago radio series, but it too, shall we say, sank. Faster than the Titanic in fact. Ah, they don't make tales of derring-do like that any longer.

Answer: Ballet

"The Red Shoes" tells the story between a budding young ballerina who is torn between her love for a man and her desire to become a famous dancer. Throw in a ruthless and jealous impresario of the Russian Ballet Company in which she ends up, and you have the eternal classic triangle. Of course it doesn't end happily.

The girl marries the boy, leaves the dance, leaves the boy, goes back to the dance, sees the boy walking away, rushes from the stage after him to wave one frantic farewell, then flings herself off a convenient balcony into the path of an oncoming train. Bloodied and dying she gasps one last request - remove her dancing shoes. Perhaps they were giving her callouses and that's why the film was so corny. Both versions of this story were based on an old fairy story written by the great Hans Christian Andersen.

His version is far better. Or is it? It's very gory in fact, complete with a set of amputated feet still dancing away in their red ballet shoes.

Answer: Australia

With a story line centred around the daily working and personal lives of a group of police officers in a rural town in Victoria, Australia, "Blue Heelers" covered just about every crime and life story imaginable. It was an excellent production and proved to be the launching pad for some of the later successful careers of many of its stars or guest stars.

At its peak, it had a viewing audience of ten percent of the Australian population. Of the many awards this show received, these included 25 Logies, a Gold Logie, multiple silver Logies, and several international awards.

The name "Blue Heelers" was not, as some people seem to think, a reference to any cattle dogs in the series, but a common semi-affectionate term of reference for the police officers in the Australian town in which the series was set.

Answer: Lucy Maud Montgomery

The series of the Anne books begins with the young orphan girl who comes to live on Prince Edward Island with Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, and traces her life right up to when she is married and a mother with grown children of her own. They have warmed the heart of millions of people throughout the world from the time the first Anne book, "Anne of Green Gables" appeared in 1908. I love them and have them all still. Written by the talented L.M. Montgomery (1874-1942), whose early life echoed Anne's to a degree, the musical based on these books has been performed continuously at the Charlottetown Centre of the Arts, Prince Edward Island, ever since it first premiered in 1965. Charlottetown was a small town which featured heavily in the early Anne books.