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"Dad's Army" (1968) More at IMDbPro »
2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008
1-20 of 30 items from 2013 « Prev | Next »
Paul Shane obituary
17 May 2013 4:11 PM, PDT | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »
Sitcom star whose tragi-comic character Ted Bovis in Hi-de-Hi! was his great triumph
In one episode of the 1980s sitcom Hi-de-Hi!, the tragi-comic holiday camp crooner and funnyman Ted Bovis dreams up a sure-fire money-making scheme. His plan is to defray his alimony expenses by charging campers entry to a secret night-time screening of a blue movie so hot that the police want to confiscate it.
Bovis was always concocting scams – dodgy bingo, rigged raffles, embezzling the campers' amenity fund. Paul Shane, who has died aged 72 after a short illness, played the character in 58 episodes, from 1980 to 1988, and was ideally cast as the portly, sad-eyed clown with the loud check suit, teddy-boy quiff and gruff voice.
If Les Dawson and Krusty the Clown from The Simpsons had been poured into the same body and given a hopeless job at a holiday camp in a coastal town they forgot to close down, »
- Stuart Jeffries
'Britain's Got Talent' scores series high of 10.54m on ITV
12 May 2013 4:12 AM, PDT | Digital Spy | See recent Digital Spy - TV news news »
Britain's Got Talent topped the ratings on Saturday with a massive 10.54m (45.2%), overnight data suggests.
The ITV show was up more than a million viewers on last week. It peaked at 11.33m, while a further 375k (1.6%) caught the programme on ITV+1.
The talent competition aired at 7.45pm, after the Fa Cup Final between Wigan and Manchester City, which scored 4.96 (31.3%) from 5.15pm.
Later on ITV, gameshow The Cube had 3.26m (14.2%) at 8.45pm and The Jonathan Ross Show took 2.98m (15%) an hour later.
Over on BBC One, ratings for The Voice UK at 8.30pm fell by 500k to 7.37m (31.8%) after four weeks of growth. It peaked at 8.2 million.
Earlier, new Doctor Who episode 'Nightmare in Silver' appealed to 4.74m (21.4%) viewers from 7pm, a slight drop from last week.
BBC Two aired The Magic Tricks of Jj Abrams: A Culture Show Special at 7.30pm, picking up 610k (2.7%). Documentary The Star Trek Story followed with 580k (2.5%) at 8pm. »
Susan Calman finds that Scottish independence is no joke
7 May 2013 6:52 AM, PDT | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
Deaths threats to comedian prompt calls for nationalists to raise the tone. Plus, Fringe gets new venue and Trump takes revenge
This week's comedy news
And this week – a comedian influences the future survival of the British state. Standup Susan Calman has been drawn into a row surrounding the conduct of the campaign for Scottish independence, after she was attacked online after joking on Radio 4's News Quiz about the nationalist cause.
"After the show was broadcast," Calman wrote on her blog, "I was accused of betraying my country, of being racist towards my own people and of being a cunt." Fellow comics including Rory Bremner leaped to Calman's defence, as the Scotsman newspaper picked up on and ran with Calman's reference to "name-calling, swearing and death threats". To cap it all, the shadow foreign secretary and Unionist tub-thumper Douglas Alexander hijacked the row to berate the independence camp for lowering the debate's tone. »
- Brian Logan
Hugh Laurie: 'There's a sensual pleasure involved in making music that I just can't get from acting'
7 May 2013 4:40 AM, PDT | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
His role in House made him the highest-paid actor ever in a TV drama, but with a new album out this week Laurie is keen to follow his real love
About an hour into my encounter with Hugh Laurie, in a suite at the Dorchester in London, he starts protesting at length about how boring his answers to my questions are. He had been talking – rather interestingly – about his theory that television, rather than film, was the medium through which the Us "not just projects its image of itself to the world, but actually decides what its image is. It's America's way of conversing with itself about what it believes to be important."
He has just finished telling me that he doesn't think British TV is as interested in expressing grand ideas about identity and purpose – "I think that's a bit highfalutin for us" – when he suddenly brings himself up short. »
- Alexis Petridis
Hugh Laurie: 'There's a sensual pleasure involved in making music that I just can't get from acting'
7 May 2013 4:40 AM, PDT | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »
His role in House made him the highest-paid actor ever in a TV drama, but with a new album out this week Laurie is keen to follow his real love
About an hour into my encounter with Hugh Laurie, in a suite at the Dorchester in London, he starts protesting at length about how boring his answers to my questions are. He had been talking – rather interestingly – about his theory that television, rather than film, was the medium through which the Us "not just projects its image of itself to the world, but actually decides what its image is. It's America's way of conversing with itself about what it believes to be important."
He has just finished telling me that he doesn't think British TV is as interested in expressing grand ideas about identity and purpose – "I think that's a bit highfalutin for us" – when he suddenly brings himself up short. »
- Alexis Petridis
TV highlights – 06/05/2013
5 May 2013 11:00 PM, PDT | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »
The Hoarder Next Door | James Nesbitt's Ireland | Vicious | The Flying Archaeologist | The Job Lot | Game of Thrones | WWII From Space | Football: Premier League – Sunderland v Stoke City
9pm, Channel 4
The second series of the clearing-out-excess-stuff show concludes with a pair of fiftysomething souls who can't say no. In the case of Ursula, she's unable to resist impulse buys, and has spent around £45,000 on goods that are now clogging up the living room and kitchen. As for car parts and electronics fan Nigel, things have reached a point where friends and family are unable to visit because of the clutter. Can Stelios Kiosses and his team help the duo clear their homes and minds? Jonathan Wright
James Nesbitt's Ireland
8pm, ITV
Circling the Northern Irish coastline, James Nesbitt takes a "journey of discovery" (viewer's eyelids droop) to the majestic Giant's Causeway in this final instalment of his travelogue. »
- Jonathan Wright, Ali Catterall, Julia Raeside, Rachel Aroesti, Ben Arnold, Rebecca Nicholson, Hannah Verdier, Mark Jones
Twitter launches 140-character festival as Ofcom probes Comic Relief sketch
23 April 2013 8:48 AM, PDT | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
Big names will take part in venture with Comedy Central, BBC sketch had over 2,000 complaints, plus Ian McKellen's sitcom
This week's comedy news
Can't get to Edinburgh? Kilkenny just that bit too far away? Never fear. The cable channel Comedy Central is teaming up with Twitter to launch the first 140-character comedy festival. The festival will commence on 29 April and run for five days, featuring a host of comedy names tweeting jokes and posting six second videos using Twitter's new video app Vine. Next Monday, Twitter will stream the only live #ComedyFest event, a panel discussion featuring Mel Brooks and Judd Apatow. The New York Times has more on the story, including the lowdown on a new app Comedy Central is developing to help users discover their favourite new comedians.
Back in the world of real festivals, veteran Anglo-American standup Rich Hall has won the Barry award at the Melbourne comedy festival, »
- Brian Logan
BBC's Television Centre sell-off leaves London short of studios | Charles Norton
17 April 2013 10:00 AM, PDT | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »
Redevelopment plans could lead to the demolition of TC8, the most popular studio in the UK for recording comedy programmes
Studio TC8 – part of BBC Television Centre – is the single most popular studio for the production of comedy programmes in the UK. Recently used to record episodes of Not Going Out, Mock The Week and Miranda; it has also been home to Dad's Army, Only Fools and Horses, Blackadder and Little Britain. However, redevelopment plans could see it demolished, following the recent sale of Television Centre to development company, Stanhope plc.
The closure is predicted to cause a chronic shortage of studio space in the capital. An online petition to save TC8 already has more than 650 supporters, including actor Colin Baker, who recorded episodes of Doctor Who there in the mid-80s.
Currently, only three of Television Centre's eight studios are planned to remain in use from 2015 following refurbishment.
Lighting director Martin Kempton, »
Dad's Army creator on 'captain of comedy' Arthur Lowe: from the archive, 16 April 1982
17 April 2013 1:50 AM, PDT | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »
Dad's Army scriptwriter Jimmy Perry salutes Arthur Lowe, Captain Mainwaring of the Home Guard, who has died aged 66
It was a wonderful sunny day, as it always seemed to be when we were filming Dad's Army. David Croft and I were standing in a street in Thetford, getting ready for the first shot of the morning when Arthur Lowe said those immortal words: "I want to make it quite clear to you both I refuse to have a bomb in my trousers."
The idea was that an escaped German U-boat officer put a grenade in the waistband of Captain Mainwaring's trousers, then marched behind him, holding a piece of string which was attached to the pin. His line was, "one false move and I pulls ze string." There was a struggle, the pin came out and the grenade fell down inside Mainwaring's trousers.
Dear John Laurie (Private Frazer) then had »
'Britain's Got Talent' makes triumphant return to ITV with 9.35m
14 April 2013 4:41 AM, PDT | Digital Spy | See recent Digital Spy - TV news news »
Britain's Got Talent made a triumphant return to ITV yesterday (April 13), beating rival The Voice UK, overnight ratings suggest.
The first episode of the seventh series averaged 9.35 million viewers (36.9%) from 7pm, its joint highest launch ratings ever. A further 1.26m (3.5%) watched on ITV+1. Including +1, the show peaked on a massive 13.03m.
However, The Voice continued to grow, scoring its highest average of the series so far with 6.67m (26.8%), peaking on 7.7m. BBC sources congratulated ITV on a strong night, adding that they are delighted that The Voice keeps building.
Later on ITV, gameshow The Cube scored 3.69m (15.7%) at 8.30pm, while The Jonathan Ross Show had 2.59m (12.4%) an hour later.
Back on BBC One, new Doctor Who episode 'Cold War' attracted 5.73m (28.8%) viewers between 6pm and 6.45pm.
BBC Two aired coverage of The Masters golf tournament between 7.30pm and 12.15am, picking up 1.68m (8.4%). Dad's Army previously attracted 1.90m (7.6%) at 8.30pm.
'Saturday Night Takeaway' stays ahead of 'The Voice' UK in ratings
7 April 2013 4:42 AM, PDT | Digital Spy | See recent Digital Spy - TV news news »
Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway beat The Voice UK in the ratings last night (April 6), overnight data suggests.
The last episode in the current run of Saturday Night Takeaway averaged 6.76 million viewers (30.3%) on ITV from 7pm, compared with the BBC One singing competition's audience of 6.43 million (28.5%). A further 541k (2.4%) watched Ant & Dec on +1.
However, The Voice's audience grew just under 200k from last week's 6.2m launch, scoring the highest peak of the night with 8.7m.
Earlier in the evening, new Doctor Who episode 'The Rings of Akhaten' attracted 5.5m (28.8%) viewers on BBC One between 6.15pm and 7pm.
The figure was down from the 6.18m (29.8%) who tuned in to watch series opener The Bells of Saint John last week.
Back on ITV, gameshow The Cube scored 4.02m (18.1%) at 8.30pm, while The Jonathan Ross Show had 2.25m (10.7%) an hour later.
Over on BBC Two, The Many Faces of Sid James at 7.30pm »
Spooks: we don't need a film version
26 March 2013 6:45 AM, PDT | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »
Spooks was a great TV series that ran for a decade – what more is there to tell? This trend for turning TV shows into movies needs to stop
The world needs a Spooks movie like it needs to be mauled by a bear, but that won't necessarily stop one from happening. According to Peter Firth, who played MI5 boss Harry Pearce, the writers of Spooks the TV series now have a script in the works for Spooks the film. "They should make it," Firth told The Huffington Post. "It's not like it's a gamble with this one. But it costs a lot, and there's not a lot of money to go round at the moment."
Here's another idea: they shouldn't make it. Spooks had a decade-long run on television. It had 86 hours to tell its story, and it did it very well. The ending, when it finally came in 2011, felt timely and satisfying and conclusive. »
- Stuart Heritage
Spooks: we don't need a film version
26 March 2013 6:45 AM, PDT | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
Spooks was a great TV series that ran for a decade – what more is there to tell? This trend for turning TV shows into movies needs to stop
The world needs a Spooks movie like it needs to be mauled by a bear, but that won't necessarily stop one from happening. According to Peter Firth, who played MI5 boss Harry Pearce, the writers of Spooks the TV series now have a script in the works for Spooks the film. "They should make it," Firth told The Huffington Post. "It's not like it's a gamble with this one. But it costs a lot, and there's not a lot of money to go round at the moment."
Here's another idea: they shouldn't make it. Spooks had a decade-long run on television. It had 86 hours to tell its story, and it did it very well. The ending, when it finally came in 2011, felt timely and satisfying and conclusive. »
- Stuart Heritage
The Village: the whole 20th century as seen from the Peak District
25 March 2013 12:25 AM, PDT | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »
The village of Hayfield in the Peak District was chosen as the location for an ambitious new historical BBC1 drama that aims to capture all of the last century
Its previous claim to fame was as the birthplace of Arthur Lowe, Captain Mainwaring from Dad's Army. But the tranquil Peak District village of Hayfield, at the foot of the national park's highest peak, is about to bask in a more dramatic limelight.
Villagers have been preparing for stardom ever since Hayfield was chosen as the location for The Village, a new BBC1 drama that aims to capture the scope of the entire 20th century through the lives of people in one, anonymous, English community. Earlier this month they got their first glimpse of the results when the BBC brought a full mobile cinema to the sports hall of Hayfield's primary school.
Scores of excited villagers crammed inside for a preview screening of episode one, »
Ant & Dec's latest 'Saturday Night Takeaway' attracts 7.3 million
24 March 2013 5:46 AM, PDT | Digital Spy | See recent Digital Spy - TV news news »
Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway has continued its surprise ratings rejuvenation, with its latest episode smashing the 7 million mark.
Some 7.33m, a 31.7% audience share, watched the fifth edition of the revived format airing its first run in four years, adding a further 421,000 on +1.
Setting a new high for its tenth series, Saturday Night Takeaway was easily the best-rated broadcast of yesterday (March 23), having fallen short of the Six Nations rugby finale last week.
Takeaway, screened at 7pm, also geared up ITV for its first Saturday night win over BBC One of 2013, with The Cube logging 4.69m (20.3%) at 8.15pm (+1: 377k), and The Jonathan Ross Show entertaining 2.62m (12.4%) from 9.15pm (+1: 266k).
Over on BBC One, Pointless and Lottery show Who Dares Wins recorded identical figures of 4.76m between 7pm and 8.50pm, then the audience rose to 5.16m (22.4%) for Casualty, before a Mrs Brown's Boys repeat amused 4.91m (22.7%).
Classic Foyle's War »
The Spirit of '45 – review
19 March 2013 5:28 AM, PDT | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
Ken Loach's documentary is skilfully compiled from archive footage and newly recorded interviews with elderly socialists who remember the 1930s and 40s and with youngish leftwing academics of today. But rather than the provocative polemic one might have expected, it's more of an over-extended party political broadcast for a phantom old Labour party that is forever waiting in the wings. It celebrates the Labour landslide at the 1945 general election and the resolve never to return again to the miserable conditions that the working class endured in the 1930s. As I watched, there rang in my ears a distorted version of the question asked in the last two lines of WB Yeats's The Second Coming: "And what rough socialist beast, its hour come round at last,/ Loaches towards a New Jerusalem to be born?"
This committed view of our history over the past 70 years suggests that Britain was united »
- Philip French
Frank Thornton obituary
18 March 2013 5:06 PM, PDT | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »
Actor best known as the haughty department store supervisor Captain Peacock in the TV comedy Are You Being Served?
The actor Frank Thornton, who has died aged 92, had a flair for comedy derived from the subtle craftsmanship of classical stage work. However, he will be best remembered for his longstanding characters in two popular BBC television comedy series – the sniffily priggish Captain Peacock in Are You Being Served? and the pompous retired policeman Herbert "Truly" Truelove, in Roy Clarke's Last of the Summer Wine.
Robertson Hare, the great Whitehall farceur, told him: "You'll never do any good until you're 40." And, said Thornton, "he was quite right." In the event, he was 51 when David Croft, producer of another long-running British staple, Dad's Army, remembered the tall, long-faced actor from another engagement and decided to cast him as the dapper floor-walker in charge of shop assistants played by Mollie Sugden, Wendy Richard, »
- Carole Woddis
Frank Thornton obituary
18 March 2013 5:06 PM, PDT | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
Actor best known as the haughty department store supervisor Captain Peacock in the TV comedy Are You Being Served?
The actor Frank Thornton, who has died aged 92, had a flair for comedy derived from the subtle craftsmanship of classical stage work. However, he will be best remembered for his longstanding characters in two popular BBC television comedy series – the sniffily priggish Captain Peacock in Are You Being Served? and the pompous retired policeman Herbert "Truly" Truelove, in Roy Clarke's Last of the Summer Wine.
Robertson Hare, the great Whitehall farceur, told him: "You'll never do any good until you're 40." And, said Thornton, "he was quite right." In the event, he was 51 when David Croft, producer of another long-running British staple, Dad's Army, remembered the tall, long-faced actor from another engagement and decided to cast him as the dapper floor-walker in charge of shop assistants played by Mollie Sugden, Wendy Richard, »
- Carole Woddis
Ant & Dec's 'Saturday Night Takeaway' beats 'Let's Dance' final
10 March 2013 1:04 PM, PDT | Digital Spy | See recent Digital Spy - TV news news »
Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway topped ratings with an impressive audience last night, early viewing figures indicate.
The Geordie duo's ITV format, which took a three-year hiatus until returning last month, averaged 6.48 million, a 29.6% share of the available audience between 7pm and 8.30pm - adding 255,000 on +1.
The Let's Dance for Comic Relief final, won by Coronation Street's Antony Cotton, pulled in 4.55m (20.5%) in exactly the same time slot - its lowest ever audience for a series climax.
Saturday Night Takeaway, meanwhile, looks set to be recommissioned by ITV after the show has far exceeded the target set by Ant & Dec's previous format Push the Button.
Elsewhere in ITV's schedule, You've Been Framed entertained 3.41m (17.4%) before Takeaway, while 4.02m (17.7%) watched The Cube at 8.30pm (+1: 274k), and The Jonathan Ross Show capped a fine night for the commercial broadcaster with 3m (13.9%).
However, BBC One still found the edge to defeat »
Bluestone 42; The Crash – TV review
6 March 2013 3:37 AM, PST | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »
This military comedy set in Afghanistan – and written by the Miranda team – is funny but it gets nowhere near the bone
• Bluestone 42 on iPlayer
• The Crash on iPlayer
It takes a special sort of show to make a comedy out of a bomb disposal unit in contemporary Afghanistan; a show that dives into the dark, dank hollows of a man's heart, then drags its way painfully out, up the ridges of thwarted hope and bitter laughter. Or else, you could do it Dad's Army-style, using the war mainly for uniforms and comedic scenarios, making sure the only people who die are idiots or invisible insurgents in far-off sheds. That's what BBC3's Bluestone 42 (pronounced four-two, if you want to pretend you watched it, and not watch it) has done: it's very broad and kind, and I was impressed by it. It was confident and deft, and brooked no squeamishness, »
- Zoe Williams
2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008
1-20 of 30 items from 2013 « Prev | Next »
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