The phantoms in the library

I just wanted to write a play that told the story of the people involved in an extraordinary series of events. I am not a Stoppard or a Hare, I am neither intellectual nor political but I think drama leavened with humour is the best medium for communicating the complexity of right and wrong, and the shades of grey between. But most of all I want people to be intrigued, and hopefully moved by, the extraordinary story of Mirza Tahir Hussain, who is the subject of my new play, which I'm also starring in, at the Arts Theatre.

In 1985 I bought a 30p second-hand paperback because I liked the title: 'The Demolished Man', by Alfred Bester. This fits into a rare category of novel - short science-fiction - and I read it during my first two days as a student. University promised friends, drinks, adventures, but I preferred life on Mars. On the third day, I read it again.

I really like it up here. If Britain was a house, then Scotland is this beautiful airy loft with hills in it. And catching the train is like climbing the stairs. Climbing the stairs from London for four-and-half hours, after which your legs would be well achey, but the view is worth it.

Emma Stone didn't know about 'Spider-Man' before signing up to star in it.

Mike Mills tells the story of an older man revealing his true sexuality with a pleasing mix of melancholia and whimsy, aided by Christopher Plummer and Ewan McGregor

I wonder if I understand Jon Fosse's play. What I do know on my pulses is that the 70 minutes of Patrice Chéreau's production at the Young Vic constitute some of the greatest theatre I have ever witnessed. Three men in a boat? No – two men on a sailing vessel. Or maybe one man divided. They are called, slightly irritatingly, The One and The Other and they are played flawlessly by Tom Brooke and Jack Laskey.

American student's appeal against conviction for killing Meredith Kercher gets unexpected boost

Cavernous the main stand at the Stadium of Light may be, but within its bowels, the opposing dressing rooms are just about within earshot of each other and the hosts are determined to test that out tomorrow. Revenge might not be so much a dish served cold, more one laden with decibels.

"My sophomore year in high school, I killed a woman", confesses one narrator; "One year a kid brought a gun to school and shot his ex-girlfriend at brunch because she had a new boyfriend", reveals another.

Clinton Cards has emerged as another casualty of the severe winter weather after revealing today that its profits will be significantly short of City hopes.

"Ann Widdecombe is up for a laugh and seems to be enjoying herself. She is being very entertaining – light entertainment harms no one."

A man faces charges of wearing a mask or hood in public after police arrested him on Halloween night and charged him under a rarely used old law designed to combat the Ku Klux Klan.

A Halloween treat from the devilish duo