Capping off the KERA British Telly Tour with a trip to ‘Dibley’ and Bletchley Park!

Taking absolutely nothing away from our stops earlier in the week touring filming locations for Downton Abbey (Highclere Castle), Poldark (Chavenage House), Midsomer Murders (Dorchester-on-Thames), Inspector Morse/Lewis/Endeavour (Oxfordshire) and Agatha Raisin (Biddestone), the final day of the KERA British Telly Tour before returning to London may have been the best of all with a stop in Turville, yet another picturesque small English village (thankfully, no murders have occured there to my knowledge) for a behind-the-scenes look at the Vicar of Dibley and then on to Bletchley Park (Bletchley Circle) for a glimpse at the brilliant work that came out of the minds of the roughly 9000 men and women that worked tirelessly to end World War II .

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Good & Evil join forces to avert the Apocalypse in ‘Good Omens’ from Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Based on the satirical 1990 end of the world novel by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens looks to be devilishly fun (sorry, couldn’t help it). For starters, David Tennant stars as the rockstarish demon Crawley and Michael Sheen as the angel Aziriphale. The on-screen greatness begins when David Tennant’s ‘Crowley’ says, to Michael Sheen’s Aziriphale, “We need to talk…about […]

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First look: ‘Bletchley Circle: San Francisco’

Having just wrapped production, Bletchley Circle: San Francisco, the original drama production output from ITV and Britbox,  is headed to SVOD next month. The original Bletchley Circle series, starring Anna Maxwell Martin, Rachael Stirling, Sophie Rundle, Julia Graham and Hattie Morahan, followed a group of four female codebreakers at the famous World War II code-breaking center Bletchley Park […]

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R.I.P. Jewel in the Crown’s Tim Pigott-Smith

Tim Pigott-Smith, the acclaimed British character actor, who catapulted to fame in the 1980s as the villainous police superintendent, Ronald Merrick, in the television series, The Jewel in the Crown, died on Friday in Northampton, England at the age of 70. Pigott-Smith won the BAFTA Award of Best Actor in 1985 for his work in The Jewel […]

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“Motherland” shows promise amidst BBC’s ‘year of the reboot’

Buried smack dab in the middle of the current sitcom reboot/remake/prequel overload comes a really promising new comedy pilot offering airing tonight at 10p on BBC2. Motherland, starring Anna Maxwell-Martin (Bletchley Circle, Death Comes to Pemberley, And Then There Were None), Lucy Punch (Doc Martin, Hot Fuzz), Diane Morgan (Mock the Week, Mount Pleasant) and Paul Ready […]

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The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb has a Highclere Castle connection

While this may not be the exact Downton Abbey spin-off/sequel that you were thinking of, a just-commissioned series from ITV will have a Highclere Castle connection. It may not be even close to ‘Downton’ but it does have curses, mummies and period mysteries so it does have possibilities. The ‘as-yet-to-be-named’ 4-part drama will tell the epic […]

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First look at Sir Ian McKellen as….’Mr. Holmes’

Ok, it’s not set in the 21st century and it’s not Benedict Cumberbatch but it is 1947, it is Sir Ian McKellen and it definitely is Sherlock! Given the fact that the Sherlock-Nation will be without a new Benedict Cumberbatch episode for roughly another 11 months, we all are in desperate need of a periodic ‘Sherlock […]

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