SCHOOL’S out for Waterloo Road in Rochdale.
Production of the drama is to move to Scotland, although how that will be explained on screen is still not clear.
My English exclusive story on the end of an era for the BBC1 show is in today’s MEN here.
With a fuller version below:
DOCTOR Who supremo Steven Moffat:
“There are more beginnings and more endings this series than you’re perhaps ready for.”
“Assuming an intelligent audience is a good idea. Clearly going by our ratings it’s a successful idea. They are clever. They will get it.”
“I think you’ve got to be challenging and difficult and on the edge all the time.”
Lead writer, executive producer and showrunner Steven after last night’s exclusive big screen preview of Let’s Kill Hitler.
Or in other words, Doctor Who series six, episode eight to be broadcast by BBC1 on Saturday August 27 after the mid-series break.
With Mr M revealing: “My younger son said, ‘Won’t Hitler be offended?’”
“IT does go out with a fantastic bang. Ruth and Harry’s conclusion is sensational and there are some surprises for the loyal fans.”
“I just don’t want it to get tired and old.”
“We kill off our characters all the time in their prime. The show’s got to be killed off in its prime as well.”
Three quotes from Jane Featherstone live on the BBC1 Breakfast sofa around 8:40am today.
IT’S been an open secret for some time that Spooks had come to the end of its long and winding road.
Today came final confirmation that series 10, due on screen next month (September), will be the last.
You can read the full official press release at the end of this blog.
The end came as no surprise to fans of the BBC1 show, who were left wondering why the BBC and production company Kudos had left it so long to confirm what everyone knew.
With Kudos said to have taken the decision themselves to end the series and move on to other things, including an already announced (Jan 2011) new eight-part BBC1 spy drama series called Morton.
Rather than the BBC wielding the axe.
Chief Executive Jane Featherstone said today: “We have always wanted to end Spooks on a high, but never knew when that time would be.
“Harry Pearce, played by the wonderful Peter Firth, has always been at the heart of the show and this series focuses on Harry’s past, bringing his tumultuous relationship with Ruth to a head. As we near completion of this year’s show, I’m sorry to say but it feels this series is a fitting end to a much-loved show.
“It’s very tempting to keep going, and we have had on-going conversations with our partners at the BBC about it, but the heart of the show has become those two characters and I feel they own it. We’ve followed the arc of their personal story and I think they’ve brought us to a natural end, which you will all see played out later this year.”
There was already speculation that Spooks was nearing the end of the road when I spoke to Peter Firth (Harry Pearce) in early February.
DOWNTON Abbey returns for a second series in the UK next month.
My report and photos from last Friday’s Press Launch at Highclere Castle are here.
Among those I spoke to was new Downton recruit Amy Nuttall.
An early taste of the interview – with mild spoilers – was published in Tuesday’s Manchester Evening News, but has yet to go online.
So let’s put that right below, shall we?
AND so we say farewell to The Royal.
ITV1’s long-running 1960s’ drama ended on Sunday evening with a cliffhanger worthy of the Scarborough rocks by the real life location for Elsinby’s St Aidan’s Royal Free Hospital.
Stabbed Dr Gordon Ormerod (Robert Daws) lay at death’s door on the operating table as Mr Rose (Denis Lill) battled to save his life.
Gordon’s tearful wife Dr Jill Weatherill (Amy Robbins) watching through a window, supported by ever marvellous Matron (Wendy Craig).
“YOU’LL find there’s never a dull moment in this house.”
Just one of many classic new lines from Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham (Dame Maggie Smith) in the second series of Downton Abbey.
The press were invited to Downton on Friday for the launch of the eight-part 2011 series, which will be followed by a Christmas special.
Or rather Highclere Castle in Berkshire, the real life location for the “upstairs” scenes in ITV1’s Yorkshire-set global hit.
“THE newsreels are dead. We’ve bored the public for too long.”
So begins The Hour, a fascinating new BBC2 drama series set in the changing media and political world of the 1950s.
Episode one finds the BBC News at London’s Alexandra Palace still fixated with reporting on the daily lives of society darlings.
Frustrated TV news reporter Freddie Lyon (Ben Whishaw), working alongside Bel Rowley (Romola Garai) knows there are far more important stories to tell.
Both seize their chance with a move to Lime Grove studios in west London, heralding the dawn on a modern and questioning topical news programme called The Hour.
MY recent week on the Budapest set of ITV1 2012 drama Titanic brought back memories of a much happier voyage.
As did a trip last week to see Jamie Cullum in concert at Kew Gardens.
The below feature was published in June 2005 but appears to have vanished from the MEN website.
So I thought I’d post it back somewhere on the web, for those who might be interested in reading it.
Of course a few things have changed since then, and the Silversea fleet has expanded.
But it remains my ambition to, somehow, someday return to the ship that captured my heart.
“IF you go to the cinema midway through a film, you watch the second half first, don’t you?
“So you see how the characters end up in the story.
“What happened to turn them into the people they became.
“It’s like a riddle you have to solve.”
So begins The Night Watch on BBC2 tomorrow night.
Yet another television treat from BBC Drama.
In a month that will also bring us the start of The Hour, of which more later.
My feature on The Night Watch is in today’s MEN and below.
Life of Wylie 