snooker

The cloud hanging over the Embassy World Snooker Championship did not clear yesterday but at least it did not get thicker. Jimmy White was eliminated from an investigation into match-fixing while Peter Francisco must wait to see if he too will be exonerated.

To the actor reported to have ended his long-standing relationship by fax: a lesson in how to let a lady down politely

The Cabinet minister responsible for the film industry was accused by a fellow Tory MP yesterday of being puritanical and lacking commitment to British movies, writes David Lister. National Heritage Select Committee members rounded on Stephen Dorrell, the Secretary of State for National Heritage, pointing to his Irish opposite number, who had given tax breaks to foreign production companies, told producers to telephone if they had problems, and increased film investment from £1m to £100m in a year.

Julian Rochfort Belfrage, actor's agent: married first Gilly Pratt (two sons; marriage dissolved), secondly Victoria van Moyland; died 28 December 1994.

My father started up this drama group after my younger brother died of a brain tumour. I suppose it was to try to keep the family together. I would act or direct with my brother, Peter, and my father. It was a good place to start because the theatre does have religious origins, and my brother dying made me think about God and all that stuff that adolescents do. At university, I did a huge production, which The Risen People really reminds me of. It was a kind of psychedelic version of Oedipus Rex, but we made it about Northern Ireland. It was wild. Beyond wild. Neil Jordan played Tiresias. He was brilliant; not the greatest actor in the world, but a great presence. Later I worked at the Project Arts Theatre in Dublin. There were a few of us, sort of lefties, committed to the cause, who worked like mad. I did that until there were huge rows and the fun went out of it. Then I was away for a couple of days, and when I came back the theatre had been knocked down. I think I grew up then, and realised that you have to be very tough with executive structures, on films or whatever. Which is probably why I have rows with people at executive level, and never below that. I spent many years in very small spaces, working with actors. By the time I got to do My Left Foot, I had had 20 years working with actors, directing every single day - most film directors probably only work with actors maybe 10 times in their lives. These days theatre only interests me on a large scale, because cinema does small-scale things much more effectively.

The film In The Name of the Father about the Guildford Four cannot be described as a true story, the Advertising Standards Authority said.

NOT for me, knee-jerk reaction and analysis; the Captain plays a longer game. Let me give you an example. Last week, in perusing a profile, I noticed that Gerry Robinson, the go-and- LWT-getting Granada chief executive, reviled by the creative tendency in television as a mere moneymaker, had studied for holy orders. Which set me thinking: there are a lot of them about, these people who had thoughts of shepherding God's flock before turning their energies elsewhere, aren't there? Tom Cruise, for example, spent time in a Franciscan seminary. Martin Scorsese also studied for the priesthood. George Carman, QC, that master of the courtroom, studied at a Lancashire seminary. A N Wilson, that master of the immediate and arresting cri de coeur, is another, as is Barney Curley, the consummate gambler, and Paddy McAloon, of the noted rock band, Prefab Sprout. And Michael Brunson. And Jack Dee. And John Hume. And Mark Tully. And Thomas Keneally. And, curiously, Dr James Sehn, the doctor who reunited John Wayne Bobbitt with that famous missing bit of himself. Something to think about on a Sunday morning, I should say.

----------------------------------------------------------------- TOP 10 LONDON ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1 (-) Schindler's List. . . . . . . . .US 2 ( 3) The Age Of Innocence. . . . . . US 3 ( 1) Mrs Doubtfire . . . . . . . . . US 4 ( 2) In The Name Of The Father. .US/Ire 5 ( 4) The Three Musketeers. . . . . . US 6 (-) A Bronx Tale. . . . . . . . . . .US 7 ( 5) Wayne's World 2. . . . . . . . .US 8 ( 7) The Remains Of The Day. . . . . UK 9 ( 6) Manhattan Murder Mystery. . . . US 10 ( 8) Free Willy. . . . . . . . . . . US ----------------------------------------------------------------- TOP 10 UK ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1 ( 1) Mrs Doubtfire. . . . . . . . . .US 2 ( 4) Free Willy. . . . . . . . . . . US 3 ( 2) Wayne's World 2. . . . . . . . .US 4 ( 3) The Three Musketeers. . . . . . US 5 ( 5) In The Name Of The Father . US/Ire 6 (10) The Age Of Innocence. . . . . . US 7 ( 6) Aladdin. . . . . . . . . . . . .US 8 ( 7) The Remains Of The Day. . . . . UK 9 (-) A Bronx Tale. . . . . . . . . . .US 10 (-) Schindler's List. . . . . . . . .US ----------------------------------------------------------------- Charts compiled by Screen International -----------------------------------------------------------------

Saffron Burrows, 21, is a British model. But she has a life beyond the catwalk - as an activist in the successful campaign to have the Channel rail link diverted into a tunnel under Islington; as an organiser of an forthcoming 'Unity is Strength' anti-racism concert and as an actress who kissed Daniel Day-Lewis during her first high-profile role, in In the Name of the Father. (Of this scene she says: 'He had a mouthful of chips.') Saffron will inevitably be branded as yet another MTA (model- turned-actress), but if she chooses her roles carefully she may shake off this tag.

The film, In The Name Of The Father - starring Daniel Day-Lewis as Gerard Conlon, one of the Guildford Four - has won the Berlin Film Festival's 'Golden Bear' award.

In the Name of the Father (15) is a film that invites a certain amount of smugness from its audience. If it had been made 10 years ago, before the overturning of the verdicts on the Guildford Four, it would have been a campaigning film, urgent and angry - but of course it couldn't have been made then, couldn't have been lustrously cast or adequately financed.

THE film In the Name Of the Father, which has been attacked by British right-wing media for glorifying the IRA, was yesterday given a warm endorsement by Hollywood, which nominated it for no fewer than seven Oscars.

Martin Scorsese's splendid film of The Age of Innocence (U) shows a great director reformulating a much imitated style (there were signs in Cape Fear of even Scorsese imitating it) for a softer subject, an artist tackling an unfamiliar milieu and emerging refreshed from the collision. Scorsese without the dynamism, his love of energy for its own sake, would be unthinkable, but here his dynamism is subtler, altered to suit a world where confrontation hardly exists and everything is done by indirection.