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Third Acts in Writers’ Lives
While we’re on a thriller theme… I’ve always thought of Bond as a ’60s phenomenon but of Fleming as a ’50s writer. A quick check shows that he died in 1963, the same year that Gavin Lyall turned to full-time writing. Lyall was my favourite of the postwar adventure writers, though Alistair Maclean was probably…
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A Book by its Cover
In a recent piece in The Financial Times, James Lovegrove cites Raymond Hawkey’s 1963 Pan cover for Thunderball as one of the all-time greatest paperback designs. (In case you’re not familiar with it, those ‘bullet hits’ are actual holes in the cover.) I so agree… although for me it’s one of those cases where your…
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Anthony Minghella
I turned on the radio for the lunchtime news a few minutes ago, and was dismayed to hear the announcement of the death of Anthony Minghella at the age of 54. I swore out loud, and scared the dog. Anthony and I were fellow students in Hull University’s Drama Department, back in the mid-seventies. I’m…
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Cricket and Me
I don’t ‘get’ cricket. Never have. And it seems I’m not alone. I was in London’s Natural History Museum around the end of last year. In one section there’s a wall display bearing a montage of cartoons that illustrate various explanations for the extinction of the dinosaurs. One shows an enthusiastic diplodocus with a bat.…
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Eleventh Hour USA
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Reuters, and other sources, Planet Terror‘s Marley Shelton is the latest addition to the Eleventh Hour lineup. Marley Shelton has been tapped as the female lead opposite Rufus Sewell in Jerry Bruckheimer’s new CBS drama “Eleventh Hour.” The project, based on the limited British sci-fi series, centers on Jacob Hood…
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Life Line
Did you see this? I wouldn’t be surprised if the answer was no. It seems to have become one of the best-kept secrets of my career. It was a two-parter for BBC1, two hours long, and starred Ray Stevenson (Titus Pullo in Rome), Joanne Whalley (Edge of Darkness, The Singing Detective, Scandal, and many a…
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The Wingrove Boy
In the comments section of the Crusoe post below, Tara provides this link to a site where you’ll find details of what Chung Kuo author David Wingrove has been up to in recent years. It’s a fascinating piece of insight into the roaring energy of a writer’s imagination. I can’t be sure whether we first…
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Crusoe
A couple of weeks ago I blogged about a new gig that promised to keep me busy through the summer, but I was coy about naming it because it was far from certain. And I’ve avoided mentioning it since because my deal was being worked out and my ‘take’ had yet to win the approval…
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Writer Killers
There’s no actual list yet, but perhaps there ought to be. Wherever screenwriters gather and swap stories there are always certain directors whose names are passed around with an attached health warning. The writer killers. They rarely complete a project with the writer who began it. Many of the projects they join don’t get completed…
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Eleventh Hour USA
From The Hollywood Reporter: British actor Rufus Sewell is set as the lead in Jerry Bruckheimer’s new CBS drama project “Eleventh Hour.” The project, based on the British limited sci-fi series, centers on Jacob Hood (Sewell), a special science adviser to the government who, with his feisty female bodyguard in tow, saves people from the…
Hauling Like A Brooligan
Stephen Gallagher
