COMEDY SHOWCASE: FREE AGENTS 5/6

Alex (Stephen Mangan) has a lot to be thankful for. His health, for example. Growing up in Twickenham rather than, say, Baghdad. And the tiny sofa in his poky office, he's pretty thankful for that as he's been calling it home ever since he left his wife and children. Stuck in the middle of a painful divorce, Alex is clinging on to his job at successful talent agency TMA, run by his sex-obsessed, cocksure and roguish boss, Stephen (Anthony Head).

He's penniless, homeless and last week he burst into tears in Sainsbury's because for a second he imagined he saw his kids by the meat counter. Helen (Sharon Horgan) is coping really well with the after-effects of her own personal trauma. It's almost a year since her boyfriend dropped dead, just months before their wedding. But time has passed, she has a nice flat and, unlike Alex, she's successful at her job in the talent agency. She's getting her act together. She's just wishing she hadn't celebrated the anniversary of her fiance's death by sleeping with Alex.

Free Agents is a dark, poignant comedy, an on-but-mostly-off romance about a couple who might just have a future if they can ever shake off their pasts. Starring Stephen Mangan, Sharon Horgan, Anthony Head, Frances Tomelty and Nick Barber.

Channel 4 / Friday 9 November @ 10.30pm

The Galvanized Film Group Acquires Film Rights to Tracy Chevalier’s novel Remarkable Creatures

Heather Ogilvie (Galvanized Film Group) has acquired the option to produce a feature film based on Tracy Chevalier’s novel Remarkable Creatures and will partner with Icon Film Distribution to bring it to the big screen. Academy Award nominee Jan Sardi (Shine, Mao’s Last Dancer, The Notebook) will adapt the book, which was published by HarperCollins Publishers in 2009. Tracy Chevalier is the author of five previous novels, including the international bestseller Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Virgin Blue, Falling Angels, The Lady and the Unicorn and Burning Bright. ‘I’m thrilled Tracy has entrusted to us the exciting task of adapting her wonderful novel for the screen,’ Heather said. ‘Icon Films have endorsed our conviction that this book will result in an outstanding movie by partnering with us to accelerate its development. Jan Sardi is a gifted, sensitive scriptwriter, and we’re confident he’ll deliver a script that more than lives up to our expectations.’ Tracy comments, ‘I think a

DOC MARTIN SEASON THREE EPISODE FIVE

Former Coronation Street actress Denise Black dyed her hair bright red to star in tonight’s episode of Doc Martin. “I play Dawn Lamb, the mother of the doctor’s receptionist, Pauline. Dawn is brash and boho, so I dyed my hair red exclusively for the role,” Denise explains. But the dramatic colour change didn’t go quite as Denise had planned. “I volunteered to come on set a day early because after I had dyed my hair the colour was rather robust. The make up artists looked stunned. ”A Corrie fan who saw me when I was walking around Cornwall during filming screamed when she saw the colour of my hair.” In the fifth episode of the third season which airs tonight on ITV1 @ 9.00pm will the course of true love run smooth for the star crossed couple Dr Martin Ellingham (Martin Clunes) and school headmistress Louisa Glasson (Caroline Catz) as they go on their first date? It is the perfect spot for romance: being serenaded with classical music at a concert in the stunning grounds of a country hou

ELAINE CASSIDY ON A ROOM WITH A VIEW

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