NATIONAL TREASURE TO ROB FORT KNOX

[5.45 - French Time] Sir Ian McKellen will play Bond villain Auric Goldfinger in a new radio adaptation of Ian Fleming's Goldfinger for BBC Radio 4.

He'll star opposite Toby Stephens as James Bond and Rosamund Pike as Pussy Galore. Both Pike and Stephens were in the 2002 Bond movie Die another day.

Radio 4 recently aired an adaptation of Craig Murray's book Murder in Samarkand starring David Tennant (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qs5x7).

Goldfinger will air on BBC Radio 4 on April 3.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/161042/Sir-Ian-McKellen-plays-Bond-villain
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8543067.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/

See also:

http://tattard2.blogspot.com/2010/02/ambassador.html

THE AMBASSADOR

[9.00 - French Time] Read on The Guardian website. David Tennant plays rebel UK diplomat Craig Murray in a radio play adaptation of Murray's book Murder in Samarkand.

Craig Murray is a former British ambassador who exposed torture in Uzbekistan. He was sacked by the Foreign Office in 2004. The adaptation is from playwright David Hare and was originally for the big screen with Michael Winterbottom as director and Steve Coogan starring as Murray But the movie project floundered and Hare offered to adapt his script for radio (http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/feb/02/david-tennant-samarkand-radio-4).

In 2006, Craig Murray and his story inspired the character of disgraced ambassador James Sinclair (played with great subtlety by Alex Jennings) in the BBC series The State Within. The radio adaptation of Murder in Samarkand with David Tennant will air February 20 on Radio 4.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/

See also:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/passedfailed-an-education-in-the-life-of-craig-murray-former-ambassador-426322.html
http://thierryattard.blogspot.com/2009/05/affaires-detats-koba-films-video.html (In French)