The star of Torchwood, John Barrowman, has revealed that the second season of Torchwood will start shooting in Cardiff next week.

John Barrowman plays Captain Jack Harkness in the Doctor Who spin-off who leads a team against aliens who are up to no good on our fair planet. The actor confirmed the news on ITV chatshow Loose Women on Friday afternoon.

Barrowman recently reprised his role as former ‘Time Agent’ Harkness for the current series of Doctor Who, with his episodes due to be shown towards the end of the run.

Torchwood will be shown on BBC Two when it is screened in January 2008.

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Martin Freeman, the actor made famous by playing Tim in the hit comedy, The Office, is set to star in a new comedy for Channel 4.

The show, which is currently in its pilot stage, sees Martin Freeman play a has-been magician who was a big name in his teens but is now struggling for success.

He has also forged a film career with roles in Love Actually and The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy as well as numerous smaller roles.

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ITV have a new comedy starring writer and actor Sanjeev Bhaskar, best known for his role in Kumars. The comedy which was previously entitled Hello, Delhi is set in a Mumbai call centre and sees Bhaskar star as Kenny, a British born Indian.

The show has been filmed in part in India with a local cast and independent producer Allan McKeown Presents has produced the pilot working with Indian company Grey Cells Entertainment.

Bhaskar has written the show with comedy writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran and the pilot will be broadcast later this year.

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David Suchet, perhaps best known for his portrayal of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, is to play corrupt media tycoon Robert Maxwell in a new BBC2 drama.

The drama will look at the last months of Maxwell’s life, the scandal of his theft of £440 million from the paper’s pension fund and the mysterious circumstances of his death.

Suchet has revealed he only agreed to take the role with the approval of Maxwell’s widow Betty, who is played in the drama by Patricia Hodge.

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According to the Daily Mail, producers have shortlisted Thandie Newton, whose recent credits include Crash and The Pursuit of Happiness, to star in the sequel series to Life on Mars, Ashes To Ashes.

The coveted role of DCI Gene Hunt’s new sidekick, DI Alex Drake is said to be down to three potential candidates including New Street Law’s Lisa Faulkner and Liz May Brice, from Bad Girls. The paper added that Newton is tipped to win the role.

“I don’t think there’s an agent in the country that hasn’t been pushing their clients,” explained a BBC source. “Life On Mars was such a success that everyone wants to be involved.”

Filming on the new series, which shifts to London in the 1980s, is due to start in July.

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Five has renewed licensing agreements for some of its key acquisitions, despite strong competition from rival broadcasters essentially keeping all of the good stuff that the channel has to offer.

The broadcaster has signed a new contract with NBCU for medical drama House worth an estimated £500,000 per episode which was sought after by ITV.

Also covered are the three series in the Law & Order franchise. They will also be screened on Five US and Five Life.

Separately, Five has signed a deal giving it the UK terrestrial rights to season three of Grey’s Anatomy.

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Richard and Judy’s somewhat controversial quiz is to end. The ‘You Say, We Pay’ quiz in which contestants have to describe a series of objects to the hosts to win cash has been cancelled after it emerged that viewers still rang up to enter even after contestants had been chosen.

Thousands of viewers registered to receive a refund for calls to the quiz while the quiz portion of the show had been suspended.

Patricia Brooker, a 62 year old woman claimed to have been responsible for exposing the quiz’s faults. She claimed that she posted her suspicions on channel 4’s message boards after hearing that a contestant had been talking to a producer for twenty minutes whilst viewers still tried to enter. However her claims were deleted and she was banned from the forum.

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quizs

Cactus TV, the company responsible for Channel 4’s Richard and Judy, is in trouble again with another show that it produces for the BBC. Saturday Kitchen, which is hosted by James Martin, invited viewers to call in and speak to guests live on air even though the show had been pre recorded.

The News of the World claimed that on one show Host James Martin reminded fans that they could talk to guests including chef Paul Merrett a total of five times during the show.

The chairman of premium rate regulator Icstis, Sir Alastair Graham, has promised to investigate the new claims.

The BBC admitted that the show had been pre-recorded and money was made from phone lines but insisted that it had been a simple mistake and not a deliberate con. A spokesman for the broadcaster said that they were working with Cactus TV to ensure that the mistake did not happen again in the future.

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ITV have a brand new series which seeks to imitate the success of a similar show from the BBC. After the success of “How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria” in which Connie Fisher won the role of Maria in The Sound of Music musical, ITV’s “Grease Is The Word” will give hopefuls the chance to play Sandy and Danny from Grease in a new musical.

Preliminary auditions have already been held and thousands of hopefuls have already applied. Contestants who get through the initial auditions will be sent to a three-day ‘boot camp’. Eight couples will then be chosen for the live television show, with one pair ultimately taking to the stage for the July opening of the production.

The show will be presented by Zoe Ball and it is to be judged by David Gest, producer David Ian, American choreographer Brian Friedman and West End star Sinitta. The programme will start in April.

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Laguna Beach, MTV’s reality series about a bunch of wealthy teenagers living in a wealthy seaside resort is to get a UK version. The show that it very good at making something out of relatively nothing will be taken up Lime Pictures, the same guys who make Hollyoaks.

In a deal with MTV, the UK version of the reality series will feature a of 16 to 18-year-olds from Alderley Edge in Cheshire. The series will be 30 minutes long and spread out over 8 episodes and will follow the lives of the teenagers lives as as they organise and attend a Valentine’s Day ball.

Expect wealthy vacuous teenagers to talk about nothing but look glamorous as they do it.

The US version, which appears on MTV in the States and in the UK, is currently on its third series.

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The ever popular Tony Blair could be teaming up with comedienne Catherine Tate for a one off special for comic relief.

The Prime Minister may appear with one of Catherine Tate’s alter egos, Lauren the stroppy teenager best know for her “Am I Bovvered?” catchphrase.

The comic relief skit could see Lauren visiting No. 10 and coming face to face with the PM.

A No 10 spokeswoman said: “The Prime Minister tries to do something every year for Comic Relief but no decisions have been made yet about this year.”

This is not the first time the PM has joined the forces of comedy in the name of charity. He has previously lent his voice to a cartoon version of himself in The Simpsons and appeared with impressionist Jon Culshaw for the BBC’s Children In Need appeal.

If the Prime Minister does indeed team up with Catherine Tate the skit will be screened next month.

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In August 2006 the Italian ISP, Tiscali, bought Homechoice a TV-over-DSL service. On March 1 the service will be renamed Tiscali TV.

The service is currently available in London and Stevenage will be expanded over the next year to other cities such as Birmingham, Edinburgh and Newcastle during April and May and Leeds, Sheffield and Liverpool to follow shortly after.

Tiscali will offer a number of packages of the service. The basic package offers 30 channels as well as 100 hours of on-demand programming including the complete series of Dr Who and Friends as well as the company’s existing 2Mb broadband service.

The larger pack will add a further 25 more channels and even more on-demand content. A third package will offer broadband, TV channels and free weekend phone calls.

Similar packages are being offered by Sky and Virgin Media.

Teatime gameshow, Price is Right, is set to be axed by ITV at the end of its current run.

ITV had hoped that the show which is hosted by comedian and I’m a Celebrity winner, Joe Pasquale, would prove popular enough to take away some Paul O’Grady’s audience.

However this has not been the case with the hit channel 4 show attracting 2.5 million viewers and Price is Right only attracting 800,000.

There are 70 episodes left of the show which will be screened as planned.

The uproar that was sparked by the latest series of Celebrity Big Brother refuses to go away and it seems that those involved were keen to tell their side of the story.

Model Danielle Lloyd, a former Miss Great Britain, who along with Jade Goody and former singer Jo O’Meara are being vilified by the media, was interviewed as a witness on Thursday over the racist bullying row.

Her lawyers said that she was not interviewed under caution but merely as a witness.

All three women were said to have racially abusing the eventual Big Brother winner, Shilpa Shetty. The Bollywood actress has said that the remarks were not of a racist nature.

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Bradley Walsh who played the infamous Danny Baldwin in the ITV soap, Coronation Street is set to star in a remake of the TV series, Minder.

He could be playing a character very similar to the Arthur Daley of the original series, played by George Cole.

Bradley Walsh is currently on a Sabbatical from Coronation Street so that he can concentrate on other projects. He left as his character found out that his wife had been sleeping with his wife.

The new six-part series will start filming next month and will air in the autumn.

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arthur daley, bradley walsh, itv, minder