Tag Archives: Genevieve Sibayan

BBC conjures up series four of Merlin {TV}

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Smash hit, family favourite, Merlin has been recommissioned for a fourth series of magical adventure for BBC One.

The fantasy drama; starring Colin Morgan as Merlin, Bradley James, Anthony Head, Katie McGrath, Angel Coulby and Richard Wilson; continues to enchant audiences on Saturday nights. The current series on air is pulling in an average of over six million viewers and a total of 24.3 per cent share of the audience.

Ben Stephenson, Controller Drama Commissioning, says: “Merlin continues to perform outstandingly well against X Factor and offers audiences an alternative treat on Saturday nights. I’m pleased to confirm that the magical world of Camelot will be returning next year for a fourth series of this fresh and modern retelling of a classic British legend.”

Johnny Capps and Julian Murphy, executive producers for Shine TV, said: “We are both delighted with the continuing success of Merlin, and relish the chance to take the series to the next level with the long-awaited arrival of the Knights of the Round Table.”

Series three has seen a host of high-profile guest-stars including: Emilia Fox, Tom Ellis, Miriam Margoyles, Warwick Davies and Pauline Collins. Series three will continue on Saturday evenings on BBC One until the nail biting finale on the 4 December.

The new 10 part series will begin filming in March.

Merlin has also enjoyed phenomenal international success, selling to 180 countries internationally, with series two providing a smash hit success for the Syfy channel in the US, which has already bought the third series currently in production.

Dog Photography by Tim Flach {Art}

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These brilliant and funny photographs of dogs are taken by British photographer and St Martin’s Graduate Tim Flach.

Bringing the viewer into close-up proximity with their animal subjects, paintstakingly lit, carefully cropped for maximum graphic impact and animated by telling gestures, Flach’s photographs place us in an intimate relationship with their protagonists. They are far removed from wildlife photography’s documentary images of animals observed in their natural habitat. In fact, the treatment accorded to these particular creatures is not dissimilar from the close encounters with individuals that are the stuff of human portraiture.

These are just a few from Tim Flach’s recently released book ‘Dogs’. And his exhibition will be held at the Osborne Samuel Gallery (London) on the 8th December 2010.

Parkour Dog {Miscuity}

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Watch this cute Staffy scale walls and buildings in stunts only parkour runners (and cats, squirrels etc) could previously manage. Still wagging it’s tail as he makes jump after jump, ‘TreT’ hailing from the Ukraine leaves me thinking “where does he get his energy from?!”. Do I hear the bright lights of dog food virals calling?

[3FishMan Youtube]

Poirot Halloween Special Preview {TV}

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Halloween’s as much about guilty little treats as it is about undead souls. This Halloweens treat is a special episode of Agatha Christie’s Poirot. Possibly the most dark and sinister Poirot yet starts out with a children’s Halloween party complete with witches, eerie music, jack o lanterns, fire a haunting game of snap dragon and of course a death. Add into the mix a cast of suspicious characters and an un co-operative police officer in a rural setting and you tada, one classic who dunnit.

Award winning actress Zoë Wanamaker makes a welcome return, alongside David Suchet, as Ariadne Oliver in Hallowe’en Party.

Adapted by actor, screenwriter and novelist, Mark Gatiss, Hallowe’en Party also stars Amelia Bullmore, Deborah Findlay , Georgia King, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Sophie Thompson, Paul Thornley, Eric Sykes, Fenella Woolgar and Timothy West.

When Ariadne Oliver attends a children’s Hallow e’en party in Woodleigh Common with her friend Judith, a young girl boasts of having witnessed a murder years before. Later that evening, the girl, Joyce Reynolds is found dead, drowned in an apple-bobbing bucket in the library. It appears that any one of the guests could have slipped out in the dark during a game of Snapdragon and murdered her.

At the request of Ariadne, Hercule Poirot arrives at Woodleigh Common to investigate the murder. Though Joyce was dismissed as a fantasist, Poirot is convinced her story has some truth to it. When he seeks out the local gossip, he discovers that there have been a number of suspicious deaths in the village in recent years which Joyce could have witnessed. But while Poirot pieces together the facts, another child is found murdered. Could a forged codicil, a missing au pair and a secret love affair be the key to solving the crime?

Watch the Poirot Halloween Special in ITV1 at 8pm on Wednesday 27th October.

Keira Knightley returns to the West End {Theatre}

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According to the Stage Keira Knightley is set to return to tread the boards in London’s West End next year in Lillian Hellman’s ‘The Children’s Hour’.

Keira will be playing alongside Elizabeth Moss (Mad Men), this production will be Moss’ West End debut. The two stars will play teachers who run a girls’ boarding school in America in the early Thirties and are accused by a malicious child of conducting an affair with one another. It’s a lie that’s to have grave repercussions as fur flies and legal action ensues.

The Children’s Hour will be directed by Ian Rickson, who directed Jerusalem at the Royal Court and in the West End and produced by Sonia Friedman Productions and Scott Landis.

Full casting and production information are to be announced.

BBC turns back the clock on high street stores {TV}

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High streets across the UK are going back in time this autumn as part of an exciting new BBC Learning Hands On History project and landmark BBC One series.

Across weekends in October, November and December, an empty shop in 11 different towns will be transformed into a Thirties grocer store, giving today’s shoppers the chance to travel back in time and experience living history.

The project, which is set to visit Armagh, Bradford, Chatham, Clacton, Louth, Paisley, Poole, Stockport, Sunderland, Truro and Wolverhampton, will give communities the chance to learn more about their local history in a fun, exciting and hands-on way.

Visitors will be able to touch, hear and even smell what life was like on their local high street around 80 years ago, as well as share their own memories, photographs and mementoes.

With the help of local history groups, museums and archives the BBC Learning team aims to explore the past of other shops in the towns using documents such as posters, ads, bills and letters, all helping to create a high street time line.

Communities can also help create a photographic “Now and Then” archive of their area with the project’s dedicated Flickr group, or download a special guide to researching the history of their high street at the BBC History website.

The shops are part of the new six-part BBC One series Turn Back Time – The High Street, which takes four empty shops back to the 1870s and propels them through 100 years of change.

Turn Back Time will see a group of shopkeeping families from a variety of trades travel back in time where they’ll face the challenge of living and working in six very different eras of British history, from Victorian Britain right through to the Seventies, all recreated in Shepton Mallet, Somerset. Turn Back Time starts in November.

And to bring the High Street history strand right up to date, BBC English Regions TV current affairs series Inside Out will be examining how our modern day High Streets are coping with the challenging economic climate across each of its 11 regional programmes. The films will be broadcast on BBC One across England in early December.

Launching the Turn Back Time shops, BBC Learning campaign executive Nina Bell said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to bring history alive and give everyone a chance to celebrate their high street. And it’s not just about the high streets with pop-up shops – BBC Learning is working with local history partners right across the UK to develop engaging, hands-on events to bring the history of their local area to life and encourage Britain to fall in love with its high streets again. You can find all the details on our website at bbc.co.uk/history/handsonhistory.”

X Factor and BGT here at least until 2013 {TV}

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ITV has signed a new, three-year deal with The X Factor & Britain’s Got Talent, keeping Simon Cowell in work for at least another 3 years.

As part of this renewed collaboration with Syco Entertainment and FremantleMedia, the broadcaster has also secured exclusive UK broadcast rights to the American version of The X Factor and America’s Got Talent for ITV2.

Simon Cowell said: “I am thrilled this deal has been concluded with ITV to enable our relationship to continue to develop. I am committed to making sure both shows get bigger and better every year. I have a lot to thank ITV for; they have been key in making The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent the UK’s biggest television shows.”  

The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent are the UK’s most popular entertainment television programmes on any channel.  The two shows provided the most watched television moments of 2009 with peak audiences of 19.3 million for The X Factor final and 19.9 million for the Britain’s Got Talent Final.
This year’s seventh series of The X Factor has been the most popular ever with viewing figures across every stage reaching record levels. Almost 17 million watched the second Judges’ houses show, and yesterday’s second live results show peaked at an enormous 15.2 million; the highest ever at this stage of the competition.
Online, ITV.com/TheXFactor attracted over 95 million page views during the 2009 series with over 30 million video views across the run.

Wallace & Gromit want your inventions{TV}

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To launch the brand new BBC One series, Wallace And Gromit’s World Of Invention, world-renowned inventor Wallace and his ever faithful sidekick, Gromit, are asking the UK to get inventing.

From their self-built basement television studio in 62 West Wallaby Street, the inimitable pair are trying to track down Britain’s best amateur invention. Wallace and Gromit are asking enthusiastic kids and crackpot inventors to invent their very best contraption. The winner – chosen by a panel of judges, led by Nick Park – will be given the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have themselves or their invention immortalised in a future Aardman production.

To celebrate Wallace and Gromit’s debut as TV presenters, BBC One are unveiling a website and nationwide series of regional roadshows, that hope to get Britain inventing. In their brand new BBC One series the inimitable pair present a factual series for the very first time, uncovering the quirky, inspiring and accident-prone world of inventions.

But not everyone is as expert an inventor as Wallace, so the pair are planning to kickstart the UK’s inventive spirit through a series of regional inventors roadshows that will provide the tools and motivation needed to root out the inventor in all of us.

Nick Park, Oscar-winning creator of Wallace and Gromit, said: “It is an enormous honour for Wallace and Gromit to be asked to take up the torch (all be it solar powered) and shine it on the world’s top and most innovative inventors.”

Create your own cracking contraption:

Wensleydale-loving inventor Wallace knows just how powerful a great idea combined with only a little bit of engineering know-how can be. So, inspired by his favourite contraption, LAD, Wallace is asking the British public to unleash their inner inventor and create their own device. He’s asking budding inventors (complete novices included) to design and build their most inventive contraption, made entirely from bits and pieces around the home. It could be something that wakes up Wallace, helps Gromit complete his household chores or moves one (or both of them!) from A to B – anything goes, as long as it meets the judges’ criteria, which are available online.

Anyone can enter – individuals, teams of friends or even entire school classes. Entrants need to record a short video (maximum three minutes) of their creation, and upload it onto the BBC’s Wallace And Gromit website.

For full details, including judging criteria and terms and conditions, visit bbc.co.uk/wallaceandgromit.

Inspiring invention

The BBC have teamed up with Aardman Animations to create an exciting new roadshow event to accompany the new BBC One series Wallace and Gromit’s World Of Invention. Inspired by Wallace’s love of inventing, the BBC Learning roadshows will give budding inventors the opportunity to step into the world of Wallace and Gromit.

The tour will visit six UK shopping centres throughout November and December 2010 and will be open to the public on both Saturday and Sunday.

The roadshows will be accompanied by an entire Wallace and Gromit world online. To find out more about the secrets of invention, play in Wallace’s Workshop and find out more about the regional roadshows, visit bbc.co.uk/wallaceandgromit.