37 posts tagged “john simm”

Despite still having some compose-window blackouts over a few hours today, December 8 marks the day when Vox has given me 10 compose windows within minutes, a record.
   I’m still not sure which neighbour might be causing the glitch, after Kimmie at Six Apart gave me a clue that it might be someone I was following that began my problems back in October.
   I spent the day deleting dormant and dead accounts, as well as some added in October. While things aren’t perfect, they are better than they were last week, when I had another 24-hour block.
   So it’s time to share a few videos again. I finally watched a recording of the most recent David Tennant Doctor Who special, ‘The Waters of Mars’. (I missed it due to a business trip last week.) I didn’t think it was that great, but since we have two Tennant stories left, I know we are building up to a pretty impressive finalé. There were more references to David Bowie (the Mars base was named after him), which got me thinking about Life on Mars again …

Linda-Joy pointed me to this article about John Simm in The Independent:

Who is John Simms

Let’s see: State of Play, remade. Life on Mars, remade. What are the chances the Americans will redo Tuesday?
   I think there is a conspiracy to remake anything that John Simm and Philip Glenister appear in.

I never realized that these two characters were played by the same actor—and I have extra admiration for him as a result. I’d seen a few of Ralph Brown’s work of late but never know I was watching the same actor in some of his earlier works.
   First, DCI Frank Morgan from Life on Mars:

Ralph Brown as DCI Frank Morgan

and Del Preston from Wayne’s World 2 (who is very similar to Danny the Dealer in Withnail and I).

Ralph Brown as Del Preston

2 comments

Spanish TV network Antena 3 has the first TVC of its new series, La chica de ayer—i.e. Spanish Life on Mars.
   I wonder if British fans will be up in arms about how Ernesto Alterio is not as good as John Simm, etc.
   First glance is it does look cheaper than both the UK and US versions, and there are identical scenes. And the Alfa Romeo 2000 is not as cool as the Cortina.

Here’s the trailer to US State of Play, which in the BBC original starred John Simm, Bill Nighy, James McAvoy and, in a minor supporting role, Philip Glenister. Unlike the Life on Mars remake, the comments on YouTube have been fairly subdued. No spouting about Americans ruining a good British serial by sticking Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck in it (originally Brad Pitt and Edward Norton), probably because Universal had the good sense to cast Helen Mirren (in Bill Nighy’s BAFTA-winning role) as well.

There is an extra photograph of Spanish Life on Mars, La chica de ayer, in this blog post, though the magazine article that the blogger has excerpted has a major error: its author writes that La chica de ayer is a remake of Doctor Who. (Wouldn’t it then be El doctor Quién? Doctor Quién—that sounds familiar. Wasn’t that with Jane Seymour?)
   Well, the Americans did call Sam Tyler’s Mum ‘Rose’ in their remake … so maybe it is all tied up with the Tardis after all? And don’t forget this:

Before this gets remade by the Americans with Ben Affleck and Russell Crowe, a glimpse at John Simm and Philip Glenister in State of Play.

Gene Hunt and Alex Drake in 1982

We all knew that the next series of Ashes to Ashes will be ‘darker’, something the creators have always said, but producer Beth Willis gets us even more excited in an interview with Digital Spy.
   Obviously I can’t post the whole thing here due to their copyright, but here are some highlights:

• Alex is beginning to accept that the people in 1982 are real—after she realizes that Gene saved her as a little girl;
• ‘We have a character from Life On Mars who will come up at some point during the series and that will inevitably reopen questions about Sam.’