So it pains us to tell you that we have a nugget of a story to share with you – but nothing more.

A mysterious invite to the Press appeared in journalists' inboxes this week with a message inviting us to the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds next Thursday for a big announcement.

The announcement is that British comedian Lenny Henry will be making his theatrical debut.

When? We don't know. Where? We don't know. In what? No-one is telling us – any attempts to find out more information have been played with exemplary straight bats by press officers. The only other information we have is that the event is organised by West Yorkshire Playhouse and Northern Broadsides, the Halifax-based company famed for doing Shakespeare in a Northern voice.

Any more than that you'll have to wait until next week to find out. The rest, as someone once wrote, is silence.



MATTHEW Goode's fame is already assured thanks to his role as Charles Ryder in the upcoming Brideshead Revisited. But his stock will rise enormously when he appears in Watchmen as Ozymandias – and it's all thanks to a toilet in Yorkshire.

Watchmen is the graphic novel which has come to define the genre, rated by Time magazine as one of the 50 greatest novels ever written, and which is being adapted for the cinema screen. Goode auditioned for the role of Ozymandias while still shooting Brideshead Revisited, he revealed.

"I hadn't even read the script, when I auditioned. There was nowhere to do it other than my hotel-room bathroom – I was still shooting Brideshead in Yorkshire – so I read for it sat on the toilet with a white bed-sheet behind me. I thought there was no way I'd get it."



FANS of legendary writing duo Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, creators of Steptoe and Son, were delighted a couple of years ago when York Theatre Royal announced it would stage a new script by the pair based on the rag and bone men characters. Fans should not hold their breath, however, if they were hoping Galton and Simpson were inspired by that success to return to another popular comedy of theirs, Hancock's Half Hour.

Simpson said that Hancock, following a car crash, turned to the bottle and became impossible to work with.

"The more he drank, the worse his performance became. The worse his performance became, the more he drank." When the series came to an end, the pair thought about a film script, but Hancock's interference meant they abandoned the character for good.



WHAT were they thinking?

Arctic Monkeys gigs are not exactly known for being sedate affairs. So why have cinemas around the country agreed to go along with screening Arctic Monkeys at The Apollo? The band was filmed for a DVD of their tour which sold out at venues around the world last year. Ahead of the DVD release in November, on October 14 Vue cinemas across the country, including Leeds Kirkstall Road, Doncaster and Hull, will screen the concerts. Given the frenzied nature of their gigs, one can't help but wonder how many staff will be staying behind to clean up afterwards?