News and updates on the work of Scottish actors around the world.
The alternative Glasgow scene of the late 1970s and early 80s was a world of energy and bristling creativity.Read and see more (including photo above) at Daily Record
Even the nihilists and anarchists had to figure out what to wear and what chords to play.
It was a time when you had to be in a band. Or make a fanzine. Or do something. And, thankfully for us, Harry chose to turn his lens on this world. It’s no surprise he himself was an example of the kind of artfulness and energy his pictures so vividly capture.
Of course, Harry soon graduated to the big bands and the proper music press but it’s his pictures of the bubbling Glasgow scene that get me most because I was there, hustling and begging for a gig like everyone else, and watching while others soared.
And I can attest to the fact that his pictures capture the excitement and punky chutzpah of the time. I was at some of the gigs pictured in this book.
The Cramps. We loved the gig so much, we even travelled to Edinburgh the following night to see them again (where singer Lux Interior had a stand-off with the venue janitor on stage in front of a seething sweaty mob of embryonic goths).
Peter Capaldi as Leonardo Da Vinci in Sky Arts' new show. Picture: Ellis O'Brien/ Contributed |
| Peter Capaldi |
Armando Iannucci "One of the lucky offshoots [of the
BBC2 show] was that I could sit down and watch every episode of Yes
Minister and it made me think we need something like this now. The
terrain was very different – it was not about the civil service but
about advisers and the whole Campbell-Mandelson communications thing. I
spoke to [Yes Minister co-creator] Antony Jay and he said 'go for it'."
Chris Addison (special adviser Ollie Reader) "It's
calmed down a bit now but if you look back one of the biggest complaints
wasn't the swearing but the camerawork. It used to make people feel
sick."
Joanna Scanlan (press chief Terri Coverley) "I know
Tony Soprano was in it so it should have felt like a huge deal but
whatever Armando does is very grounded, you never have a sense of not
being safe or things being out of control. It brought a new audience to
the TV show and made a huge character out of Malcolm Tucker."
Rebecca Front "I sat down at a writers' meeting with
some of the cast members and at that time they had no character, no
name, no script. Armando said 'Do you want to start improvising?' It was
terrifying – that was the first time I was Tuckered. Peter transformed
into Malcolm Tucker, pinned me against the wall and started shouting at
me."
Roger Allam (Peter Mannion MP) "My character just
emerged really as someone who is behind the new Tory party – although of
course we never say it is the Tory party – behind the whole Cameroon
thing, get down with the kids and hug a hoodie, all that shite."
Labour MP and former culture secretary, Ben Bradshaw
"The macho laddish aggression and anger is nothing I ever experienced
in government with special advisers or anyone. Tempers frayed very
rarely, if at all; maybe I was moving in the wrong circles. That doesn't
mean to say that some of the storylines haven't been pretty prescient
and prophetic. One of the problems is the reality is much more
interesting and extraordinary than the fiction."
“In this program,” says narrator Peter Capaldi at the outset, “we’re going to show you how to be more rational, and deal with some of life’s biggest decisions.” It’s a pretty big claim, and you may doubt that it’s true (especially during the silly opening scene involving a group of nerds trying to score a date) but give this 2008 BBC Horizon program a little time and you might come away with a few things to think about.
How to Make Better Decisions takes us inside cognitive science laboratories and out on the streets to demonstrate how the emotional part of our brain gets the better of the rational part. The film introduces a number of intriguing concepts, including Prospect Theory, “the framing effect,” and “priming.” More controversially, it highlights some research that suggests the possibility that our intuition may have something to do with an ability to sense future events.
How to Make Better Decisions is 49 minutes long, and we’ve decided to add it to our growing collection of Free Movies Online.
To the list of problems for which we blame the Coalition we can now add the undermining of the funniest comedy on British TV. In the past, The Thick of It (BBC Two) – the last series of which aired in 2009 – was loosely a satire of New Labour: the bug-eyed belligerence of its spin doctors, its fixation on how it was presented by the media.But times have changed, and the men behind The Thick of It – led by Armando Iannucci – have changed the show to match. Peter Capaldi’s Malcolm Tucker, the splenetic spin doctor, and Rebecca Front’s Nicola Murray, the previous Secretary of State, are now in Opposition (we’ll see how they’re getting on in episode two); Murray’s department is instead in the hands of a coalition. The new Secretary of State is Roger Allam’s Peter Mannion, a drawling middle-aged Tory who forever looks as if he’s just awoken fully clothed on the living room sofa. His junior minister is Geoffrey Streatfeild’s Fergus Williams, a charmless Lib Dem.But it isn’t only the government that’s different. The show’s dynamic is different too. Previously, Tucker was the key character: he drove the plot, he got the best lines. On Saturday, to compensate for his absence, the remaining characters appeared to be taking turns to do his job.Everyone had Tucker’s sense of humour: cruel, quick, blackly cynical. Everyone had his knack for nicknames (the Lib Dems were “The Inbetweeners”, Mannion was “Raffles the gentleman MP”). Everyone had his gift for inventive swearing (“Seven years of ear-p---,” muttered Phil, Mannion’s aide).
More significantly, there no longer seemed to be a hierarchy of mockery. In earlier series, this was fairly strict. Tucker did more put-downs than anyone else, and his were the nastiest. Other characters hardly dared insult him back, or at least not to his face. Chris Addison’s Ollie, the gawky ideas man, was good at put-downs but reserved them largely for those equal to or below him.Source: The Telegraph
The Hour 2Most of the original cast - including Romola Garai, Dominic West and Ben Whishaw - will return to the story of a '50s BBC newsmagazine show, and the ensemble is getting one hell of an addition in Peter Capaldi as the new Head of News. The sequel will take place in 1957. It won't have the espionage component that drove so many of the first season's stories.
It has been described as the 21st century's answer to Yes Minister and won several Baftas. Now Armando Iannucci's political satire is back.
The BBC has announced that a fourth series will be aired on BBC Two this autumn.
The series is made up of seven 30 minute episodes and will see Roger Allam returning in his role as Peter Mannion MP alonside Peter Capaldi as the foul mouthed press secretary Malcolm Tucker and Rebecca Front as Nicola Murray MP.
Chris Addison, Joana Scanlan and Olivia Poulet all also return as part of the ensemble cast.
BBC Two controller Janice Hadlow said of the announcement: "I am delighted to welcome The Thick Of It back to BBC Two. It is an essential part of the BBC Two comedy offering this year. A new Coalition government, what better time for a new series of The Thick Of It."
This series will cover 'unchartered territory' according to Iannucci: "a new Coalition Government, and Malcolm and Nicola fretting in the wings. For the first time too a storyline takes us all the way through the series right to the bitter, bitter end, with Government and Opposition convulsed in an incident that questions every political convention imaginable, but in a funny way."
Source: The Telegraph
