Page 3 Profile: Catherine Zeta-Jones, actress

Catherine Zeta-Jones, actress (AFP/Getty)

Permission to speak, sir?

Catherine Zeta-Jones has been cast in the big-screen adaptation of the classic sitcom Dad’s Army. The producers of the comedy about a hapless Home Guard platoon have recruited a squad of well-known thespians, including Zeta-Jones, to bring the hit show to the silver screen, nearly four decades after the last episode originally aired.

Roger that…

This is the second high-profile role for the Welsh actress to be announced in as many weeks. Zeta-Jones, who starred in Rock of Ages and Ocean’s Twelve, will also reportedly take the lead role in The Godmother, a biopic about Griselda Blanco, the first and only woman to rise to the higher echelons of Colombia’s Medellin drug cartel.

She’s come a long way…

The actress first came to attention in the UK in 1991 when she appeared as Mariette in the comedy drama The Darling Buds of May. She enjoyed a stratospheric rise to fame and went on to win an Oscar in 2002 for her turn as the murderous vaudevillian Velma Kelly in the film adaptation of Chicago and a Tony Award in 2009 for her work in Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music on Broadway. Born in Swansea, Zeta-Jones, 45, now lives in New York with her film star husband Michael Douglas, who is 20 years her senior, and their two children.

Will the film do justice to the series?

The plot and cast look promising. The film will be set in 1944 as the Second World War is reaching its climax. With a spy on the loose in the fictional seaside resort Walmington-on-Sea, the bungling Home Guard must hunt the scoundrel down – the outcome of the war at stake. Ms Zeta Jones, who will star as a glamorous reporter sent to interview the platoon about their exploits, will be joined by Toby Jones playing Captain Mainwaring, Bill Nighy as Sergeant Wilson, Tom Courtenay as Corporal Jones and Michael Gambon as Private Godfrey.

It will be hard to outdo the original though…

The TV series, which ran from 1968 to 1977, was written by David Croft and Jimmy Perry and was based on the latter’s experiences in the Home Guard when he was 17. The programme ran for nine years and 80 episodes and at its peak it drew audiences of 18.5 million. It was named as the thirteenth greatest British television show by the British Film Institute in 2000.