The creative soul-searching about Iraq shows no sign of ending. Paul Abbott, the creator of Shameless, is casting a television series about a female war correspondent embedded with British troops, who sees Abu Ghraib-style abuse and is faced with the dilemma of speaking out when she returns home. Also bubbling under are The Mark of Cain, Tony Marchant's hard-hitting drama for Channel 4 about Iraqi prisoner abuse, and Irwin Winkler's feature film Home of the Brave, in which Samuel Jackson plays a disillusioned army medic.
More bad news for No 10: the Oscar-nominated director Stephen Frears has been given the green light for his next Peter Morgan feature collaboration after The Queen: an analysis of the Blair-Clinton/Blair-Bush love-in. Apparently, in the script, Clinton gets his fair share of the blame for persuading Tony to cosy up to Dubbya.
One smug note struck at Tate Britain's brilliant "Hogarth": the slagging-off of Channel 4's recent A Harlot's Progress, which imagined the artist (played by Toby Jones) having an affair with the woman depicted in the series of moral paintings. The exhibition co-curator Christine Riding told me that Hogarth would never have been so foolish, and that she "giggled throughout the film".
Dust down your lutes, waistcoats and mini double-decker buses. One of the surviving members of the Shadows tells me that the band will be reuniting next year with Sir Cliff Richard for a 50th-anniversary tour. Can you wait that long?
Much ill-feeling at the V&A about the fuss surrounding its "Kylie" exhibition. The V&A says it's only a tiny show, one it was obliged to do because the Theatre Museum - whose artefacts are in the V&A's possession - had committed to it. Which seems fair.
bendowell@btinternet.com
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