News

Idris Elba, the London-born actor famous for starring in The Wire and Luther, is set to star in the next TV venture coming from A24, Things Fall Apart. The project is being helmed by the indie studio alongside Elba himself, who will executive produce with Gina Carter through their studio, 22Summers. Yoruba Saxon, a production company led by David Oyelowo and Amanda NDuka will also participate in the show. Ben Forkner and Dayo Ogunyemi will team up with Achebe Masterworks in order to give life to the project based on the 1958 book that's widely considered one of the best books ever written.

As reported by Variety, there's still no writer or director attached to the project and the streaming service or network where it will be available is still to be confirmed. Previous A24 TV shows like Euphoria, Beef, The Curse and The Sympathizer have run on HBO, Netflix and Showtime,...

Actor Ian Gelder, whose body of work included a memorable role in the hit series Game of Thrones, has died. His passing was announced by Gelder's husband, actor Ben Daniels, with a post on Instagram. Gelder was 74 years old.

"It is with huge huge sadness and a heavy heart broken into a million pieces that Im leaving this post to announce the passing of my darling husband and life partner Ian Gelder," the statement shared. "Ian was diagnosed with bile duct cancer in December and yesterday he passed at 13.07. Id stopped all work to be his carer but neither of us had any idea that it would all be so fast. He was my absolute rock and wed been partners for more than 30 years. If we werent together we spoke to each other everyday."

Daniels continued, "He was the kindest, most generous spirited and loving human being. He was a...

Actor Tom Wilkinson, well known for his roles in The Full Monty among many other films, has passed away.

Per BBC News, Wilkinson died on Saturday at his home while surrounded by his wife and family members. The actor's passing was confirmed in a statement from the family released to the press. Wilkson was 75 years old.

"It is with great sadness that the family of Tom Wilkinson announce that he died suddenly at home on December 30. His wife and family were with him," Wilkinson's family stated. "The family asks for privacy at this time."

Wilkinson is especially well known for his role as Gerald Cooper in the British comedy The Full Monty, released in 1997. For his role in the film, the actor won a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and he won a SAG Award along with the rest of the cast. Wilkinson had just recently...

You know the story.

Superhero psychologist with early on-set Parkinson’s publicly saves the life of a teenager, meets a detective while hanging out with sex workers down the pub, is immediately hired as a consultant on a murder case and then becomes the prime suspect. Oh and he’s played by Poldark (aka Aidan Turner).

ITV latest glossy thriller The Suspect, based on the debut novel of Michael Robotham, is a semi-ridiculous, tropey but nonetheless twisty-turny ball of fun told over five episodes broadcast weekly. Somewhat in the mold of HBO shows like The Undoing and Big Little Lies, where we revel in seeing beautiful people with aspirational lives get their comeuppance, this London-set version establishes Turner’s Joe McLoughlin as a man with a perfect life.

He’s a brilliant (probably – they’re always brilliant aren’t they?) psychologist with his own private practice, several published books that...

Peter Gilmore, an actor who appeared in a number of the UK’s top TV dramas in the 1970s and 80s as well as the Carry On series of film comedies, has died at the Trinity Hospice in London after a long illness. He was 81 and died February 3. He is perhaps best known as James Onedin in the BBC series The Onedin Line that aired from 1971 to 1980. Set in Liverpool from 1860 to 1886, it followed the rise of a shipping line named after its owner and his family. Gilmore starred in 91 episodes and Anne Stallybrass, whom he later married, played his wife in the series. He also appeared in Doctor Who, The Persuaders!, Ruth Rendell Mysteries and Heartbeat. Born in Leipzig in 1931, Gilmore came to the UK at the age of six and was raised in Yorkshire. He left school at 14 to follow his dream of becoming an actor. In 1958 he...

Vivacious Irish actor best known for her role opposite Albert Finney in Tom Jones

The red-haired, vivacious and provocative Irish actor Joyce Redman, who has died aged 93, will for ever be remembered for her lubricious meal-time munching and swallowing opposite Albert Finney in Tony Richardson's 1963 film of Tom Jones. Eyes locked, lips smacked and jaws rotated as the two of them tucked into a succulent feast while eyeing up the afters. Sinking one's teeth into a role is one thing. This was quite another, and deliciously naughty, the mother of all modern mastication scenes.

Redman and Finney were renewing a friendship forged five years earlier when both appeared with Charles Laughton in Jane Arden's The Party at the New (now the Noël Coward) theatre. Redman was not blamed by the critic Kenneth Tynan for making nothing of her role as Laughton's wife. "Nothing," he said, "after all, will come of nothing.

Versatile actor and writer best known as Wexford in the TV detective stories

Of all the television detectives of recent years, George Baker's Inspector Wexford, with his mature West Country burr, slight air of fallibility and occasional stubbornness, was the one who seemed to spring from real life rather than an author's fancy. Sometimes ponderous, sometimes wrong, always homely, Baker's Wexford had his affable ex-constable's feet firmly on the ground. The character had a solid, believable family life. The actor, also a family man, had a hand in some of the adaptations that went under the title of the Ruth Rendell Mysteries. Whatever the combination of factors, it gave Baker, who has died aged 80 of pneumonia, his greatest success.

Not that fame was unfamiliar to the actor, whose career had got off to such a promising start back in the 1950s. The British cinema spotted his handsome features almost...

British actor George Baker has died of pneumonia. He was 80.

The star, who also recently suffered a stroke, passed away on Friday.

Baker made his name in 1955 war film The Dam Busters and went on to star in The Ship That Died of Shame with Richard Attenborough.

He was courted by Ian Fleming to play superspy James Bond but was unable to take on the role due to contractual obligations.

Baker is most well known for playing Tiberius in a 1970s BBC adaptation of I, Claudius, before landing the lead role of Detective Inspector Wexford in popular U.K. series The Ruth Rendell Mysteries in 1987.

Baker met his late wife Louie Ramsay on the show, which ran until 2000. Ramsay died earlier this year.

The star's daughter Ellie, one of his five children, tells the BBC, "He absolutely loved Wexford and he loved being Wexford... and he loved the whole thing. It was a joy to him."...

The actor, who also appeared in The Dam Busters, The Spy Who Loved Me and I, Claudius, succumbed to pneumonia

Actor George Baker, who played Chief Inspector Wexford in television series The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, has died at the age of 80.

The star, from West Lavington, Wiltshire, died of pneumonia following a recent stroke, his daughter Ellie Baker said.

Speaking of her father, shesaid: "He absolutely loved Wexford and he loved being Wexford ... he loved the whole thing. It was a joy to him."

Over a career spanning six decades, the versatile actor starred in countless TV shows including Minder, Bergerac, I, Claudius and more recently New Tricks and Spooks.

He also appeared in around 30 films including The Dam Busters, The Spy Who Loved Me, The Ship That Died of Shame and The 39 Steps. He also formed his own theatre company.

But it is his role as Wexford in the...

Character actor who was an ensemble player to the core

John Burgess, who has died of pancreatic cancer aged 77, was a versatile and highly intelligent character actor who appeared in several productions at the National Theatre in London. He joined the National in 2000 for Romeo and Juliet, directed by Tim Supple, and appeared in Remembrance of Things Past, co-adapted by Harold Pinter, with whom John enjoyed a friendship. He also performed in Trevor Nunn's The Relapse (2001) and The Alchemist (2006), but was injured out early in the run.

It was at the National that John and I collaborated joyously. I had much enjoyed working with this direct, drily humorous man back in 1978, when he was in my abandoned RSC Aldwych project Ice Cream (not to be confused with Caryl Churchill's later piece of the same name). So when Nick Hytner invited me to create a play for the National's...

Half the fun of watching the newly released eleven-disc The Ruth Rendell Mysteries Collection is seeing some familiar faces--such as Colin Firth, James Callis, James D'Arcy, Amanda Redman, and many others--when they were significantly younger and, in some cases, were just embarking on their theatrical careers. The other half is, of course, falling under the spell of the master mystery writer Ruth Rendell (who also publishes novels under the pseudonym of Barbara Vine). As a longtime Rendell fanatic, I was thrilled to learn that Acorn Media was releasing seventeen televised feature-length adaptations of Rendell's work--which aired in the UK on ITV between 1987 and 2000 (and on some PBS stations)--in a single, hefty box set. Arriving under the title The Ruth Rendell Mysteries Collection, the box set collects such adaptations as Master of the Moor, Vanity Dies Hard, Going Wrong, The Secret House of Death, and The Fallen Curtain, to name but a few,...

DVD Playhouse—February 2010

By

Allen Gardner

Hunger (Criterion) Harrowing true story of imprisoned Ira member Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) and his 1981 hunger strike protesting the British government’s refusal to recognize him, and other Ira members as political prisoners. Director Steve McQueen delivers the story with true filmmaking panache, mixing startling imagery that blends both stunning beauty and stomach-churning horror. Fassbender is absolutely brilliant in the lead. Not for the faint-of-heart, but not to be missed or, particularly, ignored. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Interviews with McQueen and Fassbender; Short documentary; 1981 episode of BBC series “Panorama” that covers the Ira hunger strike; Trailer. Widescreen. DTS-hd audio on Blu-ray.

Adam (20th Century Fox) Quirky romantic comedy about an eccentric, borderline Asperger’s Syndrome, astronomy buff (Hugh Dancy) who is drawn out of his self-imposed shell by a beautiful and sympathetic neighbor (Rose Byrne). Charming film with engaging performances by the two leads,...