The writer, broadcaster and satirist Victor Lewis-Smith has died, aged 65.
The former Independent columnist and documentary-maker died in Bruges, Belgium, on Saturday (10 December) after a short illness.
Born in Essex, Lewis-Smith began his career at BBC Radio Medway. After working at Radio York, he moved to Radio 4 where he was a staff producer for Midweek and Start the Week during the mid-1980s.
Lewis-Smith went on to work as a film, TV and radio producer, predominantly through his production company Associated Rediffusion Productions Limited.
He worked on Spitting Image and the short-lived Channel 4 comedy show TV Offal.
He was also a restaurant critic and columnist. He wrote a regular column for Private Eye, and was the chief TV critic at the Evening Standard for 15 years.
In 1993, Lewis-Smith co-wrote and presented the BBC sketch show Inside Victor Lewis-Smith, which starred Roger Lloyd Pack, Annette Badland, Moya Brady, Tim Barlow, Nickolas Grace and George Raistrick.
The former Independent columnist and documentary-maker died in Bruges, Belgium, on Saturday (10 December) after a short illness.
Born in Essex, Lewis-Smith began his career at BBC Radio Medway. After working at Radio York, he moved to Radio 4 where he was a staff producer for Midweek and Start the Week during the mid-1980s.
Lewis-Smith went on to work as a film, TV and radio producer, predominantly through his production company Associated Rediffusion Productions Limited.
He worked on Spitting Image and the short-lived Channel 4 comedy show TV Offal.
He was also a restaurant critic and columnist. He wrote a regular column for Private Eye, and was the chief TV critic at the Evening Standard for 15 years.
In 1993, Lewis-Smith co-wrote and presented the BBC sketch show Inside Victor Lewis-Smith, which starred Roger Lloyd Pack, Annette Badland, Moya Brady, Tim Barlow, Nickolas Grace and George Raistrick.
- 12/12/2022
- by Isobel Lewis
- The Independent - TV
British publicist and marketing consultant Freddie Ross Hancock, whose clients included Sophia Loren, Julie Andrews and Benny Hill, and helped bring the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to New York, has died in the city at the age of 92.
Born Freda Ross in 1930 in North London, she learned the public relations business working for the Holland America cruise line for two years, after which she joined the Universal Film Corporation of America as assistant head of publicity in the U.K.
In the early 1950s she set up her own publicity firm, Freda Ross Associates, representing performers such as Benny Hill, Dick Emery, Bob Monkhouse, Terry Scott and Hugh Lloyd. She met comedian and actor Tony Hancock in 1954 when she was 24, and persuaded him to take her on as his publicist.
In 1959 Ross and Hancock began an affair, although he was married, but they lived together openly from...
Born Freda Ross in 1930 in North London, she learned the public relations business working for the Holland America cruise line for two years, after which she joined the Universal Film Corporation of America as assistant head of publicity in the U.K.
In the early 1950s she set up her own publicity firm, Freda Ross Associates, representing performers such as Benny Hill, Dick Emery, Bob Monkhouse, Terry Scott and Hugh Lloyd. She met comedian and actor Tony Hancock in 1954 when she was 24, and persuaded him to take her on as his publicist.
In 1959 Ross and Hancock began an affair, although he was married, but they lived together openly from...
- 12/9/2022
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Click here to read the full article.
Freddie Ross Hancock, the British marketing consultant and publicist who represented Sophia Loren, Julie Andrews, Benny Hill, Theodore Bikel and Jim Dale and helped bring the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to New York, has died. She was 92.
Ross Hancock died Sunday at her home in Manhattan, friend and former Warner Bros. executive Luke Fontneau announced.
Another of her clients was popular English comedian and actor Tony Hancock. They began a romantic relationship in 1957 while he was married and wed in December 1965, but soon after she filed for divorce, he died by suicide in 1968 at age 44.
After Hancock’s death, she moved to the U.S., where she worked as an acquisitions executive for American Video Films, served as vice chairman of the U.S. wing of the Royal Television Society and consulted for companies including Miramax.
She was honored as...
Freddie Ross Hancock, the British marketing consultant and publicist who represented Sophia Loren, Julie Andrews, Benny Hill, Theodore Bikel and Jim Dale and helped bring the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to New York, has died. She was 92.
Ross Hancock died Sunday at her home in Manhattan, friend and former Warner Bros. executive Luke Fontneau announced.
Another of her clients was popular English comedian and actor Tony Hancock. They began a romantic relationship in 1957 while he was married and wed in December 1965, but soon after she filed for divorce, he died by suicide in 1968 at age 44.
After Hancock’s death, she moved to the U.S., where she worked as an acquisitions executive for American Video Films, served as vice chairman of the U.S. wing of the Royal Television Society and consulted for companies including Miramax.
She was honored as...
- 11/28/2022
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A long-lost episode of Tony Hancock’s 1950s radio show, Hancock’s Half Hour, has been found and restored and will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 next month.
The penultimate episode from the show’s first radio series features the actor and comedian Peter Sellers – who was standing in for Hancock’s regular collaborator Kenneth Williams.
The episode, named “The Marriage Bureau” aired just once, on 8 February 1955, attracting an audience of 6.22 million listeners, according to the British Comedy Guide.
The news was announced by the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society on Twitter, who wrote: “We’re absolutely thrilled that a lost episode of Hancock’s Half Hour has been found, restored, and will be broadcast on Radio 4 on 18 October.
“‘The Marriage Bureau’ was never repeated and has not been heard since 1955. Only episode to feature Peter Sellers,” they continued.
“Sellers plays the parts given in the scripts to Kenneth Williams...
The penultimate episode from the show’s first radio series features the actor and comedian Peter Sellers – who was standing in for Hancock’s regular collaborator Kenneth Williams.
The episode, named “The Marriage Bureau” aired just once, on 8 February 1955, attracting an audience of 6.22 million listeners, according to the British Comedy Guide.
The news was announced by the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society on Twitter, who wrote: “We’re absolutely thrilled that a lost episode of Hancock’s Half Hour has been found, restored, and will be broadcast on Radio 4 on 18 October.
“‘The Marriage Bureau’ was never repeated and has not been heard since 1955. Only episode to feature Peter Sellers,” they continued.
“Sellers plays the parts given in the scripts to Kenneth Williams...
- 9/29/2022
- by Tom Murray
- The Independent - TV
Tony Hancock’s two leading film roles are a reminder of the extremes of his comic genius. Paul Merton talks about the legacy of his hero – and how comedy is too coarse today
Seven years before his suicide, Tony Hancock tried to become a movie star. The Rebel (1961) is a comedy about a clerk who quits his job and moves to Paris to become an artist, despite his total lack of talent. Scripted by Half Hour creators Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, it was a deluxe bespoke vehicle, designed to take Hancock across the Atlantic and turn him into the new Peter Sellers.
Brits flocked. Homegrown critics raved. And Hollywood absolutely hated it.
Seven years before his suicide, Tony Hancock tried to become a movie star. The Rebel (1961) is a comedy about a clerk who quits his job and moves to Paris to become an artist, despite his total lack of talent. Scripted by Half Hour creators Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, it was a deluxe bespoke vehicle, designed to take Hancock across the Atlantic and turn him into the new Peter Sellers.
Brits flocked. Homegrown critics raved. And Hollywood absolutely hated it.
- 9/20/2019
- by Catherine Shoard
- The Guardian - Film News
Director Bryan Forbes tries his hand at comedy. His nostalgic Victorian farce features an eclectic choice of Brit stars — established greats John Mills & Ralph Richardson, the freshly-minted Michael Caine, reigning jester Peter Sellers and even a debut for the collegiate pranksters Peter Cook & Dudley Moore. It’s a beaut of a production with a charming John Barry music score… but the result yields more indulgent smiles than out-and-out laughs.
The Wrong Box
Region A+B Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1966 / Color / 1:75 widescreen / 105 min. / Street Date November 23, 2018 / available from Amazon UK / £14.99
Starring: John Mills, Ralph Richardson, Michael Caine, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Nanette Newman, Tony Hancock, Peter Sellers, Wilfrid Lawson, Thorley Walters, Gerald Sim, Irene Handl, Norman Bird, John Le Mesurier, Norman Rossington, Diane Clare, Tutte Lemkow, Charles Bird, Vanda Godsell, Jeremy Lloyd, James Villiers, Graham Stark, Dick Gregory, Valentine Dyall, Leonard Rossiter, André Morell, Temperance Seven, Andrea Allan, Juliet Mills.
Cinematography:...
The Wrong Box
Region A+B Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1966 / Color / 1:75 widescreen / 105 min. / Street Date November 23, 2018 / available from Amazon UK / £14.99
Starring: John Mills, Ralph Richardson, Michael Caine, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Nanette Newman, Tony Hancock, Peter Sellers, Wilfrid Lawson, Thorley Walters, Gerald Sim, Irene Handl, Norman Bird, John Le Mesurier, Norman Rossington, Diane Clare, Tutte Lemkow, Charles Bird, Vanda Godsell, Jeremy Lloyd, James Villiers, Graham Stark, Dick Gregory, Valentine Dyall, Leonard Rossiter, André Morell, Temperance Seven, Andrea Allan, Juliet Mills.
Cinematography:...
- 2/16/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Stage and screen actor best known for her roles in the Carry On films and as Cynthia Kite in the 1959 classic I’m All Right Jack
The actor Liz Fraser, who has died aged 88, specialised in comedy in a career that stretched from cough and spit parts in 1950s Ealing Studios films to a guest star suspect in the latest series of Midsomer Murders (2018). She also worked with Tony Hancock and Sid James, and starred in the classic I’m All Right Jack (1959) with Peter Sellers, but her long and varied career was almost inevitably overshadowed by her membership of the Carry On team.
The slap and tickle British film institution of innuendo and pratfall, awash with music hall one-liners, Carry On celebrates its 60th anniversary this year and remains as popular as ever, a reassuring never-never land of off-colourjokes, whose occasional sexism, racism and homophobia is somehow muted by...
The actor Liz Fraser, who has died aged 88, specialised in comedy in a career that stretched from cough and spit parts in 1950s Ealing Studios films to a guest star suspect in the latest series of Midsomer Murders (2018). She also worked with Tony Hancock and Sid James, and starred in the classic I’m All Right Jack (1959) with Peter Sellers, but her long and varied career was almost inevitably overshadowed by her membership of the Carry On team.
The slap and tickle British film institution of innuendo and pratfall, awash with music hall one-liners, Carry On celebrates its 60th anniversary this year and remains as popular as ever, a reassuring never-never land of off-colourjokes, whose occasional sexism, racism and homophobia is somehow muted by...
- 9/10/2018
- by Robert Ross
- The Guardian - Film News
Yayoi Kusama David Zwirner Gallery, NYC Thru December 16th, 2017
Spots are a disease -- a "Pop Art" pox; a sign of madness, an hallucination. As Tony Hancock says in his brilliant comic movie The Rebel (1961) where he plays a modern artist: "I get the spots before my eyes, the red mist, and I'm off."
Yayoi Kusama is off again at David Zwirner Gallery on 533 West 19th Street in Chelsea. You will have to queue around the block to see her new installations. But you can just walk into a room on 19th street and see 66 of her new paintings. This is a review of the work in that room.
Paranoia is lonely, ironically the sense you have of being watched belies the fact that no one's taking any notice at all. The putting on of spots was an act, for Kusama, of "field" being used to cover neurosis. Kusama's paintings...
Spots are a disease -- a "Pop Art" pox; a sign of madness, an hallucination. As Tony Hancock says in his brilliant comic movie The Rebel (1961) where he plays a modern artist: "I get the spots before my eyes, the red mist, and I'm off."
Yayoi Kusama is off again at David Zwirner Gallery on 533 West 19th Street in Chelsea. You will have to queue around the block to see her new installations. But you can just walk into a room on 19th street and see 66 of her new paintings. This is a review of the work in that room.
Paranoia is lonely, ironically the sense you have of being watched belies the fact that no one's taking any notice at all. The putting on of spots was an act, for Kusama, of "field" being used to cover neurosis. Kusama's paintings...
- 12/3/2017
- by Millree Hughes
- www.culturecatch.com
Clifford Hatts (Obituary, 25 September) designed many memorable productions for BBC Television, including Quatermass and the Pit. I wonder if he was also involved in what for me was more memorable – Hancock and the Pit, a spoof of the sci-fi serial.
I particularly recall an exchange in which Tony Hancock asks Sid James what he would do if an alien appeared. James says he would give it “a punch up the bracket”. “Has it occurred to you,” retorts Hancock, “that a Martian might not have a bracket to be punched up?”
Continue reading...
I particularly recall an exchange in which Tony Hancock asks Sid James what he would do if an alien appeared. James says he would give it “a punch up the bracket”. “Has it occurred to you,” retorts Hancock, “that a Martian might not have a bracket to be punched up?”
Continue reading...
- 9/28/2015
- by Letters
- The Guardian - Film News
The directors of Jurassic World and Terminator Genisys have criticised the movies’ marketing campaigns, saying they contain spoilers and misrepresent their work. Does their unusual honesty point to a wider crisis in Hollywood?
Ever since Marlon Brando slurred: “Whaddya got?” to a friendly bobbysoxer’s enquiries, it has been clear that cinema loves a rebel. Everyone and everything, from Star Wars to Tony Hancock, likes to give the word an airing, and fight their corner. Often, however, it seems as if film-makers themselves are the least rebellious creatures of all. Shackled by funding obligations, corralled by marketing teams, subdued by press campaigns, directors tend to be docile beasts, the least truculent, most accommodating figures in the creative arts spectrum. With so much cash – and the fate of entire corporations – riding on their efforts, it’s not hard to understand why.
But something may be stirring: the first small sparks of revolution.
Ever since Marlon Brando slurred: “Whaddya got?” to a friendly bobbysoxer’s enquiries, it has been clear that cinema loves a rebel. Everyone and everything, from Star Wars to Tony Hancock, likes to give the word an airing, and fight their corner. Often, however, it seems as if film-makers themselves are the least rebellious creatures of all. Shackled by funding obligations, corralled by marketing teams, subdued by press campaigns, directors tend to be docile beasts, the least truculent, most accommodating figures in the creative arts spectrum. With so much cash – and the fate of entire corporations – riding on their efforts, it’s not hard to understand why.
But something may be stirring: the first small sparks of revolution.
- 7/9/2015
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
We chat to Doctor Who and Sherlock writer and actor Mark Gatiss about his series 8 episode Robot Of Sherwood, 'darkness', and more.
Warning: contains a spoiler for An Adventure In Space And Time.
Mark Gatiss is a busy man but polite to a fault. He agreed to squeeze in a chat with us after a lengthy round of Us phone interviews on the eve of broadcast for his seventh Doctor Who episode, Robot Of Sherwood ("It'll just be nice to talk to someone who doesn't say Rah-ban Hud!"). Half an hour before the scheduled time, he calls to say that he's finished with the Americans but would I mind waiting twenty minutes while he has his tea? Take as long as you like, I say, thinking a) how rare it is for 'the talent' not to communicate their running-late apologies through a PR, b) for 'the talent' to apologise for running late at all,...
Warning: contains a spoiler for An Adventure In Space And Time.
Mark Gatiss is a busy man but polite to a fault. He agreed to squeeze in a chat with us after a lengthy round of Us phone interviews on the eve of broadcast for his seventh Doctor Who episode, Robot Of Sherwood ("It'll just be nice to talk to someone who doesn't say Rah-ban Hud!"). Half an hour before the scheduled time, he calls to say that he's finished with the Americans but would I mind waiting twenty minutes while he has his tea? Take as long as you like, I say, thinking a) how rare it is for 'the talent' not to communicate their running-late apologies through a PR, b) for 'the talent' to apologise for running late at all,...
- 9/7/2014
- by louisamellor
- Den of Geek
Update: DreamWorks Animation has clarified statemens by Korea’s Studio Mir which were erroneously reported in the local press late last week. The company is in the process of working with Studio Mir to finalize a possible production agreement for one series, and has not inked a deal with Studio Mir for the latter to produce as many as four cartoon TV series during the next four years. Dwa says it would be engaging the studio on a work for hire basis, meaning it would not be a co-producer and would not gain any interest in Dwa’s intellectual property. The Korean animation studio is known for 2D fantasy series The Legend Of Korra, which airs Stateside on Nickelodeon.
Bill Kerr, the Australian actor known as “the boy from Wagga Wagga,” died Thursday in Perth. He was 92. Kerr was a radio and vaudeville star before moving to the UK in...
Bill Kerr, the Australian actor known as “the boy from Wagga Wagga,” died Thursday in Perth. He was 92. Kerr was a radio and vaudeville star before moving to the UK in...
- 8/30/2014
- by Nancy Tartaglione
- Deadline
‘Doctor Who’ actor Bill Kerr, also featured in Peter Weir’s ‘Gallipoli’ and ‘The Year of Living Dangerously,’ dead at 92 (photo: Bill Kerr and Patrick Troughton in ‘Doctor Who’) Australian actor Bill Kerr, best known internationally for a guest spot in the 1960s TV series Doctor Who, and for his supporting roles in the Peter Weir movies Gallipoli and The Year of Living Dangerously, died on August 28 (or 29, according to some sources), 2014, while watching the TV show Seinfeld at his home in Perth, West Australia. Kerr, whose exact cause of death is unclear, was 92. Born William Kerr on June 10, 1922, in Capetown, South Africa, to Australian vaudevillian parents touring the country, Bill Kerr grew up in Australia, where he became a popular television, stage, and film personality. His show business career began at an early age. “My mother took about 10 weeks off to have me, and when she returned to the...
- 8/29/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Feature Alex Westthorp 16 Apr 2014 - 07:00
Alex's trek through the film roles of actors who've played the Doctor reaches Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy...
Read the previous part in this series, Doctor Who: the film careers of Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker, here.
In March 1981, as he made his Doctor Who debut, Peter Davison was already one the best known faces on British television. Not only was he the star of both a BBC and an ITV sitcom - Sink Or Swim and Holding The Fort - but as the young and slightly reckless Tristan Farnon in All Creatures Great And Small, about the often humorous cases of Yorkshire vet James Herriot and his colleagues, he had cemented his stardom. The part led, indirectly, to his casting as the venerable Time Lord.
The recently installed Doctor Who producer, John Nathan-Turner, had been the Production Unit Manager on...
Alex's trek through the film roles of actors who've played the Doctor reaches Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy...
Read the previous part in this series, Doctor Who: the film careers of Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker, here.
In March 1981, as he made his Doctor Who debut, Peter Davison was already one the best known faces on British television. Not only was he the star of both a BBC and an ITV sitcom - Sink Or Swim and Holding The Fort - but as the young and slightly reckless Tristan Farnon in All Creatures Great And Small, about the often humorous cases of Yorkshire vet James Herriot and his colleagues, he had cemented his stardom. The part led, indirectly, to his casting as the venerable Time Lord.
The recently installed Doctor Who producer, John Nathan-Turner, had been the Production Unit Manager on...
- 4/15/2014
- by louisamellor
- Den of Geek
Feature Alex Westthorp 9 Apr 2014 - 07:00
In the next part of his series, Alex talks us through the film careers of the second and fourth Doctors, Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker...
Read Alex's retrospective on the film careers of William Hartnell and Jon Pertwee, here.
Like their fellow Time Lord actors, William Hartnell and Jon Pertwee, Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker also shared certain genres of film. Both appeared, before and after their time as the Doctor, in horror movies and both worked on Ray Harryhausen Sinbad films.
Patrick George Troughton was born in Mill Hill, London on March 25th 1920. He made his film debut aged 28 in the 1948 B-Movie The Escape. Troughton's was a very minor role. Among the better known cast was William Hartnell, though even Hartnell's role was small and the two didn't share any scenes together. From the late Forties, Troughton found more success on the small screen,...
In the next part of his series, Alex talks us through the film careers of the second and fourth Doctors, Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker...
Read Alex's retrospective on the film careers of William Hartnell and Jon Pertwee, here.
Like their fellow Time Lord actors, William Hartnell and Jon Pertwee, Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker also shared certain genres of film. Both appeared, before and after their time as the Doctor, in horror movies and both worked on Ray Harryhausen Sinbad films.
Patrick George Troughton was born in Mill Hill, London on March 25th 1920. He made his film debut aged 28 in the 1948 B-Movie The Escape. Troughton's was a very minor role. Among the better known cast was William Hartnell, though even Hartnell's role was small and the two didn't share any scenes together. From the late Forties, Troughton found more success on the small screen,...
- 4/8/2014
- by louisamellor
- Den of Geek
Prolific comedy actor who worked with Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan and Hattie Jacques
The stony-faced, beaky comedy actor Graham Stark, who has died aged 91, is best remembered for his appearances alongside Peter Sellers, notably in the Pink Panther movies. His familiar face and voice, on television and radio, were part of the essential furniture in the sitting room of our popular culture for more than half a century. A stalwart in the national postwar comedy boom led by Sellers, Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Dick Emery, Eric Sykes and Benny Hill, he worked with them all in a sort of unofficial supporting repertory company that also included Hattie Jacques, Deryck Guyler, Patricia Hayes and Arthur Mullard. He was also a man of surprising and various parts: child actor, trained dancer, film-maker, occasional writer, and dedicated and critically acclaimed photographer.
Like Gypsy Rose Lee, he had a resourceful and determined...
The stony-faced, beaky comedy actor Graham Stark, who has died aged 91, is best remembered for his appearances alongside Peter Sellers, notably in the Pink Panther movies. His familiar face and voice, on television and radio, were part of the essential furniture in the sitting room of our popular culture for more than half a century. A stalwart in the national postwar comedy boom led by Sellers, Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Dick Emery, Eric Sykes and Benny Hill, he worked with them all in a sort of unofficial supporting repertory company that also included Hattie Jacques, Deryck Guyler, Patricia Hayes and Arthur Mullard. He was also a man of surprising and various parts: child actor, trained dancer, film-maker, occasional writer, and dedicated and critically acclaimed photographer.
Like Gypsy Rose Lee, he had a resourceful and determined...
- 11/1/2013
- by Michael Coveney
- The Guardian - Film News
They didn't quite look the part but Dominic West and Helena Bonham Carter brought chemistry to BBC4's final biopic
Burton and Taylor (BBC4) | iPlayer
Why Don't You Speak English? (C4) | 4oD
Notes from the Inside with James Rhodes (C4) | 4oD
Dominic West was wonderful, yes, and Helena Bonham Carter too, yes, yes, but the main thing to be said about Burton and Taylor was: what a shame. Such a shame that this phenomenal strand of BBC4 biopics ended there and then, thanks to "budget cuts". They'd done Kenneth Williams, Tony Hancock, Enid Blyton and many others, lives unwrapped with forensic writerly skill, and some magnificent acting, and, yes, a hefty salting of dramatic licence – and yet, throughout, somehow each one netted and skewered the soul of the character in question. The 20th century, in Britain, had at least another three dozen ripe characters to offer up, and now it won't happen.
Burton and Taylor (BBC4) | iPlayer
Why Don't You Speak English? (C4) | 4oD
Notes from the Inside with James Rhodes (C4) | 4oD
Dominic West was wonderful, yes, and Helena Bonham Carter too, yes, yes, but the main thing to be said about Burton and Taylor was: what a shame. Such a shame that this phenomenal strand of BBC4 biopics ended there and then, thanks to "budget cuts". They'd done Kenneth Williams, Tony Hancock, Enid Blyton and many others, lives unwrapped with forensic writerly skill, and some magnificent acting, and, yes, a hefty salting of dramatic licence – and yet, throughout, somehow each one netted and skewered the soul of the character in question. The 20th century, in Britain, had at least another three dozen ripe characters to offer up, and now it won't happen.
- 7/27/2013
- by Euan Ferguson
- The Guardian - Film News
They didn't quite look the part but Dominic West and Helena Bonham Carter brought chemistry to BBC4's final biopic
Burton and Taylor (BBC4) | iPlayer
Why Don't You Speak English? (C4) | 4oD
Notes from the Inside with James Rhodes (C4) | 4oD
Dominic West was wonderful, yes, and Helena Bonham Carter too, yes, yes, but the main thing to be said about Burton and Taylor was: what a shame. Such a shame that this phenomenal strand of BBC4 biopics ended there and then, thanks to "budget cuts". They'd done Kenneth Williams, Tony Hancock, Enid Blyton and many others, lives unwrapped with forensic writerly skill, and some magnificent acting, and, yes, a hefty salting of dramatic licence – and yet, throughout, somehow each one netted and skewered the soul of the character in question. The 20th century, in Britain, had at least another three dozen ripe characters to offer up, and now it won't happen.
Burton and Taylor (BBC4) | iPlayer
Why Don't You Speak English? (C4) | 4oD
Notes from the Inside with James Rhodes (C4) | 4oD
Dominic West was wonderful, yes, and Helena Bonham Carter too, yes, yes, but the main thing to be said about Burton and Taylor was: what a shame. Such a shame that this phenomenal strand of BBC4 biopics ended there and then, thanks to "budget cuts". They'd done Kenneth Williams, Tony Hancock, Enid Blyton and many others, lives unwrapped with forensic writerly skill, and some magnificent acting, and, yes, a hefty salting of dramatic licence – and yet, throughout, somehow each one netted and skewered the soul of the character in question. The 20th century, in Britain, had at least another three dozen ripe characters to offer up, and now it won't happen.
- 7/27/2013
- by Euan Ferguson
- The Guardian - Film News
Comedian, actor, writer and director who came to prominence in satirical TV sketch show Not the Nine O'Clock News
Mel Smith was once upstaged by a talking gorilla. He was playing a zoologist in a sketch on his hit comedy show Not the Nine O'Clock News and the gorilla suit contained Rowan Atkinson. "When I caught Gerald in 68 he was completely wild," said Smith. "Wild?" retorted the gorilla. "I was absolutely livid!"
If the gorilla had the best line, Smith had the more expressive countenance, mugging with a deadpan virtuosity rarely seen since Oliver Hardy in his pomp. That face – as hangdog as his childhood hero Tony Hancock's – made Smith, who has died of a heart attack aged 60, one of the most recognisable of postwar British comedians.
Smith's face was only part of his fortune. He was a writer and editor of some of the most redoubtable British TV...
Mel Smith was once upstaged by a talking gorilla. He was playing a zoologist in a sketch on his hit comedy show Not the Nine O'Clock News and the gorilla suit contained Rowan Atkinson. "When I caught Gerald in 68 he was completely wild," said Smith. "Wild?" retorted the gorilla. "I was absolutely livid!"
If the gorilla had the best line, Smith had the more expressive countenance, mugging with a deadpan virtuosity rarely seen since Oliver Hardy in his pomp. That face – as hangdog as his childhood hero Tony Hancock's – made Smith, who has died of a heart attack aged 60, one of the most recognisable of postwar British comedians.
Smith's face was only part of his fortune. He was a writer and editor of some of the most redoubtable British TV...
- 7/21/2013
- by Stuart Jeffries
- The Guardian - Film News
Count Arthur Strong's transition from radio to TV falls flat, but Jane Campion's first foray into television is intriguing
Count Arthur Strong (BBC2) | iPlayer
Top of the Lake (BBC2) | iPlayer
Piper Alpha: Fire in the Night (BBC2) | iPlayer
NewsTalk Live (C5)
I used to enjoy, very much, listening to Count Arthur Strong. But that was when it was on the radio, and I was in the bath. Six-thirty of a pm, the purple glower of dusk, risotto glooping away gently on the stove, and life doesn't get much better than that. I fully appreciate that expectations can vary hugely according to, for instance, personal childcare needs, personal mental health, local proliferation of guns, wholly imagined threat of incipient alien attack, etc. But the programme used to make me smile. Now, instead, it's on my television, and that is, I think, a mistake, and not just because of the...
Count Arthur Strong (BBC2) | iPlayer
Top of the Lake (BBC2) | iPlayer
Piper Alpha: Fire in the Night (BBC2) | iPlayer
NewsTalk Live (C5)
I used to enjoy, very much, listening to Count Arthur Strong. But that was when it was on the radio, and I was in the bath. Six-thirty of a pm, the purple glower of dusk, risotto glooping away gently on the stove, and life doesn't get much better than that. I fully appreciate that expectations can vary hugely according to, for instance, personal childcare needs, personal mental health, local proliferation of guns, wholly imagined threat of incipient alien attack, etc. But the programme used to make me smile. Now, instead, it's on my television, and that is, I think, a mistake, and not just because of the...
- 7/13/2013
- by Euan Ferguson
- The Guardian - Film News
Author: Alwyn W. Turner
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Aurum Press Ltd; Reprint edition (April 1, 2013)
Isbn-10: 1781310416
Isbn-13: 978-1781310410
Synopsis:
The Daleks are one of the most iconic and fearsome creations in television history. Since their first appearance in 1963, they have simultaneously fascinated and terrified generations of children, their instant success ensuring, and sometimes eclipsing, that of Doctor Who. They sprang from the imagination of Terry Nation, a failed stand-up comic who became one of the most prolific writers for television that Britian ever produced. Survivors, his vision of a post-apocalyptic England, so haunted audiences in the Seventies that the BBC revived it over thirty years on, and Blake’s 7, constantly rumored for return, endures as a cult sci-fi classic. But it is for his genocidal pepperpots that Nation is most often remembered, and on the 50th anniversary of their creation they continue to top the Saturday-night ratings.
Yet while the...
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Aurum Press Ltd; Reprint edition (April 1, 2013)
Isbn-10: 1781310416
Isbn-13: 978-1781310410
Synopsis:
The Daleks are one of the most iconic and fearsome creations in television history. Since their first appearance in 1963, they have simultaneously fascinated and terrified generations of children, their instant success ensuring, and sometimes eclipsing, that of Doctor Who. They sprang from the imagination of Terry Nation, a failed stand-up comic who became one of the most prolific writers for television that Britian ever produced. Survivors, his vision of a post-apocalyptic England, so haunted audiences in the Seventies that the BBC revived it over thirty years on, and Blake’s 7, constantly rumored for return, endures as a cult sci-fi classic. But it is for his genocidal pepperpots that Nation is most often remembered, and on the 50th anniversary of their creation they continue to top the Saturday-night ratings.
Yet while the...
- 6/4/2013
- by Jess Orso
- ScifiMafia
Actor best known as the haughty department store supervisor Captain Peacock in the TV comedy Are You Being Served?
The actor Frank Thornton, who has died aged 92, had a flair for comedy derived from the subtle craftsmanship of classical stage work. However, he will be best remembered for his longstanding characters in two popular BBC television comedy series – the sniffily priggish Captain Peacock in Are You Being Served? and the pompous retired policeman Herbert "Truly" Truelove, in Roy Clarke's Last of the Summer Wine.
Robertson Hare, the great Whitehall farceur, told him: "You'll never do any good until you're 40." And, said Thornton, "he was quite right." In the event, he was 51 when David Croft, producer of another long-running British staple, Dad's Army, remembered the tall, long-faced actor from another engagement and decided to cast him as the dapper floor-walker in charge of shop assistants played by Mollie Sugden, Wendy Richard,...
The actor Frank Thornton, who has died aged 92, had a flair for comedy derived from the subtle craftsmanship of classical stage work. However, he will be best remembered for his longstanding characters in two popular BBC television comedy series – the sniffily priggish Captain Peacock in Are You Being Served? and the pompous retired policeman Herbert "Truly" Truelove, in Roy Clarke's Last of the Summer Wine.
Robertson Hare, the great Whitehall farceur, told him: "You'll never do any good until you're 40." And, said Thornton, "he was quite right." In the event, he was 51 when David Croft, producer of another long-running British staple, Dad's Army, remembered the tall, long-faced actor from another engagement and decided to cast him as the dapper floor-walker in charge of shop assistants played by Mollie Sugden, Wendy Richard,...
- 3/19/2013
- by Carole Woddis
- The Guardian - Film News
To mark the discovery of Richard III's skeleton under a car park in Leicester, we've put together some clips of the monarch's most memorable screen portrayals
Reading on a mobile? Watch here
Laurence Olivier's 1955 Shakespeare adaptation remains the dominant source for our assumptions of all things Richard III. Dressed in black, scowly as hell, and with that creepy, reedy intonation, Olivier's interpretation defined Richard as evil Crookback, of whom we should be grateful to Henry Tudor that we are rid. Perversely, punk rocker John Lydon cited him as a major influence, and clips from the film pop up in Julien Temple's Filth and the Fury doco. (Look for him at 1:45 in this clip.)
Reading on a mobile? Watch here
Olivier was endlessly, instantly parody-able, as Peter Sellers showed on a 1964 Beatles TV show, doing Hard Day's Night in the style of Winter of Discontent.
Reading on a mobile?...
Reading on a mobile? Watch here
Laurence Olivier's 1955 Shakespeare adaptation remains the dominant source for our assumptions of all things Richard III. Dressed in black, scowly as hell, and with that creepy, reedy intonation, Olivier's interpretation defined Richard as evil Crookback, of whom we should be grateful to Henry Tudor that we are rid. Perversely, punk rocker John Lydon cited him as a major influence, and clips from the film pop up in Julien Temple's Filth and the Fury doco. (Look for him at 1:45 in this clip.)
Reading on a mobile? Watch here
Olivier was endlessly, instantly parody-able, as Peter Sellers showed on a 1964 Beatles TV show, doing Hard Day's Night in the style of Winter of Discontent.
Reading on a mobile?...
- 2/4/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
Nowhere to Go (1958) starts well, with an almost nine-minute prison break sequence that's highly unusual because it shows someone breaking into a prison. In this case it's Bernard Lee (M in James Bond) who's the one scaling the wall. Bold? Perhaps...but it certainly sets the tone for what is surely an eventful film...
George Nader plays suave conman Paul Gregory, who latches onto wealthy widow Harriet Johnson because she has a rare coin collection. Posing as a playwright stuck on 'the second act' he arranges the sale of her coins, insisting that he be paid on her behalf in cash for the £50,000. At this point, I could delve further into the plot but...well...I think you can guess the rest.
Jazz fans will enjoy the jazz score by British star Dizzy Reece. Non-jazz fans like me might find it grating at times. Do not watch this movie if you've got a headache.
George Nader plays suave conman Paul Gregory, who latches onto wealthy widow Harriet Johnson because she has a rare coin collection. Posing as a playwright stuck on 'the second act' he arranges the sale of her coins, insisting that he be paid on her behalf in cash for the £50,000. At this point, I could delve further into the plot but...well...I think you can guess the rest.
Jazz fans will enjoy the jazz score by British star Dizzy Reece. Non-jazz fans like me might find it grating at times. Do not watch this movie if you've got a headache.
- 1/24/2013
- Shadowlocked
Script for fourth episode of 1955 show catalogued along with those for and by the likes of Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers
When Tony Hancock failed to turn up for three episodes of his radio show in 1955, producers simply replaced him with Harry Secombe as if nothing had happened. The fourth episode followed Hancock and Sid James as they travelled to Swansea to thank him – where they found him singing down a coalmine.
The recorded episode was wiped and continues to be lost, but the script – along with a host of others – has now emerged. They have been catalogued by the actor turned rare books dealer, Neil Pearson.
It is a true treasure trove, featuring scripts by and for comedy stars such as Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Frankie Howerd and Kenneth Williams. "It is a rather extraordinary and rather moving collection of material that reminds us of how we used to...
When Tony Hancock failed to turn up for three episodes of his radio show in 1955, producers simply replaced him with Harry Secombe as if nothing had happened. The fourth episode followed Hancock and Sid James as they travelled to Swansea to thank him – where they found him singing down a coalmine.
The recorded episode was wiped and continues to be lost, but the script – along with a host of others – has now emerged. They have been catalogued by the actor turned rare books dealer, Neil Pearson.
It is a true treasure trove, featuring scripts by and for comedy stars such as Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Frankie Howerd and Kenneth Williams. "It is a rather extraordinary and rather moving collection of material that reminds us of how we used to...
- 12/3/2012
- by Mark Brown
- The Guardian - Film News
Singer, dancer and theatrical agent who represented Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton
Bernard Hunter, who has died aged 92, was a precocious young performer, a popular singer and dancer, and, later, a theatre agent who represented many stars in Britain and the Us, including Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Olivia de Havilland. He continued to represent clients into his late 80s. Hunter's approachable good looks and air of a casual boulevardier seemed to attract consistent good luck.
Born in London, Hunter described his childhood in Islington as full of "maniacal happiness". Asked what his father did, he was apt to quip affectionately: "As little as possible." His father was in fact devoted to horses and the racetrack. Through gambling, he lost the money that was supposed to be for his son's education. However, at 16, Hunter won a singing competition at a local cinema. The prize was an appearance in a week's variety at the Winter Gardens,...
Bernard Hunter, who has died aged 92, was a precocious young performer, a popular singer and dancer, and, later, a theatre agent who represented many stars in Britain and the Us, including Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Olivia de Havilland. He continued to represent clients into his late 80s. Hunter's approachable good looks and air of a casual boulevardier seemed to attract consistent good luck.
Born in London, Hunter described his childhood in Islington as full of "maniacal happiness". Asked what his father did, he was apt to quip affectionately: "As little as possible." His father was in fact devoted to horses and the racetrack. Through gambling, he lost the money that was supposed to be for his son's education. However, at 16, Hunter won a singing competition at a local cinema. The prize was an appearance in a week's variety at the Winter Gardens,...
- 10/7/2012
- by Dennis Barker
- The Guardian - Film News
The entertainment world has lost one of its most respected comedy writers and performers as Eric Sykes has died at the age of 89.Sykes grew up in Oldham, Lancashire and began his entertainment career while serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II. Following the conflict, he moved to London in 1946 and began looking for work. A lucky break – very lucky, since he’d ended up cold and penniless – saw him meet an old Air Force friend, Bill Fraser, who invited him to come and write material at the Playhouse Theatre. Sykes wound up writing for Fraser and other performers including Frankie Howerd, and quickly made a name for himself as a quality comic scribe.Sykes started performing himself on the radio in 1950, working with, among other notable names, Tony Hancock. During that time, he shared an office with Spike Milligan. In 1954, he began working with Milligan on Goon Show scripts,...
- 7/4/2012
- EmpireOnline
TV and radio comedy legend Eric Sykes has died at the age of 89. Stars have been quick to celebrate the writer and actor who worked with comic icons such as Tommy Cooper and Tony Hancock during his seven decade-long career, praising his comic talents, genius writing skills and humble and generous nature. But for those too young to remember the likes of Sykes and The Plank, here are some classic clips of Eric in action: Sykes, Hattie Jacques on the Billy Cotton Band Show
Eric and his most famous collaborator Hattie Jacques are in fine comic form in this early recording of the Band Show. Billy Cotton joins them for a comic reworking of 'I Caught Mummy Kissing Santa Claus'. Sykes and Jacques
Sykes and Hattie Jacques in one of their earliest TV outings, an early episode of Sykes And A.... Two superb comic actors at (more)...
Eric and his most famous collaborator Hattie Jacques are in fine comic form in this early recording of the Band Show. Billy Cotton joins them for a comic reworking of 'I Caught Mummy Kissing Santa Claus'. Sykes and Jacques
Sykes and Hattie Jacques in one of their earliest TV outings, an early episode of Sykes And A.... Two superb comic actors at (more)...
- 7/4/2012
- by By Alex Fletcher
- Digital Spy
London, July 4: British comic legend Eric Sykes died Wednesday after short illness. He was 89 years old.
Some of his best remembered films are "Harry Potter: The Goblet Of Fire", "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines," and "The Plank", reports femalefirst.co.uk.
Skyes had written skits for big names like Tony Hancock, Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. In 1950, he worked in a radio comedy show - "The Goon Show".
In.
Some of his best remembered films are "Harry Potter: The Goblet Of Fire", "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines," and "The Plank", reports femalefirst.co.uk.
Skyes had written skits for big names like Tony Hancock, Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. In 1950, he worked in a radio comedy show - "The Goon Show".
In.
- 7/4/2012
- by Shiva Prakash
- RealBollywood.com
TV and radio writer and acting legend Eric Sykes has died aged 89, leaving a huge hole in the comedy world. Sykes, who worked with greats such as Tommy Cooper, Hattie Jacques, Tony Hancock and Spike Milligan, entertained seven generations of audiences with his gentle but zany comedic style. Performers and fans of all ages have left tributes for Sykes with the media and on Twitter today (July 4). Keep reading for a small selection of the plaudits: Stephen Fry on Twitter: "Oh no! Eric Sykes gone? An adorable, brilliant, modest, hilarious, innovative and irreplaceable comic master. Farewell, dear, dear man." Jon Plowman, former Head of BBC Comedy: "We won't see his like again. He was a wonderful improviser. His genius was both as a scriptwriter but also someone who could do stuff off the cuff. He was classless and funny and warm." TV (more)...
- 7/4/2012
- by By Alex Fletcher
- Digital Spy
Eric Sykes, the legendary TV and radio comedian, has passed away aged 89. The writer and star of classic '70s BBC sitcom Sykes, a writer for The Goon Show and a collaborator with stars such as Hattie Jacques, Tommy Cooper, Peter Sellers and Tony Hancock, Sykes entertained and amused audiences for seven decades. [Photo Gallery - The Life & Career of Eric Sykes] Sykes was partially deaf from his 30s and in later age was registered blind, but he continued to perform despite his disabilities. He married Edith Eleanore Milbrandt (more)...
- 7/4/2012
- by By Alex Fletcher
- Digital Spy
The legendary British TV actor and comedian Eric Sykes has passed away following a short battle with illness, aged 89. Sykes's entertainment career as a writer for TV and radio, actor and director spanned seven decades and included work with comedy greats such as Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Hattie Jacques. The TV star's manager Norma Farnes said this morning (July 4): "Eric Sykes, star of TV, stage and films, died peacefully this morning after a short illness. His family were with him." Sykes is best remembered for his work in the 1960s and '70s, when he regularly teamed up with Hattie Jacques in the sitcoms and sketch (more)...
- 7/4/2012
- by By Alex Fletcher
- Digital Spy
Sky Atlantic will air retro ads for products such as Kit Kat and Cadbury's during tonight's season five launch of Mad Men. The broadcaster will be airing the first episode of the hit 1960s ad agency drama since 2010 and its first since picking up the rights for the critically-acclaimed drama from AMC. As part of the premiere launch, Sky Atlantic will treat fans to special advertisements, which will move through time during the breaks. Adverts confirmed to air during the broadcast include the original Flake girl commercial, Prunella Scales's Tetley Tea promo, a Milk Tray man advert, Tony Hancock's 'Go (more)...
- 3/27/2012
- by By Alex Fletcher
- Digital Spy
The Day Off revisited
Its not often that an unmade film can get revived and given a world premiere, least of all when its script was abandoned 50 years ago. But that is in a sense what has happened this year with The Day Off - a unfilmed script written by Steptoe And Son creator team Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, and premiered at this years London Comedy Film Festival via a live cast reading to an audience. Written with the intention of starring comedy legend Tony Hancock in 1961 (Galton and Simpson having worked with him before on the film The Rebel in 1961, and earlier in radio...
Its not often that an unmade film can get revived and given a world premiere, least of all when its script was abandoned 50 years ago. But that is in a sense what has happened this year with The Day Off - a unfilmed script written by Steptoe And Son creator team Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, and premiered at this years London Comedy Film Festival via a live cast reading to an audience. Written with the intention of starring comedy legend Tony Hancock in 1961 (Galton and Simpson having worked with him before on the film The Rebel in 1961, and earlier in radio...
- 1/29/2012
- by Owen Van Spall
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Art films don’t have to be serious, but a lot of them are. Madness, suffering, death—at times these become depressingly familiar themes at film festivals. For this reason, the rare comedy film is welcome: comedy highlights of last year’s festivals were Matchmaking Mayor at Berlin and Sons of Norway in Reykjavik. Although you’re primed to enjoy them, comedies are a reliable choice, as they typically have to be original, as well as funny, to be included in the festival.
What if you could have a festival that showed nothing but comedies? And what if it cheered you up during the most depressing month of the year? That’s just what the charity ‘Loco’ has done this year. London’s very first comedy film festival is taking place this weekend at the BFI. It started last night, and you’ll have to be quick if you want...
What if you could have a festival that showed nothing but comedies? And what if it cheered you up during the most depressing month of the year? That’s just what the charity ‘Loco’ has done this year. London’s very first comedy film festival is taking place this weekend at the BFI. It started last night, and you’ll have to be quick if you want...
- 1/28/2012
- by Alison Frank
- The Moving Arts Journal
They made TV history together and were planning their next film – until Tony Hancock rejected their script. Ray Galton and Alan Simpson reveal why The Day Off is now back on
The best review we ever had wasn't from a critic. It was from an artist, Lucian Freud. He said that The Rebel was the greatest film ever made about modern art. The 1961 movie was the first, and sadly the only, film we made with Tony Hancock. It's the story of an office clerk, played by Hancock, who believes himself to be a great but undiscovered artist. When he's fired from his job he moves to Paris, in the hope that the art world will recognise him for the genius he is. Of course, being Hancock, he's a terrible painter, but his ability to act like a genius persuades a group of fashionable young artists that he might be the real deal.
The best review we ever had wasn't from a critic. It was from an artist, Lucian Freud. He said that The Rebel was the greatest film ever made about modern art. The 1961 movie was the first, and sadly the only, film we made with Tony Hancock. It's the story of an office clerk, played by Hancock, who believes himself to be a great but undiscovered artist. When he's fired from his job he moves to Paris, in the hope that the art world will recognise him for the genius he is. Of course, being Hancock, he's a terrible painter, but his ability to act like a genius persuades a group of fashionable young artists that he might be the real deal.
- 1/23/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
London Comedy Film Festival
A quick burst of winter blues-banishing, with comedies old (1960s heist comedy Go To Blazes), new (a preview of the new Muppets movie) and both old and new (a "world premiere" read-through of The Day Off, a movie written for Tony Hancock by Galton and Simpson, which was never made). Guest of honour is Edgar Wright, who introduces a double bill: Shaun Of The Dead and Mike Leigh's Life Is Sweet, with guests and a Q&A; and there are discoveries to be made in anarchic French movie The Fairy and a secret new British comedy.
BFI Southbank, SE1, Thu to 29 Jan
Steven Severin: Vampyr, Nationwide
Following the success of his spooky live soundtrack to Jean Cocteau's avant-garde 1932 film The Blood Of A Poet last year, the former Siouxsie And The Banshees bassist embarks on a tour with another freshly rescored classic. This...
A quick burst of winter blues-banishing, with comedies old (1960s heist comedy Go To Blazes), new (a preview of the new Muppets movie) and both old and new (a "world premiere" read-through of The Day Off, a movie written for Tony Hancock by Galton and Simpson, which was never made). Guest of honour is Edgar Wright, who introduces a double bill: Shaun Of The Dead and Mike Leigh's Life Is Sweet, with guests and a Q&A; and there are discoveries to be made in anarchic French movie The Fairy and a secret new British comedy.
BFI Southbank, SE1, Thu to 29 Jan
Steven Severin: Vampyr, Nationwide
Following the success of his spooky live soundtrack to Jean Cocteau's avant-garde 1932 film The Blood Of A Poet last year, the former Siouxsie And The Banshees bassist embarks on a tour with another freshly rescored classic. This...
- 1/21/2012
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
London, Jan 2: The script that led comic legend Tony Hancock to leave his hit writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, is going to be made into a film, more than 50 years after it was first written.
Galton and Simpson, who had penned all of Hancock's television and radio series from the early Fifties onwards, came up with movie script The Day Off in 1961.
But Hancock, who was keen to crack Hollywood at the time, insisted it 'wasn't international' enough.
He then split from Galton and Simpson - a move which is regarded as the biggest mistake of his career. While they went on to write the hit sitcom Steptoe And Son, Hancock succumbed.
Galton and Simpson, who had penned all of Hancock's television and radio series from the early Fifties onwards, came up with movie script The Day Off in 1961.
But Hancock, who was keen to crack Hollywood at the time, insisted it 'wasn't international' enough.
He then split from Galton and Simpson - a move which is regarded as the biggest mistake of his career. While they went on to write the hit sitcom Steptoe And Son, Hancock succumbed.
- 1/2/2012
- by Diksha Singh
- RealBollywood.com
It's all about the Venice film festival this week, and Xan Brooks is our man on the Lido, comparing notes with George Clooney and explaining one or two things to Madonna
The big story
Men want to be him, women want to be with him. That's how we like to think of dashing, debonair Xan Brooks who, like Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me, has swanned off down to Venice for a spot of international jet-set action. In other words, the Venice film festival has got underway, and his opening video missive sees Xan lounging in typically suave manner on the steps of the Palazzo del Cinema. Later on, the Xanster got to run the rule over George Clooney, the man who has learned everything he knows about charm from our Mr Brooks. Clooney's latest directorial effort, The Ides of March, launched the festival, and you can read...
The big story
Men want to be him, women want to be with him. That's how we like to think of dashing, debonair Xan Brooks who, like Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me, has swanned off down to Venice for a spot of international jet-set action. In other words, the Venice film festival has got underway, and his opening video missive sees Xan lounging in typically suave manner on the steps of the Palazzo del Cinema. Later on, the Xanster got to run the rule over George Clooney, the man who has learned everything he knows about charm from our Mr Brooks. Clooney's latest directorial effort, The Ides of March, launched the festival, and you can read...
- 9/1/2011
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
The Day Off, by writing team Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, was unearthed during research for a new biography of the duo
They wrote some of the funniest, most memorable British comedy of the 20th century. Ray Galton and Alan Simpson's scripts for Tony Hancock had lines so brilliant, characters so absurd and jokes so sublime that they embedded themselves in the national consciousness.
Fans should prepare themselves for a treat, though, because the best may be yet to come. The Observer can reveal that Galton and Simpson completed a feature-length film script for Hancock that has never been made public. The Day Off, the gut-wrenching tale of a hapless bus conductor who just can't get anything right, has been hailed as a lost masterpiece and "the holy grail of comedy".
"It's probably the best thing they ever wrote," said Christopher Stevens, the author and journalist who stumbled on...
They wrote some of the funniest, most memorable British comedy of the 20th century. Ray Galton and Alan Simpson's scripts for Tony Hancock had lines so brilliant, characters so absurd and jokes so sublime that they embedded themselves in the national consciousness.
Fans should prepare themselves for a treat, though, because the best may be yet to come. The Observer can reveal that Galton and Simpson completed a feature-length film script for Hancock that has never been made public. The Day Off, the gut-wrenching tale of a hapless bus conductor who just can't get anything right, has been hailed as a lost masterpiece and "the holy grail of comedy".
"It's probably the best thing they ever wrote," said Christopher Stevens, the author and journalist who stumbled on...
- 8/27/2011
- by Lizzy Davies
- The Guardian - Film News
The story behind the making of the film and the religious storm it caused are the subject of Holy Flying Circus
As Brian Cohen, the hapless hero of Monty Python's Life of Brian, finds out, it can be tricky stepping into the shoes of someone worshipped by all. And the fear of not passing muster is on the minds of all six actors cast as Pythons for a BBC comedy drama about the release of the film in 1979.
Holy Flying Circus will tell the story of the making of Life of Brian and the righteous fury that surrounded the release of its satirical take on the gospels. It is the first attempt to dramatise the activities of the sextet who transformed the nature of comedy in this country and produced a British film now critically regarded as one of the very best.
Coming together this summer to play Michael Palin,...
As Brian Cohen, the hapless hero of Monty Python's Life of Brian, finds out, it can be tricky stepping into the shoes of someone worshipped by all. And the fear of not passing muster is on the minds of all six actors cast as Pythons for a BBC comedy drama about the release of the film in 1979.
Holy Flying Circus will tell the story of the making of Life of Brian and the righteous fury that surrounded the release of its satirical take on the gospels. It is the first attempt to dramatise the activities of the sextet who transformed the nature of comedy in this country and produced a British film now critically regarded as one of the very best.
Coming together this summer to play Michael Palin,...
- 8/15/2011
- by Vanessa Thorpe
- The Guardian - Film News
Actor turned teacher, he quit the screen at the height of his fame
There are some actors who, having disappeared from the public gaze early in their careers, always prompt the question, "Whatever happened to ... ?" The answer, in the case of Paul Massie, who has died of lung cancer aged 78, is that, at the height of his fame on films and television, he gave it up at the age of 40 to teach drama at the University of South Florida in Tampa.
The son of a Baptist minister, Massie was born Arthur Massé in the city of St Catharines, in the Niagara region of Ontario. Although he was brought up in Canada, almost his entire 16-year acting career was in Britain. In fact, the only film he made in Canada was his first, Philip Leacock's High Tide at Noon (1957), a Rank Organisation melodrama shot in Nova Scotia. Although it was a bit part,...
There are some actors who, having disappeared from the public gaze early in their careers, always prompt the question, "Whatever happened to ... ?" The answer, in the case of Paul Massie, who has died of lung cancer aged 78, is that, at the height of his fame on films and television, he gave it up at the age of 40 to teach drama at the University of South Florida in Tampa.
The son of a Baptist minister, Massie was born Arthur Massé in the city of St Catharines, in the Niagara region of Ontario. Although he was brought up in Canada, almost his entire 16-year acting career was in Britain. In fact, the only film he made in Canada was his first, Philip Leacock's High Tide at Noon (1957), a Rank Organisation melodrama shot in Nova Scotia. Although it was a bit part,...
- 7/31/2011
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Holy Flying Circus to focus on comedians' struggle with church, councils and critics in runup to release of controversial film
"He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy" is one of the most oft-quoted lines in British comedy history. But the religious controversy that engulfed the Monty Python film in which the quote featured, Life of Brian, on its 1979 release was no laughing matter – and is now to be the subject of a BBC drama.
Holy Flying Circus, written by Tony Roche, a co-writer of the political satire The Thick of It, will air this autumn on BBC4 and aims to use the Life of Brian controversy to explore the subject of free speech.
Monty Python's irreverent take on the story of Jesus Christ revolved around Brian Cohen, a reluctant fictional Messiah in first century Judea who is eventually crucified. Church leaders in the Us and the UK protested,...
"He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy" is one of the most oft-quoted lines in British comedy history. But the religious controversy that engulfed the Monty Python film in which the quote featured, Life of Brian, on its 1979 release was no laughing matter – and is now to be the subject of a BBC drama.
Holy Flying Circus, written by Tony Roche, a co-writer of the political satire The Thick of It, will air this autumn on BBC4 and aims to use the Life of Brian controversy to explore the subject of free speech.
Monty Python's irreverent take on the story of Jesus Christ revolved around Brian Cohen, a reluctant fictional Messiah in first century Judea who is eventually crucified. Church leaders in the Us and the UK protested,...
- 6/21/2011
- by Ben Dowell
- The Guardian - Film News
Doctor Who star Karen Gillan is currently filming as glamorous Sixties star Jean Shrimpton in We’ll Take Manhattan for BBC4.
The film focuses on the iconic star’s four-year love affair with photographer David Bailey. The part is Karen's first leading role since her debut in the 2010 series of Doctor Who as the Time Lord’s companion Amy Pond.
David Bailey is played by 24-year-old Welsh actor Aneurin Barnard (represented by Ken McReddie Associates) who starred in the original London cast of musical Spring Awakening and last year filmed Ironclad and Hunky Dory. He recently wrapped on Elfie Hopkins and the Gammons and is to star in Iain Softley's Trap for Cinderella, also filming this year.
Although predominantly set in 1962 and exploring the story of how Bailey and Shrimpton first met the drama also reveals how a young, visionary photographer refused to conform. He insisted on using the...
The film focuses on the iconic star’s four-year love affair with photographer David Bailey. The part is Karen's first leading role since her debut in the 2010 series of Doctor Who as the Time Lord’s companion Amy Pond.
David Bailey is played by 24-year-old Welsh actor Aneurin Barnard (represented by Ken McReddie Associates) who starred in the original London cast of musical Spring Awakening and last year filmed Ironclad and Hunky Dory. He recently wrapped on Elfie Hopkins and the Gammons and is to star in Iain Softley's Trap for Cinderella, also filming this year.
Although predominantly set in 1962 and exploring the story of how Bailey and Shrimpton first met the drama also reveals how a young, visionary photographer refused to conform. He insisted on using the...
- 5/31/2011
- by noreply@blogger.com (ScreenTerrier)
- ScreenTerrier
Back in 2003, I thought Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl the best, indeed the only successful thing of its kind since the Burt Lancaster swashbuckler The Crimson Pirate a half-century earlier. The two laboured sequels, subtitled Dead Man's Chest and At World's End, took the franchise steadily downhill, a process only slightly halted by this new one. A poorly scripted film has its forked tongue sticking out of both cheeks. It features the series regulars, Johnny Depp's crafty old salt Captain Jack Sparrow and his arch rival, Geoffrey Rush's peg-legged Captain Hector Barbossa, and the two are joined by newcomers lady pirate Angelica (Penélope Cruz) and evil Captain Blackbeard (Ian McShane). They're all competing to discover the lost Fountain of Eternal Youth somewhere on the Spanish Main, and for this they first need to find a map, two silver chalices and a mermaid's tear.
- 5/21/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
If British comedians insist on crossing over to the big screen, they need to pay more attention to narrative and character development
Is there anything British comedians can't do? Not content with dominating the airwaves with their comedy shows, chat and quiz shows, they've been branching out into journalism, novels and, increasingly, the movies. And I'm not just talking about performing, though nowadays it's hard to escape Russell Brand, who popped up in The Tempest, will shortly be heard as voice of the Easter Bunny in Hop, and seen as Arthur in the remake of a film that starred Dudley Moore, another British TV comedian who was (briefly) clutched to the bosom of Hollywood.
No, because here comes Richard Ayoade, best known for roles in Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Nathan Barley and The It Crowd, making his feature writing and directing debut with Submarine. Also coming soon to a multiplex near you is Attack the Block,...
Is there anything British comedians can't do? Not content with dominating the airwaves with their comedy shows, chat and quiz shows, they've been branching out into journalism, novels and, increasingly, the movies. And I'm not just talking about performing, though nowadays it's hard to escape Russell Brand, who popped up in The Tempest, will shortly be heard as voice of the Easter Bunny in Hop, and seen as Arthur in the remake of a film that starred Dudley Moore, another British TV comedian who was (briefly) clutched to the bosom of Hollywood.
No, because here comes Richard Ayoade, best known for roles in Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Nathan Barley and The It Crowd, making his feature writing and directing debut with Submarine. Also coming soon to a multiplex near you is Attack the Block,...
- 3/18/2011
- by Anne Billson
- The Guardian - Film News
“Print is dead,” according to Egon Spengler in the 1984 movie Ghostbusters, but it’s taken 27 years for him to be proved right. With the recent news that sales of Kindle books have overtaken paperbacks on Amazon, is it time to finally consign the book to the same category as the typewriter, the home telephone and the Space Shuttle?
Of course there are still lots of people bemoaning the fact that e-books “just aren’t the same as holding a real book in your hand” or that “they don’t have that same smell” and “what does this new technology mean for the future of libraries?” But I think it’s time to embrace this new technology. Books are nothing more than a delivery system for information, and as such they’re impractical, deeply flawed and poorly designed. So here’s a list of 10 reasons why I think we won’t...
Of course there are still lots of people bemoaning the fact that e-books “just aren’t the same as holding a real book in your hand” or that “they don’t have that same smell” and “what does this new technology mean for the future of libraries?” But I think it’s time to embrace this new technology. Books are nothing more than a delivery system for information, and as such they’re impractical, deeply flawed and poorly designed. So here’s a list of 10 reasons why I think we won’t...
- 2/2/2011
- Shadowlocked
Nostalgic retellings of the lives of Tony Hancock, Kenneth Williams, and Eric & Ernie have been ratings winners, but fictionalised accounts can land the Beeb in hot water
Ooh, I say. How's the harness?" We're four minutes and 58 seconds into BBC4's Hattie and the biopic cliche klaxon is primed to emit its first parp of distress. Plonked amid the bustle of a busy panto rehearsal, Eric Sykes (played, somewhat disconcertingly, by Graham Fellows) winces in sympathy as co-star Hattie Jacques (Ruth "Nessa" Jones), squeezes her fairy princess-costumed frame into some manner of hoist. Mugging gamely ("Lucky I'm not planning on having any more children …") Jacques is hoisted swiftly over the empty stage, her matronly limbs swishing in time to the soundtrack's plinky-twinkly piano. Then, inevitably – vzzzzznnng! – the mechanism fizzles to a halt. As offscreen lackeys scramble with levers and pulleys, Jacques is left to dangle pinkly in mid-air, a vision...
Ooh, I say. How's the harness?" We're four minutes and 58 seconds into BBC4's Hattie and the biopic cliche klaxon is primed to emit its first parp of distress. Plonked amid the bustle of a busy panto rehearsal, Eric Sykes (played, somewhat disconcertingly, by Graham Fellows) winces in sympathy as co-star Hattie Jacques (Ruth "Nessa" Jones), squeezes her fairy princess-costumed frame into some manner of hoist. Mugging gamely ("Lucky I'm not planning on having any more children …") Jacques is hoisted swiftly over the empty stage, her matronly limbs swishing in time to the soundtrack's plinky-twinkly piano. Then, inevitably – vzzzzznnng! – the mechanism fizzles to a halt. As offscreen lackeys scramble with levers and pulleys, Jacques is left to dangle pinkly in mid-air, a vision...
- 1/15/2011
- by Sarah Dempster
- The Guardian - Film News
After last year's The Boat That Rocked, critics feared he'd lost his mojo. But the director has made a triumphant return – to the small screen, at least
It's been a year or so since Richard Curtis showed us his film The Boat That Rocked, about a 60s pirate radio station, a very eccentric and not terribly funny comedy — one which moreover bore worrying signs of meaning an enormous amount to him personally — and nobody quite knew where to look. Could it be that Richard Curtis was on the way out? Could it be the self-imposed burden of being a feature film director and globally important charitable dynamo had crushed the funny in Richard Curtis?
This was the romcom supremo who wrote such terrific and massively influential films as Four Weddings And A Funeral and the still underrated Notting Hill, films which hundreds of other films have tried unsuccessfully to rip off,...
It's been a year or so since Richard Curtis showed us his film The Boat That Rocked, about a 60s pirate radio station, a very eccentric and not terribly funny comedy — one which moreover bore worrying signs of meaning an enormous amount to him personally — and nobody quite knew where to look. Could it be that Richard Curtis was on the way out? Could it be the self-imposed burden of being a feature film director and globally important charitable dynamo had crushed the funny in Richard Curtis?
This was the romcom supremo who wrote such terrific and massively influential films as Four Weddings And A Funeral and the still underrated Notting Hill, films which hundreds of other films have tried unsuccessfully to rip off,...
- 6/8/2010
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed Ben Stiller’s dramatic turn in Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg (I really can’t tell you -I’m staring down the barrel of the embargo gun currently), but Adam Sandler’s role in Judd Apatow’s Funny People brought about shades of Tony Hancock to the usual gross out comedies of recent years, and I loved what this and Greenberg have done for two of the foremost comedic actors working.
So, on hearing the news that Dennis Dugan is reuniting with Adam Sandler to direct the skewed rom com Jack and Jill pricks the balloon in my face. The premise is all about identical twins, a boy and a girl (both played by Sandler, hear me? Both…) who fall in love. The question on every blogger’s lips is ‘will the love affair be kept in the family?’ I’m not...
So, on hearing the news that Dennis Dugan is reuniting with Adam Sandler to direct the skewed rom com Jack and Jill pricks the balloon in my face. The premise is all about identical twins, a boy and a girl (both played by Sandler, hear me? Both…) who fall in love. The question on every blogger’s lips is ‘will the love affair be kept in the family?’ I’m not...
- 6/8/2010
- by Jon Lyus
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
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