WELCOME TO THE BEAN ZINE.... Issue 9 July/97

In this issue of the Bean Zine: 1. MOVIE REVIEWS - Prince (Sight and Sound, December 8, 1991) -Troubles (The Guardian, May 2, 1988) - Troubles (Times Literary Supplement, May 6, 1988) 2. NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINE ARTICLES - Northern Exposure (The Times Magazine, May 10, 1997) - Rogue Male (Time Out May 26-June 2, 1993) - Sean to be Wild (Evening Standard Magazine, February 16, 1996) - Sean Meets his Waterloo (Radio Times 3-9 May, 1997) - Dashing Blade (The Independent Tabloid, May 22, 1997) 1. MOVIE REVIEWS PRINCE - now online under Prince Press Archive TROUBLES by Nancy Banks-Smith) The Guardian May 2, 1988 Troubles (LWT) is an absolutely glorious looker! Sleepy and golden as a labrador drowsing in sunshine. That is the beginning. There is, as someone said, a holy row coming. The major (Ian Charleson) arrives at a huge hotel in Ireland just after the First World War to meet the girl he became casually engaged to at Le Grand in Brighton. The Majestic in Wicklow is another matter. It seemed to be under an unhappy enchantment. It is cavernous and magnificent with only the skitter of silent servants. Beyond a window people are playing tennis like bright ghosts. He rings a gong as though to wake the dead. In a consdrvatory where fluted glass lamps hang like orchids in a jungle, his fiancee is taking tea. She too is remote and strange and her heavy eyelids are like white kid gloves. It is all lovely and deadly, or, perhaps, like his fiancee dying. Troubles feels very like The Jewel in the Crown, partly because Christopher Morahan, who directs Troubles, produced the Jewel, and partly because this too is an outpost of empire. Charles Sturridge's screen play, based on J.G. Farrell's novel, is full of echoes and resonances like the Majestic, which is itself a metaphor. By one of those strokes of great good luck which feel like disaster at the time, there were union problems and Troubles was first scrapped then made in Ireland. The look of the thing, the radiant dilapidation, is the life of the thing. An evidently magnificent performance from Ian Richardson as the head of the household, who economises by feeding his piglets, honeyed with sunlight, on stale lemon sponge and Battenburg cake. And a privileged peck at the worst wig in the world on James Ellis. Troubles ends next week if troubles can be said to end. GRACEFULLY DECLINING by Zachary Leader Times Literary Supplement May 6, 1988 Charles Sturridge's two-part adaptation of J.G. Farrell's novel Troubles (1970), is in several respects an improvement on the original. The novel is set in 1919, in a huge decaying hotel on the Wicklow coast. This hotel, the Majestic, is a symbol of the doomed splendour and folly of British rule in Ireland, and the focus throughout is on its flawed and fading inhabitants, rather than on the forces of independence. It is, in other words, a fin-de-siecle costume drama - familiar territory not only to Sturridge, who made Brideshead Revisited. but to Christopher Morahan, the film's director, whose other credits for television include The Jewel in the Crown. Yet the adaptation rings subtle changes on the generic formula, in its handling of the tricky and often ponderous business of introductory exposition or scene-setting. In place of voice-over, for example, the characters speak directly to camera, a welcome surprise in a film which is otherwise conventionally naturalistic. Lengthy passages of family and personal history are deftly condensed and interspersed through the first half-hour, so that the forward movement of the plot is unimpeded. The novel's "documentary" material - the narrative is tricked out with clippings about "troubles" all over the world - is variously distributed to the deaf and myopic old ladies who are the hotel's principal residents, and who spend their days reading out bits from the newspaper to each other. Both characters and settings are swiftly, economically delineated: the Majestic's decay is clear as soon as the central character, Major Archer, walks through its doors. When he sits down in its unattended foyer, he does so to a delicately understated puff of dust. Farrell's rather heavy-handed symbolism (at one point the Major dreams he's in a leaky rowboat with only a tin cup for bailing, at another he hears as Chekhovian twang or "crack", as if "something had snapped") is somehow less obtrusive on film than on the page; secondary plot points are often only obliquely registered, thus heightening the air of mystery and menace; the protracted and repetitious account of the hotel's symbolic decline is necessarily - profitably - condensed. Morahan's direction is comparably artful and inventive, as much in the staging of action sequences - assaults, chases, explosions, accidents - as in more intimate scenes of dialogue. Though the film is never less than beautiful (as well it might be with a budget of ú 3.6 million), the sumptuous settings and period detail remain firmly in the background, and there is a minimum of lyrical beach strolling and moody cliff-top musing. When the Major wakes from a nightmare, he does so without bolting straight up into camera (a first, in my experience). The climactic ball in Part Two (to be shown on Sunday), is perfectly paced, full of incident, and yet not too choppily edited to preclude a sense of gathering languor or duration as well as degeneration. No one in the uniformly excellent cast - even Ian Richardson who is splendid as the magnetic Edward Spencer, the eccentric loyalist who owns the hotel, and to whose doomed daughter the Major is notionally engaged - is allowed to dominate or disrupt the prevailing ensemble feel. As a consequence, the artfulness of Ian Charleson's performance as the Major - an appropriately subdued performance, full of delicate winces and weary self-checkings - is free to shine through. The flaws of the film are those of the novel. As the violence in Ireland escalates, Auxiliaries are temporarily lodged at the Majestic. In the film as in the novel they are depicted as ferociously brutish and arrogant. Though other characters in the film are types, none is so starkly caricatured. There's also a problem with the love theme. After the death of Edward's daughter, the Major eventually falls for her friend Sarah (Emer Gillespie), a local Irish Catholic girl. Sarah is clever and prickly, a thoroughgoing, even sadistic, tease. Though she hates the English she is drawn both to Edward - among other things, an old- fashioned Anglo-Irish bigot - and to Captain Bolton (Sean Bean), the steeliest of the Auxiliaries. However, the failed love between Sarah and the Major has no clear thematic connection to the inevitable fall of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy. As a consequence, the symbolic significance of the statue of Venus with which the film opens and closes, and which appears at other moments throughout both film and novel, seems unconnected to the larger political theme - except in the rather easy and general sense that lost love is like lost power, that all things fade. 2. NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINE ARTICLES NORTHERN EXPOSURE by Rachel Campbell-Johnston The Times Magazine May 10, 1997

This article is on The Compleat here: http://www.compleatseanbean.com/mainfeatures-49.html ROGUE MALE by Elaine Paterson Time Out May 26-June 2, 1993

This article is on The Compleat here: http://www.compleatseanbean.com/mainfeatures-158.html SEAN TO BE WILD by Neil Norman Evening Standard Magazine February 16, 1996

This article is on The Compleat here: http://www.compleatseanbean.com/mainfeatures-159.html SEAN MEETS HIS WATERLOO by Kate Lock Radio Times 3-9 May, 1997 Sharpe's back - and this time he's headed for a showdown with Napoleon at Waterloo. Kate Lock took Sean Bean, an ardent fan of that era, on a pilgrimage to the Belgian battlesite. "Unique on the actual battlefield!" exclaims the brochure for Waterloo's Hotel Le l815, which nestles just below the ridge where Wellington's front line once amassed and triumphed over Napoleon's mighty army. In a single day - Sunday 18 June 1815 - the umdulating farmland outside our windows became Waterloo's killing fields: 40,000 men and horses were slaughtered in a battle that was a turning point for Europe. "They are still digging up the bones," says the barman. I have come here to accompany Sean Bean on a special pilgrimage, a chance for him to pay homage to the soldiers who gave their lives for king and country in a battle that he re-enacts in Sharpe's Waterloo, the third and final Sharpe film in a new run of ITV's action-adventure series that begins on Wednesday with Sharpe's Revenge. "I've always wanted to come here, ever since I started doing Sharpe and got interested in the Napoleonic Wars, so it seems fitting, now I've finished, that I should experience the place for myself." In the flesh, "TV's hottest sex symbol" - as the Sheffield-born actor is frequently dubbed - is a shy man who speaks hesitantly and rarely gives interviews. He has stayed out of the spot-light since his much publicised split with his wife, Bread actress Melanie Hill, so it said a lot, for his personal interest in the period that he was prepared to do the trip exclusively for Radio Times - and also bring along girlfriend Abigail Cruttenden, who plays Sharpe's (now estranged) wife, Jane Gibbons. The night before our tour it rains heavily, as it did on the night before the actual battle. Unlike the soldiers, who had to sit it out in their water-logged greatcoats, we sleep soundly in our rooms, which are all named after Waterloo's main players. I am in "Cambronne", dedicated to a member of Napoleon's Imperial Guard famous for shouting a defiant "Merde!" at his Prussian attackers; Sean and Abigail are put in "Wellington". Events the following morning certainly require something of the Waterloo spirit. Descending for breakfast we find the hotel deserted. With no signs of any petit dejeuner, we are reduced to foraging in the kitchen. (I'm afraid our stars get short shrift when they ring for room service.) Jacquetta, the make-up girl, commandeers the coffee machine behind the bar and plugs in an egg-boiling contraption, all of which goes well until there is a power cut. After these meagre rations we don waterproofs to do battle with the elements, Sharpe's military adviser, Richard Rutherford-Moore, approving Bean's suggestion that he take some hard-boiled eggs with him; Wellington, apparently, never went into battle without a couple wrapped in his handkerchief.... Our first stop is Hougoumont, the farm that was so crucial to the Anglo-Dutch army's victory. Richard Rutherford-Moore, who is conducting our tour, points out loopholes in the walls where guards knocked out bricks to fire their muskets through. The farm was attacked all day but the British held firm, even when a large body of French soldiers entered the courtyard through the main gates. A lieutenant colonel named Macdonnell and his sergeant managed to close and bar them again, trapping the men inside. They were slaughtered without mercy, all except for a drummer boy. Wellington is reported to have said afterwards that the success of the battle depended on the closing of the gates at Hougoumont. Although much of the action in Sharpe's Waterloo is set at the other famous farm, La Haye Sainte, some of the events are taken from Hougoumont. Entering the courtyard through those gates is a chilling experience and Bean, who filmed his version of events on location in Turkey, is subdued. "It's a bit spooky," he says, "especially after we've set up these fights and you see the men falling into fires, and there's the smoke and the noise and the horses, and then you see it so still and quiet, the real thing. It's eerie . . . "I just can't imagine how people could function under those conditions, the sheer horror of the battle. They had no food, they were wet, cold, miserable and frightened. Any second you could have had your head blown off and your friends were dying all around you. But they still held that place and it's still standing today." He is clearly moved and stands looking out across the walled garden to the ploughed field beyond, now the site of an unmarked mass grave. "Where we were standing there were 4,000 Frenchmen buried, yet you look at the soil and it's hard to conceive what has happened here. I'm really pleased I've come . . . I think it's important that people remember this, that thousands of people died for a reason. It would be tragic if that were forgotten." Playing rough diamond Richard Sharpe has been a Boy's Own dream come true for Bean, 36, who does his own stunts, rides, shoots and fences like a veteran. "Sharpe's always been the character I've loved playing more than any other and I've got a lot of good feelings for him. I'll be sad to let him go. It's been a big part of my life over the past five years, hangmg around on battlefields. I'm going to miss it." Fortunately there is still the possibility of a feature film, Sharpe's Tiger, and he remains friends with the actors playing the Chosen Men, a handful of whom are reunited in the final film. Filming in Turkey with 1,000 extras was "quite an adrenalin rush. The cavalry comes charging at you and you can hear the thunder of hooves and feel the ground shaking. They're supposed to stop and they did, but on each take they got a bit closer! You're running through crowds and explosions are going off - I know it's not the real thing but it does give you a bit of a feeling as to what it must have been like." The battlefield has changed little since 1815 and it is still farmed: a quiet agricultural vista bisected by the busy N5 Brussels to Charleroi road. Do the motorists speeding along it realise this is the road up which Napoleon and his army advanced? Certainly Bean doesn't, until I point it out, causing him to exclaim in surprise, "That's what I was galloping up and down in Sharpe!" We turn into the courtyard of La Haye Sainte, also a working farm and normally closed to the public. It was here, in the heart of the battle, that some 350 soldiers defended Wellington's position, holding out until 6pm when, having run out of ammunition, they were reduced to hurling rifles at the enemy. Trapped, they tried to escape through the house. A gruesome fight with bayonets ensued and the cobblestones ran red with blood. Only 42 of them made it back to Wellington's ridge alive. "Our set really did look like this," says Bean, "though it's much more broken down and gets more and more wrecked as the battle goes on - it actually caught fire and the roofs were missing and people were running in and out stacking up wood and using wagons to reinforce the gates, just as Richard described. "When Richard said, 'Don't forget the privates, the small people, it wasn't just the generals,' it was quite emotional. He said they're still here now, and they probably are. It's an unbelievable experience." We file out through the archway in silence, humbled by our encounter with history. On returning to the hotel the staff have reappeared and are apologising for the morning's domestic catastrophe. As everywhere in Waterloo, the decor shows a bias towards Napoleon, something that Bean remarks on as we leave. "It's as if Napoleon won the war and Wellington didn't . . . I think you've got to put it in perspective that we actuaally stood up against him and that changed the course of history - after Waterloo there were 99 years of peace. I don't want to sound jingoistic but I do think there's a time when you should feel proud of what our country has achieved, and the battle of Waterloo is one of them." DASHING BLADE by Janie Lawrence The Independent Tabloid May 22, 1997 Sean Bean is THE bloke's bloke, an accidental heart throb and one of the few British actors to make it big in Hollywood. But, most importantly, he's a Sheffield United fan. Oh, and he's starring in a new adaptation of the finest novel ever written. Sean Bean reaches for some toast and begins to spread the butter, his hand curled bear-like round the knife handle as he does so. As spreading techniques go it's probably not one shared by most other members of this country club in leafy north London. But then it's clear from the outset that Sean is your bloke's bloke, not given to putting on airs and graces; the type of man happiest hanging out with the same best mates he's had since school. So what do his friends do, I enquire? "I suppose jobs like most other people do," he replies. You also gather pretty quickly that he is not the most voluble of chaps. Such as? "Oh, bricklayers, welders, carpenters." It's this crowd he meets up with whenever he goes to watch his beloved Sheffield United play - as he has the previous evening. "It were great," he says in a voice that has lost none of its Yorkshire roots. Despite Hollywood success that has bought him heart throb status and a house nudging ú1.5m, he maintains that those friendships haven't altered. "It's no big deal to them, which is right. I might buy an extra round at the end of the night but I've never gone round saying: 'I'm in this on Wednesday night at eight o'clock.' I try not to make too much of a thing of it." Where other actors disingenuously pretend to dislike talking about themselves, or their work, sitting opposite Bean I know this is the real thing - the embodiment of the "see all, hear all, say nought philosophy". Given half a chance I suspect he'd make a bolt for the door. The motherly owner of this Totteridge club has already conspiratorially confided that "he's very shy, you know.". Does he agree? "I suppose I am. I'm quite reserved. I get plenty of chances to be flamboyant in what I do." None the less, he smiles a lot and is a nervous heavy smoker and in manner bears little relation to the testosterone-fuelled figures he normally plays onscreen. Roles that frequently involve him getting his kit off, as in Ken Russell's TV version of Lady Chatterley's Lover, where he played Mellors, ditto the philanderer in Clarissa and the television series of Sharpe, in which, if he's not single-handedly defeating the French, he's breaking down doors into women's bedrooms. Has he any idea why Sharpe's exploits seem to have struck such a chord with female viewers? More silence and an embarrassed fiddling of fingers. A blush swims across his face "Don't ask me, I don't know, do I? Maybe you know more about that than I do," he struggles. Possibly, but what does HE think? His ears have become quite pink. "I suppose it's the character. He's a very forthright, masculine, passionate man and everybody can understand passion. It's what makes life exciting." Now, to add to this list of passion-charged roles, he is swapping uniforms to play Count Vronsky in the new screen adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. The first Western film to be shot in post-Soviet Russia, it's a lavish production of the timeless love story between the Count (Bean) and the married, Anna Karenina (Sophie Marceau) and was filmed entirely in St. Petersburg. "It's a great book and it's great to he able to play a part in a classic like that. You don't get them coming along very often. It's on a par with playing a Shakespeare character." He says he most relished the scenes where the couple, largely ostracised by Russian society, begin to destroy each other. "What was interesting for me was that initial flame of passion before they both get disillusioned. They want that fire to remain constant all the time but he tires of her need for attention and to be loved. "Some people have said it's too heavy for them but I've said, 'You go and watch it and I bet you can identify with some of these situations.' Some of the dialogue I had with Sophie was so bang on, so true to life." If it's true for him in a personal capacity he won't say. In the throes of divorce proceedings with his second wife, actress Melanie Hill (Aveline in Bread), he now lives with Abigail Cruttenden, his screen wife in Sharpe. "Divorce isn't a very pleasant experience but there's a lot of things to look forward to. Abigail and me have been together six or seven months and we're very happy together." We return to the prevailing theme of passion. Naturally I'm asking purely in the public interest but would he describe himself as passionate? "I don't think that passion ever leaves you, no matter how old you are. It shouldn't do, should it? You can't form a relationship on things you've got in common like, 'I like Coronation Street although you've got to have those things as well." In fact he is rather partial to Coronation Street, preferably accompanied by a Chinese take-away. "I don't have any urges to go round the West End and visit fashionable places because I'm not really all that bothered about that sort of thing." In many ways, he says, he is surprised by the success he has had. By his own admission he wasn't much cop at school. "There were always other things I wanted to be doing - running round playing football, things like that. I suppose I was a bit of a nuisance. Or so I've been told by some of the teachers who used to teach me." He worked as a welder for his dad's company until he decided he wanted to go to Rada - that being the only drama school he'd ever heard of. "I think he would have liked me to carry on in the business but he realised that I did feel very strongly about taking up a career in acting and going down to London." Arriving at Rada at the same time as Janet McTeer and James Wilby was, he says now, something of a shock. "I just wanted to go back home. It took me about three months to adjust to living in London." Now he is one of the few British actors - with leading appearances in Patriot Games and GoldenEye - to have managed the transition from British star to sought-after property in LA. "It's very difficult to break into that Hollywood thing unless you're prepared to adapt to their way of thinking. There's not that many parts written for English actors in America, so you tend to find the parts you're usually offered are the baddies or the sadists because we do that well and we fit into that slot." After a recent three-week stint in Hollywood pressing the flesh, he's currently looking over several scripts. Not that these seem to be uppermost in his mind - that's a position currently occupied by Sheffield United's chances of making it into the Premier League. I ask him if I could see the tattoo that signals his devotion to the club and, obligingly, he pulls down the sleeve of his jacket to reveal his left bicep and "100% Blade" before he politely but characteristically makes his excuses. "I've go to get 'ome for me dinner now." Subject: Zine 9 - Extra - Bravo Two Zero BRAVO TWO ZERO AT SHOWDATA Picture and story at: http://www.showdata.org.za/news/nws-arc33.htm Showdata news archive August 14/97 Main News Page Bravo Two-Zero Sean Bean Stars in New SA Produced Film Filming commenced on the 12th of August in Uppington on an international feature film 'Bravo Two-Zero' produced by Anant Singh of Videovision Entertainment. Directed by British director Tom Clegg (Sharpe), the picture is written by Andy McNabb, based on his best-selling book. The stellar cast of South African talent includes Jamie Bartlett, Robert Hobbs and Robert Whitehead. 'Bravo Two-Zero' is the true story of the disastrous, but heroic SAS mission deep behind Iraqi lines during the Gulf War. It is a mission commanded by Sgt. Andy McNab (Sean Bean of Golden Eye) to destroy the fibre optic cable carrying targeting information from Baghdad to Saddam Hussein's Scud missile launchers. "It has been almost five years since I first read Andy McNab's book," says Singh, "and I immediately wanted to make the picture. We have since been trying to put it into production. Looking at options to shoot in Israel, Morocco and then, after democracy, we tried to do it here last year but we just ran our of time and weather. The film tells the story of the desperate struggle for survival. McNab was one of the five men who survived the operation, but three of his SAS comrades were killed. I believe this is a story that needs to be told." "I am delighted that the film is going to be made and that it is going to be truthfull to the book," says McNab, who is also acting as the film's military advisor providing proper weapons and mind-set training to the actors who play the soldiers of the eight-man mission. "I am looking forward to working with Sean Bean, I have been training with him already and know that he is perfect for the role." says McNab. Filming continues on location for four weeks in and around the desert near Uppington, for three weeks in Johannesburg; and for a week in London's Twickenham Studios in early October. 'Bravo Two-Zero' is executive produced by David M. Thompson and Ruth Caleb for the BBC, and co-produced by Helena Spring. The picture will be released in South Africa by United International Pictures (UIP) for Videovision Entertainment. Subject: Zine 9 - Extra - Sean on Simon Mayo's Radio Program - Transcript This is from Heather in the UK, who very generously did the transcription. SIMON MAYO'S SHOW THURSDAY 24 JULY 1997 Simon Hello Sean Bean Sean Um Hello Simon Sorry I waited until you were drinking your coffee just to make it embarrassing. How are you? Sean I'm fine thanks. Simon Do you want to move that a bit slightly closer to you? Sean The mike? Simon Yeah, the microphone thing, that would be very nice. Thanks very much indeed for coming, sorry about the chaos that's here, but what's basically happening is about a 1000 people all trying to wire us up for the Internet Party which is tommorrow and if this was tommorrow's programme this interview would be in vision around the world. Sean Yeah that's for sure Simon For the six people who have actually got it - but we get makup and all that sort of thing. Now, the latest stuff that I've seen about you in the papers, that we can talk about, is the SAS thing, an SAS movie that you are involved in. Sean Thats right, Bravo Two Zero Simon The Andy McNab thing Sean The Andy McNab story Simon Now are you Andy McNab? Sean Yeah Simon So tell you about that. Is that a TV movie or is it a Hollywood thing or what? Sean It's a - hopefully it'll, it'll - it will be a movie. At the moment its being shown by the BBC I think, not this Christmas the Christmas after so its a sort of special. But I hope there's a possibility of it being made as a movie and being shown as a movie maybe in other parts of the world but its a really good story, its um. A good friend of mine passed me the book about two or three years ago when it first came out and I just thought it were great reading and a great character and true story. And um, you know, I just though if ever this gets the green light to be made then I want to be uh..... Simon You would like to be the person doing it. Sean The person playing this part yeah. Simon And of course its fighting but in the 20th century rather than fighting and in another century. Sean Yeah. 400 years later. Simon So is there something about you and a gun that people who commission these things think, who'd look good shooting weapons - let's get Sean in? Sean I suppose Ive had quite a lot of experience - the sorts of parts Ive played have been - I suppose quite a lot of military sort of characters and I suppose its much different from Sharpe in that its much later, but its got similar qualities, its not, I think Sharpe was a very heroic sort of part which is the opposite to Bravo Two Zero 'cos it were men who had a job to do and there's nothing sort of "gun-ho" about it. Simon Sharpe also struck me as an ideal role for somebody to have because it was, you were a hero but like a people's hero. Sean Yeah. somebody who'd made something of himself, who climbed up through the ranks. Simon And you still shot members of your own side if they were just horrible toffs like that bloke in the last episode. Sean Yeah. Yeah Simon He was very irritating, I wish you'd frankly shot him about an hour before because he was driving me mad. Both Laugh. Simon One of the questions that someone sent in is that - this is Martin Allsop in Glocestershire. Are there any plans to do a prequel to Sharpe? I thought Sharpe had finished now? Sean It has yeah. The um, series has finished, I mean, there is, there has been talk of doing a feature film of Sharpe going back to the beginning uh, which is probably about 15 years younger than I am now, which could be difficult. Simon Would you like to do that? Sean I'd like to do it yeah. It just depends on, ya know, I mean like most things ya know, until ya get the go ahead, ya know, ya can't really count on it, but it would be nice to go back in time and start again, shave me sideboards off. Simon Now, I was just wondering if there was like in Sharpe, moving it on, coming back from the wars and maybe going into politics or something. Sean Maybe there is but that's probably all they could do really because there were no more wars after that for about a 100 years or so. Simon Slightly inconvenient really, I'm sure they could find some minor excursion to send you off on. Sean Yeah Simon So that's it as far as Sharpe's concerned but there may be...... Sean Well maybe, well I would hope because its such a great character and ya know, it was very popular and I would hope that there's still life in it yet and maybe might be able to get it together in some sort of....... Simon Is Sharpe the favourite character of all the one's you've played, I mean you were that great baddy in James Bond - in the last Bond film. Sean That were great to do. I mean, I enjoy all........... Simon You were in Patriot Games, I mean, are baddies slightly more - you were a horrible person in Patriot Games. Sean I was yeah. Simon Do you enjoy those roles? It is often said that playing horrible people is actually more fun than playing heroes. Sean I think that there's a lot to be said for that yeah - cos, I mean, you're doing something you can't really do in real life and you're getting away with it really and getting paid for it and you're told to enjoy it, um, which is something you can't really do, but they do seem to have quite a lasting impression, the villains, and they really are good fun to do, they're very interesting....... Simon If you had to choose a favourite character - of the one's that you've played? Sean I suppose Sharpe would be my favourite character because over the years, its been 5 years, year after year, playing him and getting to know him and stuff like that, but, ya know, the Patriot Games character is ..... and Golden Eye that was great to do just because of being involved with a Bond film, ya know and just the whole thing around that. Simon Absolutely. that was a great scar that you had as well, it was most impressive I thought. Sean Yeah Simon "God of the Week" is Sean Bean and before the end of the show - Cough, cough - I'm going to die - etc etc... Sean has to do "God of the Week" questions, some more of your questions plus, if it's alright, Sean, you have to choose your favourite contestant from the week who is going to come forward into the studio for the Friday final and I hope you're not gonna be misled or led astray at all by the fact that our contestant today has got blades all over her chest. You won't be misled by that will you? Sean Is she coming in? Simon She'll be coming in tomorrow - so Sean Bean will be "God of the Week" and he'll be coming in tomorrow as well. Both Laugh Simon With that enticement firmly in his mind "God of the Week" Sean Bean and more in just a second. MUSIC Simon Oh my word it's finished. I was just educating Sean as to the delights of the Internet. No we don't want that one we want this one. Sean Bean is "God of the Week" and your "God of the Week " questions coming up in a second. First of all, someone who appears to be called McNick in Wakefield says will you sing the "greasy chip butty song" on Radio 1, as sung by Sheffield United fans. What is that song? I haven't heard that one. Sean Um, what is it? Its a song. Simon How do the words go - are they broadcastable? Sean I'm trying to think. (Note from Heather - tried to get all the words but it was a little difficult, think I managed it though) (note from Nona - it's to the tune of "Annie's Song" by John Denver) Sean sings You fill up my senses Like a gallon of maggot (or magnet) Like a packet of woodbine Like a good pinch of snuff Like a night out in Sheffield Like a greasy chip butty Like Sheffield United Come thrill me again Na, Na, Na Na ooh. Sean So there you are. Simon Na Na Na wooh - bit at the end it seems important. Sean Oh its a good bit that you've got to 'ave that bit on the end. Simon That's about one of the only club songs that's actually broadcastable. Sean Yeah, while I was singing I was tryin to think like, were there anything in it. Simon There's a great Spurs song which goes "my old man said be an Arsenal fan and I said" and that's it, I can't actually say any more - is there a Sheffield version of that. "My old man said be a Wednesday fan, I said go away you're not a nice person". Sean Yeah. I think there is yeah. Simon I think that's basically what it was. Tony Mark on the M1 in Northampton says "What was it like to snog Melanie Griffiths". Base question. Sean Laugh, It was a long time ago actually, uh..... Simon But does it not hang around in the memory? Sean Yeah I suppose so yeah Simon Was she a goer? Sean Uh, what d'ya mean? Simon I have no idea. Sorry Tony that's all the answer you're gonna get. And Jonathon in Sheffield has another Sheffield United question. What do you think of Sheffield United signing Brian Deane again? Sean I'm really pleased about that acually, if that's the case, I don't know if it's definite yet, but um, it'd be nice to have him back cos he was great for us, he played some time for us and got us promotion and stuff and he's a really good striker, could always knock the ball in...... Simon Are you a season ticket holder. Sean Am I? Yeah Simon How often do you get to go, cos I would think your movie requirements take you away, just a little bit. Sean Yeah, they usually start around the beginning of the season as well and I'm usually off work when the cricket's on and as soon as the football's started I get a job. But around Christmas and times like that and usually at the very end of the season, which is usually quite exciting. Simon Good season for Sheffield United coming up? Sean I hope so, I mean, it was a good season last year when you think about it. I mean, we got through to the final of the playoffs, ya know, and that sort of ended a bit tragically. Laughs. Simon The way playoffs do. Sean Yeah in the last few seconds, but hopefully this season especially if we get - keep all these players like Alan Kelly and Gorley and the team we've got and get Brian Deane back on board then we've got a good chance. They've got a lot of good teams coming down ya see, with a lot of money so it's gonna be tough. Simon "God of the Week" question to Sean Bean. First of all Sean you're on your cloud. You can have anyone's company that you like, alive or dead, you can have as many people as you like on your cloud, who would you have? Sean Um. I can't really think. Simon Not Melanie Griffiths obviously if you....... Sean Can I come back to that one. Simon Yeah, you can come back to that. Would you like to make anyone a Saint? Make anyone you like a Saint? Sean I can't really think of that one either. Simon OK. You can send a thunderbolt on anybody? Sean Yeah, I thought about this one and that'd probably be Rowan Atkinson for creating Mr Bean. Simon Oh, of course. Sean Because..... Simon Have you suffered somewhat? Sean I suppose I 'ave indirectly, yeah. When I pick up the phone to make a phone call, I say it's Mr Bean, y'know, people just start laughing at the other end, y'know, and I try and get round it, but there's no way you can get round it really cos I am Mr Bean. Simon And there's a Mr Bean movie which is opening up next week. Sean Well that's it yeah. I keep seeing these pictures of Bean everywhere, y'know and everytime I see um I think - bastard. ALL Laugh Simon It's only fair enough. I can understand that it would be slightly irritating cos its gonna get bigger and more difficult. You can perform any miracle you like as long as its not heal the world...... Sean I suppose that'd have to be Sheffield United getting promotion this season and managing to stay there in the Premier League. Simon That's pushing it a bit. That's a fine answer. Do you want to come back to the cloud and the Saint? Sean I'll come back to that yeah. Please. Simon OK. Alright. We'll play another record. We'll do those questions and then you'll have to decide whose going to come into the studio and may be knocking off to Ibiza. MUSIC Simon OK Sean. This is someone's summer hanging on a thread. Now you're gonna decide who's going forward to the big Friday final and put on those headphones there and we will go through the contestants Monday to Thursday and the person who appeals to you the most, I'll hand you a piece of paper you circle your favourite. OK Sean Alright. THEY GO THROUGH THE CONTESTANTS MONDAY AND TUESDAY SAYING HELLO. WEDNESDAY - TWO GIRLS FROM SWANSEA CHEERING HELLO. Sean Are they all in pubs Simon Post Office Counters they are. Thursday, today, was Julia Hargreaves from Moor Lane Construction in York, and where did you say you had "blades" tattoed? Julia On my arm Simon On your arm? OK you just stay there please. Sean Bean "God of the Week" there's the list, circle the person who you think should be coming into the studio for the Friday final, based on that admittedly inconclusive piece of research we have just done. Sean Bean is considering his verdict. There are 4 eager people, this is the last ever "knocking off", this is the last Friday final, it is going to be the swimwear edition on tomorrow's programme. That's one of the conditions you have to be in your swimwear. He's gone for that, what do you think, good choice. Technician Fine choice Simon Fine, I think Technician The one I would have chosen myself Simon I would have chosen as well. I certainly would have chosen - Julia Hargreaves, Moor Lane Construction. WHOOPS FROM JULIA Sean Good decision Simon Yeah Julia Oh thank you Simon Well thank Sean Bean Julia Thank you Sean, thank you Sean You're all right luv. Laugh Julia Oh I can't believe it, thank you Simon And Sean's quite interested - where's the tattoo on your arm you say? Julia Where about's on my arm? Simon Yeah Julia It's just on the top, just below the top of my shoulder Sean What is it in - biro? [note from Nona to non-Brits - a biro is a ballpoint pen] Julia Yeah, it is now. I'm gonna get it done this afternoon. Simon Julia you know you've gotta come down and be in the studio tomorrow and it's the swimwear edition cos it's in vision across the world on the Internet. Julia Yes. There's a lot of preparation work that needs to be done this afternoon I can tell you. Simon All right well see you tomorrow. Julia OK look forward to it Simon Cheers Julia Julia Bye Simon Cheers bye bye and Sean thank you very much indeed for coming in. Sean Thank you Simon Duty nobly done and we look forward to seeing Bravo Two Zero. Sean Thank you very much Simon Sean Bean - "God of the Week"