RUSSELL TOVEY - No.1331

Emma Thompson to play the Queen in Michael Fagan intruder drama

23 February 2012

http://www.bbc.co.uk/

Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson is to portray the Queen in a TV drama based on Michael Fagan's Buckingham Palace intrusion 30 years ago. Entitled Walking The Dogs, the film will tell the tale of how Fagan gained entry to the palace and entered the Queen's bedroom in 1982. Eddie Marsan and Russell Tovey will also star in the dramatisation. The film, to be screened later this year, is part of a new drama series for Sky Arts called Playhouse Presents.

Britain's top acting talent is set to appear in the series, Playhouse Presents. With Hayley Atwell, Brenda Blethyn, Trevor Eve, Stephen Fry, Richard E. Grant, Sheila Hancock, Douglas Henshall, John Hurt, Geraldine James, Tom Jones, Eddie Marsan, Gina McKee, Paul O’Grady, Lucy Punch, Martin Shaw, Harry Shearer, Stellan Skarsgård, Alison Steadman, Rhashan Stone, David Tennant, Emma Thompson, Russell Tovey, Zoe Wanamaker and Olivia Williams, the series showcases the incredible wealth of acting, directing and writing talent in the UK, and represents unmissable TV for Sky customers. The series has been commissioned as an evolution of the Playhouse series, which champions innovative productions and original writing, and which underlines Sky's commitment to the arts and in particular to British productions. "What is so brilliant about the Sky Arts Playhouse shows is being able to offer talent a blank canvas: to make drama the way they want to, to cast household names in very unfamiliar guises, to play with form and content in ways you wouldn't normally see on British television," says Peter Carlton, executive producer at Warp Films who have produced some of the new shows. The new series is a further validation of Sky Arts' resistance to the recent budget cuts sorrowfully witnessed across the arts in recent years and constitutes, in a sence, the unleashing of British talent at its most creative. We've always been proudly aware of the great talent in the country but here is where it all comes together; no restrictions, no limits, and all in your own living room.

PeteLordAardman: @russelltovey Can't wait to show you the movie Russell. Have you got a screening organised?

russelltovey: @PeteLordAardman yes!! :-) x

davidwalliams: I went to see Russell Tovey in 'Sex With a Stranger' at the Trafalgar Studios in London tonight. His acting was flawless.

harvey785: @davidwalliams Sorry?? ..You went to see Russell Tovey have sex with a stranger in Trafalgar Square loos tonight. His tackle was enormous!??

Andrew_Mackie_: @guy_interruptd And did you bum him afterwards, as intimated yesterday? @russelltovey

guy_interruptd: @Andrew_Mackie_ @russelltovey it was more a heavy frottage session...

CllrJamesDawson: @russelltovey your the main star on one of our noticeboards at work as an icon for others :) well done!

Purplecharlie32: @russelltovey Would love a hello from you - would make me one very happy lady! :) You must get hundreds of requests :( x

russelltovey: @Purplecharlie32 hello! X

russelltovey: RT @NickHernBooks: If you missed 'Sex with a Stranger' (fools!) then get the script here: http://t.co/eBE52NML  Sadly no free @russelltovey with each copy

Fagan intruder drama

Emma Thompson is to portray the Queen in a TV drama based on the famous Buckingham Palace burglary 30 years ago.

Intruder Michael Fagan sneaked into the palace and managed to find his way into her bedroom, sitting on her bed and chatting for ten minutes.

The incident has been adapted for a film called Walking The Dogs, to be screened by Sky Arts in the spring.

It also features Eddie Marsan - whose roles have included menacing parts in Happy-Go-Lucky and Tyrannosaur - as Fagan.

Russell Tovey plays a footman who had been walking the royal corgis instead of guarding the bedroom in the film, part of a new series of comedies and dramas called Playhouse Presents.

Fagan, who was 31 at the time, was initially charged with the theft of some wine from the palace but the charges were later dropped and he went on to be detained for several months in a psychiatric hospital.

His encounter with the Queen was actually his second visit to the royal household, after previously scaling a drainpipe and scouting round the corridors before leaving.

The Queen engaged Fagan - who was bleeding after he broke an ashtray - in conversation until help arrived.

The incident was immortalised in the title track of The Smiths album The Queen Is Dead two years later. The song includes singer Morrissey's lines: "So I broke into the palace with a sponge and a rusty spanner; she said: 'Eh, I know you, and you cannot sing', I said: 'That's nothing - you should hear me play piano'."