A couple of fun ads for y'all. The first is a painstaking recreation of The Shining by More4 for its forthcoming Kubrick season.

The second is an ad by Nike that involves Flight of the Conchords' Rhys Darby fighting Roger Federer. A bit Pink Panther – and a bit daft...

Today's Joanna Page is Bye Bye Harry, a British road movie released in 2006, of which she was the star, and that you will never have seen. Ever. Until now.

We've been jumping all over the place chronologically, here, so let's recap the inexorable career rise of Ms Joanna Page. After leaving RADA in 1999, she went straight to the National Theatre for a series of medieval mystery plays, The Mysteries. She continued to do well in the theatre, with roles in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, As You Like It, What the Butler Saw, Aladdin, Doomsday, Camera Obscura, and Billy Liar (with Ralph Little), among others.

The world of film beckoned, too, with bit parts in Miss Julie and This Year's Love, and larger parts in From Hell, Very Annie Mary, Love Actually, and Gideon's Daughter.

And on tele, there were important roles in David Copperfield, The Cazalets, The Lost World, Ready When You Are Mr McGill, Making Waves, Mine All Mine and To The Ends of the Earth. She even found time to fit in a few radio plays and a music video in all that, too.

So by 2005/6, a starring role in a movie looked inevitable. Indeed, in his review of The Mysteries for The Independent, right at the start of her career, Robert Butler prophetically wrote, "As Eve, Joanna Page looks as if (now she's eaten that apple) she will be the love-interest in a movie very soon."

And then it arrived: No Snow which soon became Bye Bye Harry. She's the female lead – arguably the lead. It's a British road movie, a 'dark' rom-com by experienced comedy writer Graham Alborough . It's got noted director Robert Young at its helm. It's got two of the country's biggest rock stars in supporting roles. And when it was released, it featured at the country's leading film festival. 

So why haven't you heard of it until now? And why had you probably not heard of Joanna Page until Gavin & Stacey?

Problem is, I've been linguistically tricky. See, although I said it was a British road movie – and indeed it is, according to the British Council – I pulled a fast one. The bulk of the financing came from Germany and Slovakia. When I said "the country", the country I actually meant was Germany, the rock stars I mentioned were Bela B Felsenheimer and Til Schweiger (very big in Germany), and the film festival I mentioned was the Berlin film festival. 

And it's never been released anywhere else. Not France, not Belgium, not the Netherlands. It's certainly never been shown in Britain. And although you could get a version dubbed into German on rental in Germany, you couldn't get the original English language version until two weeks ago – on import from Amazon.de. 

So without fear of contradiction, may I present for your delight the very first, most comprehensive, most definitive and probably very last English language review of Bye Bye Harry aka Liebling, wir graben Harry aus.

Continue reading "Today's Joanna Page: Bye Bye Harry"

Read other posts about: Gavin and Stacey, Jason Bourne

As I noted a couple of weeks ago, the Welsh didn't get much of a look-in on British TV until quite recently. For the most part, they were often the butt of comedy or segregated into cartoons, where they didn't fare much better. Rarely even did the part of the Welsh character go to a Welsh actor: invariably it went to someone English who couldn't do a proper Welsh accent.

To see what I mean, here are a few classic cartoons featuring the Welsh:

1) The Willo The Wisp episode The Dragon

2) The Ivor the Engine episode The Egg

3) And the Chorlton and the Wheelies episode Happiness is Hatched

You'll notice that:

1. There are no Welsh people doing the voices, only English actors doing bad Welsh accents
2. In two of the episodes they're over-excitable and evil. In the other, they have no respect for the natural world
3. There's a dragon in each one (although one's not Welsh)

Just thought I'd mention it. Honestly, though, it's really only an excuse for some old kids shows, seeing as it's shaping up into nostalgia week, this week.

Time to launch another new blog god-related feature. This one will show off some of the lesser known work of satirist Chris Morris, who's best known for The Day Today, Brass Eye and Jam. 

Naturally enough, I'm calling it Morris Minors.

Anyway, the first entry is a bit of stunt work by the man himself, in which he turned up in the audience of daytime debate show The Time The Place and pretended to be an expert on sex and Roman history. He starts of sensible, he ends up silly, just to see at what point he'll be rumbled.

Read other posts about: Chris Morris

Film

• Lost's Josh Holloway joins cast of comedy Stay Cool
• Arrested Development is on
• Sacha Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell to play Holmes and Watson
• Val Kilmer joins Silver Cord

Radio

• Chris Tarrant returning to radio

Theatre

• Josh Hartnett to make West End debut in adaption of Rain Man

British TV

• Out of the Blue will not be renewed
• Shaun Ryder to appear in Shameless
• More co-productions for the Beeb
• Larry Lamb joins EastEnders cast
• Hat Trick working on Isabel Fay comedy

US TV

• Shannen Doherty in talks to appear in 90210 update
• Las Vegas Star Trek Experience to close
• Guess who's not going back to Stargate: Atlantis

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Read other posts about: Gavin and Stacey, Lost, Star Trek, Stargate

And now another new blog feature. Get your fish out and put them by the side of your monitor: it's time to worship at the shrine of Stewart Lee.

This one's going to be looking at the highlights of his career - some of his most important work, in fact - so naturally, what else would I call it except “Lee Majors”?

Continue reading "Lee Majors: Some stand-up classics"