Movies

Nevermind the Horrocks

by

By Johnny Foreigner

I’ve been a fan of Jane Horrocks since first seeing her in Mike Leigh’s wonderful Life Is Sweet in 1990. She played the chain-smoking, bulimic daughter Nicola, constantly spitting insults (“Racist!” “Capitalist!”) yet so fragile and in need of love.

Never Mind the Horrocks (not so clever pun on the Sex Pistols album Never Mind the Bollocks) was a  TV Special featuring the Horrocks as comedian, first broadcast in England on September 1996 . The special also starred a pre Doc Martin, Martin Clunes.

This clip starts with Horrocks as the 1950s-era children’s tv show host “Watch With Nanny” (easily annoyed by puppets yet capable of singing the “Marching Song” for eternity.) Then there’s Horrocks as a modern day “Good Morning USA” host, only slightly more obnoxious than Kathy Lee Gifford. Finally, there’s Horrocks brilliantly playing a pig-tailed teenager phoning her boyfriend on her stairway (“Darren! Get off the phone, I’m on the phone!”)

Horrocks is probably best known as the character “Bubble” in Absolutely Fabulous. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for her work in the semi-autobigraphical “Little Voice” where she  gave amazing singing impressions of Judy Garland, Shirley Bassey, Marilyn Monroe, and others.

She also performed on London stage as Sally Bowles in the 1994 revival of Cabaret. She won a National Society of Film Critics Awards awarded her Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Life Is Sweet.

Emma Watson has been hiding feminist books on the tube

by

Were you paying attention on your commute this morning? Because while you were keeping your head down, avoiding all eye contact and generally wishing you were anywhere but on the Central line you might have missed something really special.

Harry Potter star Emma Watson has been sneaking around the tube network hiding copies of Maya Angelou’s novel ‘Mom & Me & Mom’.

Source: Emma Watson has been hiding feminist books on the tube

Steve Coogan’s Caroline Aherne tribute

by

Last night’s comedy telethon Stand Up to Cancer was full of touching and heartbreaking clips of real people who’ve struggled with or lost loved ones to the disease, but one moment stood out as particularly poignant.

During the broadcast actor and comedian Steve Coogan paid tribute to Caroline Aherne, the creator and star of series including The Mrs Merton Show and The Royle Family (with co-writer Craig Cash) and narrator of Gogglebox, who died of lung cancer aged 52 just three months ago.
“30 years ago, when I started out in comedy, I met a girl who worked as a secretary for the BBC,” Coogan said in the tribute. “She was sassy, sexy, earthy, kind, smart, sometimes daft.
“She mercilessly took the piss and she made me and our small gang of Manchester friends laugh until they cried. Her name was Caroline Aherne.”

READ FULL STORY at Source: Stand Up to Cancer: Watch Steve Coogan’s Caroline Aherne tribute

Caroline Aherne in character as Mrs. Merton with Martin Clunes 1997

Bill Forsyth: “Scotland is a little nation with an identity problem”  

by

Gregory’s Girl and Local Hero helped shape how Scotland sees itself. But director Bill Forsyth says that was the last thing he aimed to do There are plenty of Scottish actors and writers working in the movie business but strangely few directors. When you search for “Scottish film director”, top of the list is Bill Forsyth, who hasn’t made a film this century and is remembered primarily for two from the early 1980s – Gregory’s Girl (pictured below) and Local Hero. Such is the rarity of quality films made in Scotland by Scottish auteurs that these are still celebrated as ones that forged the character of the nation.“I wasn’t flying the flag for Scotland,” Forsyth says. “I wasn’t trying to say something culturally about Scotland – I don’t know what Scotland means to the guy next to me on the bus. It’s too dumb an idea to want to nail, a culture. It comes from making stuff, and the accumulation of that stuff finally reflects a culture.”

Source: Bill Forsyth: “Scotland is a little nation with an identity problem” | Big Issue