Ahead of a new stage revival, the creators and cast of Channel 4’s classic 90s newsroom sitcom remember close encounters with future Bond stars, writing episodes at the last minute and the meaning between that mysterious titleWhen Drop the Dead Donkey debuted on Channel 4 on 9 August 1990, it was something entirely new. Creators Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin used the offices of fictional TV studio GlobeLink News to combine a classic workplace sitcom with hot-off-the-presses topical gags. Over time, the characters became the main attraction: bickering anchors Henry Davenport (David Swift) and Sally Smedley (Victoria Wicks), amoral foreign correspondent Damien Day (Stephen Tompkinson), and Gus Hedges (Robert Duncan), the jargon-spouting emissary of GlobeLink’s rapacious owner Sir Roysten Merchant. Other cast members included Neil Pearson (as office dogsbody Dave Charnley) and, for two seasons, Haydn Gwynne (as adept assistant editor Alex Pates).Drop the Dead Donkey was a consistent hit, peaking at 4-5 million viewers during its eight-year run. It attracted guest stars such as Neil Kinnock and Jon Snow and up-and-coming actors including Andrew Lincoln, Hermione Norris, Gina McKee and Daniel Craig. Now, the entire surviving cast (Swift died in 2016 and Gwynne in 2023) has reunited for a touring stage show, Drop the Dead Donkey: The Reawakening!, which drops the GlobeLink diaspora into a news landscape that makes the 1990s skulduggery seem almost sweet. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2024-01-20 11:55:00 UTC ]
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Japanese manga comic creator Akira Toriyama, best known for his Dragon Ball series that spawned widely popular films, video games and TV shows, died on March 1 from a blood clot in his brain, his production studio said on Friday. He was 68. Continue reading at CBC
[ CBC | 2024-03-08 11:56:02 UTC ]
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It’s another Tuesday, and that means that a bevy of beautiful new books are out. And it’s a brilliant bevy indeed: below, you’ll find twenty-three new titles to consider that span an incredible range, including a raw new memoir from Leslie Jamison on motherhood and the self; the esteemed... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-02-20 09:46:58 UTC ]
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From fan fiction about Disney cartoons having sex to raunchy shows from Hollywood stars, pornographic audio is podcasting’s hottest new trendHave you ever stood at the school gates, waiting to pick up your six-year-old, while secretly listening to fan fiction about Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-02-12 16:32:24 UTC ]
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Free operating systems based on the Linux operating system kernel invented and published by Linus Torvalds are now a serious alternative to Windows, not least due to the wide range of open source software on offer. We reveal the six most ingenious free applications under Linux, which... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2024-02-01 14:00:00 UTC ]
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The Kobo Libra 2 ereader has dropped to its lowest price of the year so far. You can grab one via Amazon for $170, which is a discount of $20. This matches pricing from the holiday season for the water-resistant reading tablet. Kobo’s Libra 2 easily made our list of the best ereaders for a... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-01-30 19:50:25 UTC ]
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Apple just dropped a trailer for its forthcoming sci-fi mystery series Constellation. The series follows an astronaut, played by Noomi Rapace, after an emergency return to Earth. However, the homecoming is fraught with mysterious occurrences and plain-old sci-fi weirdness, leaving audiences... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-01-22 16:42:45 UTC ]
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The football broadcaster and podcast mogul keeps tweeting about the Israel-Gaza war, despite arguing with friends and getting into hot water with the BBC. What drives him?Gary Lineker has asked me to meet him at his house in Barnes at 2.30pm. It’s a miserable wet day in London, so I give myself... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-01-20 07:00:52 UTC ]
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Collette Morgan, owner of the Minneapolis children's bookstore that she and her then-husband opened in 1992, has transferred its ownership to four of the store's eight employees. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-01-19 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Bandai Namco’s Sand Land finally has a release date of April 26. This is a video game adaptation of a classic manga by artist Akira Toriyama. That’s the same Akira Toriyama who created Dragon Ball, and also created the character designs for Chrono Trigger and many entries in the Dragon Quest... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-01-12 18:40:08 UTC ]
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Rushdie’s book about the incident will be published in April, but the delay ‘will not change the ultimate outcome’ of the trial says district attorneyThe trial of the man accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie has been postponed because of the publication of the author’s memoir about the attack.A... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-01-04 13:18:47 UTC ]
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Judge says Hadi Matar, who pleaded not guilty to attempted murder charge after Rushdie was stabbed on stage in 2022, is entitled to see manuscript for trial preparationThe trial of the man charged with stabbing Salman Rushdie on stage in 2022 may be delayed because of plans to publish the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-01-03 12:16:41 UTC ]
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“Gray’s idiom may be modern, but it embraces many traditional things; not only autobiographical realism, but low comedy, afterlife fantasy, scattershot satire, nightmarish allegory, self-referential metafiction, tender eroticism, lunatic scholarship and profuse literary borrowings.” —David... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-12-19 09:57:38 UTC ]
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OpenAI will pay German publisher Axel Springer to use its news articles to train its AI models and show real-time information from Axel Springer's brands, which include Business Insider and Politico in the US and Bild and Welt in Europe, in ChatGPT’s responses. None of the companies disclosed... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-12-13 20:03:27 UTC ]
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Over the next six months, inmates in prisons around the country will be able to debate and vote on the winner of a new book award — the Inside Literary Prize. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-12-04 10:01:30 UTC ]
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YouTube recently took dramatic action against anyone visiting its site with an ad blocker running — after a few pieces of content, it'll simply stop serving you videos. If you want to get past the wall, that ad blocker will (probably) need to be turned off; and if you want an ad-free experience,... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-12-01 14:00:31 UTC ]
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Ereaders like the Kindle Paperwhite make great gifts — especially when they're on sale. The Paperwhite adds a few perks over the standard Kindle, including a warm backlight, a waterproof build and a larger screen. As part of Amazon's Black Friday sale, it's now $20 off... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-11-23 15:00:04 UTC ]
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