g a“: ma yum“ "1-6 “m“ ”we gag-u-wkfa lam 1.5. k“: ,:5,,&:.' 54.r¢,,,:'\_,& "1.435: mg» {maya then, backfired. maybe they can save then, backfired. maybe they can save the open university. barely any time at all. this man on the cover of the financial times, a scientist who thinks he created the nerve agent. he is the proud father of of novichok, he thinks that yes, they we re novichok, he thinks that yes, they were targeted with it. it sounds russian, there is clews there. that is not conclusive proof. i am very sceptical tonight and u2 have been very unruly. finally, that is a wrap, hamilton wins olivier awards, and unlikely success in some ways it. -- in and unlikely success in some ways it. —— in some ways. and unlikely success in some ways it. -- in some ways. a hip-hop musical about the forgotten founding father of america. i hate spontaneous singing on stage.”

father of america. i hate spontaneous singing on stage. i am going to see it when the price drops. even if you got given a free ticket you wouldn't go? just for the ice cream at half—time. ticket you wouldn't go? just for the ice cream at half-time. thought we'd go. this is me looking very unhappy with an amazing colleague of ours called amanda kennett, she is in the newsroom and doesn't know this is happening. this is probably my last paper review with amanda in charge, one of the people who is the architect of the papers in its current form. she has been setting up current form. she has been setting up and finding all of these amazing guests for us for the last five yea rs guests for us for the last five years and she is now going to be head of isobars in the weather department, they are fortunate, we are sad. brilliant producer and a fantastic papers booker, guest look for us. she has worked so hard and we will miss her enormously and i am sacked apparently, because i have

done this, she will be working somewhere else. we will never forgive herfor somewhere else. we will never forgive her for leaving somewhere else. we will never forgive herfor leaving us, we know that she will be a big success of. amanda, thank you very much for all you have done over the past five yea rs. very you have done over the past five years. very sad. don't forget, you can see all the papers online. it's all there for you, 7 days a week at bbc.co.uk/papers and if you miss the programme any evening, you can watch it later on bbc iplayer. thank you lynn and michael. coming up next, it's the film review. hello and welcome to the film review on bbc news. to take us through this week's cinema releases is james king. good to see you, james.

you too. what have you been watching? well, this week, wejourney into the dark recesses of martin freeman's mind in ghost stories. then we travel to 19205 new york in todd haynes' family drama, wonderstruck. and finally, we go to jennifer garner's sofa in the much talked about teen movie, love, simon. and look, we've barely begun and i already have a bone to pick with you. oh, go on. because i thought, right, so the good dr kermode is away for a couple of weeks. he is, yes. i thought i'll have a respite from him haranguing me about horror films, and what have you brought me? well, i tell you what, it is a peach of a weekend for horror movie fans because we're going to talk about ghost stories in a second. there's also this film, which we haven't got time to talk about, called a quiet place, starring emily blunt, which is.. which is way too scary for me — oh, my goodness. very scary, worth your money. so if you like your horror movies, your scary movies, this is a great weekend for you.

let's focus on ghost stories, this is british horror written and directed by andy nyman and jeremy dyson. so andy regularly works with derren brown, jeremy part of the league of gentlemen team. yes, yeah. and the movie stars andy nyman, he's a psychic investigator, a debunker, a cynic, a sceptic who believes that there's logical explanations for all supposedly supernatural goings—on, but then he gets handed three cases and he just cannot crack these cases, and they start to make him question his own beliefs. one of them features the great paul whitehouse as a night security guard. if you're afraid of the dark, you might want to look away now. here he is. 0k. right, listen, you've got two minutes to get out of this building before i come for you. if that's you... right.

come here... laughs how are you feeling? i saw the trailer in the cinema about a week ago and even the trailer freaked me out! i thought, i can't go and see this, sorry! but if you love this kind of thing, is it worth seeing? well, absolutely, because it's clearly made by people who do love this kind of thing and who know their horror movies, there are nods in this to hammer horror, there's very strong nods to an old horror movie called dead of night, an ealing horror movie from 1945, which really influenced the guys when they were making it. so they know their history of horror, they know how to twist the knife, they know how to make you jump out of your seat and they have fun doing it. it's hokum really, and theatrical, it's actually based on a stage play. but fun, yes, but also very scary. what i really liked about it is that, obviously, it's probably made on a limited budget, but the locations are just fantastic in this.

they have this... very bleak british...from the look of what i've seen, yeah. yeah, absolutely. they have this sort of delicious drabness about them, like a crumbling seaside town, you know, out of season, and that really adds to the atmosphere as well. with those great performances, martin freeman, i mentioned earlier, alex lawther has a good role as a troubled teenager, and paul whitehouse. i mean, if you expect paul whitehouse to be funny in this, well, there's a couple of laughs, but ultimately, i think it's a really moving performance from him. he is very good at dramatic acting. fascinating, but you don't get the laughs, i don't think! now, you bring us as well this week a todd haynes feature. yes. i'm a big fan of todd haynes. me too! and this is interesting because i think a year ago, when we saw this on paper, this movie, would have said, well, this is probably going to be an awards contender, and actually, here we are in april and it's being released with very little fanfare and didn't feature in any awards. it's one of those things that couldn've been great and i don't think it quite achieves that. so, as you said, todd haynes directed it, brian selznick wrote it, he made hugo with martin scorsese.

so good, quality names. a couple of storylines going on — there's a storyline set in 1977 about a young boy, a deaf boy who runs away to new york to find his father. and then there's a separate story, they ultimately cross over, but there's a separate story set in 1927 new york about a young girl, we can see her here, who falls in love with the city and falls in love with the natural history museum. and i suppose, interestingly, that element is shot in black and white, it's shot a bit like a silent movie from the era, so that's quite a nice artistic touch and it is quite good at that sense of wonder you have as a child when you go to the big city for the first time and you have that sort of awestruck feeling. it captures that. but i do think it is pretty clunky in terms of the way it tells its story, there's a lot of coincidence, there's a lot of — too much willing suspension of disbelief for the audience, and just too many unanswered questions, really. so it's one of those movies that could've been great, and 12 months ago, i was expecting this to be an academy award winner. now, i think it's going to be quickly forgotten.

0k. love, simon — is that going to be quickly forgotten? i hope not. it's groundbreaking in many ways, this film, isn't it? yeah, yeah, this is really interesting because it's a teen movie, it's a high school movie, stars a guy called nick robinson — not that nick robinson, although he would be great — bbc political editor. this is a young actor, an american actor who was injurassic world a couple of years ago. so it's, yeah, teen movie, high school movie, a lot of familiar teen movie traits in it, the kind of — the sassy teachers and the wacky friends and the eccentric family, but the big twist is, i suppose, is that he's coming out. so he's learning to deal with his sexuality and tell his friends and tell his family. here's a clip. ok, great. i'mjust like you. for the most part, my life is totally normal. my dad was the annoyingly handsome quarterback who married the hot valedictorian. and no, they didn't peak in high school. i have a sister i actually like, not that i'd ever tell her that. and last year, in 200 episodes of chop to go,

she decided she wanted to be a chef. and then there's my friends — two of them i've known since pretty much the beginning of time, or at least kindergarten. and one of them, ijust met a few months ago, but it feels like i've known her forever. we do everything friends do — we drink too much ice coffee, watch bad '90s movies and hang out at waffle house dreaming of college and gorging on carbs. so, like i said...i'm just like you. i have a totally, perfectly normal life. except i have one huge—ass secret. and that kind of says it all because it looks like classic hollywood, nicely made, everyone‘s nice looking, everyone‘s got big houses, it all looks like a nice, easy watch. and i think, are we right in saying this is the first time a big, major film studio has made a film with a gay kid right at heart of it?

this is the first time! absolutely, yeah, absolutely, yeah, a big studio picture. and it is desperately trying to be as mainstream and as "normal" as possible, and that's a bold thing. that's something i really liked about it. i would say that the downside to that is it's occasionally just too normal! a little bit more edge wouldn't have gone amiss. occasionally, it's a little predictable. i mean, i love high school movies and teen movies, so you know the traits and they're all in there, and they feel, at this stage, a little overfamiliar. but i think what gets it by is the charm — it's an incredibly charming movie. the lead character, the music's really good as well, a guy called jack antonov, who's a big sort of writer—producer, works with taylor swift a lot. so there's a lot going for it that kind of papers over the cracks. it is a little predictable, it is a little too mainstream for me, but there is that charm there and, ultimately, like you said, we can't deny this is breaking new ground. and interesting, in america, some celebrities have started buying

out screenings of this and giving away free tickets because there is, with the whole film, this desire for it to be seen by as many people as possible, and being released here over the easter holidays to a big, mainstream teen audience, you know, they're really going for it with this. and in the states, it's worked, it's a big hit. well, there's a lot of positives to take from that. yeah, absolutely. and best out this week, you've chosen wes anderson. yeah, which you've seen, right? isle of dogs. dog owner, dog lover...went in very excited. yes...oh, dear. here we go! no, no, mixed feelings. i mean, visually amazing. yes. wes anderson is so creative. yes. visually, it was extraordinary, but i thought where it worked best was the interplay between the whole dogs and humans thing — that was great. yeah, yeah. but the story, ultimately, was a bit feeble, i thought, sadly. sometimes, his stories generally, i think, get a little overcomplicated, and i would say it's similar with this one. i love that stop—motion animation in it, though. it's very clever.

it's very — it's sort of this — because it's set injapan, isn't it, so it's this weird mix of, like, japanese anime and the clangers. it's quite an unusual thing to watch. but i think it really works. i loved its eccentricity, i loved its humour — very deadpan, dark humour. clearly, if you don't like wes anderson movies, because it's more of the same, this isn't the one that's going to win you over. he makes very arch films and this is definitely very arch. but i think, for me, because of that bond between humans and dogs that it's all about, it does have a bit more of a heart than some of his other films, which is why i really liked it. quirky! quirky is perhaps the word for that one. file under quirky. a quick thought about dvd, for someone who wants to stay in? well, the lastjedi — so this is episode viii of star wars, came out at christmas at the cinema, and a lot of people saying it's the greatest one ever. i think it's too early to say that, but it's clearly a very good star wars movie. for me, it really gets going about halfway in, it takes a little while to hit its stride, but some very strong performances in this.

i loved adam driver as kylo ren, the antagonist, and, of course, unfortunately, the last performance from carrie fisher as princess leia. i would say, to end on a positive note, look at the bloopers and the out—takes on the disc, because, yes, it's sad to watch carrie fisher in the movie but, you know, she was full of humour and full of life, and there's some great moments from her in those extras on the disc. oh, good tip. all right. james, good to see you. thank you very much indeed. thank you. and that's just about it for this week. plenty to reflect on. enjoy your cinema—going this weekend. see you next week. bye— bye. hello. it is still raining in parts of east anglia, south—east england, where some of us it has been raining for much of the day. cloudy, damp and i'lljust for much of the day. cloudy, damp and i'll just hangs for much of the day. cloudy, damp and i'lljust hangs onto the night. elsewhere, some clear spells. the show are still lurking in northern

scotland. it could be quite dense and a few spots going into the morning. a little bit on the chilly side away from the south—east. heading close to freezing going into monday morning. on monday, any early mist and fog slowly clearing. a few showers, especially scotland and northern ireland, greater chance of catching those into the afternoon rather than the morning. an area of rain begins to edge away from east anglia and south—east england in towards the midlands, wales and parts of yorkshire. developing easterly flow coming into the uk as we go through the week ahead, mild for many of us. away from the north sea coast where it will be decidedly chilly. some rain at times, not all the time. there will be drier, brighter, even sunnier days to some of us. that is the latest forecast. i'm sharanjit leyl in

singapore, the headlines: syria chemical attack. donald trump condemns assad. the un security council is preparing to meet. —— the un security council is preparing to meet. as a us aircraft carrier sails into the south china sea, we report on how washington is increasingly concerned about beijing's growing naval power. i'm babita sharma in london. also in the programme: a landslide victory in hungary's general election. victor orban says his re—election was an opportunity to defend the country's borders. and a marathon like no other, runners from around the world compete on the streets of pyongyang.