Tuesday, March 09, 2010

TV & Radio news (and it's all good!)

I had an email from, David B a blog visitor, about the Swedish Wallander series. He has been in touch with Yellow Bird and they have the following news:
I would like to let you know that BBC4 has acquired the second season of the Swedish Wallander series (i.e. film 14-26).
No news of when BBC4 will show them but great news nonetheless (I hope they repeat the first series again as I'm missing part of an episode...). So thank you so much to David for passing the news on.

We've had several recent announcements of casting news over the past few months:

Stephen Tompkinson as Inspector Banks

David Morrissey is Tom Thorne

and now Rufus Sewell is to play Aurelio Zen:

From Digital Spy:

Rufus Sewell has signed up to star as Aurelio Zen in a new BBC drama.

The Eleventh Hour actor will play the fictional detective across three feature-length dramas which will transmit on BBC One.

Set in and around Rome, and based on the best-selling series of novels by the late Michael Dibdin, Zen will start shooting in Italy in Spring 2010.

And though not euro crime in anyway, the tv drama Castle, starring Nathan Fillion is coming to the Alibi Channel soon.

Here's the lowdown from Alibi:

Castle is the hit new US crime drama coming soon exclusively to Alibi. Nathan Fillion plays Richard Castle, a best-selling crime novelist who, despite fame and acclaim, has become bored with his own success. All that changes, however, when a real-life copycat murderer starts staging scenes from Castle's novels. Castle is first suspected of the crimes and then asked to team up with NYC homicide Detective Kate Beckett to help her solve the case.

Together, the pair make a formidable combination. Beckett is a first-class investigator with a rare ability to empathise with victims, having joined the force after the murder of a loved one was never solved. Castle has spent years researching crime and brings that unique knowledge, together with a creative flair and touch of irreverence, to homicide cases. Their contrasting approaches, however, often cause sparks to fly...

Finally a bit of radio news:
Sir Ian McKellen is to play the title role in a BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Ian Fleming's Goldfinger.

The James Bond drama will also star Rosamund Pike as Pussy Galore and Toby Stephens as Bond.

Impressionist and actor Alistair McGowan will play the canny caddie, Hawker, during the famous golf scene.

Martin Jarvis, who is also directing the play, is the voice of Fleming, while John Standing appears as M, the head of MI6.

The radio dramatisation will be faithful to the novel rather than the Goldfinger film.

The plot revolves around Bond's pursuit of Auric Goldfinger, an international criminal, who is masterminding a plan to rob Fort Knox.

The play will air on Radio 4 on 3 April.
Read the whole article at the BBC website.

1 comment:

Maxine Clarke said...

Great news about the Swedish Wallenders, thanks! I still have the 3rd of the last Ken Branagh series to watch - the first two were so bad that I just could not face it. Also, that bloke in the bottom pic in your post looks as if he could do with a bit of checking out! So thanks for the tip - the series I'd really like to watch is the next one of Spiral....preferably with more of that prosecutor in it.