Being Human

BFI events

Preview: Being Human

19 January 2009 Rob Buckley 11 Comments

In the UK: Sundays, 9pm, BBC3. Starts January 25th
In the US: BBC America (it’s a co-prod). No airdate yet

Firstly, this ain’t the usual kind of preview since it also includes a rundown of a Q&A with the show’s producers and one of its stars, Russell Tovey.

Secondly, I’d like to announce that I’m a cretin (although you’d probably realised that for yourselves). There I was last Friday, feeling all pleased with myself that for once, I’d not had to run for trains, sprint across Hungerford Bridge, etc, to get to a screening on time, because I’d given myself plenty of time to get there. So what should happen when I got there? Why, I discovered I’d got the start time wrong and the screening had begun half an hour earlier. Oops.

So that minor act of spasness aside, let’s get on with a preview not just of the first episode (or at least the second half of the first episode) of Being Human, BBC3’s forthcoming drama about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost, but of the rest of the series, too, as well as that wee chat with the producers.

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Russell Tovey and Julie Gardner talk Doctor Who

19 January 2009 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

In advance of my Being Human preview, which should pop up either today or tomorrow depending on work, I thought I’d give you a few Doctor Who nuggets that emerged from the Q&A following the showing of the first episode at the BFI on Friday.

Present – as advertised – was Russell Tovey, who appeared in the Christmas special The Voyage of the Damned and was once tipped as a front-runner for the part of the Doctor by Russell T Davies no less, and Matthew Bouch, producer of The Sarah Jane Adventures. Also present, but not as advertised since it was originally going to be BBC3 controller Danny Cohen, was Julie Gardner, head of drama for BBC Wales and exec producer for Doctor Who.

There wasn’t that much said about Who, for obvious reasons, but a few little anecdotes emerged.

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BFI events

Being Human: prequels, pilot, trailers and interviews

7 January 2009 Rob Buckley 17 Comments

Being Human – the vampire/werewolf/ghost flatshare drama that was piloted on BBC3 last year – is coming back as a six-part series soon. Hooray! It was absolutely brilliant. I’ll be off to the BFI’s preview screening of the first episode (together with a Q&A with the writer and star(s)) next Friday, so I’ll let you know what that was like afterwards – I hear it might just be the pilot episode with a new cast and made ‘less dark’, which would be a shame.

In the meantime, and to thrill you all, here are some videos: the first is a trailer for the series proper; the second is the entire pilot episode that someone has uploaded to YouTube; and the rest are prequels to the series, showing what each of the characters was like before they met each other – they’re shot in a Blair Witch/Ghostwatch vein and at least one might be too gruesome to be transmitted on TV (even BBC3), although you never know, so watch them while you can. The Annie one is very good, BTW.

It’s worth noting that the cast has changed, which is a bit disappointing, since Guy Flanagan was brilliant as Mitchell the vampire; Mitchell’s now played by Aidan Turner (The Clinic), while Annie, the comedy Northern ghost formerly played by Andrea Riseborough, is now played by Lenora Crichlow (Sugar Rush). The exception is Russell Tovey, who plays George the werewolf: he’ll be back for the series proper. There’s also a production blog containing interviews with the cast that you can check out.

Trailer

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Monday’s Scottish Stargate news

15 December 2008 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

Doctor Who

  • Screw David Morrissey and Paterson Joseph – it’s Matthew Horne! [unrelated spoiler]

Film

British TV

US TV

January at the BFI

18 November 2008 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Time for our regular round-up of tele events at the BFI. January has a bumper collection to pick from – prepare to bankrupt yourself:

  • 11th/15th: Peckinpah on TV: episodes of Route 66 and Noon Wine directed by Sam Peckinpah
  • 16th: Being Human episode one preview + Q&A with Russell Tovey, Toby Whitehouse and Matt Bouch. Woo hoo!
  • 21st: The League of Gentlemen: Ten Years After – features three episodes of the series and the League themselves in conversation
  • 25th: A CITV workshop, followed by screenings of episodes, including a new episode of Horrid Henry

There’s also a David Hare season dedicated to the playwright:

  • 1st/23rd: Play for Today: Brassneck. The first surviving Hare TV play. Also includes a Late Show Face to Face with Hare
  • 6th/25th: Knuckle. Adaptation for British TV of his stage play
  • 11th/29th: The Absence of War: the third of Hare’s theatre trilogy looking at British institutions
  • 13th: The Guardian interview with David Hare. Preceded by two Play for Today episodes: Licking Hitler and Dreams of Living
  • 17th/21st: Heading Home
  • 25th/27th: The Designated Mourner. A Wallace Shawn play directed by Hare for the BBC Films

Members’ priority postal booking opens 24 November
Members’ online and phone booking opens 1 December
Public booking opens 5 December

Although I don’t normally mention the film side of things, it’s worth noting there’s also a David Fincher season showing Alien3, Se7en, The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room and Zodiac. And February is going to feature a Live TV drama season – although it won’t be live now, of course.

As always, visit the BFI web site for more details