Waterhouse urges BBC to lift ban on Biggs movie

Posted by Axegrinder on 14 May 2009 at 21:49
Tags: Anthony Delano, Colin Mackenzie, Daily Mail, Ephraim Hardcastle, Keith Waterhouse

Keith Waterhouse has joined the campaign — first reported here ten months ago — to persuade the BBC to lift its ban on re-broadcasting what many believe to be the best film ever made about British journalists.

According to Ephraim Hardcastle in Thursday’s Daily Mail, Waterhouse thinks the time is right to dust off and show again The Great Paper Chase.

Based on Anthony Delano’s book Slip-Up, it tells the story of how Daily Express journalist Colin Mackenzie tracked down great train robber Ronnie Biggs in Rio de Janeiro, how his paper lost the scoop, and how Scotland Yard detective Jack Slipper then failed to bring Biggs to justice.

Waterhouse, who provided the screenplay for the 1988 TV movie, told Hardcastle: “With Slipper now dead and Ronnie due out in the summer it would be good if the BBC were to show it again.”

Last August, Axegrinder reported that producer Graham Benson was urging the Beeb to lift its ban.

It’s probably just as well Hardcastle didn’t ask his former Mail colleague Colin Mackenzie for his views. “The film made me out to be a complete twit,” he told Axegrinder recently.

Calm down dear – it’s just Ephraim Hardcastle’s winning way with words

Posted by Axegrinder on 9 January 2009 at 12:39
Tags: Daily Mail, Ephraim Hardcastle, Michael Winner

In Friday’s Daily Mail, the rather wonderful Ephraim Hardcastle introduced Axegrinder to an entirely new concept: the former ex-girlfriend.

Ephraim asked: “Who are the women prancing behind Michael Winner in the new TV ads for esure? They’re Vanessa Perry and Lorraine Doyle, former ex-girlfriends of the boulevardier.”

So does the phrase “former ex-girlfriends” mean they have both now rekindled their passion for the Death Wish director?

Or does the “former” refer to their gender? No, it can’t be that.

Perhaps Ephraim will explain all in his next column. 

Ephraim Hardcastle’s soft spot for ‘Jimmy Krankie’ historian Ferguson

Posted by Axegrinder on 26 November 2008 at 11:57
Tags: AA Gill, Daily Mail, Ephraim Hardcastle, Niall Ferguson, Peter McKay, Sinclair McKay, Sue Douglas

The Daily Mail’s Ephraim Hardcastle is puzzled by TV critic AA Gill’s attack on the new Channel 4 series, The Ascent of Money.

Written and presented by Niall Ferguson, it is, says Gill, “a GCSE-class project” while “wee” Ferguson is “academe’s answer to Jimmy Krankie”. 

Why, wonders Hardcastle, is Gill so rude about the “brilliant Scots academic and Harvard historian” and his “impressive TV series”?

Axegrinder isn’t surprised that Hardcastle (aka Peter McKay) feels unable to stick the boot into Ferguson.

Some years ago McKay’s son Sinclair, setting out on his journalistic career after leaving university, was given regular shifts on the features desk of the Daily Mail by Sue Douglas.

Douglas – who later went on to edit the Sunday Express – is married to Niall Ferguson.