31st May

Bidding on The Hobbit book, signed by the 13 cast members playing dwarves and Sir Ian McKellen, is open until 2 June 8.00pm NZ time. Apparently overseas residents CAN bid – if you want more information on this, read the answer to the question on the bid history page. Thanks to Marguerita for this info.

 

30th May

1. The Robin Hood series 1 career page has been recreated today with a full episode synopsis. It also includes a link to an interview with the costume designer, Frances Tempest, (above the episode synopsis) and an article that appeared in The Telegraph in 2006 in which the lead writer of Robin Hood, Dominic Minghella, reveals his on-set diary (scroll to the end of the career page). There is a very complimentary description of the time when Richard knocked on Dominic’s door to ask him some questions about Gisborne.

2. Thanks to Joane for her latest drawing of Richard as Harry Kennedy on the Artwork page.

3. The full titles of the two Hobbit films and the official release dates have been announced. Here’s a link to the official Hobbit blog. The first film will be called ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ released December 14, 2012 and the second film will be called ‘The Hobbit: There and Back Again’ released December 13, 2013.

 

29th May

1. Richard has written a message of thanks for the support of the Rise Up Christchurch campaign, and more on RichardArmitageOnline.

2. According to the Skymedia site, Strike Back 2 will air in August 2011 on Sky1 and Sky1 HD. 10 x 1 hour shows as expected and Richard’s name is prominent in this brief, although we still don’t know how much he will appear in this second series.

 

27th May

1. The Russian RA site has updated their gallery with a set of photos of Richard Armitage by photographer Joe McGorty, one of which accompanied the Sunday Times September 2010 interview. Thanks to Daria for the link.

2. Richard has recorded another advert, this time for Pilsner Urquell which has been uploaded by that company to youtube. Thanks to MissCachou for the link.

26th May

1. Added another wonderful drawing of John Thornton and Margaret Hale to the Artwork page with many thanks to Joyce M. Please leave a comment at the end of that page if you wish to give feedback.

2. There are 8 new pictures in the Vicar of Dibley Promo gallery with thanks to IzabelAnna. The last picture is a bit small but we cannot find a bigger version of it…yet! Most of these new pictures were found on this Hungarian site.

 

25th May

1. The Hobbit book signed by all 13 dwarves and Gandalf is now on sella.co.nz. According to their T&C you must be a resident of New Zealand or Australia to register on the site. Richard has signed ‘For Christchurch love Richard A’. Click pics to enlarge:

2. Some new pictures added to the Vicar of Dibley Promo gallery with thanks to IzabelAnna. Pics 3, 6, 9 and 10 are new and the last one was from the Comic Relief site as that’s a picture from behind the scenes of filming the 2007 Comic Relief Special with Dawn French, Richard Curtis, Sting and Trudie Styler.

3. There is now a HD version of the US Strike Back 2 trailer on the HBO site here. No more sightings of John Porter than we’ve already seen (pics below in news 16 May).

4. Unfortunately Venetia did not win an Audie Award last night (see yesterday’s news item #3). Winners here.

 

24th May

1. I now have a larger version of the picture of Lucas below, 1429px by 2048px. Click on the thumbnail in yesterday’s news to enlarge (or click on today’s pic of the day) and if it still opens the same size as yesterday, press F5 to refresh your screen.

Bccmee’s wallpaper created using the pic of the day today is on her blog.

2. The Spooks Promo gallery has been updated with some better quality images and some new images. Most images enlarge considerably – click ‘original image’ in the bottom right corner and in some cases you can click again to see the pictures in all their glory. Press F5 to refresh the screen if the images don’t appear correctly.

3. The abridged Venetia audiobook read by Richard Armitage has been nominated for an Audie award in the Audiobook Adaptation category and the winner will be announced by the Audio Publishers Association in tonight’s gala in New York. I’ll update the news with the result tomorrow.

4. Two changes to the Strike Back Promo gallery today – this picture is new to the gallery. Click ‘original image’ in the bottom right corner to see the full size. Press F5 to refresh the screen if the images don’t appear correctly.

 

23rd May

1. The picture that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on 17 May is now available in colour high quality. Click thumbnail to enlarge:

and

With thanks to RecycledVinyl on tumblr

2. Some more wonderful artwork added to the site today. A picture of Richard Armitage showing how it was created step-by-step and Guy of Gisborne, both by Shahin and drawings of Harry Kennedy and John Thornton by Joyce M. You can leave a comment at the bottom of the Artwork page if you would like to give feedback to any of the featured artists.

 

21st May

1. Some of the dwarves of The Hobbit, including Richard, recorded a funny sketch for the Rise Up Christchurch telethon which was shown in the last few hours. RichardArmitageCentral have put it on youtube – many thanks ladies. The dwarves appear at 4min 17s. After the dwarf sketch, Sir Ian shows a copy of The Hobbit book with signatures of the cast inside.

Click pictures to enlarge. Credit: Bccmee

 

Dwarf signatures:

 

2. Two more pencil drawings have been added to the Artwork page courtesy of Joane. Richard as Gisborne and John Porter. Thanks Joane!

 

20th May

More news about the Rise Up Christchurch telethon and Sir Ian McKellen’s involvement on the NZ News site:

“Sir Ian McKellen is making an appearance at Te Papa. He’s bringing with him a copy of Tolkien’s The Hobbit, signed by the film’s cast, which will be auctioned on sella.co.nz. Later in the day, Telethon viewers will get to see a unique glimpse behind the scenes of The Hobbit film with a specially-shot short film.”

More information about this event on the Rise Up Christchurch site.

 

19th May

1. A very good review of Spooks episode 8 in this week’s Herald Sun, with thanks to Ann for the scan. Episode 8 will be shown in Australia on Saturday 21 May at 8.30pm on ABC1.

2. Spooks has been nominated for Best Drama Series in the 2011 TV Choice awards. You can vote on the longlist until June 10th. The shortlist will be announced on Tuesday 28 June and the awards ceremony takes place in London on Tuesday 13 September.

 

18th May

1. Sky have a much higher quality version of the UK Strike Back 2 trailer here. Thanks to Bccmee for the link.

2. Two bloggers have set themselves a challenge to raise funds for the Rise Up Christchurch global telethon. You can help them meet their challenge at the RAFrenzy.com blog and the Me+Richard blog where you will find further details.

3. Robin Hood on PBS Buffalo: Robin Hood season 1 is being shown on WNED on Saturdays at 7pm and Mondays at 3pm. Details here. Thanks to Cranberry.

 

17th May

1. Strike Back in Germany: Strike Back episode 1 will be shown on RTL Crime tomorrow at 8.15pm – 9.00pm. Episode 2, which concludes the first storyline will be shown next Wednesday 25 May at the same time. Thanks to NicK for the email.

2. There’s a review of Spooks episode 8 in the Sydney Morning Herald TV guide this week, now on the Spooks Reviews page, with a new picture of Lucas and Maya taken during a scene in episode 8. The angle of that picture doesn’t come from the episode, so maybe it was taken by a set photographer? Thanks to Pauline for the scan.

 

16th May

1. The longer Strike Back trailer available on the Cinemax site has been closed captioned by Bccmee and she’s provided a transcript on her blog. The trailer shown before last night’s Game of Thrones in the US was the same trailer as this longer one I’m told.

Cinemax have released the longer trailer on youtube, which is slightly better quality than the one posted previously:

Here’s some pictures from the video, click to enlarge. More pictures of Richard from the UK Strike Back 2 trailer are in the news below 9 May, where different shots of Richard were seen.

 

2. Here’s a promotional picture for Strike Back series 1, taken by photographer Mitch Jenkins. Click the thumbnail below to enlarge.

3. The UK Strike Back 2 trailer is now on the Sky Strike Back website. Thanks to Anna for noticing this! The UK trailer is shorter and shows different clips than the US Strike Back 2 trailer, which you can see in the youtube clip above.

I’ve updated the screencaps below in the news 9th May, as the video is better quality.

The UK Sky trailer is also on youtube thanks to Sky:

15th May

1. According to this article on stuff.co.nz “stars of the Hobbit” will be involved in a charity telethon on Sunday 22 May to help raise funds for rebuilding Christchurch after the earthquake in February. This event will be broadcast online around the world. For details, see the Rise Up Christchurch site.

2. More wonderful drawings from Joane on the Artwork page of Richard as John Thornton and Claude Monet. Thanks Joane!

3. There’s a new poll on the left-hand side asking about twitter. Previous poll results are here.

4. Thanks to Anna for discovering this tweet, which appears to suggest that Strike Back 2 will air in August. However this is obviously not an official announcement and it’s not clear if this refers to a US broadcast or a UK broadcast too.

5. Strike Back news: Sean McNulty, executive producer for Cinemax has tweeted to say that the promotional trailer for Strike Back: Project Dawn will be shown tonight before Game of Thrones. Also a longer trailer can be seen on the Cinemax site, but apparently only those living in the US can see this video (youtube clip above in news 16 May).

 

14th May

1. Lady Prisca has created a wonderful pencil drawing of Guy from series 2 episode 8 (“Get Carter”). Click the thumbnail to enlarge on the Artwork page.

2. Bccmee is halfway through her challenge to create a graphic every day in May, inspired by the picture of the day on this website. Her creations are on her blog, and also on this site. Here’s a list and where to find them (well done B!):

• a John Porter wallpaper
• a Richard Armitage wallpaper
• a Richard Armitage signature (#8)
• two John Thornton signatures
• two Lucas North signatures (#9 and #10)
• three Guy of Gisborne signatures (#2-4)
• a Dr Track signature
• two Harry Kennedy signatures (#3 and #4)
• a John Standring signature
• a John Porter signature (#14)

 

12th May

1. Thanks to Ann for the latest scan in the Herald Sun newspaper reviewing episode 7 of Spooks, which will be shown this Saturday in Australia at 8.30pm on ABC1. Read it on the Spooks Reviews page.

2. Further details (without plot spoilers) have been added to the news on 10th May below, about the recent Strike Back filming in South Africa.

 

11th May

1. All episodes of Strike Back series 1 will be shown in South Korea this Sunday from 2.00pm – 8.00pm on the movie cable “Super Action” channel. Thanks to Jin for leaving a message in the guestbook.

2. Thanks to Lady Prisca for her excellent pencil drawing of Guy of Gisborne which has been added to the Artwork page.

3. Music from Strike Back has been posted on the SoundCloud music sharing site by the TV & film composer Simon Ashdown. There are three tracks which appear to be for the second series – the title of each track begins with ‘HBO’, the company co-producing the second series. Thanks to RavenRoseBeetle for discovering this.

 

10th May

1. A transcript and closed captioning of the new Strike Back 2 trailer is now available on Bccmee’s blog.

2. Ian McKellen has posted his latest blog about The Hobbit, in which he announces lots of cast news plus the fact that Martin Freeman has begun working on Sherlock, but… “The rest of the cast remains on duty for another few weeks, working on hobbit-less sections of the film.  These involve dwarves of course…”

 

9th May

Sky Atlantic showed a clip of Strike Back: Project Dawn this evening, the second series of Strike Back, with some brief glimpses of Richard Armitage. I recorded the clip but Sky have since made a youtube clip available which is better quality (see news 16 May above). Click the thumbnails below to see screencaps of Richard.

 

 

8th May

Hayley Atwell is interviewed in July’s SFX magazine about Captain America: The First Avenger, and there is a brief mention of Richard when she is asked about injuries she sustained: “I had a bullet-shell fired off near my head, when I stepped too close to Richard Armitage’s gun”. Read the full article on the Captain America page. With thanks to Kaprekar for the scan.

 

7th May

1. Sorry for being late with this, but I have just posted two more reviews of Spooks episode 6 which was shown this evening in Australia. With thanks to Ann for the scan of the Green Guide and Bccmee for the link dated 6 May.

2. More artwork added to the site with many thanks to Joane and Joyce. Joane has drawn Gisborne, Harry Kennedy and Lucas and Joyce has drawn another picture of John Thornton. Thanks for sharing ladies!

 

4th May

Spooks series 9 episode 6 will be shown in Australia this Saturday and Pauline has given us 2 scans from the TV Week Guide and the Sydney Morning Herald TV Supplement with positive reviews of the episode. Read them on the Spooks reviews page.

 

3rd May

The Impressionists in Poland: the first episode of The Impressionsts will be shown tomorrow at 11.00pm on the Viasat History channel. Thanks to Ania for the email.

 

2nd May

Three more excellent portraits of Richard Armitage/Guy of Gisborne added to the Artwork page today, with thanks to Joyce M.

 

1st May

Spooks (MI-5) series 9 starts on Detroit Public TV tonight at 10.00pm, here’s the TV schedule. With thanks to Jenny.