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Harry Potter, the wizarding world of witchcraft and spells, has always been full of magic, mystery, and the occasional flying car, but leave it to the internet to take things way off the Hogwarts Express rails. While Jk Rowling gave us enough plot twists to keep our Patronus busy, fans are theorizing to dangerously wild levels. Yep, you heard it right.

From “Ron being a seer” to “Hedwig faking her death”, no theory of fans is too bonkers. But the latest one? Well, that will definitely make you cringe and think too deeply. The theory is so absurd that it might just ruin the way you see one legendary Hogwarts figure forever. And honestly, if you thought Divination class was wild, wait till you hear this theory.

The craziest fan theory on a Harry Potter character Maggie Smith in Harry Potter (Credits- Warner Bros)

Professor Minerva McGonagall- stern Transfiguration master,...

“Live from London, it’s Saturday Night!”

That phrase may not be familiar yet, but that will change next year when NBC’s long-running live sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live hits the U.K. with an official local adaptation.

Comcast-owned Sky and SNL creator Lorne Michaels are taking the venerable old comedy institution across the Atlantic, with Saturday Night Live UK set to air sometime in 2026. The live, fast-paced sketch format will remain the same for the adaptation, with a star-studded lineup of hosts and musical acts complementing a cast of British comedians and comedy writers.

More details on when SNL UK will debut, as well as news on casting, hosts and musical guests will be announced in the coming months.

“For over 50 years Saturday Night Live has held a unique position in TV and in our collective culture, reflecting and creating the global conversation all under the...

I get it. Adaptations are hard. Turning a hit book into a movie is tricky, especially when the books in question — in this case, the "Harry Potter" series — are very, very long. The longest "Potter" book, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," contains a whopping 870 pages in its US hardcover edition, so obviously not every single detail is bound to make it during the adaptation process. Still, the "Harry Potter" film franchise, which spanned eight movies, left a lot behind, and some of it is pretty important!

There are actually a whole bunch of "Harry Potter" plotlines and characters that didn't make it from the books to the movies, but here I'm going to try and note some of the most important ones.

As Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) learn magic at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, they meet a lot of people.

It's important to remember the ongoing controversial statements by the creator of the Harry Potter franchise. Cbr supports the hard work of industry professionals on properties fans know and love, and the wider world of Harry Potter that fans have adopted as their own. You can find Cbr's continuing coverage of Rowling here.

The Harry Potter series is full of beloved characters who will be remembered for the rest of time, but it also had its fair share of overrated characters who got too much attention. These characters, while complex and interesting, were elevated to a mythical status by fans, ignoring their innate flaws and shortcomings. Some of them were painted to be heroes despite having done some questionable things in their story.

From Draco Malfoy, who was thought of as a complicated anti-hero but lacked any real self-awareness, to Cedric Diggory, who was around for too little time in the series,...

Since the success of old-school sitcoms like I Love Lucy and All In the Family, comedy has proven one of TV's most successful genres, with some shows running for over a decade. As impressive as the genre's longevity is, some audiences prefer shorter series that they can enjoy across a single day. A shorter show gives the audience something easy to digest, and some series surpass the quality of long sitcoms in a mere six episodes.

Comedy shows come in a range of formats, tones and styles, from dark comedy to witty satire and everything in between. While the classic weekly sitcom formula is still king, sometimes more can be said with less, and these shorter shows allow more focus on character building. Long shows always risk falling into a repetitive cycle of unoriginal stories, while compressing more into less forces the best out of writers.

Police Squad! Spawned the...

It's important to remember the ongoing controversial statements by the creator of the Harry Potter franchise. Cbr supports the hard work of industry professionals on properties fans know and love, and the wider world of Harry Potter that fans have adopted as their own. You can find Cbr's continuing coverage of Rowling here.

Few other franchises are as beloved as Harry Potter, and the boy wizard's story being adapted into movies contributed greatly to its popularity. Harry's life changed overnight when he learned that he was a wizard and the custodian of a legacy that called on him to defeat Lord Voldemort. Seeing this on screen was one of the most exciting moments in history, but the films diverge in several key ways from the original book series by J.K. Rowling.

Adapting books as lengthy and detailed as Harry Potter is always a challenge, and several big changes had to...

The Harry Potter books are coming back to life with a TV remake, which has naturally drawn a lot of criticism, but this ignores one harsh reality about the movies. The Harry Potter books became a worldwide phenomenon in the late 1990s and the 2000s, and the story of The Boy Who Lived continues to have a solid and loyal fanbase. Although over a decade has passed since the Harry Potter movie saga ended, Harrys story is now getting a remake in the shape of a TV show, set to be released on Max.

A Harry Potter TV show was announced to be in development in 2021, but not much is known about how it will cover the books. At the time of writing, the Harry Potter TV show is in the process of finding its main cast, but some of the actors from the movies have expressed their very honest opinions about the remake.

Blackadder is one of the most famous and certainly one of the funniest sitcoms to come out of the United Kingdom. It tells the story of the Blackadder clan, all of whom are played by Rowan Atkinson and named "Edmund," and their adventures through history. Unfortunately, none of the Blackadders are remotely nice people, which could be why all their cunning plans tend to fail.

Blackadder got off to a bad start. Its very first season had Blackadder as more of a buffoon, and his sidekick Baldrick (Tony Robinson) as the smart one. But the show was miraculously granted a second season, and this one changed the dynamic up completely. This was one of the wisest choices in the history of sitcoms, and Blackadder was a smash hit from then on.

"Private Plane" Featured a Reteaming of British Comedy Icons

Rik Mayall had been in Blackadder before, in the season...

Peeves the Poltergeist was a prominent character in the Harry Potter book series, so where was he in the movies? The mischievous poltergeist of Hogwarts appears in all seven novels as a disruptive force, but he was notably left out of the film franchise. Throughout the books, Peeves causes constant trouble for Hogwarts students and staff alike, blocking corridors with his hijinks and coming up with nasty songs. However, his exclusion from the Harry Potter films wasn't always the plan, with actor Rik Mayall filming never-seen scenes as the poltergeist for the first Harry Potter movie.

The Peeves Harry Potter movie's absence was glaring among fans. The character of Peeves was a constant trouble-making presence in the halls of Hogwarts throughout the books, teasing the students and often targeting Filch. He craved chaos and wasn't opposed to vandalism or throwing tangible objects. During the Battle of Hogwarts, Peeves fought to...

A new month brings new BritBox arrivals for British TV lovers!

Before “Taskmaster” returns to Channel 4 on Thursday, Sept. 12, starting binging new arrival “Man Down,” created/written by and starring Greg Davies. The full series will come to the streamer throughout the month, with each season of the four-season series premiering on Mondays beginning Sept. 2.

Crawl into the criminal underbelly with the International Emmy Award-winning three-part crime thriller “Des,” starring David Tennant as infamous Scottish serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Also new this month are Season 5 of crime drama “The Bay” and Season 3 of police procedural “The Tower,” which will begin streaming new weekly episodes this month.

Ready to watch? Find out The Streamable’s top picks for what’s new, and find out everything coming to BritBox throughout September!

7-Day Free Trial $8.99+ / month BritBox.com What are the 3 Best Shows, Movies, and Specials Coming to BritBox in September 2024? “Man Down” Seasons 1–4 | Mondays,...

Dawn French is returning to the BBC to star in sitcom Can You Keep A Secret?, and here are the details.

Dawn French came to prominence alongside comedy partner Jennifer Saunders in the alternative comedy boom of the 1980s, where they honed their craft at The Comedy Store and, later, The Comic Strip. That was alongside the likes of Alexei Sayle, Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, Peter Richardson and Nigel Planer.

After appearing in The Young Ones, several Comic Strip films and Ruby Wax’s sitcom Girls On Top, French and Saunders starred in their eponymous sketch show, which ran on and off for over 30 years.

While Saunders became a solo star with Absolutely Fabulous, French played Gereldine Granger in Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer’s The Vicar of Dibley, which grew into one of Britain’s most beloved sitcoms.

According to Deadline, French is returning to the BBC to star...

Jennifer Saunders reunites with the cast of Absolutely Fabulous for a new documentary called Inside Out. Here are the details…

Following the huge success of Bottom: Exposed earlier this year, Gold have commissioned a similar feature length documentary about Absolutely Fabulous called Inside Out. While Bottom: Exposed featured many interviews and talking heads, Inside Out reunites most of the cast – Whitfield passed away in 2018.

Series co-star Jennifer Saunders said to the British Comedy Guide, “I loved making Ab Fab but I can’t remember a great deal, so much of this retrospective is a revelation to me. Thank you Gold for this kind and helpful programme”.

Its other co-star, Joanna Lumley, added: “It was a fabulous wander down memory lane by actresses who only have the faintest grip on reality. Really thrilling, and I hope vastly entertaining. I loved every second”.

Saunders, along with double act partner Dawn French, began...

The iconic Carry On franchise is being rebooted with Carry On Beside The Sea, here are the details.

The Carry On franchise is a uniquely British institution. Essentially its own sub-genre, the series began in 1958 with William Hartnell and Bob Monkhouse in Carry On Sergeant.

Gradually, the films evolved into innuendo-laden broad farces, which is a stereotype that might be unfair but isn’t entirely untrue. That said, Carry On Camping was the most popular film at the UK box office in 1969, and Carry On Screaming is a brilliant horror parody. The films reached a rather limp conclusion in 1992 with Carry On Columbus, which despite including contemporary comic talent of the time like Rik Mayall and Julian Clary, bombed at the box office.

There have been various unmade Carry On film ideas mooted over the years, as we examined here. The most recent attempt was a script called Carry On Doctors,...

The editing room is a brutal battlefield, and sometimes, many great scenes were cut off from the final version just like what happened to Rik Mayall. Yes, he was originally in the Harry Potter movie, but his scene was cut off. The worst part here was he took his children to the premiere expecting they would watch their father on the big screen.

Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone / Warner Bros

As children, it would have been the greatest thing in the world – to watch the first ever Harry Potter movie and see your dad portray a beloved role. Apparently, the late comedian could not bear to tell them the truth.

Rik Mayall Was Supposed To Join The Harry Potter Franchise

In an old interview via YouTube, actor Rik Mayall revealed he was part of the 2001 film Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone.

Enjoying the Harry Potter TV show will mean finally understanding why minor characters like Bill Weasley and Oliver Wood are so important. The Harry Potter series' cultural impact is undeniable, but the TV show has a chance to fill in the gaps left by the original films. Characters like Peeves and Madam Poppy Pomfrey had significant roles in the books, and the TV show should give them the recognition they deserve.

The upcoming Harry Potter TV show has the opportunity to include some brilliant minor characters that the original films failed to focus on. HBO's Harry Potter TV show will once again tell the story of Hogwarts' Golden Trio Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger, who were played by Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson in the original movies. The Harry Potter books were groundbreaking upon their release and created an incredible cultural impact worldwide, with audiences falling...

Alongside feature length documentary Bottom: Exposed, two extended episodes of Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson’s sitcom will debut on Gold this month.

As far as double acts go, to a certain generation Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall are at the apex of anarchic comedy.

Beginning their career at the start of the alternative comedy movement, performing alongside the likes of Hale and Pace, Ben Elton and Andy De La Tour, their violent Twentieth Century Coyote stage act went quickly from The Comedy Store to The Comic Strip, which itself made the leap to television with their now iconic first film Five Go Mad In Dorset. It was quite the transformative time for television comedy, as it was broadcast on Channel 4 exactly a week before the first episode of The Young Ones debuted on rival channel BBC Two.

In 1991, meanwhile, Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson debuted their masterpiece, Bottom.

The long awaited follow up to Rob Reiner’s comedy classic This Is Spinal Tap has begun filming, lots of musical cameos have also been confirmed.

There is only one comedy film which turns the laughs up to eleven, and that is if course Rob Reiner’s 1984 classic This Is Spinal Tap. Though technically The Comic Strip team of Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, Nigel Planer, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French and Peter Richardson got there first a year earlier with the excellent Bad News, which is well worth seeking out of you’ve never had the pleasure.

This Is Spinal Tap is often cited as one of the funniest films ever made, with musicians frequently applauding the accuracy of several scenes, from petty band squabbles to getting lost backstage and over the top props onstage.

The cast – Reiner, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest – will reprise their roles as documentarian Martin ‘Marty’ Dibergi,...

Hundreds of Cbeebies Bedtime Stories will soon be added to BBC iPlayer, and details of what’s happening are here.

The art of telling a story has been utilised for the television screen ever since the medium began. Jackanory is probably the best example, whether it was the much missed Bernard Cribbins spinning a yarn or the great Rik Mayall reading Road Dahl’s George’s Marvellous Medicine with a feverish fervour, it is perhaps the most primal form of drama there is, and is integral to children’s development.

Bedtime Stories is a kind of modern take on Jackanory for pre-schoolers, often managing to tempt huge stars of stage, screen, music and everything inbetween to Cbeebies to read a story. The BBC is making hundreds of episodes from the past available on iPlayer too.

Some of the readers you will be able to watch include (deep breath):

Harry Styles,...

When two stories with similar premises debut around the same time, awkwardness is natural. We're about to have the latest case of this in 2024.

On one hand, "If" (short for "Imaginary Friend"). He may not be Reed Richards in "Fantastic Four" as some had anticipated, but John Krasinski has leveraged his success directing "A Quiet Place" and its sequel. Now, with "If," he's pivoting away from horror to a family-friendly comedy. "If" is about a young girl named Bea (Cailey Fleming) who can see people's imaginary friends. She then discovers her middle-aged neighbor (Ryan Reynolds) has the same power. "If" is set for release in May 2024.

Even as Krasinski flexes his directorial skills in a different genre, a horror film about imaginary friends is releasing a couple of months earlier on March 8. "Imaginary," the latest jump scare monster movie from Blumhouse, follows a mother, Jessica (DeWanda Wise), and her stepdaughter...

Dumb And Dumber’s Peter Farrelly’s latest film is Ricky Stanicky for Amazon Prime Video. Here’s the trailer and some details…

The Farrelly Brothers will forever be synonymous with slapstick, gross-out comedies like Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary, both of which are, gag for gag, among the funniest films of the 1990s.

Apart from belated sequel Dumb and Dumber To in 2014, the brothers have concentrated on solo projects. In recent years, Peter Farrelly has directed acclaimed 2018 film Green Book, while Bobby directed underrated 2023 comedy Champions.

Peter’s latest film is Ricky Stanicky, a comedy which sounds a bit like Drop Dead Fred or Ted. The synopsis reads as follows:

When three childhood best friends pull a prank gone wrong, they invent the imaginary Ricky Stanicky to get them out of trouble! Twenty years after creating this “friend,” Dean, Jt, and Wes still use the nonexistent...

The Harry Potter remake has the opportunity to include Peeves the Poltergeist, a beloved character from the books, in the screen adaptation, but casting will be a challenge due to the previous actor originally meant for the role. Peeves added comedic relief and flavor to the Hogwarts Castle in the books, and his banter with the school's staff was an enjoyable part of the Harry Potter series. Including Peeves in the reboot is important to stay faithful to the books and maintain the essence of the magical world. Though the initial actor for Peeves, Rik Mayall, was perfect for the role, his unexpected passing means a recasting is necessary. Finding an actor with comedic talent and the ability to fill Mayall's shoes will be difficult but crucial for the success of the reboot series.

The Harry Potter remake is the perfect opportunity to finally include Peeves the Poltergeist in a screen adaptation.

Released in 1991, Drop Dead Fred is an American comedy starring Phoebe Cates as a woman having just been left by her partner, and featured Rik Mayall as her repressed childhood imaginary friend/imp/demon. Most famed now for English comic actor Mayall's hurried and exhaustingly manic performance as the red-haired/green-suited Fred, the movie itself has found a second lease in life through its take on mental health in the most creative, appropriately imaginative, and colorful of ways.

Time is a healer. And Drop Dead Fred is an entity that, with a changing and now more nuanced approach to mental health in general, can have its straight jacket torn off and its subject inside re-analyzed. On release, the film was pretty much universally panned. Writing for The Chicago Tribune at the time, Gene Siskel had no love lost as he pitied the movie with zero stars and called it "easily...

Peeves the Poltergeist was sadly cut from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, but there are several details about the Peeves Harry Potter movie scene. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone kicked off the magical Warner Bros. franchise in 2001. The book and the movie based on it set up a hugely successful franchise that lives on decades later. While the original movies remain beloved films for countless fans around the world, Warner Bros. Discovery just announced it is bringing the Boy Wizard back in a new format - with a streaming series on the rebranded Max.

However, there were many things from the books that couldn't make it to the big screen. With under three hours for most of the movies, there was no way to incorporate everything from each novel, which grew longer and longer as the series went on. This means a lot ended up omitted from the movies,...

Blackadder star Tony Robinson has teased the show’s potential return for a special episode to mark its 40th anniversary.

Robinson played Baldrick in the BBC comedy series, which aired from 1983 to 1989.

The historical comedy was written by Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson and starred Atkinson and Robinson in every series, with comic actors including Tim McInnerny, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Miranda Richardson and Rik Mayall appearing intermittently in other series.

With the show marking its 40th anniversary this year, fans have questioned whether a reunion could be on the cards.

Appearing on Lorraine on Monday (10 April), Robinson was asked if the group were planning to get back together by guest host Christine Lampard.

“All I’m gonna say is, everybody likes to celebrate a 40th anniversary, don’t they?

“So there must be some fresh way we can celebrate our 40th birthday, wouldn’t you think?” he responded.

Last month,...

This list applies to UK streaming services

If you’ve had a tough day and need a laugh, this list’ll see you right. These are the British big guns. Big comedy guns, firing… laughter-bullets! Ak-47s of mirth, spraying chuckles through… look, yes, okay, that’s terrible. A stop to that. Agreed. We’re all just trying to do our best here.

Helping us to keep a grip when the world seems a scary place are these excellent British comedies, all available to stream on the UK’s various platforms. Find a bunch of comforting and familiar favourites and some newer arrivals below.

We’ll keep this list updated as shows enter and exit the streaming catalogues. Parents may also like a look at our best kids’ TV streaming recommendations, while here are our picks of the best British TV dramas to stream in the UK.

After Life

Ricky Gervais...

Taskmaster seems to be one of those magically perfect TV shows, but of course the root of its genius isn’t magic at all: it’s a whip-smart combination of Alex Horne’s original format, the comedic force of nature that is Greg Davies in the role of the Taskmaster, and relentlessly good casting.

As we’ve said before, there’s no such thing as a bad series of Taskmaster, and we’re sure Series 15 will be no different, but until it arrives, what should fans fill their time watching?

Take a look at these similarly delightful TV shows, including plenty featuring previous Taskmaster series alumni:

Man Down (Channel 4)

Starring the Taskmaster himself Greg Davies, this Channel 4 sitcom centres on his character Dan, a frankly terrible schoolteacher who is having an infinitely amusing midlife crisis. As you can see from the clip above, it’ll please fans of Davies’ scathing takedowns,...

Flatmates have always been a goldmine for sitcoms, but the format was especially abundant on British TV in the '90s. You had Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmonson beating the crap out of each other in ultra-violent slapstick fashion in "Bottom," Ben Chaplin playing an agoraphobic roomie from hell in "Game On," and two guys talking about boobs and drinking beer in the roaringly popular and very laddish "Men Behaving Badly." Even "Red Dwarf" was basically the same formula, just set on a spacecraft three million years in the future where one flatmate was an android and another evolved from the ship's cat. Then you had "Friends" on its immensely successful Channel 4 run, like an affluent and super good-looking acquaintance wafting into a party full of slightly down-at-heel guests to dazzle with its slick writing and to-die-for New York apartments.

Each show had its own specific style, but nothing...

Original “Harry Potter” director Chris Columbus has been making the press rounds in celebration of the 20th anniversary of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” but it wasn’t until an interview with The Wrap this week that he called on distributor Warner Bros. to release his original three-hour cut of the movie. The theatrical cut of “Sorcerer’s Stone” ran two hours and 32 minutes. The film’s “Ultimate Edition” only runs seven minutes longer. A full three-hour cut of “Sorcerer’s Stone” was test screened and, according to Columbus, was a smash hit with kids.

“We knew that the film worked because we did a couple of previews,” Columbus said. “Particularly a Chicago preview where our first cut was a three-hour cut. Parents afterwards said it was too long, the kids said it was too short. I thought, well, the kids presumably have a shorter attention span so this is a good thing.

Contains spoilers for the Taskmaster series 11 finale

The suit. The ‘tache. The smile. The preternatural speed with which he’s able to snatch a marshmallow from an opponent using a pair of kitchen tongs. There’s a great deal to admire about Taskmaster series 11 contestant Mike Wozniak, so admire him we will. Right here. Starting now. Tick tock: it’s Wozniak o’clock.

Who is Mike Wozniak?

He’s an absolute bloody milk guzzler, that’s who.

Like Harry Hill, Graham Chapman, Graeme Garden and Paul Sinha before him, Mike Wozniak trained and worked as a doctor before becoming a stand-up. Healthcare’s loss was comedy’s gain. His 2013 Edinburgh Fringe show, in which Wozniak played an outmoded light entertainer, received a Best Comedy Show nomination.

On the subject of Edinburgh, series 11 isn’t Mike Wozniak’s first Taskmaster experience. Before he developed the format for television, Alex Horne performed...

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone hit theaters on November 16th, 2001, kicking off the hugely successful eight-film series that dominated the box office during the 2000s. The Chris Columbus movie introduced the world to Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson and has continued to entertain new generations long after its theatrical run ended.

But said theatrical run has just had a sudden spurt of life. In some territories, cinemas are reopening, but with major blockbusters still delayed, they’re struggling to fill their schedules. As such, we’ve seen many classic movies revived for theatrical runs, with Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone being re-released in international markets over the weekend of August 14th.

The release saw it earn a million dollars, which means it belatedly joins the $1 billion club, now having a new lifetime box office total of $1,001,260,000. This makes it the second Harry Potter film to break the billion mark,...

‘Avengers: Endgame’ helmers Joe and Anthony Russo just can’t keep away from the world of comics, the filmmaking duo are set to produce a documentary series highlighting the Marvel Vs. DC rivalry.

Inspired by Reed Tucker’s book ‘Slugfest: Inside the Epic, 50-year Battle Between Marvel and DC.‘, the series will explore the heated rivalry between the two comic publishers which transformed the marketplace from Marvel going from obscurity to dominating the cinemas of today, to DC with its big film success in the 80s and 90s along with some recent hits and major footprint in television with no less than six live-action series on the air.

The documentary, which will air on streaming service Quibi, will highlight little-known stories of the men and women who were behind the creation of some of the best-known and most revered characters in the world will share their stories and reflect on...

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) today announced that Pedro Almódovar (Pain and Glory) and Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse) will feature in their 10th annual Screenwriters’ Lecture Series alongside Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story), Bong Joon Ho (Parasite) and Céline Sciamma (Portrait of a Lady on Fire).

Taking place at Curzon cinemas in Mayfair and Soho from 30 November to 12 December, the Screenwriters’ Lecture Series exists to celebrate screenwriters’ authorial contribution to film and gives esteemed writers a platform to share highlights and insights from their careers with an audience of film-lovers and their peers.

The 10th annual series begins on Saturday 30 November with a lecture from Pedro Almódovar, five-time BAFTA-winning screenwriter, director and producer. Almodóvar’s works include All About My Mother (1999), which won two BAFTA Awards and an Oscar, Volver (2006), and his latest release Pain and Glory (2019).

Also in news – Rik Mayall Comedy Genius – Take a delve...

Rik Mayall wasn’t just a comedy genius, he was at the fundamental core of British comedy from the 80s’ until his untimely death. ‘Al Pacino: The Movies Behind The Man’ author and broadcaster, Mark Searby sheds light into the creative work of the man in his new book ‘Rik Mayall: Comedy Genius’.

With a career born from frustrations, opinions and political strains of the working class in the 1980s, Mayall and a motley crew of young fresh talent led the uprising of alternative comedy. Taking a lead from Punk music, they took no prisoners. It was politically incorrect, anarchic and stuck two fingers up to the establishment and furthermore, it stood for something. In its new form, Mayall and his compadres had made comedy into a vessel to speak freely and represent the feelings of a fresh, passionate and raw new generation, something that has since been remixed...

Patty Jenkins is now known as the director behind celebrated films “Monster” and “Wonder Woman,” as well as the recent gritty TNT limited drama series “I Am the Night.” But her first passion is comedy — and in particular, surreal, absurdist comedy.

“A lot of my friends who I’d known in the comedy world, in the ’90s, in New York, were shocked [after ‘Monster’ was released],” she told Variety‘s “My Favorite Episode” podcast. “They were sort of like, ‘we all thought you were, like, a comedy person — what happened?'”

Jenkins said she’s been obsessed with comedy since listening repeatedly to Steve Martin’s “Wild and Crazy Guy” album. “There was something about edgy, interesting comedy that always has really delighted me and caught my imagination,” she said. “I always was, all through my youth, going out of my way to find kind of underground, comedic things.”

As she...

It’s rare to see a film that will make you laugh and cry within moments of each other. But Jim Cummings’s Thunder Road is one such movie, as the Sundance hit finally makes its way to UK cinemas.

It’s a masterclass of balancing themes, as a tragic, shocking, hilarious, moving comedy that you won’t be forgetting in a hurry. To celebrate the film’s release we sat down with Cummings to discuss his influences – which come from Britain, citing the likes of Armando Iannucci and Rik Mayall, while he also talks about risk-taking, which we see a fair bit of in this picture. This naturally leads into a quick chat about the scene where his character slaps a corpse (naturally), and he also speaks about his future and what he has in the pipeline…

Watch the full interview below:

Synopsis

Jim Cummings stars as a police...

Roddick was an author, academic, industry consultant and publisher as well as a journalist.

Tributes from many different sections of the film business have been paid to former Screen International and Moving Pictures editor Nick Roddick, who died on New Year’s Day aged 73.

“I have to say for me he was a classic British rock and roll type of guy,” Berlinale festival director Dieter Kosslick said of Roddick. “He looked a little like Abbey Road… He was very cool and he always had this humour I really liked.”

Kosslick, who first met Roddick in the late 1980s, had one...

Mark Harrison Nov 20, 2018

Join us on an exhausting trivia tour of the movie adaptations of the Harry Potter series and Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them.

This article comes from Den of Geek UK.

Filling in the backstory of J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald is the tenth film in the franchise to date. Coming after the epic filmmaking endeavor that saw the seven Harry Potter books turned into global blockbusters, there's a heck of a lot to look at in terms of development, behind the scenes trivia, and details in the films themselves.

Just in case you're headed to a themed pub quiz any time soon, we've collected just 150 of these facts for you. Hopefully, it's a mix of some stuff you know, some stuff you've never noticed before, and something or other than will give you an edge over those guys at...

Who needs CGI when you have that transformation in An American Werewolf in London? And who better to inject some dark comedy into the horror genre than director John Landis, who was fresh off of Animal House and The Blues Brothers? Here we'll take a look at 10 killer facts about An American Werewolf in London.

Teen Wolf

John Landis was barely old enough to vote when he first came up with the idea for An American Werewolf in London. 18 year-old Landis was working as a production assistant in 1969 when he conceived the idea, but nobody wanted to make his script throughout the following decade. It wasn't until his other successes that he was able to move forward, just in time for the early '80s renaissance of werewolf movies.

The Blues Brothers

Producers originally pushed Landis to cast Dan Aykroyd as David and John Belushi as Jack. David Naughton was most recognizable from Dr.

To celebrate the release of Disney’s new film Patrick, we had the pleasure of meeting the leading star himself, the pug Harley. Naturally, he didn’t say an awful lot, but thankfully he was sat next to the film’s real lead, Beattie Edmondson. We spoke about everything pug with the actress as well as the film’s director Mandie Fletcher.

Edmondson – who is the daughter of British comedy legends Jennifer Saunders and Ade Edmondson – discusses her initial connection with Harley, and what it was like collaborating with a pug. She also told us whether the pair have stayed in touch, and what it is that makes dogs such special companions.

Fletcher also spoke about the challenges of directing a pug, and what a joy it was to have Edmondson on board, and why she felt compelled to convince Disney to take a chance on this talented newcomer. The director,...

Caroline Preece Sep 26, 2017

TV's biggest sitcom is happy to tread water until it's shown the door. Here's our review of The Big Bang Theory's season 11 premiere...

This review contains spoilers.

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11.1 The Proposal Proposal

The wait is over - the world’s least mysterious mystery has been resolved and Sheldon and Amy have agreed to be ‘Shamy’ ‘til death do they part. Well, that’s if they make it to the aisle, and if Stephen Hawking continues to approve of their union.

Amy’s answer to Sheldon’s proposal was obvious to anyone with even a passing familiarity with The Big Bang Theory...

Craig Elvy Sep 27, 2017

The crazy world of Derren Brown is not without controversy and debate. Here we revisit 11 of the illusionist's most gripping TV stunts...

Being friends with Derren Brown must be simultaneously fascinating and utterly terrifying. A vastly intelligent natural performer with charisma and charm to spare, Derren has been confounding audiences with his brand of “magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship” for something approaching two decades and has successfully pulled-off a remarkable evolution from skilled street magician to performer of increasingly ambitious television events.

See related Looking back at Green Wing Buffy The Vampire Slayer: the top 10 episodes The Simpsons: 50 best episodes In praise of Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson's Bottom Looking back at The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 Fresh Meat series 4: bleak truths and knob gags

Over time, Derren’s material has become as much about helping and inspiring people as it is shocking them,...

Ryan Lambie Sep 27, 2017

The Terminator series is making its third attempt at a trilogy. But would it be better as a one-off story, Ryan wonders...

Nb: The following contains spoilers for all the Terminator films released so far.

See related Looking back at Green Wing Buffy The Vampire Slayer: the top 10 episodes The Simpsons: 50 best episodes In praise of Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson's Bottom Looking back at The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 Fresh Meat series 4: bleak truths and knob gags

Genisys probably seemed like a good idea at the time. After the so-so critical and financial performance of Terminator 3 and Terminator: Salvation, the fifth entry in the series would, as far as its producers were concerned, take the saga back to its glory days: the nightmarish chases of The Terminator and the eye-popping special effects of T2, widely regarded as the franchise's high-water mark.

Simon Brew Apr 28, 2017

The actors whose role in a film was shot, but chopped out of the final cut...

Yep, I know. I’ve read lists like this too, and I know that Eric Stoltz was cut out of Back To The Future. If it’s all well and good, I’ll leave that example out.

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What I’ve tried to find here is a mix of reasonably known and less known instances of an actor being cut out of a film after they’ve filmed sequences for it. I’ve also tried to get to the reason they were left out as well.

Whilst all this may still sound like an exercise in clickbait, being cut out of a production does have a consequence beyond ego hurting a bit. For the side effect...

An email mishap has spawned an online group dedicated to supporting women in film.

A group of UK female filmmakers have set up a Facebook group to support women in the industry following an email admin error involving a Bafta initiative.

The Twitter hashtag #BAFTAsLucky225 has already spawned almost 400 posts that have reached 220,156 people since it was instigated at 2pm today (April 4), according to a Twitter analytics tool.

Diane Jessie Miller, director of the Rik Mayall-starring drama One By One, kicked off the social media discussion:

Some days we get good news, some days we get bad news... and some days bad news turns to good news... #BAFTAsLUCKY225

— Diane Jessie Miller (@DianeJMiller) April 4, 2017

Kat Wood, writer-director of the Maggie Gyllenhaal-starring short Home, added her two cents:

Never has rejection come with such a silver lining #baftaslucky225

— Kat Wood (@katruthwood) April 4, 2017

As did Eva Sigurdardottir, a line producer on Rams:

Proud to be one of the...

Longtime writing partners Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran (Birds Of A Feather) are developing a new version of classic British comedy The New Statesman. The original starred the late Rik Mayall as pompous politician Alan B'Stard, and ran on ITV from 1987-1992. A satire of the Conservative government, the show won the Best Comedy Series BAFTA in 1991. Marks and Gran's LocomoTV is working with Richard Johns and Rupert Jermyn's Corona TV to develop The B'Stard Legacy which…...

Longtime writing partners Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran (Birds Of A Feather) are developing a new version of classic British comedy The New Statesman. The original starred the late Rik Mayall as pompous politician Alan B'Stard, and ran on ITV from 1987-1992. A satire of the Conservative government, the show won the Best Comedy Series BAFTA in 1991. Marks and Gran's LocomoTV is working with Richard Johns and Rupert Jermyn's Corona TV to develop The B'Stard Legacy which…...

Exclusive: Jinga Films handles international sales on romantic drama.

Ate De Jong’s UK-Dutch romantic comedy Love Is Thicker Than Water has secured a Us distribution deal.

Santa Monica-based Cleopatra Music & Film, run by Tim Yasui, has acquired Us rights to the title and will release it theatrically.

Jinga is handling international sales.

De Jong wrote Love Is Thicker Than Water, produced it and co-directed with Emily Harris. It is a story of lovers from different sides of the tracks.

Vida comes from a well to do London family, whereas Arthur is a bike messenger from a working-class Welsh mining town. The cast is heading by former Screen International Star Of Tomorrow Johnny Flynn and Lydia Wilson (Star Trek Beyond, Never Let Me Go), Juliet Stevenson and Ellie Kendrick also feature.

The news of the Us deal comes as veteran producer-director De Jong is about to receive a lifetime career award at the Oporto International Film Festival...

The Love Witch has set her sights on the UK. The Final Girls have teamed up with Icon Distribution and FrightFest Presents to bring Anna Biller's latest film to select UK theaters. Also in today's Horror Highlights: Kumail Nanjiani's curates a Shudder collection, the music video for Deathless Legacy's "Witches' Brew," details on The Quacky Slasher, and The Sunken Convent festival screening.

The Love Witch UK Theatrical Release Details: Press Release: "Feminist film collective The Final Girls partner with Icon Distribution and FrightFest Presents to present a UK-wide preview tour of Anna Biller’s highly anticipated new feature, The Love Witch.

Launching at The Prince Charles Cinema, London on Thursday 23rd February 2017, The Final Girls will host a series of events, Q&A’s and discussions across the UK at venues including Glasgow Film Theatre and Bristol Watershed.

The tour will conclude on Tuesday 14th March with a...

Gem Wheeler Dec 21, 2016

We celebrate the work of M.R. James, whose eerie ghost stories were made into a festive tradition by the BBC...

A shadow lurking just beyond the edge of the vision. Dusty manuscripts bearing fragments of ancient testimony, conflicting and confounding. The sickening touch of a decayed hand, grasping at us from the darkness. The imagery of the ghost story may differ between cultures, but the sense of creeping dread left by the most effective tales remains universal.

See related Jonathan Creek review: The Clue Of The Savant's Thumb Alan Davies interview: Jonathan Creek, Qi, "Creek Geeks" & more... Rik Mayall interview: Jonathan Creek, Bottom, Hooligan's Island, & more... Sheridan Smith interview: Jonathan Creek & more... David Renwick interview: Jonathan Creek, One Foot In The Grave, & more...

One name stands out in the grim roster of English purveyors of the form: Montague Rhodes James, an eminent medievalist with a sideline in...

Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence on a spaceship with Michael Sheen serving the drinks. We take a look at the sci-fi romance, Passengers...

It’s not a very scintillating title, Passengers, is it? Especially for a film about a kilometre-long ship hurtling through space with the two romantic leads trapped inside it. Love’s Labour's Lost In Space might have suited it better, had Futurama not beaten screenwriter Jon Spaihts to the punch by about 17 years. So Passengers it is: the latest film from Norwegian director Mortum Tyldum, who previously brought us the superb Jo Nesbo-adapted thriller Headhunters and Oscar-nominated Alan Turing drama, The Imitation Game.

See related Jonathan Creek review: The Clue Of The Savant's Thumb Alan Davies interview: Jonathan Creek, Qi, "Creek Geeks" & more... Rik Mayall interview: Jonathan Creek, Bottom, Hooligan's Island, & more... Sheridan Smith interview: Jonathan Creek & more... David Renwick interview: Jonathan Creek, One Foot In The Grave,...