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| Life is a beach With Spooks and Hustle, Jane Featherstone brought quality drama to the mainstream. Now the Kudos boss is taking on soaps with a high-profile gamble on ITV. Stephen Armstrong asks her how she'll pull it off Interview: Jane Featherstone Stephen Armstrong The Guardian, Monday January 14 2008 On Christmas Eve, Jane Featherstone, managing director of Kudos Productions, went to a party with her boyfriend. The moment she walked in the door she was besieged by a group of teenage girls who followed her around all night begging her to tell them if Jo was dead. In desperation she turned and said: "If I told you, it would spoil it. My boyfriend doesn't know. My mum and dad don't know. I really can't tell you. Please stop asking me." But it didn't shut them up. She tells this story to fend off the same question from your correspondent. In the last episode of Kudos's spy drama Spooks, MI5 agent Jo, fearful that she would crack under torture by mercenaries, begged Adam, her fellow agent, to kill her. So far, so cliffhanger, except Spooks has a long tradition of killing off its leading actors. Can Adam really have killed her? "Look," Featherstone says firmly, "there are only four people in the world who know and I'm not going to tell you." It is testament to the storytelling powers of Kudos shows that people care so much. British television drama is gradually catching up with its America cousin in terms of scope, ambition and imagination. This year we will get shows about ghosts, werewolves and vampires flatsharing in Bristol, a powerful retelling of the 2005 Haditha atrocity in Iraq and a rare drama with a mainly black cast. At the turn of the century, British TV drama was made up largely of frocks-on-the-box adaptations, irascible detectives and social realism. The rest were soaps. Spooks, along with Doctor Who, changed all that. Kudos went on to shower the BBC with ratings via Hustle and Life on Mars. Now ITV is hoping for the same success with Moving Wallpaper and Echo Beach, Kudos's sister shows created by Tony Jordan. Premiered last week, the twin dramas have a gimmick that would please Alan Ayckbourn. Moving Wallpaper is an everyday sitcom of TV folk, with Ben Miller, Raquel Cassidy and James Lance playing a team charged with launching a new, sexy soap opera. Echo Beach is the result, and it is scheduled immediately after Moving Wallpaper - allowing in-jokes such as the actress proficient on the casting couch in Wallpaper finally getting a line in Echo Beach. Aside from that, Echo Beach is played as a straight soap, with Jason Donovan, Martine McCutcheon and Hugo Speer caught in a steamy love triangle in a Cornish seaside town. "The British audience is ready for this kind of show on ITV1, and I think they've been ready for it for a long time," Featherstone says. "It's the kind of thing that would have been almost a Play for Today in the 1970s, but the viewer is smart and likes to be challenged so there's no need to hide it away on a smaller channel." Featherstone is keen to credit Jordan as the inspiration behind the two series, and seems uncomfortable with the idea that Kudos as a company is responsible for a change in the drama environment. "It's all about the writers," she says. "We have a wealth of writing talent in the UK. Often we find young writers working in theatre, and you can tell from their raw script that they have the talent. So it's just about giving them practice and rewrites. Paul Abbott said that TV is all about rewrites." A love of writing is to be expected in someone whose sister is artistic director of the National Theatre of Scotland and who spent time running an experimental theatre company called Brouhaha - she employed the radical playwright Howard Brenton on the early series of Spooks. She is appalled that scriptwriters in the US have had to go on strike and, although some independents have talked of the opportunities presented by the dearth of programming on US networks, she insists the company would never do anything to undermine the strike. She couches that point carefully, showing the diplomacy that Jane Tranter, controller of fiction at the BBC, describes as "incredible and unusual". Perhaps uniquely in television management this diplomacy owes much to Paul Gascoigne. After graduating from Leeds University with a degree in history and a burning desire to work in television - the careers office said there was no point trying if her parents didn't work in the industry - her first job was as Gazza's PA. "One of my college friends was working in the Spurs press office and got to know his lawyer Mel Stein," she says. "She knew I loved football so rang me up and said they were looking for a PA. He'd just had his accident in the FA Cup final, where he'd done his anterior cruciate ligament in - and there's not many people with a history degree can say that phrase with ease - so I tottered along. Stein was an hour and a half late, the interview took five minutes and I started the next Monday." From there it was a more conventional route via production assistant and line producer jobs until in 2000 she arrived at a struggling Kudos aged only 29 as head of drama. If the company had not secured the Spooks commission that year, it might well have gone under. Seven years later, Lis Murdoch's Shine snapped it up for £35 million. "The Shine ownership hasn't made any difference to our productions at all," Featherstone insists. "We're just doing what we're doing as usual. Lis and Alex [Mahon, Shine's managing director] just told us to get on with it. But there are benefits to being part of a larger group. You can be more confident looking ahead, and it's given us stability." Certainly Shine's pockets will be important if the future of drama is as bleak as she fears. "I haven't done the maths completely, but I'd guess budgets have fallen by 20% over the last five years. We're all having to look for co-production cash much harder and squeeze as much as we can out of the money. It can't go on, however, if we want to maintain high production quality. In fact we need much more investment - we need to develop directors especially, as there's a real dearth of young directing talent at the moment. Somehow they've been lost in the process." You know something else that's been lost in the process, I say. A proper analysis of the career prospects of Britain's young actors. Take Miranda Raison. Do you think she's going to have lots of work next year? I mean, for instance, on Spooks? But Featherstone isn't falling for it. "You'll have to wait till September," she smiles. Firmly. Curriculum Vitae Age 38 Education 1987-91 Degree in history and German, Leeds University Career 1991-93 PA, Paul Gascoigne 1993-94 Production assistant Hat Trick Productions, working on Have I Got News For You and Drop The Dead Donkey 1994-95 Line producer, Whose Line Is It Anyway? 1996-2000 Producer, credits include Touching Evil, Sex 'n' Death (Hat Trick) and Glasgow Kiss (Wall to Wall) 2000 Head of drama, Kudos 2004 Joint managing director, Kudos |
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| Justin: "Hi Neil, thanks for coming back to answer our q's, we have missed you! all your sins are forgiven! Any news on the next series of Spooks on BBC1 and any idea why the DVD of series 6 which was due for release in Feb has been put back to November?" Neil: The new series of Spooks has started filming this week, I'm told. This time round it's going back to the old format - eight self-contained episodes. What do you make of that? Leave your thoughts using the link at the end of the column. As for the DVD of series six, it's been pushed back to coincide with the broadcast of the new series. |
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| 'Spooks' star exits in seventh series Monday, March 17 2008, 10:41 GMT By Alex Fletcher, Entertainment Reporter Spooks star Rupert Penry-Jones will leave the show midway through the seventh series. The actor, who plays spy Adam Carter, will exit in a storyline that will reportedly "have fans on the edge of their seats". According to The Sun, Penry-Jones has been replaced by Robin Hood's Richard Armitage, who will play Lucas North, an MI5 agent who has spent eight years in a Russian jail. Armitage said: "Joining Spooks is a fantastic opportunity. Lucas North is certainly a nicer piece of work than my Robin Hood character Guy of Gisborne, although he has a dark side too. "Plus I won’t have to wear head-to-toe leather - unless I didn’t read the small print." |
| QUOTE (Fangy and grrr @ Mar 17 2008, 09:59 PM) |
| You know if you really want to avoid sopilers then its perhaps best not to read posts in a thread titled S7 Spoilers, just a thought. ;) :p |
| QUOTE (little pixie @ Mar 17 2008, 10:01 PM) | ||
Sopilers ? :blink: :p :lol: ;) I usually have a problem with spoliers. It`s a French sort of spoiler. ;) << Goes back to shielding eyes until October >> :lol: |
| QUOTE (Fangy and grrr @ Mar 17 2008, 10:14 PM) | ||||
:lol: Darn you're quick I thought I caught that one before anyone noticed. :blush: |
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| Spooks: They're Back THE world is always a safer place when Spooks is being filmed. I spent a day in and around The Grid this week as work progressed on series seven of the always gripping BBC1 spy drama. A small group of us spoke to cast members, including Peter Firth and new arrival Richard Armitage. We also interviewed Hermione Norris about her return to MI5 after faking the death of Ros Myers last year. Cast and crew were busy filming episodes three and four, with the series due back on screen in the autumn. It’s already been announced that Robin Hood and North and South star Richard plays MI5 officer Lucas North. He’s spent the past eight years in a Russian prison – so was around before we first met Harry and his original team in May 2002. I was at the press launch for that very first series, and interviewed cast members including Matthew Macfadyen (Tom) and Keeley Hawes (Zoe), who are now husband and wife. Returning to 2008, it’s also no secret that Rupert Penry-Jones (Adam) leaves Spooks in the new series, possibly via an explosive exit. There was a great deal to discuss on set with lots for fans to look forward to. But due to the usual embargo on interviews, I can’t say anything further until nearer transmission. The Official Secrets Act does, however, allow me to report that the lunchtime caramel apple tart and custard was up to the usual high standards of TV catering comfort food. |
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| ace ventura Apr 26 2008 by Our Correspondent, Western Mail Britain’s newest superliner got a sensational secret agent send-off from Southampton last week. Paul Cole joined the VIP party IT’S part and parcel of maritime history. Breaking a bottle of Champagne across the bows of a new ship is seen as a golden guarantee of good luck. Get it wrong and the consequences can be dire. Eight years ago, the Princess Royal’s bottle failed to shatter and P&O’s Aurora broke down on her maiden voyage. Soon afterwards, the liner was stricken by a sickness bug, and one of her planned cruises had to be cancelled. Blame it on the bottle, the old seadogs said. Little wonder, then, that Dame Helen Mirren called in some help when she officially named £330m superliner Ventura – the biggest passenger ship ever built for British passengers – in Southampton. Lending a hand were a crack squad of Royal Marine Commandos, the cast of TV spy series Spooks and stars from the Bond movies, including 007 himself. In a spectacular ceremony watched by a VIP crowd packed with familiar faces, Ventura proved she had not just a lotta bottle but also a licence to thrill. Bosses at P&O recruited a celebrity who’s who to give their new ship a sizzling send-off complete with a superspy spoof storyline. Guests watched a fake news broadcast read by Selina Scott, warning that a shadowy organisation planned to sabotage the ceremony by ensuring the bottle remained unbroken. Cue cameos from evil captain, Welsh actor Jonathan Pryce, retired agent Roger Moore, secret service boss Patricia Hodge, Samantha Bond’s Miss Moneypenny and the TV Spooks team led by Peter Firth as Harry Pearce. The day was saved by some commando derring-do from the masked marines who beat the bad guys in a powerboat chase, abseiled down the side of the ship and smashed the champers under orders from Dame Helen. As the biggest fireworks display ever seen in the port lit up the sky, accompanied by a medley of spy themes ranging from Bond to The Avengers, and Mission Impossible to Austin Powers, celebs on deck gasped in amazement. Rowan Atkinson appeared shaken, not stirred; Stephen Tompkinson laughed aloud at the spy story; Imelda Staunton and Robert Powell and Hugh Bonneville swapped stage stories. But it was dazzling Dame Helen who outshone them all. Dressed to thrill, and still sexy at the age of 62, she was welcomed by a standing ovation. “As a child I never dreamed that I would one day be launching a ship,” she confided. “That was something only the Queen used to do, or Princess Margaret or someone. It wasn’t ever likely to happen to an ordinary girl. But having played the Queen, and Her Majesty being unavailable, I suppose I was the next best thing. “To be honest, I jumped at the chance.” Ventura is longer than London’s Tower Bridge, her top deck stands 195ft above the sea, and her engines deliver the same horsepower as 190 souped-up Ferraris. Five times more paint than they use on the Eiffel Tower is needed to coat her. The total number of passengers and crew – a fully-loaded 4,296 – is enough to form 390 football teams; the ship has 11 acres of carpet (enough to cover all the Six Nations grounds); she’s as long as three Premiership football pitches end to end. She’s big news, too, for a buoyant cruising market which has not even been dented by the credit crunch. More than 1.5 million Brits will take cruises this year. What makes her different from her P&O sisters is an emphasis on family-friendly facilities. Conscious that cruisers are getting younger – it’s expected the average passenger on Ventura will be a fortysomething. There’s the biggest playroom on any British cruise ship, complete with soft play areas, internet screens, and a cooking lesson kitchen. For older kids, there’s even a fully-equipped rock school with guitars, drums and DJ decks. And high up on the 19th deck, Cirque Ventura offers open-air lessons on the trapeze, trampolines, rings and juggling equipment. Nights out are a far cry from tradition, too. After the naming ceremony, guests took their choice from a jungle theatrical spectacular led by Britain’s Got Talent finalists Rebecca & Donovan, late-night alternative comedy, or Robbie Williams and Freddie Mercury soundalikes. The ship boasts more than 7,000 pieces of cutting-edge art (seven times more than Tate Modern), Marco Pierre White’s White Room restaurant, a 3D cinema, casino, a 785-seat theatre and even a digital Scalextric circuit. In all, there are 11 eateries, 10 bars – spearheaded by the chic Metropolis, where a giant video wall shows live-time cityscapes of Paris, New York, Las Vegas, Sydney, Hong Kong and London – three dancefloors, six live music venues, two show lounges, and a nightclub. Dining options range from the Mediterranean menus of The White Room to East, a beautifully designed Asian fusion restaurant. Elsewhere, Ramblas is a tapas bar, complete with a tree growing in its courtyard. And if you really want to push the boat out, you can have a Marco Pierre White signature dish served on the balcony of your own stateroom. Ventura boasts 880 cabins with balconies – more than any other ship sailing from the UK. They range from the adequate to the surprisingly spacious. They’ve been furnished in much the same way as a boutique hotel, with original art, movies-on-demand TV and wi-fi capability. There’s a luxurious spa offering treatments old and new, a thermal suite with steam rooms, an “infinity” spa pool, gymnasium, hair and beauty salon, and sports court, plus no fewer than five swimming pools. Shore excursions have been given a makeover, too. While you can still enjoy traditional sightseeing tours, a dash of adrenalin adventure has been added. You can go off-road to take 4x4 driving lessons, experience the thrill of a zip-wire flight or go white-water rafting. The last word goes to Dame Helen: “I wish the ship luck and love, and calm seas on her voyages. D’you know, I’ve always wanted to say that!” |
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| Ollie: "Hi is there any news on Spooks series 7? Did Jo survive the series finale, will Ruth return, is Richard Armitage a permenant fixture? Loving Tube Talk, keep up the good work!" Neil: Richard Armitage will be a permanent fixture in the new series, in addition to his Hood duties. He plas Lucas, an MI5 operative who has spent the last eight years in a Russian prison but finally earns his freedom thanks to Harry. Other returning characters include Ros, Adam (for a while), Malcolm, Connie and Ben (now a full member of the team). Jo is back - for the first episode, at least. |