list.co.uk/tv DVD EXISTS (Entertainment One) Mon 6 Apr
It's such a well-worn formula that it's hard to remember the impact The Blair Witch Project had on release back in 1999. Directors Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick fooled the world into thinking they had unearthed genuine material, opening with the ominous title card: 'In October of 1994, three student i lmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documen- tary. A year later their footage was found.' 'That's why the whole genre is called "found foot- age." We didn't even name it, we always referred to it as "i rst person cinema",' explains Sánchez with a wry chuckle. 'To us it was a gimmick. It worked because the story of the movie drove the technique, the idea of these people getting lost making a documentary, so there was a clear vision of how we wanted that to look.' Blair Witch became one of the most inl uential hor-
ror i lms of the modern age and is the subject of a new feature length documentary, The Woods, which had its world premiere at Glasgow's FrightFest. 'The footage had been sitting around our ofi ces since Blair Witch,' says Sánchez. 'Last year it was the 15th anniversary and we thought it was time to get this footage out there. I think certain fans will really dig it
because it really was a unique story. So Russ Gomm went out and edited it, he's done a really good job. It's a fun i lm, seeing me and my partners 15 years ago is a trip.' Having made a move into television directing
episodes of From Dusk Till Dawn and the BBC's creepfest Intruders, he's i nally returned to the format he brought to the masses with Exists, a wickedly entertaining sasquatchploitation movie. 'Exists actu- ally started as a conventional i lm but we realised it might be time to go back to found footage. When I analysed the idea of Bigfoot I realised Bigfoot is a found-footage creature; whenever you see Bigfoot it's found footage.' (Henry Northmore) ■ For an interview with The Woods director, Russ Gomm, see list.co.uk
Previews | TV
HIGHLIGHTS
PARTY LEADERS DEBATES Thu 2 Apr, ITV; Thu 16 Apr, BBC One; Thu 30 Apr, Channel 4 and Sky Among the superheroes, advertising execs and dragons, there's some kind of election coming up in May. Expect various lineups of the good, the bad and the ugly to duke it out on TV. David Cameron has started to try and wriggle out of these live debates so some dates might change.
MAD MEN – SEASON 7 (PART 2) Thu 9 Apr, 10pm, Sky Atlantic April is a great month for telly. Matthew Weiner's achingly cool tale of New York ad men is back for its final season. Will Don Draper ever find happiness?
TREME – SEASON 4 Thu 9 Apr, 11pm, Sky Atlantic Finally, after a huge break (this aired in the States back in 2013), we get the last season of David Simon's slow-burn New Orleans post-Katrina drama.
HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU Fri 10 Apr, 9pm, BBC One Season 49 and still reliably funny. Will they follow through with their controversial booking of freshly sacked Jeremy Clarkson as a guest host?
DAREDEVIL Fri 10 Apr, Netflix Marvel team up with Netflix for some superhero action starting with blind lawyer turned vigilante Daredevil.
TV PREVIEW THE VOTE More4, Thu 7 May, 8.30pm
In what will arguably be the most unpredictable and exciting general election for a generation, it’s only right that TV chiefs should up the ante for their coverage on the night. But few will be as daring as More4 who will be broadcasting live from the Donmar Warehouse in London as James Graham’s The Vote dramatises the i nal 90 minutes before the ballot boxes are taken away to be counted in a i ctional polling station in the capital.
An excellent cast has been gathered for this production including Judi Dench, Mark Gatiss, Bill Paterson, Nina Sosanya, Catherine Tate and Timothy West. Artistic director at the Donmar since 2012, Josie Rourke feels the weight of history bearing down. ‘This is a unique opportunity for the Donmar to make a small theatre feel very big. Some of the nation’s greatest actors are coming together this election night to give theatre a seat at the table of a national event. Everyone involved is approaching this experiment with a sense of adventure. To work with a playwright and company of this calibre and signii cance on such a bold project is a dream come true. This is our next step in pushing the boundaries of how theatre speaks to audiences in a brave, new and popular language about the times in which we live.’
Ahead of the big day, the play will have a two-week run to get into its stride and, in logistical terms alone, it might well need it. Around 50 actors will play voters and polling station staff with the real-time production exploring the somewhat old-fashioned act of voting in the UK. And whatever the result on the night, Rourke has reason to view The Vote as a win-win. ‘The scale and scope of this incredible company of actors is going to make this a very special event. This is the i rst time Judi Dench has been back on the Donmar stage since 1976. To have her at the heart of this incredible company of actors makes this great event a total joy.’ (Brian Donaldson)
GAME OF THRONES – SEASON 5 Mon 13 Apr, 9pm, Sky Atlantic We told you April was a good month to stay parked on the sofa. More blood, swords and sorcery as the magnificent GoT returns. The battlelines are drawn, alliances made and broken, will anyone survive for season six?
WAYWARD PINES Thu 14 May, FOX M Night Shyamalan might have lost his way on the big screen in recent years but hopefully he can reignite that spark of imagination that captivated us in The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable with this new miniseries starring Matt Dillon searching for two missing FBI agents.
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