Pandora: Love sets her sights on Iannucci for biopic

Alice-Azania Jarvis
Tuesday 19 January 2010 01:00 GMT
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Here's a bit of unlikely casting: Armando Iannucci, directing a biopic of Kurt Cobain.

He is, it seems, the choice preferred by Cobain's erratic widow Courtney Love for the film, which is provisionally titled Heavier Than Heaven.

Love, currently promoting a comeback with her Nineties band Hole, claims that she is pushing for the brains behind The Thick of It to take control of the cameras on the film.

"You know who I'm into?" she tells Clash music magazine in a forthcoming interview. "The Thick of It guy, Armando Iannucci. This is a big A-list movie. This is when someone goes and gets an Oscar for it."

Quite what Iannucci, who is hard at work on a new series for the American network HBO, makes of the flattering news remains to be seen; his spokespeople insist he knows nothing about Love's preferences.

Though were he to take up Love on her offer he could be sure that a suitably big-budget team would be behind him. The film is being produced by Working Title's Eric Fellner, the producer of Sid And Nancy, with Wolverine writer David Benioff having been linked to the screenplay. Over to you, Armando.

Boy George fails to see the funny side

*Out of prison and, apparently, humour, we hear that Boy George upped and left a performance of La Clique last week. The show, which aims to get the audience involved, paused to respond to a punter's request to "sing a Queen song". The Clique band smoothly broke into a chorus of the Culture Club classic "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me", much to the audience's amusement. Says our source: "Everyone in the audience seemed to find it hilarious. He was the only one who didn't find it very funny. So, he – plus posse – left."

Scotland speaks from experience

*How charitable of Baroness Scotland to agree to address parliamentary employees on the pressing issue of fraud later this week. And topical, of course – after all, it was only yesterday that the Attorney General's former housekeeper, Loloahi Tapui (now represented by showbiz svengali Max Clifford), appeared in court charged with using a fake British visa for more than two years. No doubt the Baroness is particularly well-placed to hold forth on the dangers of deception.

Rider considers his options

Steve Rider famously jumped ship from the BBC to ITV some years ago. But could another leap be on the cards?

Pandora readers were given the chance to submit a question for the sports presenter, to be posed by golfing legend Peter Alliss at Cancer Research's Turn The Tables event yesterday.

"Actually, I'm tempted to go to Channel 5," said Rider, gamely. "ITV sport is still a powerful organisation. I have a lot of affection for the BBC and if the phone rang I would engage in a conversation." Don't say you haven't been warned.

The name's Bryant ... Chris Bryant

*Chris Bryant lets slip in the most recent edition of The House Magazine that he was once buddies with James Bond star Daniel Craig. "From the age of 14 I acted with the National Youth Theatre," purrs Bryant. "I knew Daniel Craig relatively well – but I quickly realised I was an awful actor." We can't comment on his thespian skills – though Bryant famously posted a photo of himself in nothing but his smalls on the internet. From what we remember, he might look rather striking in a pair of Craig-esque swimming trunks.

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