University of Oxford Botanic Garden Middle-earth. In the Evelyn Waugh novel "Brideshead Revisited", Lord Sebastian Flyte takes Charles Ryder "to see the ivy" soon after they first meet. As he says, "Oh, Charles, what a lot you have to learn! There's a beautiful arch there and more different kinds of ivy than I knew existed. I don't know where I should be without the Botanical gardens" (Chapter One). In Philip Pullman's trilogy of novels "His Dark Materials", a bench in the back of the garden is one of the locations/objects that stand parallel in the two different worlds that the protagonists, Lyra Belacqua and Will
Jack Ryder (actor) the Lyceum Theatre Sheffield. In 2014 he directed his second short film "DOG" and in July 2015 directed his first red button episode of "Casualty" for the BBC. Ryder continues his relationship with "The Full Monty" as the director of the new touring production starring Gary Lucy which tours the UK through the autumn of 2015 through in to 2017. Ryder returned to acting and played a new character Gareth in Kay Mellors' BBC drama "In the Club" which aired in May 2016. Ryder becomes in 2017 the assistant director to Tim Firth on his and Gary Barlow's new musical