The following theatre people have received honours in the New Year's Honours List:
William Roache is the only member of the cast of the soap Coronation Street who has been in the show since it began forty years ago. He plays Ken Barlow. He is the father of actor Linus Roache.
Trevor Harrison has played Eddie Grundy in the BBC Radio 4 soap The Archers for twenty years.
Prior to the New Year Honours List announcement, it was made known that the Queen has awarded the KBE (Knight of the British Empire) to American film director Stephen Spielberg. He will be able to use the letters KBE after his name but cannot be called Sir Stephen as he is not a British citizen.
Brick Lane Music Hall to Close
Vincent Hayes, director of the Brick Lane Music Hall in Shoreditch in London's East End, the last public music hall in the UK, is about to close the premises. In 1996 he moved the hall from its original home in Brick Lane because of a major rent hike, and took over the present premises, a former button factory, which cost £180,000 to convert - and the conversion took six months.
Now the landlord wants to put up the rent from £25,000 to £125,000 a year, and so Hayes has decided to close the music hall at the end of the panto run, in February.