News

Filming has begun on Outrageous, a six-part series about the Mitford sisters, with a cast including Bessie Carter, Joanna Vanderham, Anna Chancellor, and James Purefoy.

The brand-new drama, created and written by Sarah Williams and based on Mary Lovell’s definitive biography The Mitford Girls, is made by Firebird Pictures and co-commissioned by BritBox International (for North America) and UKTV.

Photo courtesy of BritBox; Credit: Kevin Baker

Outrageous is the story of six aristocratic sisters who refused to play by the rules, their often scandalous lives making headlines worldwide. Set against the gathering storm clouds of the 1930s, masked by the decadence, frivolity, and lavishness of British high society, Outrageous will bring the full, uncensored story of the Mitford sisters to the screen for the first time – a story of family bonds and betrayals, public scandal, political extremism, love, heartache, and even imprisonment.

The show explores how and why these women,...

Exclusive: A third season of Acorn TV and Channel 5 detective drama Dalgliesh has begun filming in Northern Ireland.

Produced by New Pictures (The Long Shadow) for Acorn and C5 in association with All3Media International, the third run will include lead actor Bertie Carvel making his directorial debut.

Another three P.D. James novels will be adapted for the season over two hour-long episodes each, in which Commander Dalgliesh is seen with Margaret Thatcher on the cusp of power in the UK. In the first book, Death in Holy Orders, Dalgliesh travels to a remote seminary overlooking a windswept lake, where a body has been found gruesomely murdered. Nearly everyone in the seminary has reason to resent the victim, and Dalgliesh and DS Tarrant must unpick a complicated set of motives to find their killer.

In the second, Cover Her Face, Dalgliesh investigates a murder in the Essex home of the Mehtas,...

The BBC is celebrating the art of the literary adaptation by screening a variety of classics on BBC Four. More details here.

The BBC is quite rightly celebrated for its rich history of book to screen adaptations, such as the iconic 1995 version of Jane Austen’a Pride And Prejudice to Cbbc’s hugely successful adaptation of Dame Jacqueline Wilson’s Tracy Beaker series.

It has now put together a season of 14 adaptations from the BBC archive, some of which have rarely been seen since their original broadcast.

The dramas are:

The Great Gatsby

Toby Stephens, Mira Sorvino and Paul Rudd lead the cast in this 2000 BBC adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel on the American dream in the jazz age.

Small Island

Naomie Harris, Ruth Wilson, David Oyelowo, Benedict Cumberbatch and Ashley Walters star in this 2009 TV version of Andrea Levy’s novel focusing on the lives and...

Mip TV is just around the corner and, as ever, the content will be king. Here, Deadline walks you through seven of the buzziest dramas set for the Croisette, featuring police thrillers, a Royal Family docu-drama and Beta Film’s latest about the Ms Estonia shipwreck. Read on for the best-in-class projects heading to Cannes for the April 17-19 confab.

Blue Lights

Distributor: BBC Studios

Network: BBC One

Episodes: 6 x 60

Having just launched on BBC One primetime, Blue Lights is the latest precinct drama from Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson, the creators of the critically-acclaimed Salisbury Poisonings. In Gallagher Films/Two Cities Productions’ show, the pair, who worked for years as investigative journalists, turn their hands to the troubled situation in Belfast, a uniquely dangerous place to be a Police Officer. Grace (Siân Brooke), a mother of a teenage boy, has made the decision in her 40s to leave her...

Exclusive: Emmy nominee Corbin Bersen (L.A. Law), Joanne Kelly (Warehouse 13) and Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters) are set to recur opposite Kevin Bacon and Aldis Hodge in Showtime’s Boston crime drama City On a Hill. Additionally, we’ll be seeing more of Mark Ryder in Season 3, as his role as Father Doyle will be expanded. Season 3 is set to premiere in 2022.

Season three brings us to Boston’s high society Beacon Hill. Following his dismissal from the FBI, Jackie Rohr (Bacon) lands a lavish new gig running security for a wealthy family. Life is good until secrets begin to unravel. When an investigation opens – implicating local and federal authorities – assistant district attorney Decourcy Ward (Hodge) sees an opportunity to finally rip out the machinery perpetuating a broken system.

Bernsen will play Sinclair Dryden, an old money Beacon Hill socialite and former outstanding FBI agent who has been a mentor to...

Exclusive: Leah Harvey is set to join A24’s Tuesday starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The film is the directing debut of Daina O. Pusic. Lola Petticrew will play Louis-Dreyfus’ daughter, with Arinzé Kene rounding out the ensemble. A24 had no comment on the casting.

Ivana MacKinnon will produce through her Wild Swim Films along with Helen Gladders of Gingerbread Pictures and Oliver Roskill of Record Player Films alongside A24.

The story is being described as a mother-daughter fairytale, the plot is being kept under wraps.

The project was developed with BBC Film, BFI, and Gingerbread Pictures. BBC Film joins A24 as co-financing partners, alongside BFI awarding funds from the National Lottery, and Cinereach.

Harvey recently wrapped shooting the first season as the lead of the new Skydance / Apple TV+ series Foundation. She was previously seen as the lead role in the National Theater’s production of Small Island, directed by Rufus Norris.

Exclusive: Multiple Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Emmy-nominated actor, producer and director David Oyelowo and his wife, actress, writer and producer Jessica Oyelowo, have signed a two-year first-look deal with Walt Disney Pictures for feature length films across all platforms at the studio.

The Oyelowos will produce through their Yoruba Saxon banner, which is focused on creating values-based content for all quadrants, with an aim to shift the culture and color outside the lines.

Yoruba Saxon’s most recent film and sixth is the upcoming family adventure The Water Man, which marks David’s feature length directorial debut, in which he stars and also features Jessica. The Water Man follows a boy who sets out on a quest to save his ill mother by searching for a mythic figure said to have magical healing powers. Rosario Dawson, Maria Bello and Alfred Molina also star. The pic originally made its world premiere at TIFF last September.

BET Goes Online-Only In UK

ViacomCBS’s BET is to become an online-only channel in the UK on April 8. The channel will be officially housed on Channel 5 streamer, My5, as well as on ViacomCBS’s advertising-supported streamer Pluto, where it launches on April 5. Alongside the digital switch, BET has unveiled its first UK originals slate: Cooking series Celebrity Comfort Food; comedy archive series Black to the Future (working title); and We Do That, a format following three well-known hosts as they meet talented Black individuals and try out their various career paths through hilarious challenges. Additionally, BET UK announced the launch of BET Amplifind UK, a regional music talent search. “We are committed to growing the BET brand in the UK, and to continuing to elevate Black love, joy, power and pride worldwide,” said Monde Twala, SVP of BET International.

‘Unforgotten’ Renewed For Fifth Season

ITV has renewed detective...

The Top Boy star on making his directorial debut, becoming a grandfather and hiding his ballet skills from the boys in Peckham

London-born Ashley Walters, 38, first found fame under the moniker Asher D, a member of UK garage collective So Solid Crew. He’s now best known as an actor, with film and TV credits including Bullet Boy, Hustle, Small Island and Top Boy. He currently stars in Sky One action series Bulletproof and recently made his directorial debut with Sky Arts short film Boys.

Boys is about best friends on an east London estate. Was it inspired by teenage lads getting unfairly portrayed by the media?

Definitely. It stems from me going through that with So Solid back in the day. We were villains in the press for a long time. That’s not to say we didn’t deserve it at times. But what I’m trying to...

This article contains spoilers for The Long Song.

The Long Song is the first miniseries featured in PBS Masterpiece’s 50th Anniversary season, and it’s U.S. arrival nearly three years after airing on BBC One is highlighting themes that some viewers may not be ready to process but that remain incredibly important.

The show is an adaptation of Andrea Levy’s 2010 novel recounting the story of how Jamaican slaves gained their freedom in the 1830’s. Levy worked with white screenwriter Sarah Williams on the script for The Long Song before her death in 2019. Although some may want to criticize Williams’ involvement for removing the Own Voices status from the series, it is important to note she successfully worked with Levy to adapt Small Island into a TV miniseries which aired on Masterpiece in 2009. Critics and the Black British community alike praised the miniseries for featuring the Windrush Generation.

Lff Expanded will include a partnership with the UK’s National Theatre.

The BFI London Film Festival is to launch a new strand titled Lff Expanded, which will be dedicated to virtual, augmented and mixed reality experiences.

The first edition will run from October 7 to 18, parallel to the main festival, and will feature 20 immersive and 360-video works. A series of live talks and events will also be scheduled. The titles will be announced alongside the Lff’s main programme on September 8.

A large-scale physical installation had been planned to host Lff Expanded but the ongoing pandemic and resulting social distancing...

“Belgravia” is a lavish historical drama set in the early days of Queen Victoria‘s reign that tells the story of an upwardly mobile family striving to find their place among the aristocracy. This six-part limited series on Epix is based on the novel of the same name by Oscar winner Julian Fellowes, who is fresh from the success of the “Downton Abbey” film. The TV edition of that drama set against the backdrop of the English aristocracy was an Emmys favorite, picking up 15 awards over the years.

“Belgravia” could do equally well with TV academy voters who may be eager to embrace escapist fare like this in these trying times. With its lavish attention to detail, “Belgravia” is sure to contend in a slew of below-the-line races. The video above captures the craftsmanship of BAFTA-winning costume designer James Keast (“The Long Firm”) and BAFTA nominated hair and makeup designer...

Fresh from the success of the “Downton Abbey” film, Oscar and Emmy winner Julian Fellowes returns with “Belgravia,” a new limited series on Epix that he’s adapted from his 2016 best-selling novel. Set in the well-heeled London neighborhood in the 1840s, the story chronicles the lives of the aristocratic Bellasise family and the upwardly mobile Trenchards.

Epix is rolling out this six-parter weekly with a new episode debuting every Sunday night. But Emmy voters don’t have to wait to see how the story unfolds – they can visit the Epix Fyc site to watch all six episodes now. “Belgravia” was directed by two-time BAFTA nominee John Alexander. With just one helmer for all the episodes, “Belgravia” has the feel of a film. That feeling is underscored by composer John Lunn, who won two Emmys for his work on “Downton Abbey.”

Period pieces like “Belgravia,” with their lavish attention to detail,...

HBO’s “Chernobyl,” Netflix’s “Sex Education” and indie film “Wild Rose” took top prizes at the U.K.’s second annual Cdg Casting Awards, held on Feb. 11 in London.

Meant to spotlight the full breadth of the profession, the Cdg Casting Awards feature competitive categories for theatre, television, film and commercials.

Divided into two categories, the television arm awarded prizes for both drama and comedy.

“Chernobyl” casting directors Nina Gold and Robert Sterne took home top honors for drama – a category that also included “Killing Eve,” “Black Earth Rising,” “Line of Duty 5,” “The Long Song” and “Years and Years.”

For comedy, “Sex Education” casting director Lauren Evans bested nominees for “Catastrophe,” “Stath Lets Flats,” “After Life,” “Ghosts” and “Brassic.”

The lone film prize went to “Wild Rose,” a musical dramedy about a would-be country singer in Glasgow. The prize went to Kahleen Crawford, who was named twice in this category,...

The second edition of the awards honoured six different categories.

UK feature Wild Rose and Netflix series Sex Education were among the winners at the 2nd Casting Directors’ Guild awards, held on Tuesday, February 11 in London.

Kahleen Crawford received best casting in a film for her work on Tom Harper’s Wild Rose. The film stars Screen Star of Tomorrow 2017 Jessie Buckley as a Glaswegian mother who dreams of becoming a country music star. Julie Walters and Buckley’s fellow 2017 Screen Star James Harkness are also in the cast.

Lauren Evans received the best casting in a TV comedy award...

Fresh from the success of the “Downton Abbey” film, Oscar and Emmy winner Julian Fellowes returns with “Belgravia,” a new limited series on Epix that he’s adapted from his 2016 best-selling novel. Watch the teaser trailer above for a taste of the fun to come in 2020.

Set in the well-heeled London neighborhood in the 1840s, the story chronicles the lives of the aristocratic Bellasise family and the upwardly mobile Trenchards. The plot pivots on one eventful night a quarter-century prior when, on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, British society gathered in Brussels for the Duchess of Richmond’s ball (Thackeray set the climax of his classic novel “Vanity Fair” there as well.)

For Sophia Trenchard (Emily Reid), daughter of the chief supplier to the British Army, this one night changes her destiny. Her fate becomes intertwined with that of the Bellasise brood, much as Matthew’s did with the Crawley clan in “Downton.

Other winners at Japanese festival were Filament, Nana-chan and Trash.

How To Bring Women Back Into A Good Humor, a Japanese comedy about a couple who can’t stop arguing over their wedding plans, won the audience award at the 11th Okinawa International Movie Festival (Oimf), which wrapped on Sunday night (April 21).

Veteran actor Eiji Okuda presented the award to director Shusuke Arita, who said when accepting the prize: “If there’re men who aren’t getting along with their wives and are thinking about getting a divorce, seeing this movie can make them change their minds”.

Films which received...

Agent Carter star Hayley Atwell and King Charles III’s Tamara Lawrance are to lead the cast of David Heyman’s BBC drama The Long Song.

The pair are to front the three-part series, which tells the story of dying days of slavery in Jamaica, alongside a supporting cast, which includes British comedy legend Lenny Henry.

The Long Song starts in 1838 on the British-ruled Caribbean island as three hundred years of slavery came to a chaotic end. The series follows July, a strong-willed young female slave on a Jamaican plantation, played by Lawrance, who goes from being a slave to the mother of a gentleman. The story is told from July’s perspective as she looks back over her life. Atwell plays her odious mistress Caroline Mortimer, while War and Peace’s Jack Lowden plays a charming new island arrival.

Henry stars as Godfrey, Doña Croll (EastEnders) as Old July,...

David Heyman is a busy man; in addition to boarding Quentin Tarantino's next film, the Harry Potter producer is adapting Andrea Levy's novel The Long Song into a high-end drama for BBC One. The Long Song, which tells the story of dying days of slavery in Jamaica, is produced by Heyman's Heyday Television, a joint venture with NBC Universal, and will be written by Sarah Williams, who co-wrote BBC One's Small Island with Paula Milne and ITV's Case Sensitive. The project had…...

"Cuffs" is a new fast-paced cop show commissioned by BBC One, with a cast that's fronted by Ashley Walters ("Top Boy," "Small Island"), along with Peter Sullivan ("The Borgias," "State Of Play"), Amanda Abbington ("Sherlock," "Mr Selfridge"), Shaun Dooley ("Exile," "The Game"), Paul Ready ("Utopia," "Ripper Street"), Eleanor Matsuura ("Utopia," "Vexed") and Alex Carter ("Hollyoaks," "Emmerdale"). The character-led drama, as well as a police procedural, takes the audience on an "exhilarating" ride through the challenges of...

Narrowing down the talents and charms of one Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch to just five is no easy task. Though it may seem like the 38-year-old Brit actor has only recently come on the scene, thanks to his sit-up-and-take-notice, pitch-perfect performance as Sherlock Holmes, dedicated fans know better. Though he's undoubtedly experiencing the kind of golden moment most actors would gladly give their right arm (and possibly a leg) for, the London-born, recently engaged thesp has been a jobbing actor for more than a decade and a critically-acclaimed one for almost as long.

From his BAFTA-nominated performances in "Hawking" (2004) and "Small Island" (2009), to charismatic but smaller turns in Starter For 10 (2006) and Atonement (2007), Cumberbatch was already making a name for himself before he was approached to audition for the titular role in Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss's modern BBC look at Conan Doyle's famous detective. The role marked...

Untot

"Star Wars" actor Hayden Christensen has joined Kris Renkewitz's WW2 set action-horror film "Untot" at Solaris Entertainment. Greg O'Connor will produce and filming begins in New York City in March.

The story follows an elite military unit commanded by Lt. Fredrick Hank (Christensen) who is dropped behind enemy lines in the mountains of Poland in order to destroy a secret Nazi weapons facility. What they encounter is something they've never been trained for. [Source: THR]

Black Lung

Amanda Seyfried ("Mamma Mia") and Theo James ("Divergent") will headline the supernatural thriller "Black Lung" at 2929 Prods. and Cooper's Town Prods. Cary Fukunaga ("True Detective") will executive produce and filming begins this Summer.

Chase Palmer penned the script and will make his feature film directing debut on the project about a young wife whose premonition about a pending disaster saves her husband, but puts her under suspicion when an explosion entombs a group of miners.

The nominations for this year's BAFTA Film Awards were announced this morning with Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel leading the pack with 11 nominations. However, this year saw some very notable omissions, including one that has left many film fans scratching their heads.

BAFTA Film Awards 2015: Nominations list in full

Digital Spy takes a look at the movies that missed out at this year's BAFTA nominations below...

Selma

There isn't a single nomination for Ava DuVernay's soul-stirring drama about Martin Luther King's historic march across Alabama, and for a film that's been tipped by awards experts as a serious Best Picture contender this is somewhat baffling.

The film doesn't hit UK cinemas until February 6, so naturally it hasn't had time to sink into the wider consciousness yet. However, voters will likely have had the opportunity to see early previews and critic reviews have been unanimously positive.

David Oyelowo shines as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Ava Duvernay's "Selma" and now, he's being honored at the upcoming Palm Springs International Film Festival! Here's the complete press release:

Palm Springs, CA (December 7, 2014) . The 26th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (Psiff) will present David Oyelowo with the Breakthrough Performance Award, Actor for his critically acclaimed performance as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Ava DuVernay.s Selma at its annual Awards Gala. The Gala will also present awards to previously announced honorees Richard Linklater, Julianne Moore, Rosamund Pike, Eddie Redmayne, J.K. Simmons, Reese Witherspoon and the cast of The Imitation Game. Presented by Cartier, and hosted by Mary Hart, the Awards Gala will be held Saturday, January 3 at the Palm Springs Convention Center. The Festival runs January 2-12.

.David Oyelowo.s transformation into Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is truly outstanding,. said Film Festival Chairman Harold Matzner.

Benedict Cumberbatch features in a new trailer promoting BBC Drama.

The Sherlock actor has recorded William Shakespeare's 'All the World's a Stage' monologue from As You Like It for the promo, which aired before new drama The Missing on BBC One at 8.58pm tonight (October 28).

The promo features moments from BBC dramas of the past, present and future.

Upcoming dramas featured in the trailer include the adaptation of Jk Rowling's The Casual Vacancy, Esio Trot starring Dame Judi Dench and Dustin Hoffman, James Nesbitt's The Missing, Damian Lewis drama Wolf Hall, Jimmy McGovern's new series Banished, the new version of Poldark, Susanna Clarke's Strange and Norrell, One Child and The Interceptor.

Past dramas include the likes of The Singing Detective, House of Cards, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, This Life, Pride and Prejudice, Criminal Justice, Small Island, Spooks and Life on Mars.

Doctor Who, Last Tango in Halifax,...

Benedict Cumberbatch will feature in a new trailer promoting BBC Drama tonight (October 28).

The Sherlock actor has recorded William Shakespeare's 'All the World's a Stage' monologue from As You Like It for the promo, which will air before new drama The Missing on BBC One at 8.58pm.

The promo will feature moments from BBC dramas of the past, present and future.

Upcoming dramas featured in the trailer will include the adaptation of Jk Rowling's The Casual Vacancy, Esio Trot starring Dame Judi Dench and Dustin Hoffman, James Nesbitt's The Missing, Damian Lewis drama Wolf Hall, Jimmy McGovern's new series Banished, the new version of Poldark, Susanna Clarke's Strange and Norrell, One Child and The Interceptor.

Past dramas will include the likes of The Singing Detective, House of Cards, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, This Life, Pride and Prejudice, Criminal Justice, Small Island, Spooks and Life on Mars.

Exclusive: Powerhouse production duo launch film and TV company.

UK producers Alison Owen and Debra Hayward have joined forces to launch new film and TV production company Monumental Pictures.

The partnership brings together two of the UK’s most respected production executives – Ruby Films founder Owen, whose credits include Suffragette, Tulip Fever and Temple Grandin, and long-time Working Title executive Hayward, whose titles include Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Atonement and Bridget Jones’s Diary.

“Debra and I have been chasing the same material for so long now, we’re both exhausted from competing with each other,” said Owen. “Ultimately, I could see the only way to beat Debra was to join her.”

The duo will work across film and TV productions. “I see what Alison has been doing in television and that really chimed with me,” said Hayward.

“Alison has stellar instincts about material and great talent relationships - it just made sense for us to join...

I've been feeling my way through Naomie Harris' past work lately, researching for a future post on the actress (see my July 3rd "Before They Were Hollywood Stars" post on her appearance in the 2009 drama "'Small Island'" here). Today, I travel back to 2008 to another British drama - this one titled "Poppy Shakespeare," in which Ms Harris starred as the titular Poppy Shakespeare, a new and worryingly sane patient who arrives at a North London psychiatric ward dressed up to the nines, insisting she’s not mentally ill. Her story is told through the eyes of N, played by BAFTA-winning actress Anna Maxwell Martin, a 13-year...

"Small Island" is Andrea Levy’s uplifting story of Jamaican immigrants living in war-ravaged London in the early to mid-20th century. It's a telepic we highlighted on this blog in 2009, before it was to make its premiere in the UK, as well as here in the USA, airing in two parts on PBS’s Masterpiece Classic series. This was a few years before both Naomie Harris and David Oyelowo took on roles that made them widely-familiar to USA audiences. Also, others you'd recognize include Nikki Amuka-Bird (years before she was cast to give Idris Elba trouble in "Luther") and Ashley Walters, the British rapper, actor producer who...

Naomie Harris became a global star as the Bond girl in Skyfall, but her biggest challenge yet has been playing the controversial figure of Nelson Mandela's wife in the new biopic. Luckily, she says, her co-star was Idris Elba…

The first time I met Naomie Harris was in 2010 in a noisy cafe in Portobello Road, London. I thought then that she was the sort of girl you would have wanted to make your best friend if you had met her at school: warm, talkative, not at all puffed up and not dressed up either. I don't remember what she wore but it wasn't aiming to be memorable. The cafe was noisy so she suggested we talk in her nearby flat. She was best known then for her role in Pirates of the Caribbean and for television dramas (Clara in White Teeth, Hortense in Small Island). She was about to pull into the fast lane,...

Exclusive: Radcliffe to star as Olympic champion in Gold. Simon Beaufoy’s script to be directed by James Watkins, Embankment to handle sales.

Daniel Radcliffe is to play four-time Olympic gold medallist Sebastian Coe in what will be one of the hottest projects to hit the American Film Market (Afm) next month.

Radcliffe will reunite with Woman in Black director James Watkins on Gold, which will tell the story of Coe’s rivalry with fellow athlete Steve Ovett in the years leading up to the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games.

The buzzed-about screenplay is by Oscar-winning writer Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire) and Will Davies (How to Train Your Dragon).

Planning is underway for a shoot in the UK and Russia in April next year.

The film will be produced by Joanna Anderson and Vicky Licorish (Small Island) and Kevin Loader (Hyde Park on Hudson, Le Week-end).

BBC Films and the British Film Institute have developed the project with Al...

Producer Alison Owen says it is “crazy to say the internet is going to kill off movies”.Scroll down for full speech

Alison Owen, managing director of Ruby Film and Television, has used her keynote speech at the BFI London Film Festival to defend the art of movie storytelling and play down the threat of the internet.

Speaking at the Curzon Soho this afternoon, Owen said: “There’s many a Cassandra touting the death of the movie industry. But is that true?

“It is crazy to say the internet is going to kill off movies… The problem is not technology per se but the management of that technology – and the lack of a pervasive business model.”

Using YouTube clips such as “Charlie bit my finger”, Owen said such content was “incredibly simple” and that “people still want good stories”.

“As digital comes of age, there’s going to be more and more demand for content,” she said.

“If...

Producer Alison Owen says it is “crazy to say the internet is going to kill off movies”.Scroll down for full speech

Alison Owen, managing director of Ruby Film and Television, has used her keynote speech at the BFI London Film Festival to defend the art of movie storytelling and play down the threat of the internet.

Speaking at the Curzon Soho this afternoon, Owen said: “There’s many a Cassandra touting the death of the movie industry. But is that true?

“It is crazy to say the internet is going to kill off movies… The problem is not technology per se but the management of that technology – and the lack of a pervasive business model.”

Using YouTube clips such as “Charlie bit my finger”, Owen said such content was “incredibly simple” and that “people still want good stories”.

“As digital comes of age, there’s going to be more and more demand for content,” she said.

“If...

Sundance Channel's first wholly owned original drama "Rectify" has been one of this year's more critically acclaimed shows, and the network has both renewed it for a second season and greenlit another original, "The Descendants" (not based on the movie). But Sundance Channel has also been stepping up its international co-productions, like the Jane Campion miniseries "Top of the Lake," which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and has brought the network a lot of attention. Sundance's latest co-production deal is with the BBC for "The Honourable Woman," an eight-part miniseries starring Maggie Gyllenhaal ("Secretary"), directed by Hugo Blick ("The Shadow Line"), executive produced by Drama Republic's Greg Brenman ("Billy Elliot") and produced by Abi Bach ("Small Island"). "The Honourable Woman" is a thriller centered around Nessa Stein (Gyllenhaal), who, alongside her brother, as a child witnessed the assassination of their father, a Zionist...

Actress to play lead role in drama series set against an international political backdrop.

Maggie Gyllenhaal is to play the lead role in Hugo Blick’s drama series The Honourable Woman for BBC Two and Sundance Channel.

Shooting starts in July in London on the thriller set against an international political backdrop written and directed by BAFTA award winner Blick. The Honourable Woman is set in the UK, the Middle East and America, and will film on location.

It will be broadcast on BBC Two and the Sundance Channel in 2014.

Following the murder of a Palestinian business man, Nessa Stein (Gyllenhaal) and her brother Ephra find themselves placed under the scrutiny of both Whitehall and the Secret Intelligence Service. Nessa is then forced to confront the true nature of her business empire, inherited from her father who was a Zionist arms procurer.

Gyllenhaal commented: “I couldn’t put the scripts down. Nessa is such...

Actress to play lead role in drama series set against an international political backdrop.

Maggie Gyllenhaal is to play the lead role in Hugo Blick’s drama series The Honourable Woman for BBC Two and Sundance Channel.

Shooting starts in July in London on the thriller set against an international political backdrop written and directed by BAFTA award winner Blick. The Honourable Woman is set in the UK, the Middle East and America, and will film on location.

It will be broadcast on BBC Two and the Sundance Channel in 2014.

Following the murder of a Palestinian business man, Nessa Stein (Gyllenhaal) and her brother Ephra find themselves placed under the scrutiny of both Whitehall and the Secret Intelligence Service. Nessa is then forced to confront the true nature of her business empire, inherited from her father who was a Zionist arms procurer.

Gyllenhaal commented: “I couldn’t put the scripts down. Nessa is such...

After a five-film 'apprenticeship' in America, the English director's first British movie is the 007 picture Skyfall. Here, stars including Daniel Craig and Naomie Harris reveal exclusively what it is like working with him

Sam Mendes has proper English credentials. He grew up amid the spires and meadows of Oxford, where cricket was his passion. Taking a first in English at Cambridge, he then spent time in the provincial city of Chichester, learning how to handle the theatrical types who strut across British stages.

Yet Mendes, who has been hailed since American Beauty in 1999 as a leading Hollywood film-maker, has taken a long time to come home. Now after five films, each fairly hardboiled takes on life across the Atlantic, he is trumpeting his return to British cinema by directing the latest instalment in the most quintessentially English franchise of them all: James Bond.

It is a twist that amuses his star and friend,...

She's best mates with Lady Mary, but Ruth Wilson reveals why she sidestepped Downton in favour of Tolstoy

Ruth Wilson talks brusquely, in quick, ungainly sentences that take one back to her excellent Jane Eyre and make her seem, oddly, both older and younger than her 30 years. She is about to appear in Tom Stoppard's adaptation of Anna Karenina, directed by Joe Wright and starring Keira Knightley in the title role, is currently filming The Lone Ranger in Colorado, and shows every indication of joining the first ranks of Britain's leading ladies. "I've always been quite shy," she says. "Very confident but very shy." She laughs awkwardly. If there is such a thing as belligerent shyness, this is it what it looks like.

We are in a coffee shop in Manhattan, where Wilson is spending a few days before returning to Colorado. Anna Karenina is the first book adaptation...

Black actors belong in British costume drama. After all, we've been around for a lot longer than 1948

I've not read Wuthering Heights and for some reason, possibly the terrible sadness of its storyline, I've tried to avoid filmed versions of it too. But Andrea Arnold's retelling of Emily Bronte's story has me intrigued. Casting a black Heathcliff seems to have divided critics down the middle: some say it is an accurate and justifiable reading of the story of the "dark outsider"; others dismiss it as a bit of modern, multicultural nonsense.

Indeed, one critic wrote that far from Arnold's description of the actor James Howson as a "young Jimi Hendrix", they found him more like "a young Rio Ferdinand". A British film director decides to cast the best actor she can find regardless of colour, and the critic chooses to mock her choice by comparing the artist to...

The former So Solid Crew member has a burgeoning acting career. But how much does his portrayal of young black men draw on his own troubled background – and does he worry about being typecast?

Is Ashley Walters afraid of being typecast? In his new film, Sket, he plays a violent gang leader on a London housing estate. In Top Boy, a Channel 4 drama soon to be screened, he plays a drug dealer on a London housing estate. In another new film – because Walters is about to be everywhere – Demons Never Die, he plays a police officer; it must have come as something of a relief. After Bullet Boy, the 2004 film that kick-started his movie career – in which he played a young man involved in gun crime on a London housing estate – it seemed as if he could be in danger of becoming the go-to man for gritty, urban dramas.

After weeks of drama, intense negotiation, and will-they-won’t-they whispers, “The Lone Ranger” is officially back on at Disney.From the outside looking in, it doesn’t seem as though Disney really won this financial battle with Gore Verbinski and Jerry Bruckheimer. They wanted that budget of $230 million substantially reduced, but capitulated at last to Verbinski and Bruckheimer’s final tally of $215 million. Verbinski, Bruckheimer and Depp all reduced their fees, shortened the shoot, and trimmed the production budget, but it still seems like an awfully steep price for the studio to pay. I’m not at all sure that includes marketing, after all.Depp and Armie Hammer remain attached to play Tonto and the Lone Ranger, respectively, and Deadline reports that Ruth Wilson has joined the cast as the female lead. Wilson is a brilliant and lovely actress, yet another British star that hasn’t made the leap across the sea,...

With less than a month until the most anticipated juggernaut of 2011 storms retail stores, Epic Games and Microsoft Studios unleashed the first look at the complete line-up of Gears of War 3 multiplayer maps, including the reveal of Gridlock, the revamped fan-favourite battleground returning from Gears of War and Gears of War 2. THe game is set to feature the series’ deepest and most expansive multiplayer experience yet, across an arsenal of competitive and cooperative modes, including versus multiplayer, four-player campaign co-op, Horde 2.0 and Beast mode.

From the press release:

On top of the critically-acclaimed series’ most epic-scale campaign yet, “Gears of War 3” is poised to deliver the must-have multiplayer experience of the year with 10 action-packed maps based on stunning campaign environments, all playable in Versus Multiplayer, Beast and Horde mode. Additionally, “Gears of War 3” includes a modified version of Gridlock, the legendary map that defined multiplayer gameplay in “Gears 1” and “Gears...

The internet may have made redundant the Victorian type of travel book, full of facts and figures, but it's a form of literature that can still thrive

'Hugh Grant loses his bookshop in Notting Hill" was the headline on an article that appeared last week in my local Spanish newspaper. International interest in London's Travel Bookshop (described as a tourist attraction comparable to Paris's Shakespeare and Company) is entirely due to its central role in a popular film promoting an engaging view of London and the British. In Britain, the news of the bookshop's closure has additional and more serious implications – for the future not only of similar independent establishments, but also, and no less importantly, of travel writing.

Travel writing today has an undoubtedly tarnished image. The casting of Hugh Grant in Notting Hill says much about popular preconceptions of the genre and its practitioners. It is a...

It has been a tumultuous journey to the big screen but with MGM finally giving the greenlight to the 23rd Bond film the cast and crew are slowly assembling.

There is excellent news today with a report that Naomie Harris’s role, which was rumoured a month ago and is now in final negotiations, will be that of Miss Moneypenny, marking the character’s return to the franchise after the sparse ‘reboot’ of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.

Lois Maxwell is perhaps the actress most often associated with the role, though I enjoyed Samantha Bond’s take, and Harris’s previous form, notably in 28 Days Later and the recent TV adaptation of Andrea Levy’s Small Island, shows great promise and it will be interesting to see if her role is in any way expanded. While taking Q out into the field would seem a little too much for Bond purists,...

The E4 series Misfits triumphed at last night's 2011 Broadcast Awards. The show, which focuses on a group of community service participants who receive superpowers, picked up prizes for 'Best Multichannel Programme' and 'Best New Programme'. Elsewhere, the 'Best Drama Series or Serial' honour went to Sherlock, and The Thick Of It won 'Best Comedy Programme'. The 'Best Single Drama' award went to the BBC's Small Island. The Cube beat The X Factor (more)...

Anonymous has been at it again. Following Primary Colors's version of Clinton comes O: A Presidential Novel. Mark Lawson on the tradition of insider political fiction, from Disraeli to The West Wing. A preview from tomorrow's Guardian Review.

Also in tomorrow's Review: Composer Mark-Anthony Turnage on why Anna Nicole Smith is a true operatic heroine, Andrea Levy on why she wrote Small Island, Stefan Collini in praise of Eric Hobsbawm and Sarah Churchwell on the scandalous Lillian Hellman

A successful political career demands a tradeoff between fame and anonymity. A leader needs to be known – an Obama, Blair or Clinton has the global recognisability of a rock star – but high-level politics also frequently depends on the exercise of secrecy. The unattributable briefing ("a party insider, speaking on condition of anonymity", "a source travelling with the prime minister") is a standard tool of political journalism, offering an early first...

Another troubling subplot has emerged from the trove of diplomatic cables that journalists have been poring through. This time it's the United States' less-than-heroic role in last year's Copenhagen climate change summit, which was widely viewed as a failure for the toothless Copenhagen Accord that resulted. Since this is the last day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, it seems a good time to walk through the way promising climate negotiations get deliberately derailed.

1. Collude with China.

In May of 2009, Senator John Kerry met with China's Deputy Prime Minister Li Keqiang in Beijing, reports Der Spiegel. Kerry told Keqiang that Washington understood China's "resistance to accepting mandatory targets at the United Nations Climate Conference" coming up in Copenhagen. A cable sent from the U.S. embassy in Beijing reported that Kerry outlined "a new basis for 'major cooperation' between the United States and China on climate change.

Anne Hathaway and James Franco weren't the only ones getting <a href="http://www.celebrity-mania.com/news/view/00017316.html" class="submenu">their second nomination from Satellite Awards</a>. When the International Press Academy announced the nominees for 2010 Satellite Awards on Wednesday, December 1, it was uncovered that "Glee" star Lea Michele is up for another title of Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical Series. <br><br /> The actress famed for her portrayal of Rachel Berry has won the title in 2009, beating the likes of Toni Collette, Edie Falco and Tina Fey among others. This year, she will still have to battle it out against those three TV stars, and gets some new competition from Laura Linney of "The Big C" and Jane Adams of "Hung". <br><br /> Lea wasn't the only "Glee" stars landing an acting nod for the annual awards. Her co-stars, Matthew Morrison, Jane Lynch and Chris Colfer, were up for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical Series, Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor respectively.

"Glee" has the biggest chance to take home a trophy at the upcoming 15th Annual Satellite Awards for it has been nominated in 5 categories. The Fox series is taking nods in Actress and Actor in a Series, Supporting Actress and Actor in a Series as well as the coveted TV Series, Comedy. <br><br /> As many as 12 television categories of 38 programs from 15 diverse networks were announced as this year's contenders. If "Glee" is the biggest nominee in the comedy field, it is "The Good Wife" which shows a domination in the drama field. The CBS series is also taking 5 nods followed by AMC's "Mad Men" and HBO's TV movie "Temple Grandin" with four. <br><br /> Network-wise, it is HBO which comes first place in terms of total nods. The cable channel receives nominations mostly from "Grandin", "You Don't Know Jack" and its acclaimed series like "True Blood" and "Hung". Taking 17 nods, HBO towers above...

Misfits has picked up three nominations for the 2011 Broadcast Awards.

The BAFTA-winning E4 series was listed in the categories for 'Best Drama Series or Serial', 'Best Multichannel Programme' and 'Best New Programme'.

The full list of nominees for the 2011 Broadcast Awards, to be held on February 2 2011, is as follows:

Best Music Programme

Children In Need Rocks The UK (BBC One)

Evo Music Rooms (Channel 4)

Glastonbury 2010 (BBC)

Must Be The Music (Sky1)

Rigoletto Live from Mantua (BBC Two)

Songbook (Sky Arts 1)

Best Sports Programme

Indian Premier League Final (ITV3)

Isle Of Man Tt 2010 (ITV4)

Tour De France (ITV4)

Winter Olympics (BBC Two)

World Cup 2010 (BBC One)

World Cup Match Of The Day (BBC One)

Best News Programme

Election Special - New Prime Minister (BBC One)

Five Days That Changed Britain (BBC Two)

ITV News At Ten: Haiti (ITV1)

Our War, Their War: Afghan (Channel 4)

Raoul Moat Recordings (ITV...