Doctors Whom, Cleese & Jackson - Facebook Trivia roundup

Was I the only person who saw this photo small on their phone and thought “fantastic, Christopher Eccleston’s finally turned up for a line up with fellow Doctor Who’s” ?

In my tired mind I was looking at Capaldi, Pertwee (I know I know), Tom Baker in the hat, Matt Smith, and Eccleston in the flat cap.

I realise now it was only Mark Radcliffe.

Spotted on Newsnight. Best bit of studio lighting this century.

*Mulls over a 'waxes and weans' gag. Gives up*

Jackson family suggest blaming it on a) Sunshine b) Moonlight c) Good Times…

Line Of Duty gets 5 stars in Guardian

You gotta be jokin' me Lucy Mangan! This was (spoiler alert) dreadful. None of the alleged characters had any character, or motivation, or subplot, or way of telling them apart.

Try it. Do the old Script Reader trick of hiding the names of the characters and reading the lines. Could you tell which of these cyphers was delivering the lines in this procedural slew of acronyms? You could not.

Last week we discovered someone had done away with those nice boys who wrote The Missing and delivered a pale imitation with their names on it, and now that poor Jed Mercurio's been nobbled and they've got an AI algorithm to write a cargo cult simulation of a Line Of Duty script. Where the undercover copy is (spoiler alert) obviously going to be either him or her. Wait till next week, it was probably both of them... oh who cares, let's just watch Fleabag again.

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I think someone has underestimated how easy it's going to be for me to boycott hotels owned by the Sultan of sodding Brunei.  *Goes back to booking.com, decides against The Dorchester and books the Premier Inn Barking as originally planned*'

This is hard to credit, given the amazingly funny stuff he's done in the 30 years since A Fish Called Wanda.

I am a big fan of Comic Swipes, where the originals of many comic images are uncovered. This one, from Asterix & The Soothsayer (one of my favourite books ever) is a revelation to me. I did not know this panel was a homage. Did anyone else?

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ROMA

Finally watched Roma last night, very good. But found I'd been conflating my Mexican film directors. I was watching it thinking "so this is the guy who directed Birdman and Shape Of Water, of course, you can see the similarities". And yes, I'd watched Shape Of Water thinking it was directed by the same guy who directed Birdman. I know now!

So Alfonso Cuaron did Roma and Gravity, but he only produced Pan's Labyrinth which was directed by Guillermo Del Toro who made Shape Of Water. Birdman was done by Alejandro Innaritu who also produced Pan's Labyrinth and who made The Revenant, which I also thought was by the same guy who made Gravity.

I tell you, if one of them would just once make a movie where the shots weren't all pretending to be 10 minute long single takes, I'd be able to tell the buggers apart!

Baptise 

The big mystery is, where have they hidden the two talented blokes who wrote The Missing?

(Spoilers ahead)

This was a repetitive, over-complicated bland procedural which managed to put all its interesting ideas into the first couple of episodes, leaving a finale that was a string of glaring plotholes (what happened to the guy with the cleaver? Why no police sent to the caravan with two dead bodies & a live killer in it?) tied together with dull exposition, stultifying anticlimaxes, and five minutes of padding at the end.

And were we meant to laugh out loud at the denouement of the silly shoot out at the end? I'm guessing not, but I'm betting we weren't alone.

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Andrew Ridgley Memoir - a bit on the nose.

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March 31.   Don't you hate it when people post pictures of their dead Mums for Mothers Day? Well tough. This is the first Mothers Day my Mum's missed in 57 years and I imagine she's quite annoyed. #HappyMumsiesDay

Mother's Day is an appropriate time to thank everyone who gave to Cancer Research at Mum's funeral. I realise I hadn't shared the figures so, for the record, here's what you all gave:

£905.05 via J Stamp & Sons (Funeral Directors)
£130.00 via online giving

A total of £1035.05 received by Cancer Research, with many many thanks from us all. Mum would be proud of you all.

For Wullieverine by Barry Barmcake, after the Socks show in Chorley

Happiness is watching an old film on Talking Pictures TV, wondering where it was shot, and finding a website that shows you in detail. For the record, the kidnap scene in Hell Is A City (1960) was shot in an alley which is now WH Smith's on Corporation St Manchester 

http://www.british-film-locations.com/s…/Hell-Is-A-City-1960

SCOTTISH FALSETTO SOCK PUPPET THEATRE: ROLL UP!

July 31 - Aug 25 - GILDED BALLOON Patter Hoose Edfringe - On Sale Now

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries & art centres. email for details. Facebook, Twitter. Promo video here.