Casting's a funny old game, isn't it? You can ruin a production with it, or make it a triumph. You can make thousands flock to it, or send them running for the hills.

Take The Death Collectors for instance. It's been sitting on my metaphorical shelf for the best path of a month now, glowering at me sinisterly. I say sinisterly purely because it's a Sylvester McCoy story and I find them about as appealing as an emergency tracheotomy performed with a Pizza Hut knife and coke straw. This one doesn't even have Hex (or, shudder, Ace) to make it slightly more appealing.

Oh, but what's this? Katherine Parkinson is the guest star? The sort of red-headed one with the nice voice off The IT Crowd?

Ah. Now, I really think you should have made more of that Big Finish. Maybe written it in giant letters across the cover and relegated Sylvester McCoy to the small print perhaps?

Pass me my iPod…

Continue reading "Review: Doctor Who - The Death Collectors"

Read other posts about: Big Finish, The IT Crowd

The Daily News will be back (if there is any news, of course, and I'm not too knackered) on Monday 18th August 2008

Doctor Who

• More Moff talk, including Doctor as the “ultimate liberal”

Film

• John Lasseter the force behind Tr2n
• Colin Firth to star with Ben Barnes in Dorian Gray
• Nicolas Cage teaming up with John Carpenter for Scared Straight
• Trailer for De Niro comedy What Just Happened?
• Angelina Jolie to be Catwoman in third Batman movie?
• Columbia to turn Anabasis into an action film

British TV

• Lex Shrapnel to be Minder's minder
• Fearne Cotton and Holly Willoughby to captain ITV2's “Have I Got New For You meets Heat” game show
• QFS: Living is the channel that's invited Jade Goody back on TV
• Channel 4 and Five to carry extra ad break in movies
• BSkyB to put £10m into entertainment programmes

US TV

• Thomas Jane to star in Hung
• NBC greenlights Dick Wolf's Lost and Found pilot
• Rory Cochrane joins 24
• Mad Men's Christina Hendricks to appear in two episodes of Life

Subscribe to the daily news by RSS or email

Read other posts about: 24, Mad Men

Time for a third-episode verdict on The Cleaner, A&E's attempt to kickstart a new habit among viewers of watching original shows on its network. Starring Benjamin Bratt, it's about one man (and his team of former addicts)'s mission to get drug users clean.

Although dealing with an interesting subject matter, The Cleaner is surprisingly uninteresting, as is populated with not desperately exciting characters. Bratt spends all his time bickering with his family who, of course, don't understand his new compulsion and why they come second to it. Couldn't have a happy family, could we? That might be too original.

Very little time has been spent fleshing out the supporting characters or indeed what Bratt actually does as a Cleaner, other than follow people around to prove that, yes, indeed they are addicts. It seems he basically palms them off on rehab clinics then follows them around afterwards to make sure they stay clean. 

There have been a few decent guest stars – Annabeth Gish and Tate Donovan in the latest episode, for example – and the situations involved are different and unusual. It's just the format itself that's preventing the show from becoming something more than 'druggy of the week'.

Today's Joanna Page is Very Annie Mary, a little movie set in Wales that features just about every Welsh actor in existence. It stars Rachel Griffiths, an Australian actress who impressed everyone right up until she joined the cast of Brothers and Sisters, as Annie Mary, the frustrated (in every sense) daughter of Pavarotti-impersonating baker Jonathan Pryce. 

She wants to help her best friend, the seriously ill 16-year-old Bethan Bevan, get to Disneyland and singing in a talent contest might be the only way to get the money. And despite being 22 at the time, Joanna Page played that sick teenager.

Continue reading "Today's Joanna Page: Very Annie Mary"

Read other posts about: Gavin and Stacey

Doctor Who

• 20 years until Doctor's daughter returns?

Film

• Venom spin-off of Spiderman 3 planned
• Austin Powers 4 to focus on Dr Evil and son
• More Watchmen images

British TV

• BBC fined £400,000 over unfair phone-ins - again
• SMG wants to launch a “best of” television channel for Scotland
• ITV online content to be boosted 60%
• ITV2 getting a rebranding
• Echo Beach to be axed - in Moving Wallpaper
• Puffin murder results in complaints

US TV

• Freddie Prinze Jr joining World Wrestling Entertainment
• CSI's Josh Berman to develop James Patterson's The CRU
• TNT gives green light to Time Heals pilot
• DirecTV's looking for more shows to save, even if it couldn't rescue The Riches
• The Hoff is the first star in a reasonably priced car on Top Gear

Subscribe to the daily news by RSS or email

Read other posts about: CSI, Top Gear

Where: Duke of York's Theatre, St Martin's Lane, London
When: 7.45pm Mondays-Saturdays, 3pm matinees on Thursdays and Saturdays. Runs for 10 weeks from the 15th July 2008
How long: One and half hours without interval
How much: £15-£47.50 (includes £1 restoration levy)
Tickets from: 0870 060 6623 (+£3), Ticketmaster (+£3) or www.theambassadors.com (-£1.50/ticket on top three price bands)

Yes, I'm back. It's me, “Easily swayed into going to the theatre by famous TV casts” man. How you doing?

This time, I went to see Catherine Tate (Doctor Who, The Catherine Tate Show), Chris O'Dowd (The IT Crowd) and Francesca Annis (Between The Lines, Dune and Krull - she's been in better stuff, too, but the last two amused me) in some sort of play or something about teachers behaving badly.

Continue reading "Review: Under the Blue Sky"

Read other posts about: The IT Crowd