VANESSA REDGRAVE TO LEAD THE OUTSIDE ROOM POWERFUL APARTHEID DRAMA AND STAR IN POST NAPOLEONIC THE MEDUSA WITH JESSE EISENBERG, PIERCE BROSNAN

   VANESSA REDGRAVE

THE LEAD THE OUTSIDE ROOM

This one was shopped at American Film Market this month: Oliver Schmitz’s big screen adaptation of novel Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk,

Vanessa Redgrave will play Milla

THE OUTSIDE ROOM with Vanessa Redgrave and Cynthia Erivo in the lead roles!

Milla, a 70 year old white woman, in the terminal stages of motor neuron disease, trapped in silence and confined to her bed, struggles to make herself "heard" by her black maid servant and now nurse, Agaat. Slowly the events leading to this room are recalled: 1950s when life in South Africa was full of promise Milla inherits her Grandmother's farm, marries the dashing but cruel Jak, enslaves herself to the farm to leave a lasting legacy, struggles to fall pregnant, discovers and "adopts" the young, abused Agaat, but when she falls pregnant demotes her to the role of servant. Agaat exacts her revenge becoming mother, sister, governess and best friend to the child and prevents him from forming any tangible relationships with his biological family. She asserts a terrible power by harnessing to herself the means and opportunities of the system that subjugated her. Milla's long, slow descent becomes an exercise in remembering and understanding, piecing together the fragments of a life.

The book was a bestseller around Europe

The Medusa About Gericault

Speaking of Vanessa Redgrave, she will also star in period set drama THE MEDUSA set during the turmoil of post Napoleonic France, and following famous artist Géricault (Jesse Eisenberg), who learns that his best friend (Pierce Brosnan) has died after the Naval vessel Medusa runs aground near Senegal. Plunged into grief, and entangled in a passionate but doomed love affair, Géricault begins to search for a reason to live. In this quest, he becomes morbidly obsessed with the disaster - and with seeing justice served.

'LAST MAN STANDING' GETS SHOCKING CANCELLATION BY ABC! NEW BBC DRAMAS TRAILER GLIMPSES INTO 'POLDARK', 'GUNPOWDER', 'TROY FALL OF THE CITY', 'WOMAN IN WHITE', 'MINIATURIST', 'HOWARDS END'! JESSE EISENBERG, PIERCE BROSNAN, VANESSA REDGRAVE IN 19TH CENTURY 'MEDUSA'

 NEW BBC DRAMAS TRAILER

 A PEEK INTO NEW TV SERIES

 Some great news and some sad news today! Good ones come from BBC One which has just released an epic trailer announcing all the new dramas coming up our way this year at the British broadcaster giving us exciting first peeks into their new epic series GUNPOWDER with Kit Harintgon, Jessie Buckley's Victorian thriller THE WOMAN IN WHITE, the adaptation of THE MINIATURIST, new mini series on HOWARDS END with Matthew MacFadyen, epic adventure TROY: THE FALL OF THE CITY, gay drama MAN IN ORANGE SHIRT with Oliver Jackson Cohen and Vanessa Redgrave, and the first scenes from POLDARK season 3! Feast your eyes on the trailer below:

 'THE MEDUSA' 19TH CENTURY

MOVIE CASTS JESSE EISENBERG, VANESSA REDGRAVE AND PIERCE BROSNAN

Another period set project will be a movie on famous painter Théodore Géricault THE MEDUSA depicting the tragic events that inspired his harrowing and politically significant masterpiece The Raft Of The Medusa. As 'Deadline' reports Jesse Eisenberg will play the painter, with Pierce Brosnan as his uncle and nemesis, Caruel, and Vanessa Redgrave as his anti royalist innkeeper. Peter Webber of Girl With a Pearl Earring is directing.

Set during the turmoil of post Napoleonic France, the story centres on Géricault, artist and enfant terrible, who learns that his best friend has died after the Naval vessel Medusa runs aground near Senegal. His death and those of over 100 others were horrific due to incompetence on the part of an aristocratic captain.

 'LAST MAN STANDING'

 PREMATURELY KILLED BY ABC

The saddest of news people! The most wholesome of sitcoms on the telly which offered good natured family friendly humour and multiple perspectives on modern day life and politics  LAST MAN STANDING has been cancelled by ABC after the end of its sixth season (which is a great long running number for any sitcom, admittedly). It hasn't been revealed why ABC cancelled it, since it averaged 8 million or more viewers per each episode for six years ruling Friday night evenings in USA (a viewership that most of your favourite shows never had especially not on Friday nights which are considered a graveyard for ratings). It is also not clear whether ABC is looking to cancel its Friday night comedy block and whether the sitcom, which has been done under syndication so far, might get another network. With its friendly but also contemporary and very relevant humour wrapped in warm family stories with highly moral educational messages of tolerance and compromise, Tim Allen's beautiful sitcom was one of the last ones of its kind on the small screens.Tim commented on the cancellation with: Stunned and blindsided by the network I called home for the last six years.