The Hour 2: Q&A Transcript

(Now with Part Two and new pics – scroll down – ahead of episode two tonight…Wed Nov 21.)

THE welcome clatter of typewriters is back in town tonight with the return of The Hour.

Set in 1957, the second BBC2 series is a step up from the acclaimed first season with the confidence to be even bigger and bolder in its storytelling and settings.

Presenter Hector Madden (Dominic West) is dining out – and more – on his national celebrity while producer Bel Rowley (Romola Garai) does all the work back at the BBC.

The deliciously dry Lix (Anna Chancellor) remains on the foreign beat and knows a lot more than she cares to tell, still clutching a glass of Scotch at all times of the day.

And just what is her link to the intriguing and ever so slightly OCD new Head of News Randall Brown, played by Peter Capaldi?

There’s a dramatic re-appearance for Freddie, played by new Bond star Ben Whishaw, who was fired in the first series.

And an unexpected new direction has been cooked up for Hector’s frustrated wife Marnie (Oona Chaplin).

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Stolen: BFI Screening

“ONCE upon a time…”

A week ago tonight I attended a preview screening of Stolen at the British Film Institute in London.

Followed by a stage Q&A with writer Stephen Butchard, director Justin Chadwick and actor Damian Lewis.

My round table interview with Damian back in February is still under embargo until nearer the time of the BBC1 film’s broadcast this summer.

But my report from last Monday’s event appeared in the Manchester Evening News a few days later – and is reproduced below, followed by some BFI extras.

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Christopher And His Kind: Matt Smith

Matt Smith as Christopher Isherwood and Douglas Booth as Heinz

IT begins in the Los Angeles of 1976 as Christopher Isherwood types out his autobiography.

Before taking us to Berlin in the 1930s.

Matt Smith was at BAFTA in London last night – both in person and on the big screen – for a preview of Christopher And His Kind.

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Jill Dando: “We’ve All Lost A Friend”

IT was a Monday lunchtime much like this one when the phone rang.

Jill Dando had been attacked outside her house and was feared dead.

I noticed my hand shaking. Exactly seven days earlier, almost to the minute, I’d met Jill and spoken to her for a forthcoming feature.

The tape of what was now one of her very last interviews was sitting on the desk beside that phone, still to be transcribed.

A little while later came the newsflash confirming Jill’s death

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