The Foundation are behind some of the most popular television shows for children for the past few years, including Mister Maker, Scorpion Island, Finger Tips, Dani’s House and Waybuloo.

But one of their shows that is still airing on CBeebies since it’s debut in 2008 is Big Barn Farm, a live action television show that stars barnyard animals who have adventures around the barn they all live on.

Three DVDs have been released this week (Welcome to Big Barn Farm, Greedy Goat and Other Stories and Best in Show and Other Stories) and rather than reviewing each one separately in different articles, I will review the DVDs in terms of the quality of the show and the episodes in these products.

These DVDs each feature five episodes from the television series and introduces viewers to the Farmyard Bunch, a group of farmyard animals that all live at Big Barn Farm.

The Farmyard Bunch is made up of four young animals – Petal the Piglet, Dash the Donkey, Gobo the Goat and Digger the Puppy. Every episode always follows these four characters on adventures around or on the farm, bumping into other characters including Madam the French Cow, Mrs. Snuffles the mother pig, the Duck Girls and Lester the rooster. Told entirely in the animals’ point of view, the only human beings that ever appear are either the farmer or one of his family members that only come in as part of a plot point.

But what makes the show interesting is the fact that they use similar techniques from the film Babe to make the series.

The actors and actresses (including Shelley Longworth and Ben Fairman), all bring good voice acting to each of the individual animal, making them unique and appealing for each other. Computer animation is used to make the animals mouths move for long pieces of dialogue, while their mouths do often move on their own as well. The voice actors really bring charm to the cute, young animal stars, making it very appealing to very young children.

These episodes are also narrated by Ben Fairman, who brings a good sense of storytelling towards the viewers before Dave Lamb (who narrates Come Dine With Me) took over the role since series two.

While young children will enjoy this with the animal characters and the voice work involved, older children and grown-ups might get a bit bored by this. This is mainly due to the fact that at times some of the characters do something naughty in a couple of the episodes and manage to get away with it or have very little consequences which they might be a bit wary about what the target audience are learning from it. With the presentation and music specifically aimed at young viewers as well, they might feel as though it isn’t aimed at them, which is probably why the second series had Dave Lamb to do the narration.

Each of the DVDs only feature five episodes and this may be a little disappointing for those who want to get them for a child or themselves, especially since they are each priced at around five pounds.

Compared to the other DVD releases from The Foundation’s other productions, they too only offer episodes (as television shows from CBeebies rarely offer special features), but some additional episodes would have been nice as parents might want to keep their children entertained a bit longer. Waybuloo generally features around eight episodes for each of their DVDs and because they are twenty minutes per episode, it’s nearly twice as long as the seventy minutes of the Big Barn Farm releases.

For those who have not seen the series, this is a pretty good introduction to the format and has a nice, charming appeal that children might be interested in for just over five pounds. Just be warned that if the running time is a bit too short for you at the price it is set at, it might be best to get another DVD package that offers more content.

***~~ (3/5)

Here’s yet another amazing step for LOVEFiLM as today we’ve have news that the UK’s biggest movie rental service has partnered with ITV and BBC worldwide to announce that you’ll be able to stream archived footage from the TV’s archives as well as more recent content.

The web really is brining all this together and so often LOVEFiLM seem to be at the forefront of it all. They recently announced their DVD rental service being made available on XBOX and after being purchased by Amazon earlier in the year, really are going from strength to strength. The full press release is below:

AMAZON’S LOVEFiLM PARTNERS WITH ITV IN MAJOR TV STREAMING DEAL

LOVEFiLM, an Amazon company, has partnered with ITV to enable its members to instantly watch TV titles from the UK’s largest commercial broadcaster.

The subscription video on-demand (SVOD) agreement will give LOVEFiLM members access to ITV’s vast archive of shows, including a selection of recent popular content such as Marchlands and Above Suspicion, as well as classic crime series Prime Suspect and Inspector Morse and much loved British dramas such as Cold Feet and Secret Diary of a Call Girl.

The renewed deal with ITV will add further premium TV content to the LOVEFiLM Instant service – Europe’s leading TV and movie subscription streaming service available on a range of internet-connected devices including the PC, Sony PlayStation®3, Apple iPad, web-enabled TV sets and Blu-ray players and Microsoft Xbox 360 – and strengthen its existing offering of ITV programmes.

LOVEFiLM Instant gives members immediate access to TV and movie content from major broadcasters and studios including Entertainment One, Disney, Lionsgate, Momentum, STUDIOCANAL, Warner Bros. and BBC Worldwide direct to their living rooms.

Simon Calver, CEO of Amazon’s LOVEFiLM, comments:
“LOVEFiLM’s partnership with ITV is the icing on the cake of our LOVEFiLM Instant service as it brings more top TV content together with world class movies, delivered across multiple platforms, all for one low monthly price.”

Martin Goswami, Director of Pay and Distribution added:  “We are delighted to be working with LOVEFiLM to bring a wide range of ITV’s best loved programmes to their subscribers.  Partnering with LOVEFiLM’s Instant service is a great example of how ITV is starting to drive new revenue streams by distributing its content across multiple platforms.”

AMAZON’S LOVEFiLM STRIKES TV STREAMING DEAL WITH BBC WORLDWIDE

LOVEFiLM, an Amazon company, has partnered with BBC Worldwide in a deal that will give its members streaming access to world-renowned content from the BBC’s vast archive of shows, plus celebrated programmes commissioned by other British broadcasters.

The subscription video on-demand (SVOD) deal includes some of the greatest British programming of all time.  TV titles will include the nation’s much loved Doctor Who, the critically acclaimed Life On Mars, spy drama Spooks, highly-acclaimed mini-series Whitechapel, as well as some of the public and critics’ favourite documentaries including the breath-taking Planet Earth.

This is the latest content deal to add further TV content to LOVEFiLM Instant – Europe’s leading TV and movie subscription streaming service available on a range of internet-connected devices including the PC, Sony PlayStation®3, Apple iPad, web-enabled TV sets and Blu-ray players and Microsoft Xbox 360.

LOVEFiLM Instant gives members immediate access to TV and movie content from major broadcasters and studios including Entertainment One, Disney, Lionsgate, Momentum, Sony Pictures, STUDIOCANAL, Warner Bros. and ITV direct to their living rooms.  Members will also continue to benefit from physical DVD rentals with the ever-growing LOVEFiLM by Post service.

Simon Calver, CEO of Amazon’s LOVEFiLM, comments:
“We are thrilled to be bringing together great British TV content with Europe’s leading film subscription service. This gives LOVEFiLM an even more powerful, unique offering of instant programming for our members to view across a growing number of platforms, for one low monthly price.”

Lisa Rousseau, Head of UK and Ireland, Sales & Distribution, BBC Worldwide added: “We’ve had a content partnership with LOVEFiLM for several years now and it’s great to see this evolve digitally. We’re delighted to give LOVEFiLM’s subscribers the opportunity to instantly watch their favourite British shows, wherever and whenever they wish, alongside a diverse range of great programmes and films.”

Spooks is the long-running BBC TV series depicting the multitude of challenges facing the fictional Section D in the British Security Service as they strive to protect Britain from its enemies both within and without.

This 10th and final series builds to a massive climax by exploring the secrets in the past of  the ever-dependable department head Sir Harry Pearce (Peter Firth) together with his evolving feelings towards assistant Ruth Evershed (Nicola Walker) but in a way that means that even complete newcomers to the series should hopefully be able to follow the convoluted twists and turns as the curtain falls on the series.

Newcomers Erin Watts (Lara Pulver) and Calum Reed (Geoffrey Streatfeild) join the remaining agents of Section D in the six concluding episodes of the series although where the previous series seemed to roll from one action scene to the next in this series time is spent exploring the dynamics between Harry and Ruth which lead us inexorably towards the gripping series finale.

The series has a record over the years for being criticised by Dame StellaRimington, former head of MI5 for it’s “over-excitable” characters, being lampooned by The Guardian as “possibly the most ridiculous show on the BBC” and for seemingly offending pretty much every ethnic and social group along the way from Christians to the Chinese Government with its plot lines. For these things alone I’d say that it deserves huge respect as such offence, while not necessarily on a Frankie Boyle scale, indicates to me the kind of single-minded pursuit of exciting chases, big explosions, messy assassinations and underhanded double-dealing that I like to see in a TV spy series. That and an almost callous disregard for its main characters, dispatching even the most beloved of its agents with deaths ranging from the noble and spectacular to the seriously undignified with every shade in between make this the kind of show you can really get into, assuming you’ve mastered the knack of the “willing suspension of disbelief“.

Spooks is worlds apart from my all time favourite spy series, the original “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” with Alec Guinness’ beautifully paced Smiley and the evocative settings, but as occasions in my life where I have four-and-a half uninterrupted hours to spend on thoughtful drama are few and far between I more often find myself with a spare hour in which excitement and entertainment are prime considerations. This is where Spooks comes in.

In addition to the final six episodes the DVDs include the extras “Harry’s Game” which  explores what it is that makes Harry Pearce tick and features interviews with all the key cast and crew members plus “Spooks Top 10 Moments” from all of the ten series as voted for by the cast and crew themselves. I’m pretty sure that moment number 9 was filmed at Legoland Windsor though if you’re squeamish you probably want some warning that it does feature a couple of the more gory and traumatic death scenes.

If you like your dramas with documentary-esque levels of accuracy then this may not be your cup of tea but this is an outstanding series with brilliant action with some intense ethical challenges thrown in to keep the grey matter moving. Just remember that when you’re watching it, as they say in Harry’s Game, “anybody at any point is expendable”.

Spooks series 10 on DVD is available now in shops and online.

***½~ (3.5/5)

Disk 1
Episode 1 (also with commentary)
Episode 2

Disk 2
Episodes 3, 4 & 5

Disk 3
Episode 6 (also with commentary)
Extras: Harry’s Game & Spooks Top 10 Moments

———————
@ColinHartUK

‘Who’ saw this coming??? According to Variety, ‘Harry Potter’ director David Yates will bring the BBC’s long-running, much-loved primetime sci-fi series Doctor Who to the cinema screen!

Yates is due to commence development on the feature very soon, alongside the US-based BBC Worldwide executive VP of programming and production, Jane Tranter. Little is known about Yates’ ultimate plans for the franchise, but he’s revealed that this will be a deviation from the current team behind the TV show:

“Russell T. Davies and then Steven Moffat have done their own transformations, which were fantastic, but we have to put that aside and start from scratch.”

Interesting. This is the first big screen venture for the time lord since the sixties (1965’s Doctor Who and the Daleks and the following year’s Doctor Who: Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. both featured Hammer veteran Peter Cushing as The Doctor) and it could prove very lucrative indeed for the BBC.

Some fans may bemoan the fact that their beloved character may become synonymous with those US-centric Harry Potter-style blockbuster extravaganzas, but this is arguably the only way a big-screen version could have gone.

Long time readers of the site will have seen this before as I’m reposting my love letter to Stephen Volk’s Ghostwatch on the occasion of Hallowe’en. A year shy of its twentieth anniversary it remains a landmark of paranormal drama and has just been reissued on DVD at a ridiculously low price.

Things have changed since the initial (and only) BBC broadcast. Reality TV has infected almost every aspect of television and Most Haunted and the recent Paranormal Activity films simply would not exist without it. Familiarity with the presenters may have made he suspension of disbelief a little difficult initially but nineteen years on there is no such problem.

Ghostwatch joins The War Game, Orson Welles’ Hallowe’en broadcast of War of the Worlds, and the US TV programmes Special Bulletin and Without Warning as moments in broadcast history which signalled a shift in what was possible, and it’s still a damn scary yarn.

If you have a copy, or can find one in the shops today I implore you to watch along with the Ghostwatch: Behind the Curtains National Seance (details here), that way – you wont be watching alone. And if you’re still in the mood for a scare I can recommend Volk’s The Awakening which he wrote with director Nick Murphy – my review is here and it’s out in cinemas on the 11th of November.

Here’s my Hallowe’en Video Vault for Ghostwatch.

On the 31st of October 1992 at 9:30 in the evening, as the BBC logo was spinning and the Announcer began to introduce Ghostwatch I was not watching, I was out somewhere, missing out on one of the scariest TV programmes ever broadcast.

It is seventeen years since the only terrestrial airing and it still has the power to convince and terrify. It can be set alongside Nigel Kneale’s Stone Tape and Barry Hines’ Threads as a singular event, a controversial landmark of Television broadcasting that was deemed so effective that it was banned from being shown again.

In the internet age, where iPlayer, iTunes and torrents mean that most tv programmes are readily available and easy to acquire, yet Ghostwatch wasn’t available, via a repeat or video release, for ten long years. The backlash against the programme was such that many believed it a deliberate attempt to scare seven shades of suburbia out of the general populace, and as it was linked to the sad suicide of an individual, the BBC complied and hid it from view until the 2002 BFI DVD release.

I was lucky not to have to wait this long however, as seventeen years ago this Halloween my video was turning, recording the moment, and the next morning I sat down to write an essay for school and put Ghostwatch on in the background. I wrote nothing for the next 90 minutes.

Ghostwatch, in many ways, was my perfect television programme. I became fascinated with the Enfield Poltergeist, a clear inspiration for the show, through the book This House is Haunted and poured over Harry Price’s tales of Borley Rectory; poltergeists and the domestic terror they inspired invaded my mind and not until Ghostwatch did I realise that I was not alone. The show touched a national nerve and set pulses racing long into the night.

Remember of course that the X Files hadn’t yet captured the global consciousness, the dubious stage of Most Haunted and the recent, Alan Partridge inspired, Ghost Hunting with the Happy Mondays was a long way off and TV productions regarding ghosts were limited to the occasional Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World, but Ghostwatch changed that.

Taking the incredible success of the micro budget scare fest Paranormal Activity as a recent example of taking the clichéd pitch of a haunted house movie to a new level of effective terror through its manner of telling the story, Ghostwatch used the “˜modern idiom’ of the outside broadcast and the live program to draw the audience in, scare their faces off and leave them wondering “˜Was it real?’. The spate of horror films using the internet and documentary style footage in the early part of the 21st century, coupled with the rise of Reality TV, show how far ahead Ghostwatch really was. The directors of The Blair Witch Project both saw Ghostwatch before embarking on their film, and other films such as The Last Broadcast experimented with documentary techniques to nail their audiences to their seats in fear. Derren Brown’s recent Seance was, in part, inspired by the 1992 BBC Screen One production.

Part of what made the broadcast so effective was the use of ‘real life’ presenters, populating the programme with familiar faces and concepts such as a bank of phone desks to receive viewer’s calls (via the standard BBC number, which if you called played a message telling you it was just a TV play) gave the production a level of authenticity that belied its fictional nature. Sarah Greene was well known to the public and, controversially, to children as a host of many BBC programmes and it was her ambiguous fate that was to whip up a small frenzy of moral panic in the aftermath. Red Dwarf’s Craig Charles was on hand to ape and mock, usefully mirroring the audience’s skepticism, however it was the involvement of eminent TV personality Michael Parkinson (pre-knighthood) who fronted the programme, that gave Ghostwatch its authoritative foundation.

Ostensibly a live broadcast, similar now to Most Haunted and the like, from a house in North London that was allegedly haunted by an unseen spook, the investigation centred on the household consisting of the mother, Pamela, and her two daughters Susan and Kimmy. At first they appear as a family under siege and much of the early part of the programme deals with their experiences thus far. Tales of benign activity such as bent spoons and clocks stopping, familiar staples of poltergeist manifestations, gave way to scratches appearing on the elder daughter’s face and we hear incredible thumps coming from the walls. The programme cuts back and forth between Sarah Greene in the house and Parky in the studio discussing the events with a para-psychologist. Everything was done exactly as if it was a genuine investigation into the paranormal. It is a little twee, and at times fairly pedestrian, but don’t be fooled – this is simply the build up for an outstanding climax.

The writer Stephen Volk used the fundamental live programming vocabulary, such as the use of phone calls from the public, pre recorded interviews (with obscured faces) and outside broadcast to create a complete world in which the Early family allowed TV cameras into their home to try and document their poltergeist. It carefully lays traps (the incredulous American scientist, the young teenage daughter seeking attention, the phone calls making fun of the programme) for the unwary viewer, many of them convinced it was really happening, and slowly the atmosphere of expectation and dread intensified. Through scratched writing in a school book, the wailing of cats trapped in the walls, some eerie phone calls and the frantic activity taking place in such a small, and familiar, location the tension builds.

As the programme goes on it emerges that something is very wrong in the house, glimpses of a ghoulish figure are seen and a sense of real panic kicks in as the activity in the house takes a tangible, nasty turn. All the time we are looking for, as the resident psychologist has it, ‘faces in the fire’, some of the sightings of the ghost are so quick the video I had became worn with the amount of pausing it endured. The use of diegetic sound is perfect, as the walls rumble with thick, heavy thuds and the scratching of starving cats emanate from the floorboards smash through the portentous silences, and the screams, when they come, provide no relief.

There is a sublime moment when, after a volley of violent activity occurs and the genuinely unsettling events really start to unfold, the live feed to the house is cut, leaving the studio and the viewer watching static. After a moment it reappears and all appears fine, though there is no way to contact the house. The girls are all sitting and playing a board game, nothing untoward seems to have happened and yet the subsequent discovery by the psychologist in the studio sends a chill down your spine as we realise all is not well in the house.

Pipes, Mother Seddons, Raymond Tonstall. All names of entities that would seem tremendously clichéd if written into a film script, however the magic of Ghostwatch being set in the real world gave these names and figures menace, and we believed in them and their dark history. Ghostwatch used the conventions of live TV against its audience; programs of the era were often live, and bought a sense of excitement and expectation with it that today we take for granted. As the activity in the house turned darker and the programme ended on a sinister note the reality that the audience was so comfortable with had collapsed; the loss of control was immediate and the resulting backlash was inevitable. When people realised that they had been fooled the reaction was so extreme that it has took 10 years for Ghostwatch became safe to release.

Ghostwatch has been documented as one of television’s greatest hoaxes, but his is to misunderstand it. Hoax implies that it was a deliberate attempt to fool people, Ghostwatch never tried, it didn’t have to. The intrusion of cameras and crew into people’s houses was frequent in the late 80s and by the early 90s it was not anything special, but never before had it captured something so horrifying and the control associated with television was lost.

It is all about audience sympathy and involvement. The key to Ghostwatch was the use of the everyday. It could have been anybody’s house, anyone’s next door neighbours; it meant that it could be happening to you. Hysteria is so much more effective if it hits people directly and singularly, it’s a very isolating experience to be scared by yourself, and Ghostwatch’s strength came from the fact that for those 90 minutes you were watching helplessly as this house was overrun with something real and horrifying.

In the years following a group of my friends and I would crowd around the television and let it scare us all over again. We knew it backwards, we laughed in anticipation of Kevin Tripp’s phone call (the cheese and pickle sandwich? Come on”¦), we watched intently when the camera panned around the bedroom catching the briefest of glimpses of Pipes. Though we knew it was fiction we enjoyed losing ourselves in the programme, and despite the apparent paradox seeing Ghostwatch again and again always felt as if it  was live, and always exciting. We would put on the video, sit back and enjoy until one of us would see something half hidden in the background, or reflected in a mirror and the fear and excitement would come flooding back. It was a unique experience for us to see something that bore repeated viewings and managed to maintain a real sense of terror from images and obscured moments that could easily have been missed first time around.

While writing this Video Vault I watched Ghostwatch again, and though I knew it word for word there were moments when the feelings of unease and fear resurfaced. Scenes I had watched literally hundreds of times came back on and a chill went through me – after all this time. It takes great power to do something like this and though it has dated there has been nothing like it since. It is a truly inspired piece of television.

Nineteen years have dulled its effect slightly. The profusion of live TV and reality shows have resulted in an inbuilt cynicism for what we watch, and if Ghostwatch was to be realised today it would a harder task to convince the audience of its true, fictional status. In his book Dark Corners the writer Stephen Volk produced something of a sequel to the programme in his short story 31/10 and it is a fascinating read. Personally I’ve very much looking forward to the fan-created retrospective documentary Behind the Curtains which you can follow on their YouTube page.

Ghostwatch was an important part of my past. It was the first time a TV programme physically shook me, and I was so enamoured with it that for a long time I couldn’t see the, admittedly few, shortcomings. Now I can enjoy it as a true original, a programme so accomplished in execution and so effective in its purpose that it remains a Halloween classic which has never been bettered. As time wore on the acting got more ropey, the video tape was deteriorating, but for 90 minutes our programme was on, nothing on television before or since gave us this thrill.

Happy Halloween.

For those of you who can remember the kids BBC series called Rentaghost (it ran from 1976-84) the idea of a Hollywood remake was a surreal enough to begin with, even with Britain’s very own US import Russell Brand in the lead. But now news from Deadline has Ben Stiller taking over from the comic, with Night At The Museum writers Tom Lennon and Robert Ben Garant also attached.

The original show (located in South Ealing) involved the titular agency run by a recently deceased loser by the name of Fred Mumford, who helped similarly below-par spirits find work in the afterlife. Although this is an American remake, the setting will still be good ole’ Blighty as the idea is for Stiller to play an American turnaround consultant who is sent to the UK to reinvigorate a failing company.

The Zoolander star will be seen on UK cinema screens next month in the Brett Ratner action/comedy ensemble, Tower Heist.

Here’s a taste of what’s to come/nostalgia trip:

Fans of BBC’s TV series “Hustle” will be pleased to know that another series is in production and I was lucky enough to catch up with them when they were filming on London’s South Bank.

“Hustle” has been running since 2004 on the BBC and this marks the eighth series since its inception by creator Tony Jordan although he has said that this will be the last series, at least in its current form and with its existing cast.

The series stars The Man From U.N.C.L.E’s Robert Vaughn plus Robert Glenister, Adrian Lester, Kelly Adams and Matt Di Angelo.

Click on the photos for larger versions

Sometimes it’s the simplest things in life that are the most rewarding. Walk on the Wild Side, if you’ve never heard of it before, takes clips from wildlife shows and adds comedian’s voices over the top to impersonate the animals. A simple yet very effective form of comedy, this show is perfect for a Saturday night in, which is exactly when it’s shown on BBC1.

Starring a paranoid monkey, a pirate bird and dolphins with a peculiar wind problem to name a few, the clips usually last about 30 seconds. You’re laughing all through the one, then quickly taken to the next scenario. It’s this fast moving, varying show that keeps your eyes fixed on the screen, and your throats sore by the end after laughing so much. Some sketches may not be to your taste, but that doesn’t matter, because soon enough that’s over and you’re taken to the next one.

The comedians involved with the narration include Jason Manford and Stephen Fry, so you can guarantee the show’s got that edge to its comedy. The scenes vary from typical household problems that would occur in any family, to quirky odd humour along the lines of Flight of the Corchords. It really is an all-rounder when it comes to the audience. Even those with a heart of stone will lighten to this show as it’s just such a silly and easy thing to laugh along with.

The DVD includes all episodes from the TV series, with an added bonus of a behind the scenes feature to show how the programme is put together. Those involved look like they have a great time recording this show, and you can see why. As soon as the programme comes on, you’re quickly taken back to a childlike state, laughing at the ridiculousness of the plot to this programme.

If you enjoyed series 1, there’s no doubt about it, you’ll enjoy series 2. If you’ve never watched an episode, believe me, once you’ve watched one, you’re hooked – You’ll be Youtubing clips, sending them to your friends, and mimicking their voices for a very long time afterwards.

****½ (4.5/5)

Click here to order your copy of the series which is released today.

Until recently, writer-director Nick Murphy’s credits mostly included a few episodes of the odd TV series or documentary. He’s now starting to make a big name for himself with his first feature film, The Awakening, starring Rebecca Hall and Dominic West, due out in November.

Murphy is now set to go behind the camera again for another feature, Blood, which is to be an adaptation of the Bill Gallagher’s TV series, Conviction, which Gallagher will himself adapt, ScreenDaily report.

The project is already taking shape nicely, with three fantastic lead actors attached in the form of Paul Bettany (Priest), Brian Cox (X-Men 2), and Stephen Graham (Snatch), the last of which Murphy has already worked with on the 2009 TV series, Occupation.

Neal Street Productions, whose credits include Jarhead, Starter For 10, The Kite Runner, and Revolutionary Road, has already secured funding from BBC Films and the BFI, which is terrific news, and production is scheduled to begin in January next year.

Blood will be,

“about two policemen who kill a murder suspect and are then plunged into chaos when they are forced to investigate their own crime.”

Those two roles of the policeman, who are brothers, will presumably be filled by the awesome Bettany and Graham, both absolutely fantastic actors, and Cox will likely be playing their father, who, according to Wikipedia, in the original series is fighting a losing battle with Alzheimer’s.

I missed the original TV series when it was shown back in 2004, but I’m definitely tempted to hunt it down and watch it soon, because it sounds pretty awesome. As much as I tend to watch American television and films more than I do British, I must admit that the BBC often gets it so right when it comes to making good television.

Just from that basic premise, I can already see Bettany, who is by far one of my favourite British actors working at the moment, being beyond amazing in this role, and it really can’t come to the big screen fast enough for me. Hopefully with production already scheduled for the start of next year, I won’t have to wait too long to see the final product. This is going to be something to look forward to for sure.

In my mind, the British take on spy dramas is consistently better than any of our international counterparts. A new trailer and images for Sir David Hare’s Page Eight have just been released, courtesy of Rope of Silicon, and they’re a prime example of just how good we do things here.

The film debuted back in June at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, where Steven got to see and review it, and it will be the closing night film for the Toronto International Film Festival next month.

Written and directed by Hare, Page Eight sees him back behind the camera for the first time in almost a decade and a half, having been focusing on his screenwriting career since then, and earning himself two Oscar nominations in doing so with The Hours and The Reader.

Page Eight also boasts a terrific cast, including Bill Nighy, Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Michael Gambon, Felicity Jones, and Ewen Bremner.

“In the film Nighy plays Johnny Worricker, a long-serving M15 officer. His boss and best friend Benedict Baron (Gambon) dies suddenly, leaving behind him an inexplicable file, threatening the stability of the organization. Meanwhile, a seemingly chance encounter with Johnny’s striking next-door neighbor and political activist Nancy Pierpan (Weisz) seems too good to be true. Set in London and Cambridge, Page Eight is described as a contemporary spy film which addresses intelligence issues and moral dilemmas peculiar to the new century.”

Though Page Eight has been screened on the festival circuit, it has in fact been filmed for BBC Two, on which it will be broadcast later this year. I think this is definitely something to keep your eyes peeled for; it looks to be TV Licence money very well spent. Without further ado, here is the new trailer, followed by the four new images from the film. As usual, click to enlarge.

The Lord of Twitter is set to become to Lord of Everything, with the tweeted news this morning that Stephen Fry is to play God is the forthcoming BBC drama about the excessive ecclesiastical response to the 1979 film Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

We reported earlier in the week that the film had been cast and now it seems filming is already underway for the scheduled transmission on BBC4 in Autumn.

Fry, as God (who curiously is the only character to appear in all of the Python films), will be playing alongside Darren Boyd (John Cleese),  Charles Edwards (Michael Palin), Steve Punt (Eric Idle), Rufus Jones and  Phil Nichol as Terrys Jones and Gilliam respectively and Tom Fisher plays the late Graham Chapman.

This morning Mr. Fry tweeted,

Then tweeted a lovely picture of himself in the make up chair, which was live for a few moments before the following appeared…

Hopefully someone got to the picture before it was taken down. I didn’t and I am kicking myself. UPDATE – Kicking myself no longer – see below with thanks to John Underwood.

This was not the only piece of Python news that fell from the sky this week - The Pythons (sans Idle) are currently recording voices to bring Graham Chapman’s A Liar’s Autobiography (Vol 4) to the big screens in the form on an animated film. They are using audio recordings Chapman made shortly before his death.

UPDATE UPDATE:

Apparently the powers that be have given God (Stephen Fry) the go ahead to tweet away. Here’s his full length ‘divine form’.

Monty Python’s 1979 film Life of Brian was a masterpiece of surreal and satirical comedy, and always places high when the various Best British Film of All Time polls are announced.

On release its controversial subject matter inevitably ruffled a great many ecclesiastical feathers and was banned in some places in the UK, a ban rumoured to have been upheld in Swansea until 1997.

The documentary The Secret Life of Brian charts the film’s development (from Eric Idle’s glb response to the question of what the Pythons were working on next – he quipped: Jesus Christ – Lust for Glory!) to the famous showdown on the BBC debate programme Friday Night, Saturday Morning. There Pythons John Cleese and Michael Palin were berated by the highly regarded broadcaster Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southwark, the Right Reverend Mervyn Stockwood, for their film which they considered as blasphemous.

Now the BBC are using this debate as the basis of a new drama entitled Holy Flying Circus. Tony Roche, who had a hand in Armando Iannucci’s The Thick of It and In the Loop, is scripting the drama and Owen Harris will direct.

Reporting on the new drama the BBC revealed the casting of the actors playing the Pythons as well as a few other hints as to what we can expect.

The BBC said the 90-minute film would incorporate “surreal cutaways including puppetry and animation”.

Controller of BBC Four Richard Klein said: “This is a smart and witty take on both the nature of censorship and the world of Monty Python.

Darren Boyd will play John Cleese and Charles Edwards has been cast in the role of Michael Palin. Comedian Steve Punt will star as Eric Idle, Rufus Jones plays Terry Jones, Scots-Canadian former Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Phil Nichol is Terry Gilliam and Tom Fisher plays the late Graham Chapman.

BBC 4 are due to show the film in the autumn and it will be worth watching not only as a compelling case of cinematic and social culture in the late 1970s but it may also stir up the ongoing debate on censorship; ridiculous accusations of blasphemy aside I can’t see a film life Life of Brian being banned today.

You can see an excerpt of the original debate right here,

and to give the story a little more context here’s the Not the Nine O’Clock News team, who were hugely influenced by the Pythons themselves, giving the controversy a swift kick in the satire with their sketch Monty Python Worshippers. Genius.

The Daily Mail is reporting that Ray Winstone and Gillian Anderson are set to star in a reworking of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations for the BBC.

The perennial patrons of perspective that they are, the newspaper wastes no time in identifying the ‘sexually charged’ spin that this new production will have.

With Winstone attached as Magwitch and Anderson the preferred choice to play Miss Havisham, this “radical” retelling will also star one-time Boy George Douglas Booth as Pip.

Written from Pip’s perspective, the novel charts his ascension from orphaned blacksmith to gentleman, a transition he manages with the assistance of criminal benefactor, Abel Magwitch. Before leaving home, where he was raised grudgingly by older sister Mrs. Joe, Pip falls in love with Estelle, the daughter of a wealthy spinster who lives a sheltered life, having boarded up her windows and stopped all the clocks in order to haunt the halls in an old wedding dress.

Writer Sarah Phelps said of the new adaptation:

“We don’t want the audience to feel they are watching a drama about people in bonnets. At its heart it is a love story and a story of sexual revenge. It is also a complex, desperate, violent and visceral tale, which plays out under the shadow of a hangman’s noose.”

The adaptation, which, if I worked for The Daily Mail, I’d have totally dubbed “Great Sexpectations”, will air in three parts over the Christmas period.

This morning HeyUGuys were privileged to be part of Lauren Laverne’s Morning Show on BBC 6 Music, specifically the section of the show in which she chats to the ‘human faces and fingers’ behind the UK blogs.

I went on this morning to talk about how HeyUGuys started up, where we are now, and gave my view on the UK movie blogging scene. It was an honour to be involved and great to see that blogs are getting recognised more and more. I know we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for our great team of writers and the help and support of all the cool people we’ve met in the last two and a half years. Cheers BBC!

Click below to listen to our excerpt and visit the 6music iPlayer site to hear the whole show, as well as me there’s some excellent music.

Kidulthood director Menhaj Huda returns to UK cinemas this week with Everywhere and Nowhere, another coming-of-age tale focusing on a British Asian teenager (James Floyd, pictured below) wrestling with how to lead his own life, while having to contend with what’s expected of him from his family and culture.

We had the chance to chat with Huda about the film (which he co-wrote) and how he related to the characters in the film when he was growing up.

How much does the film reflect your own upbringing?

The side which wasn’t a struggle for me was my decision to take a creative path in my career (in the film, lead character Ash wants to be a DJ, much to the disapproval of his father).

The double life thing was definitely something I encountered, and trying to keep my love for clubbing/raving separate from my family.

This is another rites of passage tale. What attracts you to the material?

You find some of those films handle that theme in a comedic fashion, where things gets resolved at the end when in fact, everything is not fine in real life when you’re a young person. It can be a real struggle and that’s what I wanted to be the challenge with Ash.

I also did a pilot episode for the BBC at couple of years back (West 10 LDN) which covered similar ground but sadly, didn’t get picked up for a full series. That was a shame as films like Adulthood and Shank have proved there’s an audience for this type of drama on the big screen, why not TV?

Do you think that generation divide is changing?

It’s still there. Two things here – what happened was that our parents came over from another culture and were very traditional-thinking and established themselves over here and their children have very much still held onto that culture, who still use it as a barometer. While this has been happening, society has developed in the East, but you get people over here still cocooned in that world of old values which they came, and that creates friction with the younger generation.

In the other end of the scale, while some parents have become much more liberal, it’s the younger crowd who have reverted back to traditional ways, and that certainly hasn’t been covered before.

How did you manage to the legendary Saeed Jaffrey (veteran of many UK and Bollywood features) onboard? Some of the material is pretty challenging.

We sent him the script and he said yes and committed to it very early on. We really wanted Art Malik too (he plays Ash’s uncle) and we kept wondering if he would be interested in this type of thing until we said “let’s just offer it to him!” When he said yes, I was thrilled as this was the kind of endorsement I felt we needed.

What’s next for you?

I’m starting a horror film called comedown. I’m a director for hire on that one, but it’s the kind of genre I’m really interesting in and exciting to be doing. It’s has a urban feel to it and is set in a tower block and we have the talented Martin Compston and Adam Deacon (Everywhere and Nowhere co-star) in the cast.

To celebrate the release of Rock and Chips: The Frog and The Pussycat which is released 2nd May, Lions Gate Home Entertainment have given us three copies to give away on DVD.

It’s 1961 and Joan is still keeping the Trotter fortunes afloat, holding down two jobs – one at the Ritz cinema and the other as Freddie Robdal’s charlady. But she’s been working for Freddie for six months and still doesn’t know how to turn on his hoover – their time is spent in far more romantic pursuits.  Back at the Ritz, Joan is plagued by the less welcome attentions of her boss, Raynor. Every day she dreams of a new life with Freddie, but she knows she needs to see Del settled first.

Del is doing his best, continuing to get himself hitched to half of Peckham. He’s particularly keen on the voluptuous Barbara – whose father has a thriving funeral business and a well-appointed home in Peckham posh-spot King’s Avenue. Things are going extremely well until Del gets trapped in the kitchen with Barbara’s inebriated mum…

Meanwhile, DI Thomas is still desperate to get an arrest for the Margate jewellery heist and Freddie’s fondness for Joan proves to be his undoing.

To be in with a chance of winning one of three copies of the show, simply answer the following question using the form below:

Who plays the character Freddie Robdal in Rock and Chips: The Frog and The Pussycat?

COMPETITION NOW CLOSED

The small print:

• Open to UK residents only
• Only one entry per household will be counted
• The competition will close 2nd May 23.59 GMT
• The winner will be picked at random from entries received

The usual T&Cs can be found here. Good Luck!

With Michael Scott soon set to depart, the makers of U.S. television’s The Office have one last surprise up their sleeves as their protagonist comes face to face with his creator.

Fresh from his spot hosting the Golden Globes in which he quipped that star and producer Steve Carell (who plays Scott) was “ungrateful” for leaving the show, Ricky Gervais is set to appear in the series as none other than UK boss, David Brent.  Gervais, who joked that Carell was “killing a cash cow” for the both them, is of course the co-creator and star of the original BBC series on which the long-running American show was based, as well as being that series’ executive producer.

Assuming that any backlash to some of his more controversial Globes jokes has died down by then, the guest spot should come as exciting news for fans of the series, some of whom have been waiting for the bosses to cross paths for a long while.  Presumably we’ll just have to ignore those first few episodes which made their work lives seem so remarkably similar…

TV Line had the scoop.

Here’s another wonderful Christmas present from the good people over at the BBC Archive.

Following their captivating James Bond at the BBC online exhibition the BBC Archive have collected recorded interviews with the giants of Hollywood’s past which offer a wonderful and unique retrospective on Hollywood and movie making.

Giants of the silent era are captured in conversation and hearing Chaplin talk about his life in film is truly fascinating. Buster Keaton, Louise Brooks, Bette Davis are all present as are Alfred Hitchock, Orson Welles, Boris Karloff – it’s a goldmine. Some are amazing accounts of movie making from the 50s, others have the actors and directors reflecting on their careers and the changing face of Film.

A particular favourite is the brief interview with Louise Brooks who talks about her film Pandora’s Box, and the direction she received from Georg Wilhelm Pabst, which was simply – “In the afternoon, you will cry.” and there are numerous interviews, press conference recordings, audio newsreels and so much more.

Like the Bond archive this BBC collection is virtually unparalleled in its diversity and quality and if you’re a curious cinephile or a dedicated follower of silent cinema or Hollywood’s Golden Age there’s so much enjoy here.

Here’s the link to get you started, and below are a few stills from the BBC Archive to entice you further and there’s part of the press release from the BBC about Radio 4′s celebration of cinema so you know what to look forward to in 2011.

Highlights of Radio 4′s film season include: a personal history of film by historian and film critic David Thomson; broadcaster Francine Stock on pop-up cinema and Hollywood’s grip on the industry; artist filmmaker Isaac Julien on artists working in film; filmmaker Asif Kapadia on London’s underground filmmakers; broadcaster Barry Norman on the history of British cinema going; and writer, journalist and broadcaster Matthew Sweet on “pocket film”, featuring a specifically commissioned mobile phone film by British film director Gurinder Chadha. With contributions from: Oscar-winning film producer Sir David Puttnam; director Ken Loach; and director Sam Mendes. Radio 4′s The Film Programme and regular arts programme Front Row will also be supporting the season with special features on film.

To coincide with the season, the Radio 4 website has released over two hundred interviews with contemporary film stars, directors and producers broadcast on the network since 2002 via the Radio 4 Film Interview Collection. Interviewees include: Ben Affleck, Clint Eastwood, Gwyneth Paltrow, Charlize Theron, the Coen Brothers, Helena Bonham Carter and Renee Zellweger.

And BBC Archive launches a large collection of radio interviews with the stars of the “Golden Age” of American cinema. Hollywood Voices features a mix of broadcasts and unedited interviews with film stars of the Thirties, Forties and Fifties – many available in full for the first time.

This historic collection has interviews with stars from Harold Lloyd to James Cagney, Debbie Reynolds to Rita Hayworth. Further highlights include: a “round table” with Charlie Chaplin; conversations with Buster Keaton and Louise Brooks on the early days of American cinema; a fiery exchange with Bette Davis; and an insight into the power of music courtesy of Alfred Hitchcock. Two galleries of photos from the BBC stills library also provide a rare glimpse of Hollywood glamour in and around the BBC from 1930-1970.

From the director of the original Ring (who was also behind both it’s sequel and the US remake’s second installment) comes a London-based cyberspace teen psychological shocker, Chatroom.

Five different teens with varying social hang-ups meet online in a chatroom created by William (Aaron Johnson), an introverted teen (and previous self-harmer) who initially appears to lend a sympathetic ear to the group, offering his own words of advice and support. It soon becomes apparent however, that William is actually manipulating his newly found cyber friends, unearthing their weaknesses and failings and exploiting their vulnerabilities to satisfy his own twisted needs. Things threaten to take a turn for the worse when Jim, the soft-spoken member of the group (who has some deep-rooted emotional issues), presents the ideal target for William’s ultimate (and potentially lethal) scheme.

Those who are expecting a dark, modern twist on The Breakfast Club (with liberal lashings of J-Horror thrown in for good measure) will be sorely disappointed with what’s on offer here. The film fails at pretty much every conceivable level and even the title and subject matter now seem extremely archaic and irrelevant, particularly with the advent of online social networking.

A large problem with the film stems from the fact that the director (veteran Japanese horror director Hideo Nakata) appears to really struggle with the language and cultural barrier he’s unaccustomed to. Many of the performances are weirdly off-key (and not in a good way) and are too big and theatrical, which makes for a jarring viewing experience, and leaves the young cast, including upcoming Br(It) girl Imogen Poots and Johnson (so good in Kickass, but completely over-the-top and clichéd in the villain role here), completely adrift. His character’s motivations in particular are extremely petty and odd (William’s rage seems to stem from his novelist mother’s decision to use his older brother as the face and name on the series of Harry Potter/Indian Jones-esque children’s adventure books she’s written!). The film is full of strange inconsequential plot points like this which only serve as an annoying distraction.

The biggest disappointment however, is that the fear and acute sense of foreboding dread which Nakata successfully managed to bring to the forefront in both his original versions of The Ring and Dark Water is completely missing here. Visually, the film looks like an after hours episode of Hollyoaks, and is further hindered by the equally cheesy and outdated cyberspace graphics and imagery. Only one scene where William watches a shocking video of a young Japanese girl, who casually and coolly commits suicide by jumping out of her bedroom window, approaches anything close to resembling the director’s older, respected work.

Originally a stage play, the film adaptation never manages to transcend its original setting, despite the maker’s attempts at providing a visual manifestation for surfing the internet in the form of having the characters actually enter a room (which is designed by William in the pre-credit sequence) where they chat face-to-face, plus a series of corridors filled with busy human activity, which is intended to represent web traffic. These devices wear thin very quickly and a scene in the chatroom where a middle-aged man attempts to pass himself off as a little girl (whose innocent school-girl disguise begins to glitch, sporadically revealing his true form) is just plain embarrassing.

From its ridiculous, laugh-out loud denouement at London Zoo (which has all the cinematic grace of a Children’s BBC drama programme) in which the rest of the chatroom kids show up out of nowhere, to the hilariously contrived ending, the film is a massive misstep for Nakata. The director maybe should have done some online chatting of his own, and consulted his peers about this film’s script and locale before he agreed to make it.

Do yourself a favour and logoff and shut down if this film comes your way.

Looks like the Torchwood team are calling on the services of a US President who once saved the world from potential genocide due to a powerful alien threat.

Deadline are reporting that Independence Day star Bill Pullman is joining the cast of the Dr. Who spin-off in the reoccurring role of one Oswald Jones, a clever convicted murderer who escapes his lifelong prison sentence on a technicality and quickly becomes a media sensation.

Pullman’s output has been relatively small in recent years (compared to his heyday in the 90’s) but he does seem like a sizable star for a modestly-budgeted show like Torchwood.

A co-production deal between the BBC and US company Starz would explain how he managed to get cast (alongside big(ish) name Mekhi Phifer) in the fourth season of this sci-fi adventure series