Billy Connolly is going from Big Yin to tiny dwarf to complete the cast of Peter Jackson's movie version of The Hobbit.

The former 'Lost' actress has signed on to play a new character, Tauriel, but director Sir Peter Jackson refused to give any further details about the woodland elf.

Budget blow-outs, an industrial dispute, even a race row have threatened to derail the latest JRR Tolkien blockbuster, The Hobbit. To that list can now be added a perforated ulcer, courtesy of director Sir Peter Jackson, who was taken to hospital in the New Zealand capital, Wellington, on Wednesday.

He is the most exacting and pernickety of actors, Derek Jacobi, which means that his long-awaited Lear will never open the floodgates. But it is most beautifully spoken and detailed. It's also terribly polite.

Where are you now and what can you see? I'm on a train on my way from London to Liverpool and there are English fields flying by the window and the sun is coming out. It's a milky view of an England that doesn't change.

An influx of familiar faces into Middle Earth is expected after the announcement that filming of The Hobbit will finally begin next February, bringing to an end years of delays.

As any proper J R R Tolkein fan knows, it takes bravery, patience, and a little bit of luck to complete a journey to Middle Earth. Peter Jackson certainly boasts the first two, but judging by the fate of his long-running efforts to bring a film version of The Hobbit to the big screen, he's sadly lacking in the third.

Britain's reputation for world-class theatre is being jeopardised by declining acting standards, according to Sir Ian McKellen.

Simon Callow is a renowned actor, but not Shakespearean. His Orlando was bizarre, his Falstaff (twice) less than great, but he did let rip satisfactorily as Titus Andronicus.

The English actress, Tara Fitzgerald, has spoken out against the popular belief that female performers are faced with fewer work opportunities than males as they get older.

If you thought reading a JRR Tolkien novel was time-consuming, try turning one into a film. Two years and hundreds of painstakingly designed monster costumes after he started work on The Hobbit, the Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro has suddenly quit, complaining about endless delays in getting his eagerly-awaited film green-lit.