Newen-Backed Ringside Media Acquires Stake In ‘Blue Story’ Outfit Joi Productions

Famed Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi has partnered with the U.K.’s Royal Shakespeare Company to create a stage version of Japanese animation legend Hayao Miyazaki’s 1988 hand-drawn classic My Neighbour Totoro, a beloved film that follows the adventures of two young sisters who move from Tokyo city to the countryside.

This Morning star Matthew Wright has proudly shown off his ever-growing plait. Matthew first debuted his unique hairstyle back in 2020 after admitting to cutting his own hair during lockdown – like many people across the UK at the time. Initially, Matthew was rocking what looked to be the early stages of a mullet, and the 56 year old TV presenter has kept growing the back of his hair ever since.

Great British Bake Off presenter Matt Lucas has said he was 'thin-shamed' after losing weight. The comedian, who is best known for his work with David Walliams on Little Britain and Come Fly With Me, Matt previously spoke of his weight loss on ITV show Lorraine. He said: “I lost some weight, I needed to take the edge off, because I put on a lot of weight in lockdown.

I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! It was reported yesterday that a totally new spin-off of the show could be filmed this year with favourite campmates of the past. The Loose Women and Sort Your Life Out star is one of the celebs reportedly in talks with producers to see if she can appear, The Sun reports.

Marilyn Stasio Theater CriticIn the theatrical annals of wild and wicked stage plays, there are black comedies, blacker comedies, and blacker-than-the-dead-of-night comedies like “Hangmen.“  Prolific playwright Martin McDonagh hasn’t written all of them, to be sure; but he’s created some of the best of this deadly lot, including “The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” “The Cripple of Inishmaan” and “The Pillowman,” not to mention such beautifully bleak films as “Seven Psychopaths,” “In Bruges” and “Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri.”Still, there is something special about “Hangmen,” which, were it a song, would be the perfect little ditty to play as you were cutting your wrists. Happily (if such a word would apply to any of his work), this Broadway production is a deadly beauty, flawlessly cast and directed in the mordant style of an executioner’s song by Matthew Dunster.

Camera are rolling on an ITV drama that tells the true story of Britain’s biggest ever police manhunt.

EXCLUSIVE: CBS has set up a writers room for drama The Great Game, produced by CBS Studios in association with Alex Kurtzman’s studio-based Secret Hideout. It will be led by the project’s co-writers/executive producers John Hlavin (The Man Who Fell to Earth) and Matthew Newman (Chicago PD) with the goal of generating multiple scripts for a potential straight-to-series order.

EXCLUSIVE: Eric Fellner, Working Title co-chairman, and the creators of the hit Billy Elliot musical, have given their support to a non-replica production that will run at UK regional theatre, The Curve, Leicester, from July 7.

EXCLUSIVE: Singapore-based Indian financier Vistas Media Capital has launched a North American division to be run by film industry vet Ben Waisbren.

Downton Abbey star Dan Stevens is barely recognisable from his days as the posh and well-to-do fan-favourite Matthew Crawley in his latest appearance on the red carpet. The British actor, now 39, who recently made a dig at Prime Minister Boris Johnson on The One Show, was part of one of the most beloved couples in the period drama during his days on the ITV show. Matthew fell head over heels in love with Michelle Dockery's Lady Mary Crawley, but their passionate romance came to an abrupt end when Dan left the show.

From today, April 15th, Operation Mincemeat is in cinemas. Colin Firth takes the lead role in this blockbuster portrayal of a bonkers operation carried out by British intelligence during World War II.

Guy Lodge Film CriticOperation Mincemeat was an aptly absurd code name for what was, on the face of it, a preposterous British military mission: In 1943, with Allied forces planning to invade Sicily and wrest it from fascist Axis control, two intelligence officers conspired to convince the Nazis they were targeting Greece instead, pulling off the ruse with false documents and the stolen, dressed-up corpse of a fictitious British marine. It’s a true chapter of history that nonetheless sounds like a war film as dreamed up by Ealing Studios scriptwriters; it’s practically begging to be made into a farce, and sure enough, the gag-filled knockabout musical “Operation Mincemeat” hits London stages this very month.

Netflix is in early-stage conversations with The Crown producer Left Bank over a prequel to the smash hit royal drama.

Manori Ravindran International Editor5Ringside Media, the investment arm of Newen-backed indie Ringside Studios, has taken a minority stake in Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor’s Joi Productions.Joi Productions was founded by Gharoro-Akpojotor (pictured, right), and in 2020 received a BFI Vision award. Gharoro-Akpojotor, a BAFTA Breakthrough nominee, has had breakout hits producing Rapman’s “Blue Story” and “Boxing Day.” She is currently producing the BBC’s “Champion,” written by “Queenie” author and screenwriter Candice Carty-Williams.

Naman Ramachandran Celebrated media diversity and inclusion practitioner Joanna Abeyie is joining the BBC as interim head of creative diversity on a six-month contract.Abeyie will support the BBC’s outgoing director of creative diversity, June Sarpong, and chief content officer, Charlotte Moore, in delivering on-air diversity and inclusion strategies across all BBC output.Abeyie will lead on the planning, development and implementation of initiatives related to on-air talent portrayal, commissioning guidelines, diverse audience panels, monitoring and reporting. She joins at a time when there is an exodus of women of color from the BBC, as revealed by a Variety investigation.