Madhouse Beyond

BondPotterWho

Quite a long time ago, I noticed that quite a lot of actors in the Harry Potter movies have also been in Doctor Who, and there are also several actors in Harry Potter that have also been in one of the more recent Bond movies. This led to a conversation with some like-minded friends, during which we decided that, like a Bacon number, british actors should have a ranking system based on how many of the UK's national institutions in which they have appeared, and that we should use Harry Potter, James Bond and Doctor Who as our three. We also decided that John Cleese is the only one we could think of who's been in all three.

In fact, there are four. The obvious one, John Cleese, had a cameo role as an art critic in the Doctor Who episode "City of Death", a slightly larger role as Nearly Headless Nick in Harry Potter, and a role as Q's replacement in two Bond movies.

Julian Glover has also been in all three. He's one of those actors who has been in practically everything but nobody really notices him. He's been in Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and two roles in Doctor Who, most memorably Scaroth in "City of Death". He played the villan Kristatos in For Your Eyes Only, and voiced Aragog the spider in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Yes, we are counting voice roles.

Helen McCrory is best known as Narcissa Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies, but has appeared in Doctor Who as head vampire Rosanna in "Vampires of Venice", and as the MP Clair Dowar in Skyfall.

Last, but by no means least, we have Greg Bennett. Judging from his IMDB profile he's a background actor for hire, he's been in pretty much everything. He's had multiple roles in Doctor Who, and has also appeared in the other two, albeit in uncredited minor roles.

Interestingly, only three lead actors have "crossed over" as it were. Two Doctors have appeared in Harry Potter; David Tennant and John Hurt (because he counts as a Doctor in my book.) and only one Bond, Timothy Dalton, has appeared in Doctor Who, as the corrupt Time Lord leader, Rassilon.

A few other honourable mentions before the complete list. BBC News presenter Huw Edwards has managed to play himself in both Doctor Who and James Bond. He appears on the television in the Doctor Who episode "Fear Her", and also in Skyfall. BAFTA and Golden Globe winner Bill Nighy has had walk-on roles in both the Doctor Who episode "Vincent and the Doctor", and in the first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and was rumoured to be in the running to play the ninth Doctor back in 2005. Finally, veteran actor Warwick Davis has yet to appear in a Bond movie, but that's not to say he won't one day, seeing as he's been in pretty much everything else!

On the subject of people who have been in virtually everything, Martin Freeman doesn't appear to have been in Doctor Who, James Bond or Harry Potter. I'm sure this will be rectified soon, especially as he clearly knows Steven Moffat.

I'm sure this list will be revised in the future, especially as Downton Abbey and Coronation Street both seem to be melting pots of well-known actors these days. In the meantime, here's a complete list of everyone who's been in more than one of Doctor Who, James Bond and Harry Potter, plus links to IMDB so you can see who they played. Enjoy, stats fans.

Actor	Bond	Potter	Who
Greg Bennett	O	O	O
Julian Glover	O	O	O
John Cleese	O	O	O
Helen McCrory	O	O	O
Roy Stewart	O		O
Ingrid Pitt	O		O
John Hurt		O	O
Peter Roy	O		O
Imelda Staunton		O	O
Lesley Hill	O		O
John Atterbury		O	O
Jeremy Bulloch	O		O
Ralph Fiennes	O	O
Shirley Henderson		O	O
George Pravda	O		O
John Hollis	O		O
James Bree	O		O
Noel Johnson	O		O
Anthony Carrick	O		O
Michael Percival	O		O
George Roubicek	O		O
Colin Salmon	O		O
Christopher Bowen	O		O
Jim Conway	O		O
Leonard Sachs	O		O
Peter Cartwright		O	O
Simon Fisher-Becker		O	O
Ellie Darcey-Alden		O	O
Jessica Hynes		O	O
Bill Hutchinson	O		O
Joseph Frst	O		O
Graham Crowden	O		O
Carl McCrystal	O		O
David de Keyser	O		O
Edward de Souza	O		O
Cyril Shaps	O		O
Zoë Wanamaker		O	O
Christina Cole	O		O
Philip Voss	O		O
Mark Williams		O	O
Marc Lawrence	O		O
Peter Brooke	O		O
Graham Cole	O		O
Ron Tarr	O		O
Bill Nighy		O	O
Alan Talbot	O		O
Terrance Denville	O		O
Patrick Barr	O		O
Dennis Edwards	O		O
Barry Andrews	O		O
R.J. Bell	O		O
Tim Pigott-Smith	O		O
Jimmy Vee		O	O
Jeffry Wickham	O		O
Burnell Tucker	O		O
Graham Duff		O	O
Glen Stanway	O	O
Neil Hallett	O		O
Tony Sibbald	O		O
David Yip	O		O
Paul Ritter	O	O
Jeff Rawle		O	O
Kristopher Kum	O		O
Neville Jason	O		O
Geoffrey Palmer	O		O
Max Faulkner	O		O
Rocky Taylor	O		O
Derek Deadman		O	O
Selva Rasalingam	O		O
Warwick Davis		O	O
Jeremy Wilkin	O		O
Michael Byrne	O	O
Paul Carson	O		O
Hans De Vries	O		O
Burt Kwouk	O		O
Bill Mitchell	O		O
Pip Torrens	O		O
Robbie Coltrane	O	O
Kerry Shale	O		O
David Bradley		O	O
John Sarbutt	O		O
Elizabeth Spriggs		O	O
Timothy Bateson		O	O
George Baker	O		O
Hugh Bonneville	O		O
Norman Jones	O		O
Chris Webb	O		O
Greg Powell	O		O
Jimmy Gardner		O	O
John Moreno	O		O
Eva Alexander		O	O
Vernon Dobtcheff	O		O
Michael Moor	O		O
Richard Trinder		O	O
Lisa Osmond		O	O
Diana Rigg	O		O
David Decio	O	O
Catherine Schell	O		O
Earl Cameron	O		O
Paul Heasman	O		O
Garrick Hagon	O		O
Honor Blackman	O		O
Timothy Dalton	O		O
Stephen Hubay	O		O
Francis De Wolff	O		O
Daisy Haggard		O	O
Bill Weston	O		O
Christopher Whittingham		O	O
Roger Lloyd Pack		O	O
Jason Watkins	O		O
Toby Jones		O	O
Robert Jezek	O		O
David Tennant		O	O
Elize du Toit	O		O
Aileen Lewis	O		O
Dennis Matsuki	O		O
Anthony Ainley	O		O
Bhasker Patel	O		O
Jim McManus		O	O
Tom Chadbon	O		O
Gbor Baraker	O		O
Shane Rimmer	O		O
Geoffrey Cheshire	O		O
Albert Moses	O		O
Huw Edwards	O		O
Steven Berkoff	O		O
Clifford Earl	O		O
Jan Williams	O		O
Edward Underdown	O		O
Nichola McAuliffe	O		O
Clive Cazes	O		O
Marc Boyle	O		O
Kevin McNally	O		O
Nina Young	O	O
Peter Brace	O		O
Philip Locke	O		O
Colin Stinton	O		O
Dinny Powell	O		O
Leslie French	O		O
Carl Rigg	O		O
Nick Hobbs	O		O
Ronald Rich	O		O
Alan Bond	O		O
George Pastell	O		O
Paul Darrow	O		O
Michael Osborne	O		O
Brian Grellis	O		O
Ralph Morse	O		O
Steve Plytas	O		O
Alf Joint	O		O
Bernard Horsfall	O		O
Lasco Atkins	O	O
Tobias Menzies	O		O
Ken Norris	O		O
Shaun Lucas	O		O
John Abineri	O		O
Paul Marc Davis		O	O
Julian Seager	O		O
Laurie Goode	O		O
Tim Condren	O		O
Sonny Caldinez	O		O
Jennifer Hill	O		O
Gertan Klauber	O		O
Terence Brook	O		O
Vincent Wong	O		O
Richard Cubison	O	O
Dudley Jones	O		O
Ray Marioni	O		O
Andr Maranne	O		O
David Hankinson		O	O
David Ashton	O		O
Jo Osmond		O	O
Philip Rham		O	O
Sean Cronin	O	O
Adrian Rawlins		O	O
Terence Bayler		O	O

Shakespeare and Language

There are a lot of classic authors, and lots of books and lots of movies of books. Some of these books are written by Shakespeare and some aren't. Yet for some reason every time an adaptation of a Shakespeare play is released, it has to remain faithful to the original in terms of dialogue, and no other author is extended this courtesy.

Some examples are quite extreme. Baz Luhrman's film version of Romeo and Juliet and Geoffrey Wright's adaptation of Macbeth are both modernised versions of their respective plays, changing many concepts to their modern day equivalent (eg Macbeth becomes a gang leader instead of king, and the Montagues and Capulets are rival business empires rather than feuding families). Despite this, the dialogue is taken directly from the original, which sounds more than a little odd, having people in familiar modern day settings talking like shakespearean characters.

Done, I think, much better is Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss' Sherlock, a modern re-telling of Arthur Conan-Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, interspersed with the odd original story. The first episode of the last series was a faithful modern adaptation of A Study in Scarlet, and the first two episodes of the upcoming series are based on A Scandal in Bohemia and The Hound of the Baskervilles. All are set in modern day England but the dialogue has been modernised with the setting. Yet the adaptation is very faithful to the original in terms of plot.

I'm on the fence in the usual book/movie adaptation argument - I appreciate that you sometimes need to change elements from books to make them work on screen. For example, I support Peter Jackson's decision to omit the entire 'Cleansing of the Shire' section from Return of the King because it would have spoiled the pacing of the movie. That said, sometimes things go a bit too far - many of movie adaptations of Roald Dahl books change things for no good reason and ruin the spirit of the original story (eg The Witches). I guess this is all a matter of opinion though, and therefore a slight digression from the point.

Basically: why is it that Shakespeare's language is immune from any kind of Hollywood meddling, even in a supposedly modernised adaptation, and that of other equally skilled wordsmiths (ie Tolkien) isn't? Shakespeare was indeed a literary genius, but he's hardly a special case and we need to stop treating him like one.

Thoughts on the Social Network

At the weekend, I watched The Social Network, the movie based on the creation of Facebook. Not sure how much of it is fictional and how much is genuine to true life, but it did re-affirm several things in my mind.

Facebook do more with your photos than they like to let on.
Harvard jocks are the worst kind of jock.
Hollywood will never produce a realistic depiction of England.
Mark Zuckerberg is an arsehole.

As a postscript, with the exception of Eduardo Saverin, who gets absolutely crapped on, and Erica Albright, the first person in the movie to tell Mark Zuckerberg he's an arsehole, by the end of the movie I hated every single character in it yet still quite enjoyed the film overall. I can't remember the last time that happened. Also, kudos is due for being reasonably technically accurate and not just spouting off reams of meaningless techno-babble like most movies do. Overall, I enjoyed the movie but probably won't watch it again.

I may have been a little hasty

I have argued many times that 3D movies are a complete waste of time and money, and that no movie can possibly make me want to go and pay an extra premium on top of the already high ticket price - not to mention an extra quid for a packet of ibuprofen - just to see it in 3D.

That was before they announced Jackass 3D...

movies

BondPotterWho

Shakespeare and Language

Thoughts on the Social Network

I may have been a little hasty

External Links

An Hour of Digital Rain (youtube.com)