Maxine Peake: Last News

After a Manchester venue cancelled a Palestinian event last week, the fallout has spilled into the gallery’s other exhibitions.

EXCLUSIVE: The Dispatcher, Apple TV+’s series adaptation of Ryan David Jahn’s eponymous thriller novel, is adding to its ranks.

The writers behind the adapted screenplay of Focus Features’ Conclave and an episode of the FX and Hulu series Say Nothing won Saturday night at the 37th annual USC Scripter Awards.

EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of the European Film Market, Bankside Films has revealed multiple pre-sales on BAFTA nominee Kirk Jones’ Tourette’s drama I Swear, which is currently in post production.

Channel 4 has unveiled the full cast for this year's celebrity version of The Great British Bake Off, set to grace our screens in Spring, with an official release date yet to be confirmed.The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer will feature a host of stars vying for the coveted Star Baker title, with each episode seeing four celebrities put their baking prowess to the test in the Signature, Technical and Showstopper rounds. While Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood usually judge the contestants' bakes, Prue will be absent from this year's special.

Dame Prue Leith has been replaced on The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer, with her replacement being named as the line-up for the latest celebrity special was confirmed.

Inside a building in the heart of the Northern Quarter, more than 180 of Manchester's most vulnerable people gathered for Christmas dinner yesterday.

EXCLUSIVE: There’s fire and anger in Maxine Peake’s portrayal of Dolours Price in new FX drama Say Nothing.

Say Nothing, the new series that premiered on Disney+ on Thursday 14 November, is already causing a stir on social media.The show, which dropped all nine episodes last week, has been praised by early viewers who took to social media to urge others to watch it. Based on the real-life abduction and murder of Jean McConville in 1972, Say Nothing delves into the story of the Northern Irish mother-of-ten who was accused by the IRA of being an informant for the British and subsequently became one of the Troubles' "disappeared".

The Smashing Pumpkins‘ Billy Corgan has appeared on a podcast that charts the history of New Order, where he explains why the band’s “alien quality” landed with Generation X in the US.In the latest episode of Transmissions: The Definitive Story of Joy Division & New Order, released yesterday (September 19), host Maxine Peake focused on how the band’s first-ever US tour in 1980 came to be. Corgan chimes in to contextualise the unique connection British music sparked with the Gen Xers who were coming of age.Describing a generation of “latchkey kids” who had “too much TV” and “too much time alone”, the “alien quality” of bands like New Order began to resonate.“Bands like New Order seem to find that, ‘Yes, you’re young, Yes, you wanna fall in love and ‘es, you’re having your heart broken, but the world kind of isn’t the way it appears to be,'” he elaborates.Listen to the podcast episode below, which also features anecdotes from techno producer Kevin Saunderson and writers Andrew O’Hagan and Audrey Golden, along with interviews with current and former band members Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris, Gillian Gilbert and Peter Hook.A band like New Order, he continues, signified to kids like Corgan that “there was this other world out there that was cooler, had more depth of feel, had a level of sophistication even about teenage angst, that you certainly weren’t getting from America, particularly in the rock scene in the 80s.”He likened discovering New Order as a teenager to feeling like “the kid who sits in the back of the class because ‘nobody understands me and I got my weird trench coat'” from a typical John Hughes movie.“The minute you heard New Order, you were like, ‘They’re one of me’ or ‘I’m one of them’.

EXCLUSIVE: Political drama-thriller Words of War, about the life and murder of Russian-American investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya has been sold domestically to Decal Releasing out of the TIFF market.

Inside No. 9's fans have shared that they were "in floods of tears" watching the final ever episode, which they are calling a "masterpiece".The dark comedy anthology created by and starring Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton came to an end on Wednesday night, 12 June, after nine hit seasons and it was an emotional goodbye for viewers.

Celebrate women, girls and non-binary people with the first WOW (Women of the World) Festival taking place in Manchester this month, presented by Factory International and The WOW Foundation.

EXCLUSIVE: Political drama-thriller Words Of War, led by an ensemble including Maxine Peake, Ciarán Hinds, and Jason Isaacs, is heading to this month’s Cannes Market. 

Less than a week ago, the UK’s popular art venue the Home Theatre in Manchester was sharing on social media that it would be “celebrating Palestinian voices” at an event called Voices of Resilience in April.

Olly Alexander, the UK’s Eurovision contestant, to boycott the song contest in solidarity with Palestine.The push was put forward to the singer, actor and Years & Years vocalist via an open letter, which was published by Queers For Palestine.In the letter – which can be read in full here – the signatories urge the musician to boycott the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest due to the inclusion of Israel. “By refusing to expel Israel from the competition, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) is providing cultural cover and endorsement for the catastrophic violence that Israel has unleashed on Palestinians,” it reads.“At a time when accountability is so urgently needed, Israel’s inclusion in Eurovision would enable and cover up its war crimes and crimes against humanity,” it continues.

Brian Eno, Nadine Shah and Maxine Peake will be among the performers at a special benefit event in support of Palestine at London’s Union Chapel on April 18. The show, which is titled Sumud and promises “a fundraising evening of music, spoken word and film for Palestine”, will be hosted by Amos Trust and Palestine Music Expo, and tickets are available here. All proceeds will go to Amos Trust’s emergency appeal for Gaza.

Glasgow Film Festival (GFF) has revealed the stars who will be joining them for their 20th anniversary, including Viggo Mortensen and Maxine Peake.

Twisting My Melon has been halted due to creative disputes.In 2013, ITV announced it was planning to serialise the Happy Mondays frontman’s autobiography Twisting My Melon. Eventually, Jack O’Connell (Skins) was announced as the lead actor in 2019.The film is written by Matt Greenhalgh, who also wrote the script for the Ian Curtis biopic Control, John Lennon‘s origin story Nowhere Boy, and Amy Winehouse‘s Back to Black.Greenhalgh was set to direct the movie as well, however a creative disagreement with the film’s American funders has stalled progressed on the film. In the latest edition of Classic Pop (via Music News), Ryder said: “Matt Greenhalgh wrote the script and was gonna direct.“So we got the money, half-English, half-American and Matt fell out with the Americans.

Children were being raped 'every day' - but the 'lone voices' who spoke out about it were 'disbelieved' and 'silenced'.

Victoria Wood fans were delighted on Saturday night as the late comedy legend returned to TV screens on BBC 2 with a repeat of her much-loved Christmas special Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings. The sketch show features an array of famous faces, but fans were quick to comment how many of them are no longer with us.