Read the full interview and watch a clip at TV Choice Magazine
There's a full guide to The Ice Cream Girls on this independent fansite
News and updates on the work of Scottish actors around the world.
Showing posts with label TV drama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TV drama. Show all posts
Monday, 15 April 2013
Martin Compston: 'The Ice Cream Girls' interview
Martin Compston: The Ice Cream Girls
After winning critical acclaim for his role in the BBC's Line Of Duty
last year, Martin Compston returns to TV playing a teacher who embarks
upon a catastrophic affair with a pupil in tense thriller The Ice Cream Girls.
Set in the present day, the drama jumps back to the fateful summer of
1995 when the relationship began and ended in tragedy, with two girls in
the dock for murder. TV Choice catches up with the Sweet Sixteen and Damned United star…
Read the full interview and watch a clip at TV Choice Magazine
There's a full guide to The Ice Cream Girls on this independent fansite
Read the full interview and watch a clip at TV Choice Magazine
There's a full guide to The Ice Cream Girls on this independent fansite
Sunday, 17 March 2013
Ewen Bremner: cast in 'The Vatican'
Showtime's 'The Vatican' Casts Miracle Worker (Exclusive)
Showtime's aptly timed drama pilot The Vatican is adding to its cast. The same day the Vatican named Jorge Mario Bergoglio its new pope, Scottish actor Ewen Bremner (Trainspotting) has joined the ranks of the Kyle Chandler starrer.
The Vatican, a contemporary thriller about spirituality, power and politics, is set against the modern-day political machinations within the Catholic Church. The potential series would explore the relationships and rivalries in addition to the mysteries and miracles behind the institution.
Read more at The Hollywood Reporter
Also reported by TV Overmind and others
The day Pope Francis I is elected, Ewen Bremner joins the drama pilot starring Kyle Chandler and written by "House's" Paul Attanasio.
Getty Images:Ewen Bremner
The Vatican, a contemporary thriller about spirituality, power and politics, is set against the modern-day political machinations within the Catholic Church. The potential series would explore the relationships and rivalries in addition to the mysteries and miracles behind the institution.
Read more at The Hollywood Reporter
Also reported by TV Overmind and others
Sunday, 23 December 2012
Douglas Henshall: 'Doors Open' interview, forthcoming appearance
'Doors Open' preview
Ian Rankin on the TV adaptation of ‘Doors Open’
Ian Rankin is a happy man. We are in one of his favourite pubs. From our position in the snug of Bennets Bar in Tollcross we are watching the filming of Doors Open, ITV’s adaptation of his bestseller of the same name, which stars Douglas Henshall and Stephen Fry.
Ian Rankin on the TV adaptation of ‘Doors Open’
Ian Rankin is a happy man. We are in one of his favourite pubs. From our position in the snug of Bennets Bar in Tollcross we are watching the filming of Doors Open, ITV’s adaptation of his bestseller of the same name, which stars Douglas Henshall and Stephen Fry.
It’s a hugely atmospheric boozer – all
warming log fires, giant gilded mirrors, elegant wooden tracery,
extensive single-malt whisky menus and tables inlaid with maps of
Edinburgh. We are stationed next to a bookcase, where the first novel to
catch my eye is – you’ve guessed it – Doors Open.
Looking dreamily into the middle distance, Rankin remembers how he found this place. “This was the first Edinburgh pub I drank in. I was sharing a flat with a mate from school who was studying architecture. His first project was about this pub. So we’d move in here every night and do research.”
As content as he is today, Rankin, 52, won’t be rushing to spend a lot more time on film sets. He is used to the solitary, but fairly straightforward process of writing – where it’s just one man and his word processor. So he has been taken aback by the sheer complexity of a big film production – which is more like a hundred people and a million gadgets.
Rankin, best known for his Rebus novels, says the filming process is a mystery to him. “Writing a book, I get no sense of just how difficult it is to organise a shoot. I did my first individual cameo yesterday. I played a man at an auction house chatting to Stephen Fry. I had to wear a suit. Luckily I have one that I wear to weddings and funerals, but it was still odd.
“Initially, the filming was quite exciting. But we ended up doing my scene about 15 times – and they never told us why we had to redo it. It was like being Charlie Watts who once said that being in the Rolling Stones was a case of playing for five years and hanging around for 45 years.”
Hanging around aside, Rankin is delighted that ITV have turned his novel into a TV drama, which will be broadcast on Boxing Day. His Rebus novels have already been made into a series of memorable TV films, starring John Hannah and then Ken Stott. So what is it about Rankin’s writing that lends itself so well to the small screen? Gina Carter, the executive producer of Doors Open, says plot has a lot to do with it. “Ian writes incredibly entertaining books. They’re real page-turners. You get completely engrossed in them. Also, Doors Open is about a victimless crime that doesn’t require any blood or death, which is a great part of its charm.”
Jon Finn, the producer of Doors Open, which is scripted by James Mavor and Sandi Toksvig, chimes in, “Ian’s work is a gift for any screenwriter. He has that quality that all great thriller writers have: you endlessly want to keep turning the pages. Reading his novels is like visiting an old friend.”
Doors Open tells the story of Mike Mackenzie (Henshall), a self-made millionaire who is bored by his cosseted lifestyle. When he learns that the love of his life, Laura Stanton (Lenora Critchlow from Being Human) – an art expert who ditched him five years ago - has returned to Edinburgh, he hatches a plot to win her back.
After a night drinking in their local – stand up Bennets Bar – Mike and his close friends, disgruntled art academic Professor Gissing (Fry) and disillusioned banker Allan Cruickshank (Kenneth Collard, The Borgias), plot and scheme how they will pull off an audacious crime.
They aim to con one of the most high-value targets in the country – a national bank’s priceless art collection which is hidden away from public view in a high-security vault.
The idea is to replace the invaluable works of art with undetectably exact forgeries. They intend to execute this fiendishly clever conceit on the one day of the year Edinburgh’s buildings of special interest are open, thanks to the “Doors Open” scheme. What could possibly go wrong?
Finn reveals that the production created its own counterfeit paintings for the drama. “In making the fakes, we stole bits from all over the place – in the style of Picasso. He had a saying that good art is a copy, great art is a steal. So we knocked off a genius.”
The conspirators in Doors Open view their act as “freeing” timeless works from their private seclusion. In the pub, Gissing rationalises their plan to his collaborators: “We’re not stealing. We’d be liberating them.”
“You mean like a heist?” Allan ripostes. “Like The Italian Job?”
“Yes, sort of,” Gissing rejoins. “But less Italian. And less jobby.”
Finn explains, “Most national galleries only display three per cent of their collection at any one time. They have so many spare Warhols lying around. The depositories are in inconspicuous suburban areas, so no one knows this stuff is just lying around there.”
So is there some moral justification for the plan? Rankin adds, “Gissing is exasperated by the way in which art is treated as a commodity by these institutions. They do not display these great works of art, but keep them as collateral.
“Banks own huge collections that are kept locked away out of public view. And the National Galleries north and south of the Border have more art than they can ever show. It’s very frustrating because it’s ours!”
It is not an entirely black and white issue, though. As Rankin says, “It’s quite complex. Are they freeing these works or are they greedy sods who just want to hold onto these works for themselves?”
Joining our table at Bennets Bar, Henshall takes up the theme.
“There’s not a great deal of logic to Mike’s plan. In a sober moment, you would say that it is illogical and stupid, but at that moment in the pub, it makes complete sense.
“It may be stupid, but there’s also a lot of nobility in his quest. So much of the best art is hidden away in cellars and not shown to the public. It’s not bought by people who love art – it’s merely purchased as an investment. But great art should be for the people and seen by the people. I hope that viewers will be rooting for Mike. He’s a very sympathetic character.”
Henshall says the cast had a great time getting dressed up for the heist.
“We went for retro disguises. So I looked like someone from a 1970s Norwegian rock band, and Kenneth looked like the Portuguese rep for Nandos.”
Of course the other major character in Doors Open is Edinburgh. 47-year-old Henshall, dapper with his swept-back blond hair, white shirt and immaculately cut black overcoat, says, “The producers were determined to shoot here – they didn’t want to film anywhere else.
“Edinburgh is so specific looking, and it’s such a photogenic place. 2000 years of history have gone into this city. If you’re a director of photography, Edinburgh is a dream because the light is amazing and everywhere you look, there is a great shot. I’m not nationalistic in any way, shape or form, but I’m absolutely delighted it’s being filmed here. I can’t imagine it being shot anywhere else.”
The actor, well-known for his roles in Primeval, Collision, The Silence and The Secret of Crickley Hall, adds that Bennets Bar is the ideal location for the drama’s crucial planning scene. “There are so few bars like this nowadays. Everything is an O’B*llocks fake Irish pub. It’s nice to find somewhere like this with genuine character.”
Finn agrees, “Edinburgh is the most distinctive city in the UK.
“You can’t fling a camera at it without it looking fantastic. It’s a city built around monuments. The buildings are spectacular, and the hills give it layers. In places, it’s like an Escher drawing – one road going this way and one road going that way.”
Carter adds, “Edinburgh is so filmic. It’s a very rare combination of elements. You have both a massive castle and rolling hills in the city centre. You don’t get that in Oxford Street in London. Also, Ian writes about Edinburgh so beautifully.”
In his novels, Rankin has certainly always been fascinated by the duality of Edinburgh, and Doors Open gives him another chance to explore that. “In the crime novels, I’m always talking about the underbelly of Edinburgh,” he says. “This book allowed me to talk about the other Edinburgh, the Edinburgh in which self-made millionaires go to auction houses for something to do. There are not many self-made millionaires in my crime novels.”
Expanding on the concept of the city’s ambiguity, he says, “Structurally, Edinburgh is Jekyll and Hyde. It’s a city of haves and have-nots. Are the tourists seeing the real Edinburgh or what the city fathers want them to see?”
He believes that Edinburgh is a constant source of inspiration to writers, “The city continues to surprise. So many authors are writing about it because it shows so many different facets to us all. If I’d made sense of Edinburgh, I’d have stopped writing about it by now.
“But I’m always finding new things to talk about. Every time you think you’ve done it, something else comes along like the Parliament, the financial crisis or the trams. I have a love-hate thing with Edinburgh. But I have no interest in writing about London. I’ve never found a place I want to write about more than Edinburgh.”
Another element that makes Doors Open so watchable is that it pivots on a heist. Carter says, “There is a certain caper-ish element to a heist that we all enjoy. Look at films like The Italian Job, Ocean’s Eleven or The Ladykillers.
“Also, you can’t do a heist on your own because that’s just robbery.
So a heist will inevitably involve lots of different people. That makes it engaging because you’re following all these different characters. It’s a terrific ensemble vehicle. Heist dramas are thrillers, chases, ‘will they, won’t they?’s and big set pieces all rolled into one. They tick all the boxes for great entertainment.”
Finn says that the characters have gelled so well in Doors Open that he could envisage a further life for them. “I’d love to do another drama with these characters. It would be great fun. What could they do next? How about breaking into Fort Knox like Goldfinger?”
Henshall lives in London these days, but he has relished working in Scotland on Doors Open. It has also given him the chance to catch up with his beloved St Mirren.
“We’re the only team that have ever sacked Sir Alex Ferguson,” he says. “That sums up our history in one easy sentence. Our victories are always hard won, and therefore much more enjoyed. It’s usually us and someone else very bad fighting relegation – which adds a certain drama to the season. That’s better than mid-table mediocrity. Who wants that?”
Doors Open used a real-life Glasgow repository to film the key heist sequence, a factor that invests the production with extra verisimilitude. Carter recalls, “We shot in the Museums Resource Centre, where three national collections are stored. Everything is there, from 19th century masterpieces to modern sculptures and African art. There are also racks and racks of great Scottish paintings. It’s stunning. But as you can imagine, there were a lot of security guards keeping their eyes on us all the time when we were filming there.”
Henshall says with genuine awe, “I didn’t know places like that existed. But great collections can’t show all their work all the time, and it has to be kept somewhere. These wonderful paintings just appeared from drawers. There was a wee Renoir in there that I was particularly fond of.”
A pause and a wry grin. “But I think they might have missed it.”
Doors Open is on STV on Boxing Day at 9pm.
Source (including photo): Scotsman
Douglas Henshall to judge The Frank Deasy Award to develop Scottish drama-writing talent
Henshall,
who will star in BBC Scotland’s new two-part crime drama Shetland later
this year, will be joined on the judging panel by Edinburgh playwright
and director Zinnie Harris alongside Christopher Aird, Head of Drama,
BBC Scotland; Kate Rowland, BBC Creative Director, New Writing; and
Laura Mackenzie Stuart, Portfolio Manager, Creative Scotland.
Designed to inspire, develop and celebrate writing talent in Scotland, the Frank Deasy Award was named in honour of the Emmy-award winning writer whose credits include Prime Suspect – The Final Act, Looking After Jo-Jo, Real Men and The Passion. Deasy died in 2009.
Douglas Henshall (Shetland, The Secret of Crickley Hall, The Kidnap Diaries) says: “Writers are so crucial to drama – without them people like me are out of work – so to be involved in this award is an honour. After all, writers are the past, present and future for drama.”
Read more at BBC Media Centre
Looking dreamily into the middle distance, Rankin remembers how he found this place. “This was the first Edinburgh pub I drank in. I was sharing a flat with a mate from school who was studying architecture. His first project was about this pub. So we’d move in here every night and do research.”
As content as he is today, Rankin, 52, won’t be rushing to spend a lot more time on film sets. He is used to the solitary, but fairly straightforward process of writing – where it’s just one man and his word processor. So he has been taken aback by the sheer complexity of a big film production – which is more like a hundred people and a million gadgets.
Rankin, best known for his Rebus novels, says the filming process is a mystery to him. “Writing a book, I get no sense of just how difficult it is to organise a shoot. I did my first individual cameo yesterday. I played a man at an auction house chatting to Stephen Fry. I had to wear a suit. Luckily I have one that I wear to weddings and funerals, but it was still odd.
“Initially, the filming was quite exciting. But we ended up doing my scene about 15 times – and they never told us why we had to redo it. It was like being Charlie Watts who once said that being in the Rolling Stones was a case of playing for five years and hanging around for 45 years.”
Hanging around aside, Rankin is delighted that ITV have turned his novel into a TV drama, which will be broadcast on Boxing Day. His Rebus novels have already been made into a series of memorable TV films, starring John Hannah and then Ken Stott. So what is it about Rankin’s writing that lends itself so well to the small screen? Gina Carter, the executive producer of Doors Open, says plot has a lot to do with it. “Ian writes incredibly entertaining books. They’re real page-turners. You get completely engrossed in them. Also, Doors Open is about a victimless crime that doesn’t require any blood or death, which is a great part of its charm.”
Jon Finn, the producer of Doors Open, which is scripted by James Mavor and Sandi Toksvig, chimes in, “Ian’s work is a gift for any screenwriter. He has that quality that all great thriller writers have: you endlessly want to keep turning the pages. Reading his novels is like visiting an old friend.”
Doors Open tells the story of Mike Mackenzie (Henshall), a self-made millionaire who is bored by his cosseted lifestyle. When he learns that the love of his life, Laura Stanton (Lenora Critchlow from Being Human) – an art expert who ditched him five years ago - has returned to Edinburgh, he hatches a plot to win her back.
After a night drinking in their local – stand up Bennets Bar – Mike and his close friends, disgruntled art academic Professor Gissing (Fry) and disillusioned banker Allan Cruickshank (Kenneth Collard, The Borgias), plot and scheme how they will pull off an audacious crime.
They aim to con one of the most high-value targets in the country – a national bank’s priceless art collection which is hidden away from public view in a high-security vault.
The idea is to replace the invaluable works of art with undetectably exact forgeries. They intend to execute this fiendishly clever conceit on the one day of the year Edinburgh’s buildings of special interest are open, thanks to the “Doors Open” scheme. What could possibly go wrong?
Finn reveals that the production created its own counterfeit paintings for the drama. “In making the fakes, we stole bits from all over the place – in the style of Picasso. He had a saying that good art is a copy, great art is a steal. So we knocked off a genius.”
The conspirators in Doors Open view their act as “freeing” timeless works from their private seclusion. In the pub, Gissing rationalises their plan to his collaborators: “We’re not stealing. We’d be liberating them.”
“You mean like a heist?” Allan ripostes. “Like The Italian Job?”
“Yes, sort of,” Gissing rejoins. “But less Italian. And less jobby.”
Finn explains, “Most national galleries only display three per cent of their collection at any one time. They have so many spare Warhols lying around. The depositories are in inconspicuous suburban areas, so no one knows this stuff is just lying around there.”
So is there some moral justification for the plan? Rankin adds, “Gissing is exasperated by the way in which art is treated as a commodity by these institutions. They do not display these great works of art, but keep them as collateral.
“Banks own huge collections that are kept locked away out of public view. And the National Galleries north and south of the Border have more art than they can ever show. It’s very frustrating because it’s ours!”
It is not an entirely black and white issue, though. As Rankin says, “It’s quite complex. Are they freeing these works or are they greedy sods who just want to hold onto these works for themselves?”
Joining our table at Bennets Bar, Henshall takes up the theme.
“There’s not a great deal of logic to Mike’s plan. In a sober moment, you would say that it is illogical and stupid, but at that moment in the pub, it makes complete sense.
“It may be stupid, but there’s also a lot of nobility in his quest. So much of the best art is hidden away in cellars and not shown to the public. It’s not bought by people who love art – it’s merely purchased as an investment. But great art should be for the people and seen by the people. I hope that viewers will be rooting for Mike. He’s a very sympathetic character.”
Henshall says the cast had a great time getting dressed up for the heist.
“We went for retro disguises. So I looked like someone from a 1970s Norwegian rock band, and Kenneth looked like the Portuguese rep for Nandos.”
Of course the other major character in Doors Open is Edinburgh. 47-year-old Henshall, dapper with his swept-back blond hair, white shirt and immaculately cut black overcoat, says, “The producers were determined to shoot here – they didn’t want to film anywhere else.
“Edinburgh is so specific looking, and it’s such a photogenic place. 2000 years of history have gone into this city. If you’re a director of photography, Edinburgh is a dream because the light is amazing and everywhere you look, there is a great shot. I’m not nationalistic in any way, shape or form, but I’m absolutely delighted it’s being filmed here. I can’t imagine it being shot anywhere else.”
The actor, well-known for his roles in Primeval, Collision, The Silence and The Secret of Crickley Hall, adds that Bennets Bar is the ideal location for the drama’s crucial planning scene. “There are so few bars like this nowadays. Everything is an O’B*llocks fake Irish pub. It’s nice to find somewhere like this with genuine character.”
Finn agrees, “Edinburgh is the most distinctive city in the UK.
“You can’t fling a camera at it without it looking fantastic. It’s a city built around monuments. The buildings are spectacular, and the hills give it layers. In places, it’s like an Escher drawing – one road going this way and one road going that way.”
Carter adds, “Edinburgh is so filmic. It’s a very rare combination of elements. You have both a massive castle and rolling hills in the city centre. You don’t get that in Oxford Street in London. Also, Ian writes about Edinburgh so beautifully.”
In his novels, Rankin has certainly always been fascinated by the duality of Edinburgh, and Doors Open gives him another chance to explore that. “In the crime novels, I’m always talking about the underbelly of Edinburgh,” he says. “This book allowed me to talk about the other Edinburgh, the Edinburgh in which self-made millionaires go to auction houses for something to do. There are not many self-made millionaires in my crime novels.”
Expanding on the concept of the city’s ambiguity, he says, “Structurally, Edinburgh is Jekyll and Hyde. It’s a city of haves and have-nots. Are the tourists seeing the real Edinburgh or what the city fathers want them to see?”
He believes that Edinburgh is a constant source of inspiration to writers, “The city continues to surprise. So many authors are writing about it because it shows so many different facets to us all. If I’d made sense of Edinburgh, I’d have stopped writing about it by now.
“But I’m always finding new things to talk about. Every time you think you’ve done it, something else comes along like the Parliament, the financial crisis or the trams. I have a love-hate thing with Edinburgh. But I have no interest in writing about London. I’ve never found a place I want to write about more than Edinburgh.”
Another element that makes Doors Open so watchable is that it pivots on a heist. Carter says, “There is a certain caper-ish element to a heist that we all enjoy. Look at films like The Italian Job, Ocean’s Eleven or The Ladykillers.
“Also, you can’t do a heist on your own because that’s just robbery.
So a heist will inevitably involve lots of different people. That makes it engaging because you’re following all these different characters. It’s a terrific ensemble vehicle. Heist dramas are thrillers, chases, ‘will they, won’t they?’s and big set pieces all rolled into one. They tick all the boxes for great entertainment.”
Finn says that the characters have gelled so well in Doors Open that he could envisage a further life for them. “I’d love to do another drama with these characters. It would be great fun. What could they do next? How about breaking into Fort Knox like Goldfinger?”
Henshall lives in London these days, but he has relished working in Scotland on Doors Open. It has also given him the chance to catch up with his beloved St Mirren.
“We’re the only team that have ever sacked Sir Alex Ferguson,” he says. “That sums up our history in one easy sentence. Our victories are always hard won, and therefore much more enjoyed. It’s usually us and someone else very bad fighting relegation – which adds a certain drama to the season. That’s better than mid-table mediocrity. Who wants that?”
Doors Open used a real-life Glasgow repository to film the key heist sequence, a factor that invests the production with extra verisimilitude. Carter recalls, “We shot in the Museums Resource Centre, where three national collections are stored. Everything is there, from 19th century masterpieces to modern sculptures and African art. There are also racks and racks of great Scottish paintings. It’s stunning. But as you can imagine, there were a lot of security guards keeping their eyes on us all the time when we were filming there.”
Henshall says with genuine awe, “I didn’t know places like that existed. But great collections can’t show all their work all the time, and it has to be kept somewhere. These wonderful paintings just appeared from drawers. There was a wee Renoir in there that I was particularly fond of.”
A pause and a wry grin. “But I think they might have missed it.”
Doors Open is on STV on Boxing Day at 9pm.
Source (including photo): Scotsman
Douglas Henshall to judge The Frank Deasy Award to develop Scottish drama-writing talent
Acclaimed Scottish actor Douglas Henshall will join
the judging panel on this year’s Frank Deasy Award 2012-13, an
initiative to develop television writing talent in Scotland in
conjunction with BBC Scotland, BBC Writersroom and Creative Scotland.
Designed to inspire, develop and celebrate writing talent in Scotland, the Frank Deasy Award was named in honour of the Emmy-award winning writer whose credits include Prime Suspect – The Final Act, Looking After Jo-Jo, Real Men and The Passion. Deasy died in 2009.
Douglas Henshall (Shetland, The Secret of Crickley Hall, The Kidnap Diaries) says: “Writers are so crucial to drama – without them people like me are out of work – so to be involved in this award is an honour. After all, writers are the past, present and future for drama.”
Read more at BBC Media Centre
Sunday, 25 November 2012
Douglas Henshall: Shetland preview, Doors Open update, The Secrety of Crickley Hall reviews
From Douglas Henshall.com:
Douglas Henshall will be on the panel of judges for the Frank Deasy Writers award 2012 – 2013.Dougie’s new TV drama Shetland, based on the work of popular crime-writer Ann Cleeves had a preview in Mareel on Wednesday 21st November 2012. Read about the event here and here
BBC Scotland has announced its plans to offer residencies for writers to develop ideas for BBC1, in hopes that one of their dramas will be commissioned through BBC Scotland.
Dougie said: “Writers are so crucial to drama – without them, people like me are out of work, so to be involved in this award is an honour. After all, writers are the past, present and future for drama.”
More here.
The Secret of Crickley Hall episode 2 will be shown on Sunday November 25th at 9pm and episode 3 on Sunday December 2nd at 9pm. A DVD of the drama is due to be released on December 3rd 2012.
Doors Open is being adverstised as part of ITV's Christmas drama season.
55 Days finished its run at the Hampstead Theatre on Saturday November 24th.
Source (including photo): DouglasHenshall.com
There are detailed reviews of the first episode of The Secret of Crickley Hall at Primetime and at SFX
MY SIX BEST BOOKS- DOUGLAS HENSHALL
Douglas Henshall, 47, is the actor best known as the star of Primeval, South Riding, Lipstick on Your Collar and Collision. He stars next month alongside Stephen Fry in the ITV1 art heist drama Doors Open.
Douglas Henshall discusses his favourite reads
The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Penguin, £10.99
A book about love and roulette – a giddy mixture.
I find my spirits soaring at the way he writes about love and plummeting to the very depths of hell at the way he writes about addiction. Gloriously romantic in that reckless Russian way.
If This Is A Man by Primo Levi
Abacus, £9.99
A most extraordinary book and the one which has had the biggest influence on me. An unimaginable story about his time in Auschwitz and the way he manages to keep his humanity alive and survive.
Heartbreaking, uplifting and humbling in ways I can’t begin to describe.
Summer Lightning by P G Wodehouse
Arrow, £7.99
The antithesis of Primo Levi. I adore all the Blandings books.
It’s a safe world where nothing bad is going to happen with the most glorious wit and the most absurd characters.
I’ve re-read and re-read them. They’re like Christmas; they never fail to put a smile on your face.
Women
by Charles Bukowski
Virgin Books, £8.99
Bukowski can be incredibly nihilistic. You can only read him in small doses before you want to kill yourself.
He was a man who wrote when drunk and edited when sober and there’s a brutal honesty with which he talks about himself and his success or failure in relationships with women. I found it quite poetic.
Trainspotting
by Irvine Welsh
Vintage, £7.99
I don’t think you can overestimate how important a book this was.
To use the Leith vernacular in the way he did, the rhythms and the poetry, it was a revolution in Scotland.
He talks about male friendship better than anyone and is the most important Scottish writer around.
The Gulag Archipelago
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Harper Perennial, £18.95
Sometimes I admire the people as much as what they write and this is an extraordinary piece by an extraordinary man.
It’s about incarceration by an unjust, criminal and inhumane people but the way in which he writes, well, I want to say this out loud walking around my house, not just read it.
Source (including photo): Express
Sunday, 27 May 2012
David Tennant: 'True Love' & 'The Spies of Warsaw' updates
True Love
The BBC have released some promotional pictures of former Doctor Who David Tennant and companion Billie Piper from an upcoming BBC drama, True Love.
This five-part series will be "stripped" across the week (Monday to Friday), starting June 18 on BBC One with Tennant's episode (Piper's is the third). Actor David Morrissey (The Next Doctor) is also set to star in an installment.
True Love explores five powerful and overlapping love stories set in the same town. Each story looks at a different relationship and explores a different dilemma or situation. When it comes to love and relationships, there is never an easy "right answer" – telling the truth is complicated, and the conflict of desire and responsibility can be explosive.
Source (with large images): Blogtor Who
More information about True Love can be found at David Tennant on Twitter, here.
The Spies of Warsaw
David Tennant is in Poland at the moment, filming The Spies of Warsaw.
From David Tennant on Twitter:
A very short video clip of David Tennant in Poland has been posted onto the internet.
The webpage is about the signing of the cooperation between TVP (Poland) and BBC (UK) because the Polish company especially believe that the co-production of The Spies Of Warsaw has been very successful. At the bottom of the article is a video. David Tennant appears (with the Nieborow Palace behind him) at about 15 seconds.Read more at David Tennant on Twitter (blog)
For more details of David’s involvement in this project, including shooting schedules and set photos, visit the Spies of Warsaw section of the main David Tennant on Twitter website.
Tuesday, 8 May 2012
Douglas Henshall to star in new BBC1 crime drama "Shetland"
Scottish
actor Douglas Henshall will take the lead in two-part adaptation of book by award-winning author
Ann Cleeves
Shetland will
be the backdrop to a small-screen murder mystery based on the work of
award-winning crime writer Ann Cleeves. Douglas Henshall is to star in Shetland, a new two-part crime drama on BBC1.
“A powerful
murder-mystery set against the stunning Scottish backdrop of the Shetland
Isles”, the show will feature Henshall as Detective Jimmy Perez, a recently
widowed native Shetlander who has returned to the island after a long time
away.
Shetland is
written by David Kane (The Field Of Blood, Taggart, Rebus) and based on a book
by award-winning crime novelist Ann Cleeves.
The show will be produced by Sue De Beauvoir (Merlin, Waterloo Road) and
directed by Peter Hoare (Vera, Silk, Five Days). Shetland will be produced by ITV Studios for
BBC Scotland.
Douglas
Henshall said: "I am very much looking forward to working with David Kane,
filming in Scotland and being back on BBC One.”
Elaine
Collins, Executive Producer, ITV Studios, added: “We are delighted to be
working with the BBC on this commission. Shetland combines eccentric yet warm
characters and a classic murder mystery story with the beautiful landscape and
rich history of the Shetland Islands and we believe it will be hugely popular
with viewers.”
Christopher
Aird, Head of Drama, Scotland and Executive Producer, BBC said: “Shetland has a
fantastic combination of writing, acting, directing and producing talent. It is
a hugely exciting story and part of a project to bring the very best drama to
BBC Scotland in the coming years.”
Shetland will
broadcast later in 2012.
Source: Radio Times
Sunday, 8 April 2012
David Tennant: new TV drama, United news, TV appearances
David Tennant to star in TV drama 'The Spies Of Warsaw'
Former Doctor Who star David Tennant will play a French spy in a new two-part Second World War-era drama by Likely Lads writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais.
The actor will appear with Merlin star Janet Montgomery in the BBC Four show The Spies Of Warsaw based on the best-selling novel by Alan Furst.
Tennant's character is drawn into the murky world of espionage in the story which is set in Poland, Paris, London and Berlin in the years leading up to the outbreak of war.
BBC Four controller Richard Klein described the show as "a tense, passionate and sexy love story set against the increasingly strident clang of coming war".
He said: "Spies Of Warsaw is an entertaining, thrilling and insightful drama with a very different take on the Second World War, seen through the eyes of characters who know from the start that they and their fellow countrymen will face the brunt of the horrors to come: this is top class drama, and perfect for BBC Four."
Clement and La Frenais have written some of the most popular British television shows of the last 40 years including The Likely Lads, Porridge and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.
Filming will start next month in Poland.
Source: The Independent
Also reported by Hollywood Reporter Televisual ATVToday TheaterMania, and many more!
Regular updates on The Spies of Warsaw can be found at David Tennant On Twitter
Netflix Sign Up BBC United Drama For Streaming
Netflix are said to be one of several international buyers of the rights to BBC’s English direct-to-TV film United, a feature starring David Tennant and Dougray Scott, based on the true story of the tragic 1958 Munich air disaster that killed many of the Manchester United football team of that season.
The crash, which saw 21 people (including 8 players) lose their lives (out of a total 45 people on-board the plane), shocked the world of football (in particular in England), and tributes are still made to this day, most notably on its 50th anniversary in 2008. The 90-minute long film, written by Chris Chibnall and directed by James Strong, was first aired over three years later.
A year after it was premièred on BBC Two, the production is now being licensed abroad through Content Television, with online streaming giant Netflix snapping up the broadcasting rights in both USA and Canada.
Other multiple rights holders now include Universal Pictures Pty for Australia & New Zealand, Tele-Munchen Group for ‘German-speaking Europe’, and subscription HBO for a number of countries throughout Asia. European nation-wide broadcasters picking up rights include TV2 (Denmark), RTE (Ireland), NRK (Norway), ITI Neovision (Poland), and SVT (Sweden), and ITI Neovision (Poland). Paradiso hold all rights to United in Japan, whilst M Pictures hold a similar arrangement in Thailand, and a number of other providers such as Sundance Global Channel and Carmen Film have also signed deals, the culmination of an impressive session in Cannes (France) for Content Television.
Source: World TV PC
Also reported by Virtual Press Office and C21 Media
This week's TV appearances
- Thurs 12 April - The Minor Character, Sky Arts channel at 9pm.
- Fri 13 April - Episode Three of the David Tennant narrated comedy Twenty Twelve, BBC Two at 10pm.
- Sun 15 April - Discovering Hamlet at 9.40pm on Sky Arts 2 HD.
Source: David Tennant on Twitter
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