Top posts

• Oscar-winning writer for LA Confidential and film director Curtis Hanson has died

  21 September 2016 ( #best adapted screenplay, #Curtis Hanson, #James Ellroy, #LA Confidential, #Oscar )

  Oscar-winning writer and film director Curtis Hanson has died at his home in Hollywood at the age of 71. Police said he died of natural causes. A report said he had retired in recent years due to Alzheimer's. Hanson won an Oscar in 1998 for best adapted...

• The Cast of the Mystery of Edwin Drood

  25 September 2016 ( #BBC, #cast, #Dickens, #Matthew Rhys, #The Mystery of Edwin Drood )

  EDWIN DROOD AND FRIENDS (OR ENEMIES?) Rosa Bud (Tamzin Merchant) Edwin’s beautiful teenage fiancée, whose intended marriage has been arranged by Rosa and Edwin’s fathers. Edwin Drood (Freddie Fox) A privileged, somewhat vain young man who plans to marry...

• The Americans - how a TV show gets made

  26 August 2016 ( #best show on TV, #original drama, #period piece, #spoilers, #The Americans )

  To truly understand the phrase "controlled chaos," you should consider crashing the set of a television show. It's my first day on the set of The Americans , FX's stellar Cold War spy drama. On this frigid November morning, I step into a nondescript Brooklyn...

• Guerre et Paix (BBC) sur France 2 prochainement

  16 August 2016 ( #Andrew Davies, #BBC, #France 2, #Leo Tolstoy, #War & Peace )

  De notre correspondante à Londres, C’est un monument ! Et adapter à la télévision le chef-d’œuvre de Léon Tolstoï – la destinée de plusieurs familles de nobles russes pendant la campagne napoléonienne en 1812 – semblait une vraie gageure que la BBC a...

• Zola's Au Bonheur des dames and the BBC's The Paradise

  02 August 2016 ( #Au Bonheur des dames, #BBC, #book vs. TV series, #Emile Zola, #The Paradise )

  The Birth of the Department Store: Émile Zola’s Au bonheur des dames and BBC’s The Paradise miniseries Michael Miller University of Miami The credits that precede each episode of the BBC’s The Paradise, tell us that the miniseries is based on Émile Zola’s...

• BBC worth the licence fee?

  02 June 2016 ( #BBC, #John Le Carré, #licence fee, #The Night Manager, #War & Peace )

  An analysis of social media by the TV Licensing company has revealed the shows that most viewers think are worth the cost of the Licence Fee (basically, they counted up how many people on Twitter said a show was "worth the Licence fee"). BBC1 drama The...

• The Hollow Crown 2: Who's who?

  07 May 2016 ( #cast, #history plays, #Shakespeare, #The Hollow Crown, #who's who )

  The BBC has assembled a seriously star-studded cast for its second cycle of Hollow Crown films. From Hugh Bonneville to Michael Gambon – and later in the series, Benedict Cumberbatch and Judi Dench – British acting royalty are out in force to bring to...

• What will Brexit mean for the UK TV industry?

  24 June 2016 ( #Brexit, #EU, #Game of Thrones, #HBO, #ITV )

  The shock Brexit result will have massive ramifications – not least the fact that we may see less of beautiful French actress Clémence Poésy on TV. The actress who has starred opposite Stephen Dillane in the new series of The Tunnel on Sky Atlantic could...

• The BBC to Adapt Shakespeare's Roman plays?

  16 May 2016 ( #Anthony and Cleopatra, #BBC, #Coriolanus, #Julius Caesar, #Shakespeare )

  If you’ve been enjoying the Henry VI and Richard III Hollow Crown dramas with Benedict Cumberbatch et al on the BBC, you may be glad to hear that the Corporation is considering taking on Shakespeare’s Roman plays for the next batch of the Bard. Discussions...

• Sherlock: New trailer for Christmas Special

  13 December 2015 ( #BBC, #BBC One, #Conan Doyle, #Sherlock, #Sherlock Holmes )

  It's clear from the wording of the synopsis for Sherlock special The Abominable Bride that there's more than meets the eye to the ghostly woman of the title. "Mrs Ricoletti’s ghost now appears to be prowling the streets with an unslakeable thirst for...

• War & Peace: review of the first episode

  16 December 2015 ( #Andrew Davies, #BBC, #BBC One, #Leo Tolstoy, #War & Peace )

  Few tasks can be more daunting than adapting Tolstoy’s War and Peace, one of the longest novels ever written, into a palatable six-part series for a mainstream Sunday night audience. There are hundreds of characters, involved and deeply entangled plotlines...

• War & Peace

  24 January 2016 ( #Andrew Davies, #BBC, #BBC One, #Leo Tolstoy, #War & Peace )

  Adapting a book for the small screen is never easy and when it’s an epic tome like Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace – with numerous characters, relationships and settings – the task is that bit tougher. That’s probably why the Andrew Davies' take on the Russian...

• Andrew Davies: about War and Peace

  03 January 2016 ( #Andrew Davies, #BBC, #Leo Tolstoy, #trailer, #War & Peace )

  Many people are afraid of War and Peace. It’s an immensely long novel, full of Russians with unpronounceable names; people talk about “tackling it” as if it were a marathon, or Everest. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was afraid of it myself, but somehow...

• War & Peace: Behind the Scenes

  19 December 2015 ( #BBC, #BBC One, #its, #Leo Tolstoy, #War & Peace )

  Production company BBC Cymru Wales Drama, in partnership with The Weinstein Company, BBC Worldwide and Lookout Point Commissioners Danny Cohen; Ben Stephenson Length 6 x 60 minutes TX 9pm, Sundays from 3 January 2016, BBC1 Executive producers Faith Penhale;...

• Sherlock Christmas Special

  26 November 2015 ( #BBC, #Christmas Special, #Conan Doyle, #Sherlock, #The Abominable Bride )

  So, we have Sherlock and John looking extremely dapper in some new Victorian outfits, Benedict Cumberbatch in a classic Sherlock Holmes silhouette and Rupert Graves with bushy side whiskers – yep, there's plenty to enjoy about the newly released photos...

• The Hollow Crown II

  11 December 2015 ( #Henvy VI, #PBS, #Richard III, #Shakespeare, #The Hollow Crown )

  The Hollow Crown – The Wars of the Roses Spring/Summer 2016. Following the international critical success of the four-part miniseries The Hollow Crown in 2013, The Wars of the Roses continues the epic cycle of Shakespeare’s History Plays in three new...

• Harvey Weinstein joins writer Andrew Davies and BBC executives to talk about literary adaptation.

  03 September 2015 ( #Andrew Davies, #BBC, #MIPCOM, #Tolstoy, #War and Peace )

  The producer joins writer Andrew Davies and BBC executives to talk about literary adaptation. Harvey Weinstein, the Oscar-winning producer of Shakespeare In Love and founder of The Weinstein Company alongside brother Bob, has joined the ‘War And Peace’...

• War and Peace

  14 August 2015 ( #Andrew Davies, #BBC, #mini-series, #Tolstoy, #War and Peace )

  (BBC) More than 40 years after the BBC adapted Leo Tolstoy’s sweeping saga into a TV series starring Anthony Hopkins, the network and the Weinstein Company have produced another take on the epic, with a four-part miniseries set to air on Lifetime, A&E...

• Films inspired by the Arthurian legend

  01 June 2015 ( #Arthurian legend, #Excalibur, #Game of Thrones, #King Arthur, #Monty Python )

  So Guy Ritchie is in talks to direct the first of a six-film franchise based on the King Arthur legends ? This is good news, for whereas television seems to be broadcasting a new Camelot-set mini-series every couple of months, the mythology is curiously...

• The new Macbeth trailer looks like a GoT episode

  04 June 2015 ( #Game of Thrones, #George RR Martin, #Macbeth, #Shakespeare, #trailer )

  No offence, George RR Martin but Shakespeare is even more famous than you are. Yet on screen the two writers' work looks a lot more similar than it might have done on paper (or parchment, in the Bard's case.) The first-look at the new Macbeth adaptation,...

• In French: Stephen Knight (Peaky Blinders) "avec la BBC, tout s'est déroulé très facilement"

  13 March 2015 ( #bbc, #mini-series, #original drama, #peaky blinders, #period drama )

  Le créateur de la minisérie Peaky Blinders, dont Arte diffuse le début de la première saison jeudi 12 mars, a eu une totale liberté de la part de la BBC pour ce projet passion. Alors que vous écrivez des longs-métrages pour Hollywood depuis votre Oscar...

• Wolf Hall filmed in National trust propoerties

  18 January 2015 ( #BBC, #Damian Lewis, #filming locations, #National Trust, #Wolf Hall )

  The attention to detail has been extraordinary, with a team of historians brought in to advise and a host of venerable locations used. Yet the BBC’s hotly anticipated new drama Wolf Hall could not have been made without one surprisingly low-tech accessory:...

• Thomas Hardy's Dorset (video: filming on location)

  20 April 2015 ( #Dorset, #Far From the Madding Crowd, #on location, #Thomas Hardy, #Wessex )

  If the April sun has put a spring in your step, wait until you set your eyes on the idyllic Dorset landscapes featured in Far From the Madding Crowd. The new film, adapted from Thomas Hardy's novel by One Day author David Nicholls, stars Carey Mulligan...

• Damian Lewis on Wolf Hall

  02 January 2015 ( #BBC, #BBC Two, #Damian Lewis, #Hilary Mantel, #Wolf Hall )

  Damian Lewis is stepping into the breeches of King Henry VIII in the upcoming BBC2 adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s award-winning novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies – and has learned there's plenty to uncover about this memorable ruler. The tale charts...

• Shortage of costumes for a BBC adaptation

  24 November 2014 ( #BBC, #costume drama, #Downton Abbey, #EF Benson, #Mapp & Lucia )

  Set in a small town in the 1930s, EF Benson's much-loved books about feuding socialites Miss Elizabeth Mapp and Mrs Emmeline "Lucia" Lucas are as delectably English as a slice of Victoria sandwich. But when the BBC came to shoot its adaptation – which...