The Friday News Roundup: End of the Year Madness Edition

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Happy Holiday Weekend Friday, Telly Visions readers! Hope everyone is gearing up for a great few days with family and friends and safe travels if you’re headed anywhere for the holidays today.

There’s a lot of fun stuff in the roundup today, and a little something for everyone probably – featuring Downton Abbey, Great Expectations, Sherlock, The Borrowers, Doctor Who, Julian Fellowes’ new Titantic miniseries, and a bunch more, so click through and start reading.

Benedict Cumberbatch made a sort of random and entirely amazing appearance during the opening of the British Comedy Awards.

During this heavy promotional season of new Sherlock photos and videos and everything everywhere, a little something for the old school Sherlock Holmes fans: A beautiful photo book and images of Jeremy Brett’s Granada series.

In real life news: collection of items belonging to the city doctor who inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to come up with the character of Sherlock Holmes is to go on display in Edinburgh.

Christopher Eccleston discusses his role in the BBC’s Christmas adaptation of The Borrowers.

More Downton Abbey Christmas special pictures – FYI, these could be considered a tiny bit spoilery, if you’re trying to avoid seeing anything, so bookmark for later perusal if you don’t want to know!

Behind-the-scenes pictures from the Downton Christmas special have also surfaced from multiple sources – and they’re not really spoilery for anything other than what characters are present.

If the Downton Christmas special isn’t enough Julian Fellowes for the weekend, the trailer for his new four-part miniseries Titanic is scheduled to be screened on Christmas Day. We’ll try and find a copy for you.

Something neat for Dickens enthusiasts – this mural is on the site of Charles Dickens’ former house on Devonshire Terrace in London and it shows some of the characters he created while living there. How many can you name? (I’m rubbish at this, so you all tell me, okay?)

More from the Dickens front: Ray Winstone talks about the BBC’s upcoming Great Expectations adaptation.

I don’t have kids, but I sort of want to have this amazing Doctor Who birthday party for myself anyway. Who wouldn’t want a Dalek cake and an entirely adorable Eleventh Doctor outfit? 

Speaking of Who, Steven Moffat is now hinting that there may be more than one Doctor Who 50th anniversary special in 2013.

Dame Helen Mirren wants to be the first female Doctor in the TARDIS. So supportive of this!

Mirren is also going to appear on the hit Fox comedy Glee in January. Well, sort of. She’s doing a voiceover.

And from the interesting rumor files – now it looks possible that Moffat himself might be writing that upcoming Doctor Who movie 

Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe, is set to host Saturday Night Live  in January.

A strange-but-true tidbit for the Harry Potter lovers: The International Quidditch Association (did you know that actually existed?) is considering hosting an exhibition tournament in London during the 2012 Olympics.

Rumor has it: Tabloid reports say Daniel Craig has been offered a deal to stay on as James Bond for five more films, which would make him the longest tenured Bond to date.

The Telegraph has named their Top 20 Best Dressed British Men of 2011, including Matt Smith, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jude Law, Prince Harry, Robert Pattinson, Douglas Booth & more.

Some interesting new Banksy artwork appeared in Canary Wharf.


Lacy Baugher

Lacy's love of British TV is embarrassingly extensive, but primarily centers around evangelizing all things Doctor Who, and watching as many period dramas as possible.

Digital media type by day, she also has a fairly useless degree in British medieval literature, and dearly loves to talk about dream poetry, liminality, and the medieval religious vision. (Sadly, that opportunity presents itself very infrequently.) York apologist, Ninth Doctor enthusiast, and unabashed Ravenclaw. Say hi on Threads or Blue Sky at @LacyMB. 

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