Whether you’re into Doctor Who and Star Wars or The Wire and Sherlock, there’s a great line-up of special guests coming to the NEC on 22-23 March for McM Birmingham Comic Con and Memorabilia. Here are just a few of them!
British actor, writer and director Phil Davis has appeared in a host of top TV shows including Whitechapel; Sherlock, Being Human, Merlin and Doctor Who, while his movie credits include Alien 3, Quadrophenia, Notes On A Scandal, Secrets & Lies and Vera Drake, for which he was BAFTA-nominated. Paul McGann – Famous for playing the Eighth Doctor in the 1996 Doctor Who television film – a role he reprised in 72 audio dramas and the 2013 mini-episode ‘The Night of the Doctor’ – and for starring alongside Richard E. Grant in much-loved 1987 black comedy Withnail And I. Clarke Peters – Best known as detective Lester Freamon in acclaimed crime drama The Wire, as well as...
British actor, writer and director Phil Davis has appeared in a host of top TV shows including Whitechapel; Sherlock, Being Human, Merlin and Doctor Who, while his movie credits include Alien 3, Quadrophenia, Notes On A Scandal, Secrets & Lies and Vera Drake, for which he was BAFTA-nominated. Paul McGann – Famous for playing the Eighth Doctor in the 1996 Doctor Who television film – a role he reprised in 72 audio dramas and the 2013 mini-episode ‘The Night of the Doctor’ – and for starring alongside Richard E. Grant in much-loved 1987 black comedy Withnail And I. Clarke Peters – Best known as detective Lester Freamon in acclaimed crime drama The Wire, as well as...
- 3/11/2014
- by Phil Wheat
- Nerdly
From Johnny Cash to Angela Lansbury, expect to see some familiar faces in the coming year
Pop
The lost Johnny Cash gets released
According to Cash's son John, the country legend was a prolific hoarder, hanging on to everything from original audio tapes for The Johnny Cash Show to "a camel saddle gift from the prince of Saudi Arabia". That explains why it's taken several years since his death in 2003 for anyone to find Out Among the Stars, an album he recorded in the early 1980s. Columbia dismissed the album as not worth releasing, but John Cash describes the 12 tracks – which include a duet with Johnny's wife, June Carter – as "beautiful". 24 March.
Theatre
Hairspray
Barely has the set for a blistering revival of Chicago been cleared away than director Paul Kerryson sets about reinventing this joyous musical, inspired by John Waters's cult movie. It's a show that mixes the heart-rending and the hair-curling,...
Pop
The lost Johnny Cash gets released
According to Cash's son John, the country legend was a prolific hoarder, hanging on to everything from original audio tapes for The Johnny Cash Show to "a camel saddle gift from the prince of Saudi Arabia". That explains why it's taken several years since his death in 2003 for anyone to find Out Among the Stars, an album he recorded in the early 1980s. Columbia dismissed the album as not worth releasing, but John Cash describes the 12 tracks – which include a duet with Johnny's wife, June Carter – as "beautiful". 24 March.
Theatre
Hairspray
Barely has the set for a blistering revival of Chicago been cleared away than director Paul Kerryson sets about reinventing this joyous musical, inspired by John Waters's cult movie. It's a show that mixes the heart-rending and the hair-curling,...
- 1/1/2014
- by Mark Lawson, Lyn Gardner, Peter Bradshaw, Stuart Heritage, Andrew Dickson, Brian Logan, Jonathan Jones, Judith Mackrell
- The Guardian - Film News
Blood On Satan's Claw | Casablanca | Louie: The Complete First Season | Knightriders | George And Mildred: The Complete Series
Blood On Satan's Claw
Aldous Huxley and Arthur Miller both realised that a witch hunt is a cracking way to explore metaphor, and while it's not to suggest that this modest 1971 horror is as classy and resonant as The Devils or The Crucible, at times it gets pretty close. Plus it also has an actual supernatural element, so everyone wins. In terms of mood, it's closer to that other grimly impressive curio (with a similarly marketable title) Witchfinder General than the usual, run-of-the-mill Brit-horror of the time.
Taking place in rural 17th century England, the story centres on a small village where a strange deformed skull is dug up in a field, casting a strange spell over the local children, some growing mysterious patches of fur on their bodies. A judge...
Blood On Satan's Claw
Aldous Huxley and Arthur Miller both realised that a witch hunt is a cracking way to explore metaphor, and while it's not to suggest that this modest 1971 horror is as classy and resonant as The Devils or The Crucible, at times it gets pretty close. Plus it also has an actual supernatural element, so everyone wins. In terms of mood, it's closer to that other grimly impressive curio (with a similarly marketable title) Witchfinder General than the usual, run-of-the-mill Brit-horror of the time.
Taking place in rural 17th century England, the story centres on a small village where a strange deformed skull is dug up in a field, casting a strange spell over the local children, some growing mysterious patches of fur on their bodies. A judge...
- 4/20/2013
- by Phelim O'Neill
- The Guardian - Film News
You may find the new Ben Stiller movie The Watch strangely familiar. But that's not necessarily a good thing
You might be forgiven for thinking that you've seen The Watch before. Not because Ben Stiller's character is the same uptight blowhard that he has played in everything for the past 15 years, or because Richard Ayoade is basically just Moss from The It Crowd again, or because Vince Vaughn remains content to sit back and bibble out the same directionless patter that has been his stock in trade for what seems like centuries.
No. The reason is because, once you've scraped away all the sex jokes and clanging Costco product placement, you're basically left with Dad's Army. Both are essentially stories about a group of ill-prepared middle-aged incompetents trying to escape the monotony of their day-to-day lives by fudging together a defence against an enemy they don't fully understand. With The Watch,...
You might be forgiven for thinking that you've seen The Watch before. Not because Ben Stiller's character is the same uptight blowhard that he has played in everything for the past 15 years, or because Richard Ayoade is basically just Moss from The It Crowd again, or because Vince Vaughn remains content to sit back and bibble out the same directionless patter that has been his stock in trade for what seems like centuries.
No. The reason is because, once you've scraped away all the sex jokes and clanging Costco product placement, you're basically left with Dad's Army. Both are essentially stories about a group of ill-prepared middle-aged incompetents trying to escape the monotony of their day-to-day lives by fudging together a defence against an enemy they don't fully understand. With The Watch,...
- 8/16/2012
- by Stuart Heritage
- The Guardian - Film News
'Cheeky cockney' character actor who graced British screens for more than 60 years
While working on the classic Ealing comedy Hue and Cry in 1947, the actor Harry Fowler, who has died aged 85, was given sage advice by one of his co-stars, Jack Warner: "Never turn anything down … stars come and go but as a character actor, you'll work until you're 90."
Fowler took the suggestion and proved its near veracity. Between his 1942 debut as Ern in Those Kids from Town until television appearances more than 60 years later, he notched up scores of feature films and innumerable TV shows, including three years as Corporal "Flogger" Hoskins in The Army Game.
He never attained star status but created a gallery of sparky characters, including minor villains, servicemen, reporters and tradesmen enriched by an ever-present cheeky smile and an authentic cockney accent. He was Smudge or Smiley, Nipper or Knocker, Bert or 'Orace, as...
While working on the classic Ealing comedy Hue and Cry in 1947, the actor Harry Fowler, who has died aged 85, was given sage advice by one of his co-stars, Jack Warner: "Never turn anything down … stars come and go but as a character actor, you'll work until you're 90."
Fowler took the suggestion and proved its near veracity. Between his 1942 debut as Ern in Those Kids from Town until television appearances more than 60 years later, he notched up scores of feature films and innumerable TV shows, including three years as Corporal "Flogger" Hoskins in The Army Game.
He never attained star status but created a gallery of sparky characters, including minor villains, servicemen, reporters and tradesmen enriched by an ever-present cheeky smile and an authentic cockney accent. He was Smudge or Smiley, Nipper or Knocker, Bert or 'Orace, as...
- 1/5/2012
- by Brian Baxter
- The Guardian - Film News
NBC's "The Office" is a remake of BBC's "The Office." It feels howlingly stupid to write this because it is assumed (rightly) that everyone knows this already. The reason everyone knows this has a lot to do with things that would probably take too much time to unpack in a Seriously Random List, like the heightened awareness among today's TV watchers of how their sausage is made as well as the surge in popularity and accessibility of foreign television thanks to DVDs and online streaming. But the takeaway is that there are and have been plenty of series that have found success here in the U.S. that were based on British shows, which is how this list came together. If you never knew that some of these shows were remakes, now you can impress and potentially bore people at parties. (If you already knew that each of these was a remake,...
- 7/13/2010
- by Daniel Carlson
Summer 2011 release planned for E4's take on adolescence
Skins, the sex, drink and drug-fuelled drama that depicts teenage life as it often is rather than how parents imagine it, is to migrate to the big screen.
After a year of speculation about the E4 show, producers today confirmed that shooting would begin in September on a film to be released in summer 2011.
Steve Christian, executive producer on the film and chair of the film finance and distribution company CinemaNX, said the show – which few could accuse of presenting a sanitised picture of adolescence – was perfect for the big screen. But he added: "The biggest critics of Skins are the Skins fans so it's going to be a big challenge. The programme has this incredible fanbase despite all the characters changing."
Skins has grown in popularity with more than 1.5 million people tuning in to the start of the recent fourth series.
Skins, the sex, drink and drug-fuelled drama that depicts teenage life as it often is rather than how parents imagine it, is to migrate to the big screen.
After a year of speculation about the E4 show, producers today confirmed that shooting would begin in September on a film to be released in summer 2011.
Steve Christian, executive producer on the film and chair of the film finance and distribution company CinemaNX, said the show – which few could accuse of presenting a sanitised picture of adolescence – was perfect for the big screen. But he added: "The biggest critics of Skins are the Skins fans so it's going to be a big challenge. The programme has this incredible fanbase despite all the characters changing."
Skins has grown in popularity with more than 1.5 million people tuning in to the start of the recent fourth series.
- 5/27/2010
- by Mark Brown
- The Guardian - Film News
Sarfraz Manzoor meets the family who have become Channel 4 stars since opening their home to the cameras for a new fly-on-the-wall reality show
George and Mildred. Terry and June. Richard and Judy. Television has thrown up many memorable married double acts but there has been no one quite like Arvinder and Sarbjit Grewal. They are the unlikely stars of Channel 4's fly-on-the-wall documentary series, The Family, which features the British-Asian couple, their three children, two in-laws and one granddaughter. Oh, and two dogs.
In the programme, Arvinder and Sarbjit, married for more than 30 years, live in a five-bedroom pebble-dashed house and communicate mostly through insults and abuse: he demands a cup of tea; she grunts contemptuously. He wistfully remembers when she was slim; she says she can recall when he still had hair. In the rare moments when they are not bickering, Arvinder works as a coach driver and Sarbjit...
George and Mildred. Terry and June. Richard and Judy. Television has thrown up many memorable married double acts but there has been no one quite like Arvinder and Sarbjit Grewal. They are the unlikely stars of Channel 4's fly-on-the-wall documentary series, The Family, which features the British-Asian couple, their three children, two in-laws and one granddaughter. Oh, and two dogs.
In the programme, Arvinder and Sarbjit, married for more than 30 years, live in a five-bedroom pebble-dashed house and communicate mostly through insults and abuse: he demands a cup of tea; she grunts contemptuously. He wistfully remembers when she was slim; she says she can recall when he still had hair. In the rare moments when they are not bickering, Arvinder works as a coach driver and Sarbjit...
- 12/5/2009
- by Sarfraz Manzoor
- The Guardian - Film News
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