When your day job of filming series 5 of Call the Midwife begins to wind down in the not-too-distant future, just what does one do to occupy your new found free time? For Helen George, who plays Nurse Beatrix ‘Trixie’ Franklin, aside from running in the recent London Marathon, you sign up for the forthcoming […]
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Putting the last six years of playing sweet and innocent Anna Bates in her rear view mirror, Downton Abbey‘s Joanne Froggatt has already begun filming on her next project, Dark Angel, for ITV. The ‘did-she-or-didn’t-she-kill-Mr-Green’ downstairs ladies maid has stepped back in time to play real-life Victorian serial murderer, bigamist and adulteress Mary Ann Cotton. […]
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Almost a decade ago, several of us had an incredible opportunity to spend a couple of weeks in Dublin with Frank McCourt, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Angela’s Ashes, Teacher Man and ‘Tis. Frank hosted our PBS special, Historic Pubs of Dublin, broadcast in March 2008. As host, Frank took viewers on a tour of Dublin telling it’s history through the […]
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In the endless broadcaster search to uncover anything that might find an audience up against the final series of ITV’s Downton Abbey, the BBC will be upping its steamy quotient hoping to capitalize on Poldark-mania with a new television adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover this September. While some critics have already jumped on […]
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Unfortunately, we’ve all heard the endless rumors countless times before. One early idea was to have the next iteration of Blackadder set in the swingin’ 60’s featuring a Dave Clark Five-type band with a drummer by the name of Bald Rick. The most recent addition to the rumor mill that made its way around the Internets a year or so ago […]
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With just under 28 days until the Saturday, 19 September Doctor Who season 9 opening two-parter, “The Magician’s Apprentice“ and “The Witch’s Familiar“, have their premiere on BBC1/BBC America, there is much to fan the Internet flames of speculation as to where current showrunner, Steven Moffat, will take us this year. While it’s no secret that both Missy and […]
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What really happened during Shakespeare’s ‘Lost Years’? In ‘real-life’, these lost years are widely acknowledged as being a crucial period in Shakespeare’s life, long having been a mystery to scholars, and cover his rise from virtual obscurity in Stratford-upon-Avon to fame as a playwright in London. Preferring to grab hold of the potential of great idiocy […]
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Sometimes I have this thought that if I refuse to acknowledge that we, as inhabitants of Planet Earth, are perilously close to the finale of Downton Abbey, then it won’t happen, right? Then, I wake up and realize that, even with the magic of television, we must face the reality together that Downton Abbey is […]
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This definitely isn’t your father’s Frankenstein. Neither is this Mel Brooks’ nor Danny Boyle’s Frankenstein. For some, this won’t be Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein either. Told from Igor’s perspective, Paul McGuigan’s Victor Frankenstein begins with the troubled young assistant’s dark origins through his life-saving friendship with the young medical student Victor Von Frankenstein, played by James McAvoy, and the […]
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The Widower heads to PBS this Fall, starring Reece Shearsmith (League of Gentlemen), Sheridan Smith (The C Word) and John Hannah (A Touch of Cloth). The Widower tells the factual story of real-life convicted murderer Malcolm Webster, a seemingly mild-mannered (aren’t they all) male nurse who, over a 13-year period, set about poisoning and murdering his first wife, attempting to do the same […]
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