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Harry Melling may be best known for his role in the Harry Potter movies as Harry's detestable cousin Dudley Dursley, but since the last of those films in 2010, he's proven himself to be a much more complex actor with a staggering amount of range in movies and on TV. As a beloved book series before the movies came out, nearly everyone had an idea of what each character would look like and how they would act. When Harry Melling appeared on-screen as Dudley Dursley to torment Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), it was immediately apparent he was the perfect fit.

For nearly 10 years, audiences watched Melling grow up, as they did most of the kids who appeared in the Harry Potter series. While he did a very admirable job in the role, it was unclear what Melling's career would look like after the magical series. He clearly had talent, but few people...

This month sees the U.S. release of The Amazing Maurice, a feature length adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s acclaimed 2001 YA novel. Though Pratchett has been adapted a handful of times for television, most recently with Amazon’s Good Omens (excellent) and BBC America’s The Watch (patchy), this will be the first true big-screen take on a Pratchett book*, which is frankly astonishing when you consider that Sir Terry has been a bestseller since the mid-‘80s, with a series of accessible and cinematic comic fantasy hits, most of which would lend themselves to the screen.

Pratchett even writes cinematically—almost all of his adult novels are written without chapters, skipping scene-to-scene just as a movie does. Some of these books were adapted in the ‘90s for the stage, three successful video games, and even a prog rock album. Meanwhile several of his novels have been made successfully for the small screen,...

A fond look-back at Sir Terry Pratchett's children's series, Only You Can Save Mankind, Johnny And The Dead, and Johnny And The Bomb...

It might sound odd to combine the words ‘underappreciated’ and ‘Terry Pratchett’ and ‘wigwam’, but that’s partly because that third word doesn’t need to be there. Relatively speaking, there are less appreciated works among the many, many gems of Pratchett’s output. Still, there’s love out there for them, and we aim to reflect that here.

In the lower reaches of the Goodreads list of Pratchett books, besides the short stories and essays in anthologies, the first novel to stand out is Only You Can Save Mankind, the first of Pratchett’s Johnny Maxwell series. It was published in 1992. It is a very 1992 book (One of the characters asks ‘Is it rad to say cool?’), and realistic swearing is not a feature. Compared...

Harry Hill leads Charlie Higson-penned children's book adaptation, The Incredible Adventures Of Professor Branestawm...

If you’re unfamiliar with the Professor Branestawm books then let me bring you up to speed. Norman Hunter’s thirteen novels, written over a fifty-year period, chronicled the escapades of Professor Branestawm, a scatterbrained boffin who created absurd contraptions in his ‘inventory’, constantly trying the nerves of his ever-patient housekeeper, Mrs Flittersnoop. As a character, Professor Branestawm is like an adult William Brown (of Richmal Crompton’s Just William series): feckless and unpredictable except the good professor has the added trait of being mad as a bag of spanners. This Christmas, author, actor and screenwriter Charlie Higson has adapted Hunter’s novels into a family telefilm that boasts a terrifically starry cast – namely sealing down comedian Harry Hill as the eponymous scientist – and a plum positioning in the Christmas schedules. I’m sad...

Child radio star of the 1940s and 50s best remembered for playing Richmal Crompton's Just William

David Spenser, who has died aged 79, was the pre-eminent child radio star of the 1940s and 50s and will be best remembered for his portrayal on air of Just William. The author Richmal Crompton cast him in the role, in a series of dramatisations of her novels about the raucous but endearing 11-year-old outlaw.

This was in 1948, when David turned 14 and was already a seasoned radio actor – performing more than one play a week, he once told me. He had come into acting through a ruse set up by his ambitious mother and a BBC friend: he was lured into Broadcasting House and found himself in a studio being auditioned by the Children's Hour producer Josephine Plummer. For playing the lead in Just William he received the standard juvenile fee of four guineas...

The Sarah Jane Adventures has received its fourth consecutive nomination for the British Academy Children’s Awards in the Drama category. The awards on November 27th will be up against the BBC’s Just William (the fourth television incarnation of Richmal Crompton’s William Brown series which was adapted by Amy’s Choice writer Simon Nye) Nickelodeon’s British/American/Belgian co-produced [...]...

Screening over Christmas this year will be the new feature-length adaptation by Simon Nye of Richmal Crompton's much-loved mischievous hero Just William. Weaving together a selection of Richmal Crompton's timeless short stories and setting them in the Fifties, Simon has written scripts faithful to her precise portrait of British family life.

The adventures follow William's first encounter with the frilly-yet-formidable Violet Elizabeth Bott; a spot of parrot kidnapping for William's animal lecture; an elaborate plan to dispose of a bad school report; a spot of blackmail; and William's attempt to impress tomboy Dorinda (played by Lottie Bell) with a bit of Shakespeare.

Joining freshly-shorn Outnumbered star Daniel Roche in the title role, are Isabella Blake Thomas as Violet and Robert Foster as Henry. Completing the Outlaws gang are:

13 year old Jordan Grehs from Romford plays Ginger. Jordan appeared in Cbbc drama Scoop and feature film...

The BBC has announced the cast for its new adaptation of Just William. The channel confirmed reports that Outnumbered star Daniel Roche has landed the lead role in the series, which is based on Richmal Crompton's novels. The Thick Of It's Rebecca Front and Linda Green star Daniel Ryan will appear as William's parents, while Warren Clarke and Caroline Quentin will feature as new neighbours the Botts. Denis Lawson, John Sessions and Bruce Mackinnon have signed up to play William's teachers, while Martin Jarvis, who worked on the classic Just William recordings, will narrate the series. Isabella Blake-Thomas will play William's nemesis Violet. Other cast members include Judy Parfitt, Roy Hudd, Harry Melling and Bertie Carvel. Cbbc (more)...

Daniel Roche will play the title role in a new BBC production of Just William, it has been revealed. The 10-year-old, who stars as Ben Brockman in the sitcom Outnumbered, has been cast as William Brown in the television adaptation of the Richmal Crompton story, reports the Daily Mail. Just William producer John Chapman said: "It's not an accident that Daniel Roche's Ben is regarded as the Just William of today." Brown's (more)...