David Tennant Nabs Best Actor Nod; Pre-Order Hamlet on DVD

The Broadcasting Press Guild released their annual nominations for excellence in British television yesterday. Happily, our man David Tennant has been awarded a much-deserved Best Actor nomination. He’s recognized both for his role as the Doctor in Doctor Who and for playing Hamlet in the BBC adaptation of his 2008 Royal Shakespeare Company production.

Doctor Who fans will be also pleased to know that Tennant’s Hamlet (co-starring Patrick Stewart as Claudius) is now available for pre-order on DVD. Click here to lock down your copy.

Several other BBC AMERICA titles received BPG nominations:

• Occupation and Being Human are both nominated for Best Drama Series.

• The Inbetweeners is up for Best Comedy/Entertainment Series.

• James Nesbitt has a Best Actor nod for his leading role in Occupation.

• Occupation creator Peter Bowker is nominated for the Writer’s Award.

• Gareth Malone is nominated for Best Performer in a Non-Acting Role for the acclaimed reality series The Choir, which is coming soon on BBC AMERICA. The Choir was also nominated for Best Factual Entertainment.

In other news:

• Was Sylvester McCoy‘s Seventh Doctor part of a “left-wing plot” to oust then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher? The actor, who played the Time Lord from 1987 to 1989, says, “We were a group of politically motivated people and it seemed the right thing to do. At the time Doctor Who used satire to put political messages out there in the way they used to do in places like Czechoslovakia. Our feeling was that Margaret Thatcher was far more terrifying than any monster the Doctor had encountered. Those who wanted to see the messages saw them; others, including one producer, didn’t.” (The Times)
• JK Rowling faces a pricey plagiarism suit over her Harry Potter books. (The Times)
• The Sun reports that Susan Boyle fainted at Heathrow airport earlier this week. (Apparently, it’s true – her spokesperson confirmed it, blaming Susan’s collapse on the temperature controls in the BA Lounge.) The Daily Mail says Boyle “found a soothing hand to calm and comfort her” in her manager Andy Stephens.
• Newly skinny Kelly Osbourne: an apple a day keeps the fat ass away. (Daily Mail)
• Go Fug Yourself must be salivating: Leona Lewis looks a bit like The Fly in her Stella McCartney gown. (Daily Mail)
• Carey Mulligan is Sally Sparrow-blonde again. (Telegraph)
• Victoria Beckham defends size-zero models on The View. (Daily Mail)
• The Alexander McQueen label will continue without the late designer. (BBC)
• Journalist Mark Simpson, “father of the metrosexual,” writes a tribute to McQueen and his sometime muse, Lady Gaga.
• The Press Complaints Commission in the UK has rejected a complaint against columnist Jan Moir, who wrote a homophobic, much-criticized piece about late Boyzone singer Stephen Gately in the Daily Mail. As much as I despised Moir’s insinuations, I believe she had every right to pen her column.(BBC)
• Jay-Z “prays” Amy Winehouse “doesn’t turn into Lauryn Hill and we never get another album.” (Digital Spy)
• Another year, another BRIT Awards balls-up: British band Kasabian were mistakenly awarded the trophy for Best British Album, which was supposed to go to Florence + the Machine. (Digital Spy)
• Days ahead of the BAFTAs (which air on BBCA Sunday evening), The Daily Telegraph asks why so many UK films are such commercial disappointments. “In truth, there is a massive disconnect between the British film industry and the audiences it is meant to serve. Consider BAFTA’s five nominees this year for Oustanding British Film: In the Loop, An Education, Nowhere Boy, Moon, and Fish Tank. None has been a sizeable hit, except by the low standards of the industry.”
• David Cameron, Britain’s Conservative leader, won’t let his six-year-old daughter listen to Lily Allen‘s f***ventures.(Telegraph)
• Abbey Road Studios could be preserved as an historic site.(Guardian)
• London’s famous Ministry of Sound nightclub may not be so lucky.(NME)