Category Archives: Drama

Downton Abbey costumes and memorabilia for sale in charity auction

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Lady Mary Crawley’s wedding dress and the Granthams’ family car, a 1925 Sunbeam Saloon, are among the lots

Downton Abbey fans will be able to secure a souvenir from the period drama as costumes worn by the characters, furniture used to adorn the stately home, and even the family car used in the popular ITV series and subsequent films are to be sold at auction for charity.

A dress worn by the late Dame Maggie Smith, who starred as Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, is one of the star lots.

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Jean Marsh, co-creator of 1970s TV hit Upstairs, Downstairs, dies aged 90

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ITV drama set in aristocratic house in Edwardian London explored class and social change, and won many awards

Jean Marsh, the actor and writer best known for co-creating and starring in the 1970s TV show Upstairs, Downstairs, has died aged 90.

The film-maker Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who was a close friend of Marsh, said she died of complications with dementia in her London home on Sunday.

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‘We’re location scouting’: where next for White Lotus and who will star?

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HBO renewed Mike White’s hit drama before third season aired and rumours abound about luxury settings and return of stars

You’ve only just got home from a holiday when you start planning the next one. So it is with the super-rich spa satire The White Lotus. The gunsmoke is still clearing from the finale of the third season but speculation is rife about where the HBO hit will head next.

This week’s climax of Mike White’s drama might have divided critics, but it was still group chat-dominating, column inch-gobbling TV, notching its highest ratings yet. The show was renewed for a fourth trip before the third had even aired, with White reportedly pitching HBO execs his next idea while still filming in Koh Samui. Buzz is now building about the next chapter, expected on our screens in late 2026.

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BBC and ITV slash big-budget TV spend as US streamers pour money into UK

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Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky also among UK broadcasters making cuts as Netflix, Disney and Amazon pile on pressure

UK broadcasters slashed their spending on big-budget TV shows to the lowest level in almost a decade last year, even as their US rivals Netflix, Disney and Amazon ploughed hundreds of millions more into British-made premium content.

In a sign of the increasing competitive pressures of the streaming era, the amount spent on high-end TV shows costing more than £1m an hour to make by domestic operators such as the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky, plunged by a quarter last year to £598m.

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TV bosses should dare to flout Ofcom rules, says Grange Hill creator Phil Redmond

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Producer says ‘courage has gone out of broadcasting’ and audiences want to see grittier issues

The creator of some of Britain’s best-loved soaps has said the “courage has gone out of broadcasting” and suggested that television bosses should not be afraid to flout Ofcom rules.

Phil Redmond – the brains behind Hollyoaks, Grange Hill and Brookside – said there was “too much risk aversion” in television, with producers afraid to upset regulators even if it meant pleasing audiences.

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Argentina’s Javier Milei accused of plagiarising UN speech from West Wing

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Populist leader alleged to have ‘copied word for word’ a monologue by TV show’s fictional president Jed Bartlet

Argentina’s rightwing populist president, Javier Milei, has been accused of plagiarising a chunk of his recent speech to the United Nations general assembly from the political drama The West Wing.

“It seems like fiction, but it isn’t,” the left-leaning Buenos Aires newspaper Página 12 reported on Friday, claiming Milei had “copied, word for word, a monologue” by the television show’s fictional president, Josiah “Jed” Bartlet.

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‘Incestuous fantasy’: Netflix hit crime drama rekindles debate over Menendez murders

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Thousands, many born after the 1989 murders, have sprung to defence of Lyle and Erik Menendez since broadcast of Monsters

It was a crime that shocked and captivated a nation.

On the night of 20 August 1989, Lyle and Erik Menendez, then 21 and 18, stormed into their Beverly Hills mansion, shot their father, Jose, five times at point-blank range in the back of his head, and their mother, Kitty, nine times, including in the face as she tried to crawl away. In a frantic 911 emergency call, they then claimed that somebody had killed their parents.

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BBC move to axe Doctors is ‘disastrous’, says screenwriter

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Soap has given opportunities to actors, writers and production staff, says Philip Ralph on last day of filming

A screenwriter has described the decision to axe the daytime drama Doctors as “disastrous” and said soaps are collapsing as he marked the last day of filming the show.

The BBC announced in October the show would end in December this year due to “super inflation in drama production”.

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Disney’s Shōgun breaks mould with careful respect for Japanese culture

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High-budget series with largely Japanese cast avoids well-worn western orientalist fantasies and wins plaudits in Japan

Japanese audiences could have been forgiven for bracing themselves when Disney announced Shōgun, a 10-part adaptation of James Clavell’s classic 1975 novel.

With few exceptions, Hollywood depictions of Japan and the Japanese have relied on one-dimensional characters whose purpose is to confirm cultural stereotypes, set against the backdrop of an inscrutable archipelago whose people have much to learn from the western hero.

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Plans to reform private prosecutions after Post Office Horizon scandal

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Improved oversight and a law to strip organisations of their power to take people to court are among measures gaining cross-party support

Plans to overhaul the growing “cottage industry” of private prosecutions are already being urgently examined by ministers in the wake of the Post Office scandal, including measures that could see untrustworthy bodies barred from pursuing them.

Labour is also understood to be drawing up its own reform package this weekend after the outcry prompted by the Post Office’s use of private prosecutions against more than 700 post office subpostmasters. It means that there is growing scope for a cross-party commitment to complete any reforms after the election.

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Key Post Office Horizon campaigner ‘Mr Bates’ calls for faster compensation

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Victim of software scandal says TV drama has reignited issue as 50 new operators contact lawyers

A former post office operator who led a campaign to fight against wrongful convictions brought by the Post Office has called for compensation for the victims to be sped up after the broadcast of an ITV drama about the scandal.

The Metropolitan police confirmed on Friday the Post Office was under criminal investigation over “potential fraud offences” committed during the Horizon scandal.

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Money Heist writer returns to scene of the crime with prequel Berlin

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Latest project from screenwriter of Netflix’s most watched non-English-language series revisits its most enigmatic character

After a busy few years chronicling fatal Balearic excess in White Lines and crafting the pulpy trafficking drama Sky Rojo, the Spanish screenwriter and producer Álex Pina is returning to one of his most famous criminal creations.

La Casa de Papel, known in English as Money Heist, grew into a global TV phenomenon after Netflix picked it up from the Spanish network Antena 3 in late 2017. By 2020, Pina’s pacey, violent and stylish series about a gang of red-overalled, Salvador Dalí-masked robbers who target the royal mint and then the Bank of Spain had become the platform’s most watched non-English-language series.

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Princess Latifa abduction ordeal to be turned into TV drama

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British writer Lindsay Shapero working with former friend of Latifa on four-part series called The Escape

If a screenwriter were to write a fictional drama about a 21st-century princess’s escape, recapture, imprisonment and release, it might be dismissed as too unbelievable. But the real-life story of Dubai’s Princess Latifa and her escape, recapture, imprisonment and release has inspired a new drama.

A four-part series titled The Escape will go into production next year. Its award-winning British writer, Lindsay Shapero, has been working closely with Tiina Jauhiainen, who as Latifa’s close friend helped her flee Dubai in 2018, only for both women to be forcibly returned and interrogated.

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Tributes paid to ‘wonderful’ drama teacher Anna Scher, who has died at 78

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Kathy Burke and Daniel Kaluuya among alumni of her London school, credited with making stars of often working-class students

Tributes have been paid to Anna Scher, an influential drama teacher who taught actors including Kathy Burke, Daniel Kaluuya and Adam Deacon, after the announcement of her death on Sunday, aged 78.

Scher, who had taught children in north London to act for more than 50 years, has been credited with creating numerous stars, and was known for championing people from a working-class background. The Anna Scher Theatre (AST), which started as a drama club in January 1968, has a long list of well-known alumni, including Pauline Quirke, Linda Robson, Martin Kemp, Natalie Cassidy, Patsy Palmer, Sid Owen, Jake Wood, Reggie Yates and Brooke Kinsella.

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Billy Miller, star of The Young and the Restless and General Hospital, dies aged 43

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Actor’s manager says the Daytime Emmy-winning star ‘was struggling with manic depression’ when he died in Austin, Texas

Billy Miller, a Daytime Emmy-winning actor best known for his roles on US soaps The Young and the Restless and General Hospital, has died aged 43.

In a statement to Variety, his manager, Marnie Sparer, said Miller “was struggling with manic depression when he died”.

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Jane Whittenshaw, EastEnders and Call the Midwife actor, dies

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TV regular died last weekend with her husband Hugh and carers at her side, her agents have announced

Jane Whittenshaw, the actor best known for appearing in EastEnders and Call the Midwife, has died.

A statement from her agent said she died last weekend, with her husband, Hugh, best friend and carers at her side. The cause of death has not been disclosed.

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Emmerdale actor Meg Johnson dies aged 86

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Soap star who also acted in Coronation Street, Brookside and the musical Chicago, had dementia, her family said

The soap opera stalwart Meg Johnson has died at the age of 86 after having had dementia “for the last few years”, it has been confirmed.

The death of Johnson, who had played Pearl Ladderbanks in Emmerdale since 2003, was announced in a joint statement from her family, the talent agency Jorg Betts Associates and the ITV show.

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Actor Stephen Tompkinson found not guilty of grievous bodily harm

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DCI Banks lead actor was accused of punching drunk man making noise outside his house

The actor Stephen Tompkinson has been found not guilty of inflicting grievous bodily harm by punching a drunk man who was making noise outside his house.

The DCI Banks lead actor had been accused of inflicting grievous bodily harm on Karl Poole on 30 May 2021.

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Lavish Flemish epic grips Belgians – but is it history or propaganda?

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The Story of Flanders, spanning 38,000 years of the region’s history, is funded by the nationalist government and is accused of stretching the truth

It is blockbuster TV, with Romans and Vikings, knights and Neanderthals, trains and the trenches of the first world war – and a hefty dose of political controversy.

The Story of Flanders, a 10-part history series airing in Belgium’s northern region until March, has been a cultural landmark. But the apparently lavish funding from the region’s government, run by the separatist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) party, which seeks to make Flanders independent from Belgium, has led to accusations of propaganda.

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Annie Wersching, best known for role in TV series 24, dies at 45

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Actor appeared in two series of the thriller as well as Star Trek: Picard, and was reportedly diagnosed with cancer in 2020

The actor Annie Wersching, best known for playing FBI agent Renee Walker in the TV series 24, has died at the age of 45.

Wersching died on Sunday morning in Los Angeles following a battle with cancer, her publicist told the Associated Press. The type of cancer was not specified.

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