Tuesday’s gods behaving very badly news

Doctor Who

Awards

Film

  • Meryl Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin to star in a comedy directed by Nancy Meyers
  • Universal acquires rights to Spencer Quinn’s Dog On It
  • James Mangold to direct a legal thriller about an oil rig disaster
  • Mickey Rourke to star in Walter Hill-directed hitman movie St Vincent
  • New Watchmen TV spots
  • Moneypenny and Q back for next Bond movie?
  • McG trying to get Arnie into Terminator: Salvation

Comics

  • The Shield’s Michael Chiklis to launch comic book about Greek gods returning to the present-day Earth

Theatre

British TV

  • Beeb adding HD programmes to iTunes

US TV

Bryn, Nessa and Tom Jones in the Comic Relief video

It’s a bit of a Gavin & Stacey Comic Relief this year. There’s going to be a Gavin & Stacey sketch (possibly with lots of famous cameos); Joanna Page is going to be one of the celebrity Apprentices; and most importantly, the Comic Relief song this year is ‘Islands in the Stream’, as sung by Ruth Jones and Rob Brydon as Nessa and Bryn, with Sir Tom Jones.

The video’s not out until next month, but there was a reasonable snippet of it on Jonathan Ross on Friday. Here it is, at roughly 4m05s in, or you should (fingers crossed) be able to go straight to it on the YouTube site by clicking here.

Meme of the week: Top 10 TV characters to be stuck in a lift with

Thanks to Joe Bua for pointing this one out to me: it’s a list by The Guardian‘s Anna Pickard of the Top 10 TV celebrities (real or fictitious) to be trapped in a lift with. I’m not sure whether that means all at the same time or in 10 separate lift-trapping incidents, but meme of the week is to list your 10 celebs, either in the comments below or at your own blog, leaving a link below.

Here are mine, in no particular order:

  1. Dr Tom (from Being Erica): he’d have solved all my troubles, provided a quote for the occasion and created an exit door from the lift, all before the emergency services got there.
  2. Joanna Page: to keep our spirits lifted and to fill us all with a sense of happiness in case Dr Tom didn’t show up. Plus she’s only 5’1" so she wouldn’t use up much oxygen. And just because.
  3. Derren Brown: who’d convince us it was all in our minds
  4. Neil Burnside (from The Sandbaggers): because whatever needed to be done, he’d do it, no matter what the personal sacrifice was or who he had to kill to do it, as long as it was in Britain’s best interests. 
  5. Stephen Fry: because all such lists have to include Stephen Fry and for the conversation, even though he’d use up twice as much oxygen as everyone else – except Joanna Page who, now I think about it, can talk like the clappers when she’s nervous.
  6. Peter Parker: because, well – I know this is a secret but – he’s Spiderman, and thus obviously very useful in such situations.
  7. Ali Larter: just because. And because she’s very fit, which is always useful in a "scaling your way out of the lift and up the cable" scenario. And who knows? Maybe she does have super powers. Which would be useful (see 6). But mainly just because.
  8. Jill Goodacre: because then I could call Joey and tell him about it in our secret code.
  9. Tina Fey: because she’s bloody funny, and it’s better than being stuck in a lift with Sarah Palin.
  10. Jonathan Creek: because he’d find the secret panel at the back that would let us all out. Bloody Creek. Why didn’t he tell us about that sooner?

If 10 seems like too many, you can just name a few instead. Or if you’d like to be trapped with more, fair enough, although remember the oxygen and weight issues.

I have actually been stuck in a lift in real life – in the Hoover Dam, halfway up, with 40 other people, in the dark, without aircon, for nearly an hour. Electricians had to abseil down the lift shaft to rescue us. It wasn’t fun, and I didn’t get to choose any of the people in the lift with me.

Dick Heads

Dick Heads (from Peggy): Ultimate Force and, erm, something else

Richard Armitage in a Johnny Depp hat

Today’s Dick Heads come from Peggy (a big hello to Peggy, please: hello, Peggy!) and both feature Richard Armitage wearing a hat, so double kudos on that. In fact, triple kudos since they’re not from North and South and quadruple kudos since one of them has him wearing an SAS beret. Yes, he was in Ultimate Force, although I hadn’t realised it was him playing the uptight Rupert. How amazing.

As for the second one, he’s clearly in some kind of Johnny Depp/Mark Owen homage. I have no idea what it is though. Anyone?

Captions and haikus, please. Incidentally, Richard Armitage has just been declared the sexiest thing on two legs by the Romantic Novelists’ Association. Thought y’all would like to know that.

Got a picture of Richard Armitage’s head, preferably wearing a hat? Then leave a link to it below and if it’s judged suitable, it will appear in the “Dick Heads” gallery.