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This week on the Film Stories Podcast Network, our array of film and TV chats cover Monty Python, Sean Baker’s Anora and more. Here’s what we’ve been up to…

As always, we have a wealth of fascinating topics and opinionated minds to offer on the Film Stories Podcast Network. Below you’ll find chatter about up-to-the-minute movies – including Oscar contender Anora – and classic TV, including Babylon 5.

Here’s what we have on offer this week:

Reel Talk

Sam Stokes is back for another discussion, with guest Bo Nicholson, discussing the film of the moment – Sean Baker’s Anora…

Britcom Goes to the Movies

Join the anarcho-syndicalist commune ran by Rob Heath and Guy Walker once again, with special guest in The League of Gentlemen co-creator Jeremy Dyson, chatting 1975’s legendary Monty Python and the Holy Grail…

The CineHistorians Podcast

Our newest podcast kid on the block...

The virtual event Winter Haunts is back on 16th November, offering a full day of workshops, interviews, and panel discussions for fans of ghost stories and Gothic fiction. Organised by Writing Magazine and Alex Davis Events, the one-day festival brings together celebrated authors and speakers to share insights into crafting supernatural tales. Now in its third year, Winter Haunts continues to draw an international audience keen to explore the eerie and mysterious from the comfort of home.

The event promises an impressive roster of writers, including Silvia Moreno-Garcia, known for her acclaimed novels Mexican Gothic and Silver Nitrate, and Laura Purcell, the bestselling author behind The Silent Companions and The Whispering Muse. Joining them are Jeremy Dyson, co-creator of The League of Gentlemen, and Nathan Ballingrud, whose stories Wounds and The Crypt of the Moon Spider have captivated horror fans. Also on the line-up are Christopher Golden, Eric La Rocca...

From Garth Marenghi to The Mighty Boosh, Paddington’s blockbuster success stands on a TV comedy golden age and the early work of Paul King.

“The very gates of Hell” might not be the first place you’d look to find Paddington’s origin story. But with Paul King as director and future ursine-alumni Alice Lowe and Richard Ayoade on the stage, the 2000 Edinburgh Fringe run of Garth Marenghi’s Fright Knight proved not to be a half-bad training ground for the man behind the most successful comedy franchise of the last decade.

Pitched as a gory and melodramatic spoof of Stephen King-style scares, the show centred around Matthew Holness’ fictional horror author, Marenghi, and his inspired telling of another writer’s fight to rescue his muse from the forces of darkness. Fright Knight was nominated for a Perrier award. The follow-up, 2001’s Netherhead, won one. TV beckoned, and soon King,...

Wallace y Gromit regresan con una nueva aventura en Netflix. © Netflix

Netflix ha publicado el primer tráiler y póster de Wallace y Gromit: La venganza se sirve con plumas.

En Wallace y Gromit: La venganza se sirve con plumas, Gromit está preocupado por la excesiva dependencia que Wallace está desarrollando hacia sus inventos. Una preocupación que demuestra estar del todo justificada cuando Wallace crea un gnomo «inteligente» que parece tener voluntad propia. Cuando se descubre que una figura vengativa del pasado podría estar detrás de todo, Gromit tendrá que luchar contra fuerzas siniestras para salvar a su dueño y evitar que Wallace pierda para siempre la capacidad de inventar.

Dirigida por Nick Park (Chicken Run: Evasión en la granja), ganador de cuatro premios Óscar, y Merlin Crossingham (Morph), nominado a los Emmy, esta nueva entrega en stop-motion cuenta con un reparto de voces formado por Ben Whitehead (¡Piratas!), Peter Kay...

Exclusive: Harry Delano (Freud’s Last Session), Reece Shearsmith (The League of Gentlemen), Amar Chadha-Patel (The Decameron) and Arturo Del Puerto (For All Mankind) have joined the 20th Television pilot for Hulu Downforce (working title) starring Eve Hewson and Murray Bartlett.

Downforce follows Victoria (Hewson), the estranged daughter of a storied racing team’s owner, Sir Trevor (Bartlett), who is thrust back into the family business, leaving the pair to find common ground or risk destroying the team’s legacy.

Delano will play Cayley, Alastair’s son, an engineering genius who’s put to work to help the team; Shearsmith will play Alastair, Regent Racing’s fastidious chief race engineer; Chadha-Patel will play Ihsan, the gentle giant of a chief mechanic for Team Regent; Del Puerto plays Emiliano, the ostentatious Spanish owner of a competing team who’s hellbent on destroying Regent Racing.

Alec Berg will direct the pilot and executive produce alongside Adam Countee,...

Warning: this Inside No. 9 review contains spoilers.

Rip our hearts out, why don’t you, Inside No. 9.

Who saw that twist coming? The one in which Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton stomped right past all the glittering possibilities for their series finale – a musical ep, a properly live one, a sequel – and instead, for the purposes of drama, chose to offer up… themselves.

The setting was a swanky club hosting the Inside No. 9 wrap party. The guest stars were a night sky’s worth of real Inside No. 9’s guest stars from across the years. And the story was about a break-up between a villain and a victim.

These are characters Shearsmith and Pemberton are playing, let’s be clear, as part of a light satire on the self-serving showbiz world. The fictional plot saw Steve dump Reece and their next BBC project in favour of a shit-but-lucrative Amazon fantasy epic.

Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith’s anthology show Inside No 9 will begin broadcasting its final series on 8th May, here are the details.

You have to take your hat off to Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith. By the end of the next series, The League Of Gentlemen stars will have written 55 completely new, original comedy dramas, complete with shocks, surprises and twists aplenty. We’re talking about the majestic Inside No 9.

From the silent shenanigans of the wonderful A Quiet Night In (which featured Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter Oona Chaplin) to the astonishing drama of The Twelve Days Of Christine and, arguably the greatest episode, beautiful ode to double acts Bernie Clifton’s Dressing Room, if you’ve never had the pleasure, it is a series well worth delving into.

Perhaps appropriately, the upcoming series will be the last.

The BBC has revealed that the ninth and final...

Sherlock co-creator and star Mark Gatiss has said he and the team behind the popular detective drama are still interested in adapting the series for the big screen.

Gatiss, who created the show with Steven Moffat, was quizzed on a Sherlock film adaptation last night by Deadline’s Baz Bamigboye on the green carpet at the 2024 Olivier Awards at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

“We’d like to make a film but trying to get everyone together is very difficult,” Gatiss told Deadline, adding that if you want a concrete answer on a film you’ll have to “you’ll have to ask Benedict [Cumberbatch] and Martin [Freeman].”

‘The Motive and the Cue’ star Mark Gatiss, nominated for ‘Best Actor’ at the #OlivierAwards, talks about his new TV show ‘Bookish’ and returning to the Sherlock Holmes world pic.twitter.com/fyj4CIXNn7

— Deadline Hollywood (@Deadline) April 14, 2024

Gatiss expressed similar plans to...

Mark Gatiss will co-write and star in Bookish, a crime drama for Alibi, and here are the details of the new show.

It’s been several years since the last project by The League Of Gentlemen, and there is as of yet so sign of any further adventures for Sherlock. However, in the intervening years, Mark Gatiss has kept himself busy with a number of projects, from his annual Mr James Ghost Story For Christmas films, collaborating with Steven Moffat again on Dracula and directing Moffat’s debut play The Unfriend.

His next television project will be Bookish, a crime drama for Alibi he wrote with Matthew Sweet.

The synopsis reads as follows:

London, 1946 is the dynamic, dangerous and chaotic setting for this stylish new detective drama, with the eccentric Gabriel Book (Gatiss) at the very heart of the story: a self-appointed consultant detective to the local police. The thousands...

Exclusive: Sherlock star Mark Gatiss is writing and starring in a British TV drama about a bookshop owner who helps police solve crimes.

Bookish will be a six-part series for UKTV crime drama network Alibi set in post-war London in 1946. Gatiss, the co-creator of BBC shows such as Sherlock and The League of Gentlemen and Netflix/BBC’s Dracula and actor in films including Operation Mincemeat and Mission Impossible — Dead Reckoning, is the creator.

The series will follow Gabriel Book (Gatiss), an “erudite and unconventional” sleuth who cracks mysterious cases from his antiquated bookshop, using the thousands of books that line his shelves to provide him with the knowledge that he needs. Around him are a gathering of “loveable, damaged misfits who he informally protects, cajoles and mentors.”

Starring alongside Gatiss is Polly Walker (Bridgerton, Line of Duty), who plays Book’s colourful wife Trottie. She is charismatic and adventurous,...

Taskmaster will return to Channel 4 on the 28th March, and a new trailer for Taskmaster series 17 has landed.

Taskmaster has run for a whopping 16th series and several Champion of Champions specials since 2015, according to the British Comedy Guide, the 17th series is due to be broadcast this month.

The line up for the new series is as follows:

Comedians Joanne McNally, John Robins and Sophie Willan, Ted Lasso’s Nick Mohammed and The League Of Gentlemen’s Steve Pemberton.

And it doesn’t stop there. Not only can you buy Taskmaster clothing, books, a board game via the official store, a few weeks ago, it was announced that the show was being turned into a VR game by indie developer Scallywag Arcade – it’s due out in 2024 for Meta Quest 2 and 3. You can add it to your wishlist on Steam now.

There is also set to be...

The line-up for Taskmaster series 17 has been revealed, with The League Of Gentleman’s Steve Pemberton among the large names. More within:

Now that we’ve had the joy of both the Taskmaster New Year Treat – with Deborah Meaden, Kojey Radical, Lenny Rush, Steve Backshall and the third Champion of Champions – with Sarah Kendall, Dara O’Briain, Sophie Duker, Morgana Robinson and Kiell Smith Bynoe, who stood in for Mae Martin – we now look forward to the seventeenth series.

The line up for the new series is as follows, according to the British Comedy Guide:

Joanne McNally, John Robins, Sophie Willan, Ted Lasso’s Nick Mohammed and The League Of Gentlemen’s Steve Pemberton.

And it doesn’t stop there. Not only can you buy Taskmaster clothing, books, a board game via the official store, a few weeks ago, it was announced that the show was being turned into a VR...

We’ve had a marvellous run of Taskmaster series lately, so when a new line-up announcement is on the horizon, it’s easy to wonder whether the winning streak will continue or if we’re due a dud.

Never fear – Alex Horne and co. have delivered once again, although the series 17 Taskmaster line-up might not be quite what you’re expecting. Instead of the now-traditional Taskmaster family line-up, this time they’ve gone for a veteran from outside the world of stand-up comedy, plus four rising stars with slightly less mainstream recognition than normal. As ever with this show though, anybody you’re not familiar with at the start, you’ll almost certainly love by the end of the series.

The Taskmaster series 17 line-up is: Steve Pemberton, Sophie Willan, Nick Mohammed, John Robins and Joanne McNally! And here they are appearing in the very first trailer for the new run:...

Mark Gatiss’ revival of A Ghost Story for Christmas, a British strand of one-off specials infrequently aired around the holidays since 1971, continues with what is possibly its best entry yet: Lot No. 249. The League of Gentlemen alum has maintained a substantial interest in horror, much like comrades Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, but unlike the Inside No. 9 duo, Gatiss digs up neglected works from classic British literature — before now, namely M. R. James — and reintroduces them to contemporary audiences.

In Lot No. 249, Kit Harrington plays the prying university student who acts on suspicions about his odd neighbor (Freddie Fox). The Egyptologist in question is not only guilty of certain “perversions” he is also using a reanimated mummy — the story’s otherwise nameless namesake — to carry out his wicked plans. This includes murdering his various rivals on campus. The protagonist later intervenes, only to then make a startling, if not belated realization about his enemy.

The upcoming ninth series of acclaimed anthology show Inside No. 9 will be the last, the BBC confirms. Plus: guest stars revealed.

You have to take your hat off to Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith. By the end of the next series, The League Of Gentlemen stars will have written 55 completely new, original comedy dramas, complete with shocks, surprises and twists aplenty. We’re talking the majestic Inside No 9.

From the silent shenanigans of the wonderful A Quiet Night In (which featured Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter Oona Chaplin) to the astonishing drama of The Twelve Days Of Christine and, arguably the greatest episode, beautiful ode to double acts Bernie Clifton’s Dressing Room, if you’ve never had the pleasure, it is a series well worth delving into.

Perhaps appropriately, the upcoming ninth series will be the last.

The BBC has now revealed that the guest cast will include Dorothy Atkinson,...

In the upcoming episode of “Mastermind,” set to air on BBC Two at 8:30 Pm on Monday, December 4, 2023, Clive Myrie presides over another thrilling heat of the classic quiz show, where contenders face the challenge of the famous black chair. The episode promises a diverse range of specialist subjects, adding an extra layer of excitement to the quiz.

Viewers can anticipate a showcase of intellectual prowess as the contenders delve into their chosen topics, which include the poetry of Dame Carol Ann Duffy, The League of Gentlemen, Nigel Mansell, and René Magritte. The blend of literary, comedic, sporting, and artistic subjects ensures a captivating and varied episode that appeals to a wide audience.

Tune in at 8:30 Pm for an engaging and intellectually stimulating episode of “Mastermind” on BBC Two, where contenders test their knowledge and expertise in their chosen fields under the watchful eye of the black chair.

Release...

Exclusive: Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss has adapted a short story from the detective’s creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, as his annual Christmas ghost story for the BBC. Kit Harington (Game of Thrones) and Freddie Fox (Slow Horses) are attached to star.

Gatiss has penned a version of Conan Doyle’s Lot No. 249, having adapted various Sherlock Holmes novels for the Beeb betweenn 2010 and 2017, alongside former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat.

The special will air as part of the BBC’s winter schedule and comes after Gatiss adapted The Tractate Middoth in 2013, The Dead Room (2018), Martin’s Close (2019) The Mezzotint (2021) and Count Magnus (2022) – four of which were based on works by M.R James.

Lot No. 249 follows group of Oxford students, one of whom undertakes research into the secrets of Ancient Egypt and becomes the talk of the college. “Can these experiments truly breathe life to the horrifying bag of bones which is the mysterious Lot.

No Spaced. No The League of Gentlemen. No Smack the Pony or Goodness Gracious Me or The Royle Family or Brass Eye, or Red Dwarf or Father Ted or anything that belongs to the last century (side note: the late 90s were an incredible time for UK comedy). These are the 40 finest British comedy TV shows that have arrived since the year 2000, as nominated by our writers. Add in your favourites below, and it’s a party.

What’s cheering about this lot, apart from the fact that as comedies, they should all technically cheer us up, is how different they are. There’s the surreal chaos of Year of the Rabbit, and the sweet warmth of Lovesick, the Pythonesque bonkersness of Yonderland, the satirical might of The Thick of It and much more. Something for everyone, you might say.

And to make sure there was enough space to include a wide enough selection,...

What does Mycroft actually do in the government? What’s it like to work with Tom Cruise? And is there any Doctor Who role he hasn’t played? Ask all this and more of the actor and writer

If you were going to invite anyone to your fantasy dinner party table, actor and writer Mark Gatiss would be perfect. He’d have some stories about the BBC’s The League of Gentlemen – perhaps letting us in on the secret of what exactly is Hilary Briss the butcher’s “special stuff” added ingredient. He could let you know what it’s like being Sherlock Holmes’ older brother Mycroft (and what their parents were thinking when they were dishing out forenames), after starring in and co-writing four series of Sherlock with Steven Moffat. Gatiss has also appeared in Game of Thrones and written and acted in multiple episodes of Doctor Who, playing...

Exclusive: The BBC has defended plans to film an American Idol-style acting competition series after performers compared the format to The Hunger Games.

The show, working titled Bring the Drama, was announced last month and promises to give untapped acting talent a shot at the big time with the winner securing agency representation and a role in a BBC drama.

Wall to Wall, the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned production company behind Netflix’s Glow Up, has begun casting for the six-part series and applicants are being told that they must not have attended drama school or had an agent for acting work.

The BBC said Bring the Drama aims to provide a break for those who have been unable to access professional training or representation.

But the show has angered some in the acting community, who raised concerns about the format and called on the BBC to give better...

Exclusive: In a competitive situation, Sherlock producer Hartswood Films has won the rights to adapt Cold War magic thriller The Warlock Effect into a TV series.

The debut novel, about a magician who flees Nazi Germany and is lured into espionage, was written by Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman, creators of the Ghost Stories theatre production.

Hartswood optioned The Warlock Effect from publisher Hodder & Stoughton, fending off rival bids from seven other production companies.

The book, released on Thursday, centers on Ludvik Weinschenk, a boy who escapes tyranny in Germany to become the most famous magician in 1950s Britain under the stage name Louis Warlock.

His talent for deception attracts the attention of the British secret service and he is thrown into the world of espionage on a mission across Europe.

Sue Vertue, Steven Moffat, and Brian Minchin will Executive Produce for Hartswood Films with Dyson and Nyman writing and...

When I left England in 2009 to live in the Czech Republic, I was totally done with the whole thing. I was broke, had no career prospects, and hated the lifestyle. If it wasn't for family and a few close friends I would have gladly never set foot on the island again. That disillusionment might have lasted forever if it wasn't for folk horror which, in its strange way, helped me reconnect with my home country.

It was the BBC's wonderfully chilling adaptation of "A Warning to the Curious" that really got me into it. Based on the ghost story by M.R. James, many scenes were filmed in Aldeburgh on the Suffolk coast not far from where I grew up. That really gave me a jolt of recognition; I love the county's desolate beaches and big open skies, and I was suddenly filled with affection and longing for England for...

It’s Christmas Eve, and you’re as ready as you’ll ever be. Presents under the tree? Check. Turkey in the fridge? Check. Mince pie for Father Christmas and a carrot for Rudolf on the hearth? Check. The thinning of the veil between this world and the next, allowing unquiet spirits to walk the Earth and the long shadows in the moonlit, frosty lanes to shift and darken with things not of this world? Check, check and check.

Because while Christmas might traditionally be the season of goodwill, comfort and joy, it is also very much the time of ghosts. And no one appreciates that quite as much as Mark Gatiss.

Gatiss is one of our most recognisable TV actors and writers, making his name with the surreal comedy of The League of Gentlemen and cementing his reputation with a starring role in Sherlock, his TV take on Dracula,...

The Crown loves a metaphor. In the latest season, everyone is wondering what to do with the clapped-out royal yacht Britannia. It’s the Nineties, and the monarchy is looking a bit worn out, too. “It shouldn’t come as a surprise she’s falling apart, she’s a creature of another age… in many ways she’s obsolete,” says Prince Philip, definitely talking about a big, expensive boat. “Don’t say that!” the Queen flaps, definitely also talking about a boat. The show is filled with analogies so bold you could spot them from space. In another zinger, Diana’s Panorama interview is compared to Guy Fawkes’s gunpowder plot. And yet people still love to take this show very, very literally. Why, when it’s so clearly on the royals’ side?

The build-up to the fifth season of Peter Morgan’s royal soap opera, which is on Netflix from 9 November,...

Exclusive: Season two of Euston Films’ BBC Three horror comedy Wreck is in development prior to the first airing, as creator Ryan J. Brown opens up about portraying queer identity and a scarcity of British slasher.

Newly-promoted Euston MD Noemi Spanos and Brown told Deadline they are busy developing the second season and Brown always planned the show to run for at least three. Meanwhile, the horror comedy is one of distributor Fremantle’s flagships being pushed to international buyers at Mipcom later this month. It launches on Sunday October 9.

The cast of Wreck

The genre-bending show, a youth-skewing horror set on a cruise ship that has comic elements, “lends itself well to international sales,” according to Spanos. “The boat itself has a very international cast of characters coming together that should give it a broad reach,” she added, stating that Wreck’s trailer has already attracted widespread attention on social media.

What do wizards, blancmange and cat killers have in common? They’re all subjects of songs by Melin Melyn, of course.

Since forming in 2019, the eccentric six-piece have become figureheads for a new wave of Welsh artists dubbed by some as “Cool Cymru 2.0”. It’s not a term they’re particularly comfortable with. “There have been times where people have said this is a revival, like we’re doing something unique,” frontman Gruff Glyn says. “But we’re not doing anything, by singing in Welsh, that hasn’t been done before, and it will be done for many more centuries to come.”

Melin Melyn’s music is a hearty cawl (Welsh broth) of surfer psych-pop, folk, and the kind of surrealist comedy you’d typically find in The Mighty Boosh or The League of Gentlemen. They went down a treat at Green Man festival this summer, where they were joined...

Garland’s latest is like a scary-movie remake of Dick Emery, with excellent performances from Kinnear in a number of different roles, and Jessie Buckley

The grim accusation about men – the one about them being all alike – might occur to you during this film, along perhaps with the shrill defensive hashtag #notallmen. It is an unsubtle and schematic but very well-acted Brit folk-horror pastiche from the writer-director Alex Garland; it feels like a reverse-engineered version of The League of Gentlemen, with the overt comic intention concealed or denied. For me, the film never quite addresses the obvious dramatic implications of its startling central conceit: the wacky multirole casting of Rory Kinnear. But there’s undoubtedly something unnerving and outrageous in Kinnear’s performances, with the wigs and false teeth, like a scary-movie remake of The Dick Emery Show.

The setting is a picture-perfect Hertfordshire village with a sumptuously restored Elizabethan manor house,...

Warning: contains spoilers for Inside No. 9 episode ‘Mr King’.

They didn’t burn him! Drowned, strangled and dismembered, yes, but Class 9 of Man Sancta Ysgol stopped short of going full The Wicker Man on poor Mr Curtis – ex-primary teacher, current human bean. What a delightfully nasty ending that was, a human sacrifice in Pritt Stick, doilies and crepe paper, conducted by beaming cherubs dinging triangles in happy contemplation of bloodshed to come.

More surprising perhaps than this episode’s denouement was that it’s taken until now for Inside No. 9 to offer up an entry for the folk horror canon. Why the wait? Given its creators’ previous work, this modern-day tribute to Robin Hardy’s sinister seventies classic and the likes of The Blood on Satan’s Claw felt overdue.

Was the idea of a local school for local people where the old ways die hard thought too close...

Warning: contains spoilers for Inside No. 9 series six.

In series six, Inside No. 9 pulled off a diamond heist, explored obsessive geek fandom, framed a cuckold in an international conspiracy, let a grotesque true crime bleed from reality to fiction and back again, made a deal with the devil, and killed Jesus. Where, one might well ask, next?

Anywhere it wants, is the answer to that question. The BBC Two anthology series can float from location to location, story to story, unhampered by the need to put down roots in any one place. Series seven brings half a dozen brand new films to screen, scored by composer Christian Henson, and each one as different as the last.

The official synopsis describes the new episodes as taking us “from the Welsh valleys to an abandoned house, from kidnappers to detectives, and from a day trip out in a pedalo to a public information film.

Exclusive: BAFTA winning writer-director Sarah Smith has signed with Verve for representation in all areas.

Smith recently wrote, directed, and executive produced Locksmith Animation’s first animated feature, Ron’s Gone Wrong. The film follows Barney (Jack Dylan Grazer) and his dysfunctional robot pal Ron (Zach Galifianakis). The film also includes the voice acting talents of Ed Helms, Olivia Colman, Rob Delaney, and Justice Smith.

Sarah Smith began her career in British television, writing, directing, and producing hit series such as The League of Gentlemen and Fist of Fun. Smith made the move to animation in 2005, along with writer Peter Baynham, to create the adult animated series I am Not an Animal.

Her debut animated feature was the 2012 Arthur Christmas, which she directed and co-wrote Baynham for Aardman Animations. In 2014 she co-founded Locksmith Animation with Julie Lockhart, which is the UK’s only dedicated feature animation studio.

Derek Jacobi will reprise his role as Metatron in “Good Omens” season 2.

The “Gladiator” star plays the voice of God in the Amazon Prime Video original series, which is based on the book by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

Also returning to the series are Mark Gatiss (“Sherlock”), Steve Pemberton (“The League of Gentlemen”), Reece Shearsmith (“Inside No. 9”) and Niamh Walsh (“The English Game”).

The show, which is directed by Douglas Mackinnon (Mackinnon and Gaiman act as co-showrunners), has also added “Dune’s” Siân Phillips, Tim Downie (“Outlander”), Pete Firman (“The Magicians”), Andi Osho (“I May Destroy You”), and Alex Norton (“Taggart”).

“We are so thrilled that we were able to get so many fabulous actors to return to the ‘Good Omens’ family,” Gaiman said in a statement. “Some of them are reprising roles, some of them are playing completely new characters. And we are just as thrilled by...

Exclusive: Cast has been set for season two of Amazon and BBC’s Neil Gaiman fantasy series Good Omens, which remains in production in Scotland.

Reprising his role as Metatron is Derek Jacobi (Gladiator) and joining the cast for season two is his I, Claudius co-star Dame Siân Phillips (Dune).

Also returning this season in roles that span heaven, hell, and earth are the trio from The League of Gentlemen Mark Gatiss (Sherlock), Steve Pemberton (Killing Eve), and Reece Shearsmith (Inside No. 9).

Niamh Walsh (The English Game) returns, while joining in new roles are Tim Downie (Outlander), Pete Firman (The Magicians), Andi Osho (I May Destroy You), and Alex Norton (Pirates of the Caribbean).

There are still a few names to be added but we can reveal that big-hitters Benedict Cumberbatch and Frances McDormand won’t be back for season two.

Originally based on Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s novel,...

“Never waste your pain”

Experience the terrifying film that Esquire calls “a mesmerizing horror masterpiece” when Saint Maud arrives on Blu-ray (plus Digital) and DVD November 30 from Lionsgate.

xperience the terrifying film that Esquire calls “a mesmerizing horror masterpiece” when Saint Maud arrives on Blu-ray (plus Digital) and DVD November 30 from Lionsgate. Saint Maud stars Morfydd Clark and Jennifer Ehle. Saint Maud will be available on Blu-ray + Digital and DVD for the suggested retail price of $17.99 and $14.98, respectively.

The debut film from writer-director Rose Glass, Saint Maud is a chilling and boldly original vision of faith, madness, and salvation in a fallen world. Maud, a newly devout hospice nurse, becomes obsessed with saving her dying patient’s soul — but sinister forces, and her own sinful past, threaten to put an end to her holy calling.

Blu-ray / DVD Special Features

Audio Commentary with Writer-Director Rose GlassA Higher Calling: The Rapture of...

Stars: Joel Fry, Hayley Squires, Reece Shearsmith, Ellora Torchia, John Hollingworth, Mark Monero | Written and Directed by Ben Wheatley

In the Earth, the new film from Ben Wheatley (Kill List), begins with images all to familiar images of people in masks and hazmat suits. Here, as in real life, the world is in the grip of a pandemic. It’s against this backdrop that Martin Lowery (Joel Fry; Silent Night) arrives at a vacation lodge repurposed as a research facility. He’s there to try to find Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires; In Fabric) a scientist who went missing in the surrounding forest.

With Alma, one of the park rangers as a guide he ventures into the woods. It doesn’t take long before they’re attacked in their sleep and their shoes stolen. They’re found by Zach who has been illegally living in the woods. He offers to help,...

Released in cinemas 18th June with previews on 17th June, In The Earth is an atmospheric new horror from visionary writer-director Ben Wheatley. To celebrate the release, we are giving away 3 limited edition t-shirts featuring an original design by Wheatley himself.

As the world searches for a cure to a disastrous virus, a scientist and park scout venture deep in the forest for a routine equipment run. Through the night, their journey becomes a terrifying voyage through the heart of darkness, the forest coming to life around them.

In The Earth stars Joel Fry, Reece Shearsmith, Hayley Squires, Ellora Torchia (Midsommar), Mark Monero and John Hollingworth.

Please note: This competition is open to UK residents only

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The Small Print

Open to UK residents only The competition will close 28th June 2021 at 23.59 GMT The winner will be picked at random from entries received No cash alternative is available...

Exclusive: Reece Shearsmith, the British actor and writer behind cult BBC series Inside No. 9, has taken a role alongside Ruth Wilson, Saoirse Ronan, and Adrien Brody in Searchlight’s Untitled Murder Mystery.

Filming has wrapped on the feature, which is helmed by Tom George, the director of BAFTA-winning BBC comedy This Country, which is currently being remade by Paul Feig for Fox. The picture also stars Sam Rockwell and David Oyelowo.

Shearsmith co-created and starred in UK comedy The League of Gentlemen, while he also co-created anthology comedy Inside No. 9 with Steve Pemberton. The BBC show returns for Season 6 in the coming weeks. Other roles have seen him appear in Doctor Who, Shaun of the Dead, and High-Rise.

Aside from Inside No. 9, Shearsmith can next be seen in Ben Wheatley’s under-the-radar horror pic In The Earth, which premieres in June.

Shearsmith is repped by Pbj Management and Independent Talent.

Universal Pictures UK has released the trailer for the latest horror ‘In The Earth’ from ‘Kill List’ and High Rise’ filmmaker Ben Wheatley.

As the world searches for a cure to a disastrous virus, a scientist and park scout venture deep in the forest for a routine equipment run. Through the night, their journey becomes a terrifying voyage through the heart of darkness, the forest coming to life around them.

Written and directed by Ben Wheatley, the movie stars Joel Fry, Reece Shearsmith, Hayley Squires, Ellora Torchia (Midsommar), Mark Monero and John Hollingworth.

Also in trailers – Toni Collette & Anna Kendrick star in trailer for ‘Stowaway’

The film is set for a UK release, June 18th

The post “If you go down to the woods today…” New trailer drops for Ben Wheatley’s ‘In The Earth’ appeared first on HeyUGuys.

A Mark Gatiss comedy short and Breanna Box documentary have reached their initial goals on the filmmaker crowdfunding platform Greenlit.com.

The company, after 18 months and a revamp, is now showcasing new projects including Gatiss’s ‘Moustache Man’ (also starring Mandeep Dhillion), and famed model Breanna Box’s true crime gangster documentary ‘Turn Around’ delving into the life of her grandfather, James Box.

Sean J. Young’s comedy short film, ‘Moustache Man’, starring Mark Gatiss (The League of Gentlemen, Sherlock), follows a boy taking care of his grieving mother after the passing of his father. He thinks maybe the best way to make things better is to become his father, so he obviously grows a moustache!

After smashing its initial targets in just a few hours after Gatiss sent out a tweet, the team is expanding its horizons with new fundraising goals.

Also in news – ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ becomes...

The BBC’s streaming service iPlayer has started adding new warnings to certain shows that people may find offensive following the controversy over blackface performances in comedy.

Archive comedies, including The League Of Gentlemen and The Mighty Boosh, now feature a little “i” logo, which carries a warning that they reflect attitudes of their time.

Here’s the full quote: “The Mighty Boosh is a classic comedy which reflects the broadcast standards, language and attitudes of its time. Some viewers may find this content offensive.”

Furthermore, when watching iPlayer through Sky, viewers are greeted with the same message and have to click “ok” before the show begins to stream.

The warning was not present on The League Of Gentlemen and The Mighty Boosh last month and comes after the shows were scrubbed by Netflix for featuring white actors in black makeup.

The BBC, Netflix and others also removed Little Britain...

Hello, and welcome to International Insider, Jake Kanter here. For those who missed us last week, this is Deadline’s new weekly newsletter containing everything you need to know about the global film and television business. If you want to subscribe, sign up to our breaking news alerts here.

Here are the six things we want you to know this week:

1. Scoop: D-Day For Endemol Shine Deal

One for the diary: It’s been eight months since Banijay Group announced its $2.2Bn takeover of MasterChef producer Endemol Shine Group, and the deal is still in a regulatory quagmire not helped by coronavirus. But there is now light at the end of the tunnel, with the European Commission setting a provisional date of June 30 to make a ruling. As regulatory hurdles go, this is the Super Bowl for all concerned in the takeover. Read more here.

2. Cannes Gets Cracking

Sales slated:...

Netflix’s purge of comedies featuring white performers in blackface continued last night when the streamer removed cult British show The Mighty Boosh.

Created by Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt, and produced by Steve Coogan’s Baby Cow Productions, the program featured a character called The Spirit of Jazz in an episode titled Electro.

For the role, Fielding was painted in black makeup and wore a dread-like wig below a white top hat. The character appeared in later episodes over the course of the three series.

Netflix has taken down its entire Mighty Boosh collection rather than targeting specific episodes. It follows the streamer’s decision to take down three other British comedies, Little Britain, Come Fly With Me, and The League Of Gentlemen, over blackface concerns.

Deadline also revealed on Wednesday that Netflix had removed four Chris Lilley comedies in Australia for the same reason. Angry Boys, Summer Heights High,...

Exclusive: Netflix and the BBC were in lockstep over the decision to remove episodes of Little Britain from their libraries after the British comedy featured blackface sketches, but differences of views are emerging over other shows.

In the heat of the Black Lives Matter movement, Deadline can reveal that Netflix has removed four shows from controversial Australian comedian Chris Lilley from its services in Australia and New Zealand.

Angry Boys, Summer Heights High, We Can Be Heroes, and Jonah From Tonga have all been taken down after featuring characters that have in the past sparked questions over racial discrimination. The shows were originally made by Australian producer Princess Pictures for the ABC.

Angry Boys features blackface character S.mouse, while Summer Heights High and Jonah From Tonga include Jonah Takalua, for which Lilley wore brown makeup. In We Can Be Heroes, Lilley plays Chinese physics student Ricky Wong.

Lilley’s other series,...

I’d never heard of this gem of a British production; now it goes on my list of highly recommended titles. A dock area on the Thames is ‘the pool,’ and the sailors that disembark from the cargo ships are susceptible to the temptations of black market trade. A single eventful weekend traces the fates of a half-dozen young people, the women that like the sailors, and the sailor that gets mixed up in a deadly serious crime. Director Basil Dearden’s excellent cast is mostly unfamiliar to us Yanks, but we get really tied up in their problems. This picture should be much better known. It’s the first English movie to depict an interracial romance, and it does so without sensationalism or special pleading. The best new extra is an interview with actor Earl Cameron, who at 103 years of age has his act (and his memories) totally together.

Legendary duo Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith first reached global recognition with the highly acclaimed The League of Gentlemen, followed by the similarly bizarre Psychoville in 2009 which was also a hit, albeit a less favourable one than its predecessor. Then in 2014, the pair masterminded one of the most supreme television shows in existence – Inside No.9.

Inside No.9 embodies a lot of interesting concepts throughout, with a combination of satire, dark comedy and chilling horror, with all stories somehow relating to the number 9. Each episode has its own standalone, individual storyline, but they do all have one thing in common (apart from the number 9). Their very dark, very chilling and very killer twist endings.

The anthology show is definitely one of a kind, with it creators using innovative ways to tell their dark, emotionally driven stories with the majority being told in non-linear techniques. Each episode always endeavours to leave the...

Well, thank goodness for that. Or more properly, thank the BBC, Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton and producer Adam Tandy. As BBC Two rounds off the current run of Inside No. 9 with tonight’s ‘The Stakeout’, confirmation arrives that a further two series are on their way.

A total of 12 new episodes for the inventive storytelling anthology have been ordered, taking the grand total of original half-hour instalments up to 43.

Just take a moment to think about that: 43 distinct scenarios and characters. New locations, new sets, new costumes, new music and new co-stars, every time. An original premise played with for just 30 minutes and then onto the next thing. And the next. And the next. And the next. Careers have been built on a fraction of that much invention.

It’s no wonder creators Shearsmith and Pemberton describe themselves as “delighted and exhausted in equal measure at the prospect of...

Exclusive: The latest season of Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton’s oddball dark comedy Inside No. 9 is coming to U.S. streamer BritBox.

The digital platform, which is backed by BBC Studios and ITV, is to exclusively launch the fifth season of the show on March 17. This comes after the show launched on BBC Two in the UK earlier this month. The service currently airs the first four seasons of the comedy, which has been running since 2014.

Created by and featuring Shearsmith and Pemberton, who created The League of Gentlemen, Inside No. 9 is an anthology of darkly comic tales all take place inside a location that ties back to the number nine. Whether it’s a room in a popular resort or the top floor of a luxury hotel, the stories quickly go from innocent to insidious often with a killer of a twist ending.

Season five features...

I grew up as a kid of the 80s and 90s, and while I was in junior-school I found a series of books called Point Horror. A range of horror titles for young readers written by a variety of authors, Point Horror became a bit of an early 90s fad and many kids of my age back then were reading them and swapping them. All these years later, I’m still a fan of Point Horror. A good reason for that is the nostalgia I have for the books, but I also have a lot of love for some of the stories themselves too. There’s a real throwback tone to many of the stories, yet there’s some scary, cool and interesting things going on in many of the books. With authors like Diane Hoh, Carol Ellis, Richie Tankersley Cusick and R.L. Stine, who would go on to create the world of Goosebumps,...

This strange picture goes forth in search of a genre, mainly because its theme — the destruction of the human personality — had previously seen light only in movies about brainwashing and alien possession. The Michael Relph and Basil Dearden team may not be as slick as The Archers, but they do peg this sober Isolation Chamber drama — even if we wonder if Dirk Bogarde will start talking like Paddy Chayefsky, and then shape-shift into an ape man. The real issue here is scientific ethics, of which Bogarde’s associates seem to have zero.

The Mind Benders

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1963 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 109 min. / Street Date October 15, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Dirk Bogarde, Mary Ure, John Clements, Michael Bryant, Wendy Craig, Harold Goldblatt, Geoffrey Keen.

Cinematography: Denys N. Coop

Film Editor: John D. Guthridge

Original Music: Georges Auric

Written by James Kennaway

Produced by Michael Relph

Directed by Basil...

The BBC and Netflix have unveiled the first look of their Dracula reboot as they have rounded out the cast.

The three-part series, which stars Claes Bang as Count Dracula, is written by Sherlock’s Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat and produced by Hartswood Films. the series is inspired by Bram Stoker’s classic novel and will re-introduce the world to Dracula, the vampire who made evil sexy. In Transylvania in 1897, the blood drinking Count is drawing his plans against Victorian London.

Lyndsey Marshal (The League of Gentlemen), Chanel Cresswell (This Is England), Matthew Beard (The Imitation Game), Lydia West (Years & Years), Paul Brennen (Happy Valley), Sarah Niles (Catastrophe), Sofia Oxenham (Poldark), John McCrea (God’s Own Country), Phil Dunster (Humans) and newcomer Millicent Wong have joined the series alongside John Heffernan, Joanna Scanlan, Dolly Wells, Sacha Dhawan, Jonathan Aris, Morfydd Clark and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett.

Jonny Campbell (Westworld), Damon Thomas...

Call him the Danish Dracula.

Claes Bang, the hunky Scandinavian star of Cannes award winner The Square and Nordic noir series The Bridge is getting his fangs on for his next role, as the infamous Count Dracula in the upcoming limited series Dracula from Netflix and the BBC.

BBC One has just unveiled the first images of Bang as the Count, showing the dashing Dane by turns seductive and deadly.

The BBC and Netflix on Wednesday also announced the remaining cast for the series. Lyndsey Marshal (The League of Gentlemen), Chanel Cresswell (This Is England), Matthew Beard (An ...