Rufus Wainwright, Donald & Keifer Sutherland and Little Britain - lotta lolly!

Right, there's a few things I want to get through today. First up, here's a gratuitous photo of Rufus Wainwright on stage at the Dome back in May last year - purely for Courtney's benefit. Hope you like it. Rufus releases his new album Want Two on March 1st and Q magazine has just given it a four star review.

Today we're all excited (well, okay, maybe it's just me) as there's a movie being filmed round the corner in the Pavilion gardens today. It's called Land of the Blind and IMDB describes the plot outline thus: "A soldier recounts his role in the movement to overthrow his country's totalitarian government, led by a famous political prisoner." Donald Sutherland plays the aforementioned prisoner, with Ralph Fiennes taking the role of the soldier. Other cast members include Lara Flynn Boyle, Mackenzie Crook, Laura Fraser and Tom Hollander. I'm gonna wander round there in a few minutes and try and see if I can spot any famous faces...

Talk of Donald Sutherland leads me very nicely onto the fourth series of 24, which began with a double-header on Sky One last night, and of course stars Keifer Sutherland. I loved the first two series but felt that series three paled by comparison, so approached this latest series with a sense of trepidation. Still, word of mouth from across the pond has been good and I believe it's had the highest ratings of all four series to date. Having watched the first two episodes last night it seems that the programme makers have made a bold move in axing most of the familiar supporting cast (no Tony, no Marie, no Palmers, and - perhaps best of all - no Kim) so we can approach this new series with a clean slate. The story, as with all three previous series, zips along at brakeneck pace and I'm sure will be as exciting and engaging as always. What is bugging me already however is the level of implausibilities within these first couple of hours. Okay, so we're used to none of the characters ever having a meal or going to the toilet, but two things stand out immediately: 1) How come every location used seems to be within a five mile radius of each other? All the different journeys in the two episodes - bringing characters into CTU, the boy delivering the briefcase, etc. were all completed in no time at all; 2) And, on a similar note, how come the TV news crew got out to the scene of the train crash and the scene of the kidnapping and managed to broadcast live reports within about ten minutes of the events happening? Or is American TV news really this quick to cover unfolding events? Anyway, if you don't believe me you can check it out when it gets reapeated on Sky One again tonight at 10pm.

Finally, I'm going to see Little Britain on tour in December with Stevie B and he happened to mention that their national tour now covers a whopping 92 dates, all of which are sold out. Just think about that for a moment. That's 92 shows, each with an attendance of say 3000 people (Brighton Centre seats 4500 if every seat is sold, just as an example). Now, our tickets cost £24.50 each, so let's just do the maths... adding all that up gives a figure of £6,762,000. That's not bad for just over three months work! Sure, the costs of staging,venue hire and promotion need to be subtracted, but then again there'll be the merchandise and the inevitable live DVD to follow. I think it's pretty safe to say that Matt Lucas and David Walliams are going to be quids in by the end of 2006. Good work fellas!