"Game Change"

I just saw the trailer for HBO's new television drama, Game Change, based on the 2008 American presidential campaign. The drama, which stars Woody Harrelson, Ed Harris and Julianne Moore, is the story of how Sarah Palin came to be nominated as the Republican Party's candidate for vice-president and how Senator McCain's campaign ultimately ended in defeat for him and victory for Barack Obama. The trailer made me very, very excited to see it and the performances, script and cinematography all look amazing. 

The Return of Ab Fab

Huzzah! Word on the street is that a brand new series of Absolutely Fabulous will be made for the winter of 2011.

For some of the show's best bits, cackle below.

Jennifer Aniston's new ad

Really like this new ad for Smart Water.


I always think it's so funny/bizarre when the media try to paint Jennifer Aniston's life as a tragedy and that she's really unhappy. I don't get that vibe from her at all, in any interviews or anything she ever does. 


Anyway, apparently Jennifer recently got hit with a viral sex tape, allegedly showing her, but in fact showing a porn star that looks like her and in her new ad for Smart Water, she pokes fun at that. This is a great ad.

An Interview with Emerald Fennell

One of Britain's leading newspapers, The Observer, has run an interview with five of the young stars of Channel 4's forthcoming drama Any Human Heart - Freddie Fox, Lydia Wilson, Emerald Fennell, Charity Wakefield and Hugh Skinner.

There's more info about the production and Emerald on a previous post, here.

And the full article is here.

The delicious Emerald's Q&A's were: -

Born in London, the 23-year-old plays Lottie Edgefield, Logan's first wife.

Tell us about Lottie.

She's spoilt, glamorous and very, very posh – an earl's daughter. Logan is dazzled by her whole shtick, but their relationship is a bad idea from the get-go. It was fun to do; we scream at each other a lot and it gave us the opportunity to run the whole gamut of a relationship in a short time. I like flouncing about and pouting and being spoiled, so Lottie suited me to a T.

Where have we seen you before?

As Rachel, one of Howard Marks's girlfriends in Mr Nice. I lounged around in 60s clothes and smoked a lot. It was my first job and mostly improvised. The director gave us fake joints, sat us in a fake dorm, and said: "Away you go."

What 20th-century age would you like to live through?

The roaring 20s, because everyone was so mortal then and really lived. And of course, being a girl, I would have loved the clothes.

Which 20th-century figure would you like to meet?

WB Yeats. He was probably a lunatic, with all that automatic writing stuff, but I'd like to sit at his feet and listen to him recite. Marilyn Monroe would be great too. I could ask her for makeup tips.

What do you do when you're not working?

I'm writing a novel – to keep my mind working and make sure I don't lounge in bed eating chocolates until three in the afternoon. My dad [jeweller Theo Fennell] is very supportive.

What would you like to do next?

More theatre. Something new and exciting and filthy at the Royal Court, maybe.

"Any Human Heart" trailer

I'm so excited to be able to post a link to Channel 4's new television series, Any Human Heart, an adaptation of the bestselling novel by William Boyd. The novel is published by Penguin (naturally!) and you can order it here. And the new television version of it has one of my favourite people, Emerald Fennell, amongst its glitteringly delightful cast. Very exciting. 

Emerald and I first met at Oxford just before Christmas of 2006, when I was directing my second student play  there (glamorous, I know) and she auditioned on the second day of auditions, as one of 83 girls competing for the three main roles in my favourite play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams.

 

We got to speak properly for the first time at the call-backs, when I accidentally scheduled the next auditionee an hour after Emerald's audition was due to end. So, she kept me company and  we chatted for a while, during which time a beautiful friendship was born. I was very relieved that, at last, someone agreed with me that my fear of flying was more than justified. It's not how often it happens, but how bad it will be when it happens. (Even worse if the plane nose dives, then rights itself, and you're the person who wet yourself mid-plummet and have to live with that shame for the rest of the flight.)  Or unbuckled some aged granny next to you and tried to use her as a human shield, then have to explain to her why you did that when the plane doesn't actually crash... Food for thought.

 

Perhaps some of my favourite memories of our time in Oxford include us, bedraggled and exhausted sitting, without shame, with various 18th century costumes and props slung over our arms as we waited for a post-rehearsal supper table to open up at the Chiang Mai restaurant. Good times. Less endearingly, on my part, there was an incident during a rehearsal for Dangerous Liaisons in a music room at Worcester College, when I - very tired and stressed with the dress-rehearsal approaching - was interrupted by someone banging away on a defunct drum kit behind me. For some reason, I assumed it was my friend Johnny Rhodes, so I spun round in high fury and snapped, "Johnny, for f***'s sake! What are you doing?" Only to discover that it was Emerald on said drums; at which point, my demeanour changed entirely and I beamed, "Oh, it's you, Emmy. Well done!"  I may even have applauded her slightly. Johnny meanwhile, from the far corner of the room, glowered with seething fury from behind his butler's outfit, as Emerald gave me an encore performance.

 

Anyway, Any Human Heart is a fantastic book with a wonderful cast for the adaptation, which was written by William Boyd. A great idea, I think. It will be broadcast later this year by Channel 4 over four weeks.  So do look out for it! Amongst the cast are Oscar winner Jim Broadbent, Pirates of the Caribbean 4's Sam Claflin, Pride and Prejudice's Matthew McFayden, Hayley Atwell, Sex and the City's Kim Cattrall, Tom Hollander as Edward VIII, Gillian Anderson as Wallis Simpson and The West Wing's Richard Schiff. 

I'm obviously hugely excited about this, especially since it seems absolutely no time at all since I was directing Emerald in a student production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Dangerous Liaisons. And giving her the first ever three chapters of Popular which I had written, to see if she thought they were any good. I'm obviously pretty grateful for the feedback I received right after she had finished reading them. She was also the first ever person to read aloud the role of Imogen, when I wanted to hear how everything sounded. Massively enjoyable day.

 

Drummer Johnny, on the other hand, failed to read them at all and got away with saying, "Yeah, yeah, I loved the party in Chapter ...." And inserted any number he could think of. A clever strategy which worked until he accidentally hit upon the one chapter in the book sans party.

It's incredibly exciting that Any Human Heart is finished and I can't wait to see it.

The trailer for Any Human Heart can be watched here.

Lead character profile: CATHERINE O'ROURKE

The first in-depth character profile about the nine leads of Popular begins with the popular girl's favourite punching-bag and technical besty, Catherine O'Rourke. Catherine is very pretty, she's quite rich and she definitely likes to shop - so they can't exclude her. Plus, if they kicked her out of the group, she'd probably die and she's been around forever and stuff. BUT she's also a clutz, with zero common sense and totally annoying. She's a definite stalker when it comes to guys and a serial romantic. Pathetic, much, Catherine?

But, even though the popular girls amuse themselves by occasionally torching Catherine like she's an ant and they're the mean kids with a magnifying class, half the school would still give their right arms to be able to sit where she does at lunch-time. 

BASIC STATS

FULL NAME: Catherine Teresa Anne Dymphna O'Rourke


BIRTHDAY: April 8th


HOME TOWN: Cultra, BT18


HAIR COLOUR: Light brown


MEASUREMENTS: 5' 3'', Size 10


RELIGION: Christian - Roman Catholic


PLACE OF WORSHIP: Saint Colmcille's Roman Catholic Church, Holywood


MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT: Wearing monogrammed velour hot pants to Gym class

FAMILY

FATHER: Sean O'Rourke, property developer (47)

MOTHER: Mary O'Rourke, housewife (44)

SIBLINGS: Orla (18) and Caoimhe (10)

CATHERINE'S EDUCATIONAL INFO

PRIMARY SCHOOL: Hollywood Primary School (Aged 4 - 11)

SECONDARY SCHOOL: Mount Olivet Grammar School (Aged 11 - now)

SCHOOL HOUSE: Stormont

FORM TEACHER: Mrs. Vaughn (Spanish Department)

G.C.S.E subjects: Art, Chemistry, English Language, English Literature, Geography, History, Home Economics, Mathematics, Religion  and Spanish

PAST RELATIONSHIPS

BEST FRIENDS: Once, she was definitely besties with Aisleagh McGorian, before Aisleagh transferred to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 3rd year. Catherine does actually have quite a lot of friends outside the popular group, a lot of whom seem to think that Catherine's life is quite glamorous.... Well, it's nice for Catherine to be clung to once in a while, rather than to do the clinging like she usually does, hence why she sits next to Cristyn Evans ("Clingy Cristyn") in Spanish class. But, all her close friends are in the popular clique. She'd probably say her best friend is the crown princess of curl, Kerry Davison. Whether Kerry would say the same thing back is questionable.

PAST BOYFRIENDS:  Chris O'Shea (5 days) - never throw a strop if someone won't go into a Facebook relationship with you after 4 days, because this is what happens.

Eoghann O'Hare (3 weeks) - bless her. This time, she made it to two and a half weeks before the Facebook strop hit.

Oran Cahill (12 days) 

Sean Flanagan (2 months) 

Padraig Hamill (6 weeks) - very bad break-up, Catherine likened it to "having my heart ripped out backwards and jumped on... It was like so bad and stuff."

CURRENT CRUSH: Mark Kingston (standard hotty in her year; he's always very polite to her. She interprets this as a sign that they're meant to get married.)

CATHERINE'S OTHER PERSONAL INFO

FAVOURITE COLOUR: Baby blue

FAVOURITE TV SHOW/S: Will & Grace, Australia's Next Top Model and The Hills

FAVOURITE BOOK/S: Anything by Rachel Gibson or Stephenie Meyer, the Harry Potter books

FAVOURITE MOVIE/S: Madagascar, The Notebook, The Land Before Time

FAVOURITE FOOD: Italian

STAR SIGN: Aries

In the photograph: Lynsey Russell and Emily-Rose Conlon during rehearsals for Magdalene (2007.) Catherine would approve of the sunnies and the shopping bags.

Oops! on finale of "Australia's Next Top Model"

The glamorous finale of Australia's Next Top Model, which has already garnered a reputation for being both more critical and more realistic than its America parent, hit the mother of all snags this year, when host Sarah Murdoch announced the wrong winner in the live televised event.


Despite the mortification of both the host and the actual winner, I have to say the eventual runner-up definitely did cope with true grace and style once the mess was discovered.


For the full televised clip, watch from the Guardian's website here.


Imogen and Meredith would LOVE this!