Stacy Keibler – the model and former wrestler seemed to be most people’s top fashion choice on the red carpet at this year’s Oscars.

Stacy was of course at the Academy Awards as George Clooney’s date as the couple have been an item for some months now. George looked to be more than pleased with Stacy’s strapless gold Marchessa outfit as were most of the style commentators on the night. Although he didn’t end up walking away with the best Actor Oscar he did walk away with the Best Dressed Woman on the night.

Stacy was quite nervous before the event as it was her first time at the Oscars. The couple were interviewed on the red carpet by Access Hollywood and she said to Billy Bush “”I was in the car [and] my heart was beating so fast. I think I think I’m just overwhelmed because it’s so exciting. This is my first time coming to the Oscars, which is something that I never thought that I would ever — I never thought I’d be at the Oscars.”

George was clearly pleased with how Stacey looked as he said “”She looks good, huh?” before quipping “By the way, she’s not wearing a dress –she’s just been sprayed gold,”

Marchesa is clearly one of Stacey’s favourite designers as she was seen wearing one of their stunning red lace dresses at the recent Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York.

Although George was not lucky enough to win an award on the night the couple did have the compensation of jetting off to Villa Oleandra his luxury Italian home in Laglio on Lake Como. With George’s successful performance in The Descendants getting him a number of award nominations the last few weeks have been quite hectic for the couple Stacey said when asked to confirm if the couple were off to Italy: ”Yes. To just get off of our e-mail and just kind of relax for a little bit.”

Lucy Liu to appear in US Sherlock series Elementary – the Ally McBeal and Charlie’s Angels actress has signed up to appear in the new US Sherlock Holmes series Elementary.

In a spin on the original stories the 43-year old will be playing Sherlock’s sidekick Watson but instead of it being John Watson this time it is to be Joan Watson. As already noted Jonny Lee Miller has already been signed up to play the part of Sherlock.

It seems that we may well be drip fed information on the new series as so far apart from the casting of Miller and Liu all we know is that the stories are to be set in a modern-day New York.

The reason that Sherlock finds himself in New York City in the new adaptation is that his addiction problems have forced him into rehab in NYC and we are told that Liu’s character of Joan Watson is a former surgeon who has lost her license.

Amongst her many claims to fame Lucy has the proud boast that she was once voted Number 41 in a list of the Top 50 Sexiest Vampires for her role as the reporter/vampire Sadie Blake in the movie Rise. She was also once voted MTV’s Best Villain for her part as O-Ren Ishii in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill.

As well as playing vampires, reporters, villains, detectives psychologists and lawyers Lucy is also a singer and an artist in real life so she will have a lot to bring to the part of Joan Watson.

Although there is no date given yet for the pilot show of Elementary we do know that it is being written by Robert Doherty who has previously written for Star Trek Voyager.

Jenna-Louise Coleman – it has been revealed that the 25-year old actress is to be Doctor Who’s new companion.

The actress will take over the role from the Christmas special episode with Karen Gillan, who plays current Doctor Who sidekick Amy Pond, leaving after  her 2 series stint in the role.

Jenna is probably best known at present for playing the part of lesbian Jasmine Thomas in Emmerdale. She has also played the part of schoolgirl Lindsay James in Waterloo Road and will soon be seen as Annie Desmond in the 4 part mini-series of Titanic.

There should be some good on-screen chemistry between Jenna and Matt Smith as Doctor Who writer Steven Moffat said that  their partnership “came to life” during Jenna’s auditions. He said: ”There was a moment I remember from the second time she came in, and they were auditioning together and they both looked frightened doing a Doctor Who scene, and it just was an instant poster.” Moffat is one of our top tv screenwriters, as well as writing Dr Who he also co-wrote the recent brilliant series of Sherlock on the BBC.

Little is known about the new character that Jenna will be playing, not even the character’s name. Writer Steven Moffat said:  ”Who she’s playing, how the Doctor meets her, and even where he finds her are all part of one of the biggest mysteries the Time Lord ever encounters. Even by the Doctor’s standards, this isn’t your usual boy meets girl.”

Jenna will start filming the new Doctor Who series next weekend but we will have to wait until Christmas Day to first see her in the new role. There are 6 episodes of Doctor Who to be seen this year with Karen Gillan’s character being written out in the 5th episode. There are already another 8 more episodes planned for 2013.

Kym Marsh – the Coronation Street star is set to take on the role of Elsie Tanner, one of the icons of the show, in the new musical version “Street of Dreams.”

35-year old Kym is best known these days for her role as underwear factory manager Michele Connor in Corrie and the Pat Phoenix role should give her plenty to get her teeth into as she had the most colourful life during her time in the soap.

Talking of her new role in the musical Kym said: ”The strong, determined and indomitable women have always defined Coronation Street right from the very first episode to the present day and Elsie Tanner will go down in history as one of the most gossiped about women in Weatherfield. She’s left some rather big stiletto shoes to fill but to have the opportunity to represent such an iconic character of yesteryear on a stage of this scale is an absolute honour.”

It is no surprise that she has been picked for a role in the musical as before she started in her acting career Kym was a singer, with her first appearance on tv coming in 2001 on ITV talent show Popstars where she made the final line-up for HearSay. She left the band in 2002 and her solo single Cry got to Number 2 in the UK Singles Chart.

Kym will share the part of Elsie Tanner with Jodie Prenger with Kym playing the 1960′s role and Jodie the 1980′s role. She is really looking forward to her new role and said: ”The entire production is just gorgeous with infectious songs which stick in your head! The music is fabulous, the orchestration is phenomenal and the cast are truly amazing. To be asked to play such an amazing part in something that people will be telling their grandchildren about in years to come is just a dream.”

Also appearing in “Street of Dreams” are a number of other Coronation Street actors including Julie Goodyear (Bet Lynch), Bill Roache (Ken Barlow) and Kevin Kennedy (Curly Watts). The show will also star Paul O’Grady and is to depict various momentous moments from the show’s history.

Street of Dreams is due to open in May and is currently set to show in Manchester, Dublin, Belfast and Newcastle.

BAFTA TV Awards 2012 – the nominations have been announced for this year’s BAFTA television awards.

Leading the list of nominated programmes is ITV’s Appropriate Adult, the mini-series about serial killer Fred West. The series received 4 nominations including best mini-series as well as a Best Actor nomination for Dominic West and a Best Actress nomination for Emily Watson, who starred as Janet Leach, Fred West’s social worker.

The other series which has done well in today’s nomination’s is BBC’s critically acclaimed Sherlock. This received 3 nominations including one for Benedict Cumberbatch for Best Actor. Both Martin Freeman (Dr Watson) and Andrew Scott (Jim Moriarty) received Best Supporting Actor nominations for their parts in the series. Although it won the Best Drama Series award last year Sherlock did not qualify this year as a change in the rules meant that any series had to have between 6 and 19 episodes to qualify for the award and the second series of Sherlock only had 3 episodes.

Other nominations include Maggie Smith from Downton Abbey and Miranda Hart from Call The Midwife who are both up for Best Supporting Actress. In the Best Soap or Continuing Drama category Coronation Street and Eastenders are up against Holby City and Channel 4′s Shameless.

Simon Cowell’s run of bad news continued today as both X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent failed to make the short list for Best Entertainment Programme. This year that category will be decided between Celebrity Juice, Derren Brown:The Experiments, Harry Hill’s TV Burp and Michael McIntyre’s Christmas Comedy Roadshow.

The 2012 BAFTA Awards are due to be presented at the Royal Festival Hall on 27 May with Dara O’Brian hosting the show. Dara has also been nominated in this year’s Entertainment Performance category.

Mischa Barton – the actress has been spotted on the streets of LA filming a new music video for Noel Gallagher.

There is no word yet on which Gallagher track will be featured.

Mischa was seen wearing a set of leopard print underwear and some red Converse trainers. She was acting with an unnamed man who was also wearing leopard print underwear.

Although she started off in the theatre Mischa is best-known for her work in movies. She has appeared in Notting Hill, The Sixth Sense and St Trinians. She is probably most recognised though from her role as Marissa Cooper in the Fox television series The O.C.

She has also been heavily involved with modelling and fashion. She has been used by Calvin Klein, Chanel Jewellery and has also designed a range of handbags for ASOS.

Around 2009 and 2010 Barton found herself in various kinds of trouble with charges against her for driving whilst under the influence of marijuana and having no valid driving licence. She was also sued for non-payment of rent by her landlord. In addition she was sectioned for 2 weeks in a psychiatric hospital after she got into an argument with nurses who were trying to give her some drugs via injection.

Mischa will be hoping that the exposure she gains in the new video will bring her to the attention of some film producers. She was involved with 4 different movies last year but none of them troubled the box-office much.

Olympic Orbit Tower – today sees the official unveiling of the 114.5m (376ft) tower at the heart of the Olympic Park.

The tower is also known as the ArcelorMittal Orbit has been designed by the artist Anish Kapoor and structural designer Cecil Balmond. It is now officially the tallest sculpture in the UK. The cost of the tower has been funded by the steel company ArcelorMittal (£19.2m) and the London Development Agency (£3.1m).

London Mayor Boris Johnson helped raise the funds for the tower by convincing Lakshmi Mittal, Britain’s richest man, to get his company to provide the 1400 tons of metal required to build the structure. The two only spoke for less than a minute and it seems that Mittal thought his company were just supplying some metal whereas they actually had to get involved with the artists in construction of the tower.

Anish Kapoor has said that one of the inspirations behind the design was the Tower of Babel and there was also the sense that something with the style of the Eiffel Tower was needed to match the sense of occasion. The Eiffel Tower (320m tall) was originally built to provide the entrance archway for the 1889 World’s Fair.

Although the Tower is being unveiled today it will not be open to the public until 28 July. From that date visitors will be able to travel by lift to the top of the Tower and then either travel down again by lift or they also have the option of walking back down via a 455 step spiral staircase.

The Tower incorporates the 5 Olympic rings in its design and it is hoped that it will bring in as many as 1m visitors a year. Others have been less positive about its future and comparisons have been made with Skylon, a 90m steel structure which was built as part of the 1951 Festival of Britain before being dismantled and sold for scrap in 1952.

Ticket prices are £15 for adults and £7 for children whilst the Olympics are on. If you are interested in going up the Olympic Orbit Tower tickets should be available later this month via the official London 2012 tickets site. Although timings are not yet confirmed it is expected that the attraction will be able to handle between 500 and 770 people per hour. On a clear day visitors can expect to see views of London covering a 20 mile radius.

Rachel McAdams – the 33-year old actress is reportedly in talks to take the lead role in director Richard Curtis’ new rom-com About Time.

Curtis has written and/or directed many of the British rom-com classics including Notting Hill, Four Wedding and a Funeral, Love Actually and Bridget Jones.

The new movie will have a bit of a sci-fi feel about it as the storyline concerns a man who can travel back in time and meets the girl of his dreams, no prizes for guessing who the girl is. The time traveller will be played by Domnhall Gleeson, a well-respected Irish actor who has a number of stage, television and movie roles behind him but is probably best-known for his role as Bill Weasley in the Harry Potter movies. Domnhall’s father Brendan also played Alastor Moody in the Harry Potter series.

Rachel McAdams will be replacing Zooey Deschanel who was originally in talks for the main female role.

Other actors expected to appear in the movie include Tom Hollander, Bill Nighy and Vanessa Kirby. Filming is scheduled to start in London next month.

Rachel has been getting a lot of good press over the last year or so with her appearances in Midnight In Paris and The Vow. She also starred as Irene Adler opposite Robert Downey Jr in the 2009 Sherlock Holmes movie.

She is next going to be seen in cinemas in the new, as yet unnamed, Terence Malik movie with Ben Affleck, Rachel Weisz, Javier Bardem and her Welsh boyfriend actor Michael Sheen. She can also be seen in Passion the new Brian De Palma film where she is to be seen sharing a kiss with Girl With The Dragon Tattoo star Noomi Rapace.

Olympic Torch Relay – the Olympic torch has started its 70 day journey across the country towards the Olympic Stadium in London.

The UK relay was started today by 3-time Olympic Champion Ben Ainsley who described it as an honour almost as special as winning a gold medal. Ainsley is still at the top of his game as he won his 6th World sailing title in his Finn sailing boat in Falmouth this Friday.

Ainsley decided to walk his stage although being in supreme condition he could easily have run it. His reasoning was that he wanted everyone to get a chance to touch the torch. It was a big day for Ben who also has the honour of being the first athlete to be selected for the British Olympic team. He will be trying to win a 4th consecutive gold medal in the sailing events which are being held at Weymouth and Portland this year.

Ben started the Olympic torch on its journey this morning at 7.08 beneath the Lands End sign. He is the first of 8,000 torchbearers who carry the Olympic Flame 8,000 miles through 1019 cities, towns and villages over the next 70 days where it will be used to light the cauldron as the highlight of the Opening Ceremony.

The Olympic Flame arrived in Cornwall at RNAS Culdrose on Friday night accompanied by David Beckham, Princess Anne, Lord Coe and London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Whilst travelling on its 8000 mile journey through the UK the Olympic Torch will travel within 10 miles of 95% of the population. Today’s journey took the Olympic Flame from Lands End to Plymouth with 139 torchbearers carrying it over its 136 mile route to Plymouth Hoe.

Steven Moffat – the Doctor Who and Sherlock writer will be presented with a special award at this year’s BAFTAs.

The 50-year old Scottish writer and producer started working in television in 1989 although his first well-known tv series was not until 2000 when he wrote Coupling. This series was described by many critics at the time as the British “Friends”, It concerned the relationships between six friends, three male and three female, who often talked to the camera about the same events from completely different perspectives.

In 2004 Moffat was asked to write some episodes for the newly relaunched series of Doctor Who. he soon became known for writing the “cleverer, darker episodes” as The Guardian put it. In 2008 it was announced that Moffat was taking over as head writer and executive producer from Russell T Davies.

While he and Mark Gatiss were travelling by train from London to Cardiff to film Doctor Who they conceived the idea of Sherlock, to be a contemporary update on the Sherlock Holmes stories. This series has been a huge success, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock and Martin Freeman as his faithful sidekick Watson.

Both Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are up for awards at the BAFTAs this year with Cumberbatch up for the Best Actor award and Martin Freeman and Andrew Scott (Jim Moriarty) going for Best Supporting Actor.

Moffatt has previously won awards at the BAFTAs for Doctor Who in 2008 and Sherlock last year. He said of this year’s award: “it’s a bit like being shown your mausoleum! No, it’s great, it’s really exciting, of course. It fends off the insecurity for 10 or 15 minutes more a day, I suppose! It’s absolutely lovely, absolutely thrilling.”

The BAFTA tv awards will take place at the Royal Festival Hall on 27 May. They will be hosted by Dara O’Briain and will be shown on BBC1.

Critics’ Choice TV Awards – yesterday evening’s award show brought further glory for detective series Sherlock which took the award for Best Miniseries with Benedict Cumberbatch taking Best Miniseries Actor.

The awards were held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills and the winner of the night’s biggest prize was the psychological thriller Homeland which took the Best TV Drama Series award. The show’s star Claire Danes also picked up the award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Carrie Mathison the bipolar CIA agent looking for a terrorist in the heart of America.

It was thought that it would be another good night for Mad Men which won 3 awards last year but as it turned out the only award it picked up this year was for curvy Christina Hendricks in her role as the office manager Joan Holloway. It is the second consecutive year that she has walked away with the award.

We also had another quite unexpected British winner on the night with Cat Deeley picking up an award for Best Reality Show Host for her work in Fox Network’s So You Think You Can Dance. Cat shared the award with Tom Bergeron who hosts Dancing With The Stars.

One person we did think might take away an award on the night is Damian Lewis, who plays Marine Sgt Nicholas Brody in Homeland but in the end Lewis lost out to Bryan Cranston who stars in the crime drama Breaking Bad. Damian got the chance to meet President Obama in March this year when he was invited to a special state dinner. The President is a huge fan of Homeland and has said that it is his favourite tv show.

Another possible British winner was Lara Pulver who was up for the Best Actress in a Miniseries award for her role as Irene Adler in Sherlock but in the end she too lost out, this time to Julianne Moore who won for her role as the 2008 vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin in the HBO drama Game Change.

The Critics’ Choice Awards are seen as the precursor to next month’s Emmy Awards which are the US television industry’s most prestigious awards.

Royal Ascot Fashion - today saw the opening day of Royal Ascot and after some problems in previous years racegoers this year had to abide by some stringent new fashion guidelines.

Anyone lucky enough to secure an invite to the Royal Enclosure had some fairly tough rules to follow. Women are banned from wearing fascinators and their skirts and dresses have to be of modest length and no shorter than just above the knee. In previous years women have just been advised that miniskirts were unsuitable.

Other fashion no-no’s for the Royal Enclosure are strapless, halterneck and off-the-shoulder dresses as well as those with spaghetti straps or any strap thinner than one inch wide. Just in case people were in any doubt bare midriffs are also banned this year.

Men do not escape from the fashion police if they are heading for Ascot’s Royal Enclosure and must now be seen in black or grey morning dress together with a waistcoat. Ties are of course compulsory and you are not even allowed any leeway by wearing a cravat.To go with their morning dress the men must also wear a black or grey top hat and only black formal shoes are permitted.

In the grandstand area of the course things are less formal although men must still wear a suit and tie and all women must wear a hat or a fascinator.

To make sure that everyone abided by the rules today there were a number of what the course described as dress code assistants but we prefer to call fashion police. They were kitted out with wicker baskets full of lots of ties for the men if they had forgotten and pashminas for the ladies in case they should be showing too much flesh

Amongst today’s celebrity racegoers were TOWIE’s Lydia Bright in a tight-fitting scarlet dress from Hybrid that showed off her slim figure and Danielle Lineker in a stylish black and white dress with black shoes and bag. These two got almost universal praise today for their choice of outfit however another celeb seems to have split opinion on whether her outfit was a hit or a miss. Britains’ Got Talent judgeAmanda Holden wore a floral cream Azagury dress. The designer is a firm favourite with Kelly Brook, Katherine Jenkins, Mylene Klass and Helen Mirren as well as previously being a favourite of Princess Diana. She matched this with a cream Aspinal bag but the part of her outfit that has most divided people is her choice of headgear. She wore a DeDe Valentine hat which has been described by some as stylish although the Huffington Post thought it made her look like Little Bo Peep.

Another outfit that got people talking was the one worn by model and wildlife presenter Anneka Tanaka-Svenska with a huge hat designed by Louis Mariette that seemed to be made of 2 large birdcages, a number of pink roses and lots of white feathers. We are sure that she was glad today wasn’t too windy or she would have ended up somewhere down by the car park!

In case anyone was interested in the horses then we can report that the world’s top rated racehorse, Frankel, won the Queen Anne Stakes. This was no surprise to either the bookies or anyone in the crowd that had seen him race before. Today’s victory took his total number of consecutive wins to 11 and the level of dominance he has shown in earlier meetings and his form in training meant that it was not a big pay-day for you if you backed him as his odds were a staggeringly mean 10 to 1 on.

It appears that the economic woes have not yet reached this part of Berkshire as over the next few days racegoers are expected to consume 170k bottles of champagne, 10k lobsters, 5k oysters and 18k punnets of strawberries. Nice work if you can get it!

Diana Rigg and Rachael Stirling – former Avenger’s star Dame Diana and her daughter Rachael are to appear together on-screen for the first time in a specially written episode of Doctor Who.

Diana did of course play Emma Peel in the classic 60′s tv series. Her character was known for being a tough fighting feminist who had a penchant for leather and pvc catsuits. There was always plenty of flirting between Emma and Patrick Macnee’s  character Steed and audiences were never quite sure if the two of them had had an affair, were still having an affair or were just friends who enjoyed plenty of flirting together.

Oh and in case being one of the hottest Avengers girls was not enough for her Diana also played the part of Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo, later Tracy Bond, in the 1969 Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, where she becomes the only woman, so far, to marry 007.

Diana’s daughter Rachael Stirling is still best-known for her steamy television performance as Nan Astley playing opposite Keeley Hawes in the 2002 lesbian drama Tipping The Velvet. Although she does appear to have a reputation for tackling sexual roles on television, as she also played Ursula Brangwen in the 2011 adaptation of D.H.Lawrence’s Women In Love, Rachael has actually spent most of her career in very different roles in the theatre.

Diana and Rachael are playing mother and daughter roles in the new Doctor Who episode but there will apparently be a twist as they are described as having “a dark secret.” The episode has been specially written for them by Mark Gatiss and filming has already begun this week at the Roath Lock studios in Cardiff. The mother and daughter duo will be starring alongside Matt Smith as the Doctor and Jenna-Louise Coleman as the Doctor’s new companion.

Rachael said of her new opportunity: “What joy. I am looking forward to the madness of Doctor Who enormously. Mark Gatiss has written a gift of a script and an on-screen relationship between Ma and I that is truly delicious.

“We’ve never before worked together as the offers have not been  tempting, but when such a funny and original script comes through you know the time has come.”

Doctor Who’s executive producer Steven Moffat said: “Dame Diana Rigg, Rachael Stirling and a Mark Gatiss script – a combination of talents you could only get in Doctor Who! Frankly, I’m terrified already!”

Although we don’t yet have an exact date for the episode airing on tv we do know that we will all have to wait until next year.

Elementary – satellite broadcaster Sky have picked up the CBS modern-day version of the Sherlock Holmes stories.

The CBS series seemed to follow on indecently closely to the BBC’s critical and viewer favourite Sherlock starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.

The US show has a number of twists with Sherlock being relocated to New York following a visit to a rehab centre there for addiction treatment. Sherlock is played by Jonny Lee Miller but in another twist his faithful sidekick is world’s away from both Freeman’s interpretation and the original Conan Doyle character with Lucy Liu playing the newly sober Joan Watson.

The part of the policeman DI Greg Lestrade from Sherlock (played by Rupert Graves) is turned into Captain Tobias Gregson of NYPD, played by Aidan Quinn. Although this might appear to be another deviation from the original Conan Doyle stories in fact there was an Inspector Gregson in a number of the stories including the original story A Study In Scarlet.

Gregson was described by Sherlock Holmes in A Study In Scarlet as so:”Gregson is the smartest of the Scotland Yarders,” my friend remarked; “he and Lestrade are the pick of a bad lot. They are both quick and energetic, but conventional — shockingly so. They have their knives into one another, too. They are as jealous as a pair of professional beauties. There will be some fun over this case if they are both put upon the scent.”

The CBS series has generally received less favourable reviews in the US than Sherlock, which aired on PBS, did but some reviewers have enjoyed the change in scenario offered by the move to New York. It does seem a shame that Elementary has made Sherlock’s sidekick a woman and seemingly introduced a romantic element to their relationship. This seems too obvious a move and just serves to turn the series into the usual formulaic style US tv series. Why everything has to be dumbed down for audiences these days I just can’t understand. With all if the channels that are available to people these days there are already plenty of “easier” viewing options out there.

One of the reasons that Sherlock has been such a success is the highly intelligent writing style which doesn’t treat the audience as the sort of people who need everything spoon-fed and explained to them every second. Also Sherlock’s relationship with Watson is a rare example on our screens of two friends being shown doing whatever they can for each other, even in the face of death, but also showing them getting more than a little cross and frustrated with each other.

Although we are more than confident that Sherlock will be the superior show you can bet we will be watching Elementary when it comes to our screens; if nothing else just to prove that we were right!

Elementary will be shown on Sky Living starting this Autumn.

Original Painting Of World’s Most Reproduced Print To Be Auctioned – the original painting of The Chinese Girl by Vladimir Tretchikoff is to be auctioned in London in a few weeks time.

Tretchikoff was born in Russia in 1913 but moved to China in 1917 at the onset of the Russian Revolution. He later moved to Singapore before finally settling in South Africa after the Second World War.

The Chinese Girl is probably better known to many as The Green Lady and was painted by Tretchikoff in 1950. The painting is actually Tretchikoff’s second attempt at this theme with the original version (using a different model) being destroyed when his South African studio was robbed.

The model for The Chinese Girl was a 17-year old girl called Monika Sing-Lee who Tretchikoff spotted working in a Cape Town launderette owned by his uncle.

The picture was hugely popular with the general public in the 60′s and 70′s but was always looked down on by the art world and Tretchikoff became known as the King of Kitsch. He said before he died in 2006  that he believed around half a million full size copies of The Chinese Girl had been sold. In addition to this the image was used on many other items such as mugs and tea towels as well as being sold in a smaller format reproduction. Although selling well around the world, the work was particularly popular in the Uk and The Commonwealth.

The original painting was bought by a woman in Chicago whilst Tretchikoff was touring the US in the 50′s and it has remained in the same family ever since. Prior to coming to London for the auction the painting will be on display in New York and Johanesburg.

The painting is being sold as part of an auction of South African art at Bonhams on 20 March. The Chinese Girl  has a guide price of £300-500k and is sure to surpass the record price for a work by Tretchikoff which currently stands at £337k. This was achieved by his picture Portrait of Lenka (Red Jacket). a semi-nude work featuring his lover and muse Lenka (real name Leonara Schmidt-Salomonson).

Nude Sherlock Star To Appear In Bond Biopic – Lara Pulver, the actress whose character captivated Sherlock Holmes when she appeared nude in front of him, is to feature in a new biopic of James Bond creator Ian Fleming.

The 32-year old actress caused a bit of a stir in the series when she appeared naked in front of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock character. Her character of Irene Adler was taken directly from the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories. Adler is the strongest of the female characters in the Sherlock Holmes stories and it is believed that he based Irene on the real life character of Lola Montez, an Irish dancer who was the lover of Ludwig 1 of Bavaria. The King eventually bestowed upon Montez the title of the Countess of Landsfeld.

As well as making a big impression on his Sherlock character it is thought that in reality Lara’s naked performance impressed actor Benedict Cumberbatch as the pair were said to be romantically linked last year.

In the new Ian Fleming biopic Lara is to play the part of Ann O’Neill. Ann became Fleming’s wife in 1952 after her divorce from her second husband Viscount Rothermere. This marriage broke down due to Ann’s affair with Fleming, who she had known since before the marriage took place in 1945. Even as early as 1947 it seems Ann and Fleming had rekindled their romance as she stayed with him at his Jamaican Goldeneye estate when she had in fact told her husband she was staying with Noel Coward at his neighbouring property.

The new biopic will star Dominic Cooper in the role of Ian Fleming  as well as also featuring Samuel West and Anna Chancellor. The Show is being produced for Sky Atlantic and filming is expected to start later this year in the UK and Bulgaria.

Lara has recently been talking about her breakthrough role as Irene Adler in Sherlock and said that she would love it if she could make a return to the series as the whip bearing dominatrix. From the reception the character got first time round it would certainly be a popular return.

Sherlock To Return For Series 3 and Series 4 – Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch has been talking about the new series 3 of the hit show and also the not mentioned before series 4.

At the South Bank Show Awards Cumberbatch revealed that he and co-star Martin Freeman had already agreed to 2 new series saying: ”All I know at the moment is I’m doing these three [episodes of the upcoming series] and another three.”

After saying that he and Freeman had agreed to two more series of Sherlock Cumberbatch quickly added:”I could get into trouble for saying that.”

As well as giving us the great news about a fourth series of the show Cumberbatch also said that he would love to keep the show going longer still. One problem that the show suffers from is that all of the actors and writers are incredibly successful and in demand for so many other productions.

Martin Freeman for example has spent many months working on the lead role of Bilbo Baggins for the upcoming Peter Jackson movie The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey as well as its sequel The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. This last movie also stars his Sherlock co-star Benedict Cumberbatch in the role of Smaug.

Cumberbatch is not only involved with his movie role as Smaug, a main role in Star Trek Into Darkness and the role of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange but is also heavily involved in many other tv and radio roles. One good tip for Sherlock fans looking to see a different side of Cumberbatch is to listen to some episodes of the brilliant Radio 4 series Cabin Pressure. This stars not only Benedict Cumberbatch but also includes the wonderful Roger Allam, John FInnemore and Stephanie Cole.

The cast of Sherlock has their first read through of the series 3 episodes yesterday and released a somewhat bizarre photo on Twitter of Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch both wearing flat caps and making funny faces.

The filming of series 3 of Sherlock starts this Monday with the first episode to be filmed being the series opener which will explain exactly how Sherlock managed to survive his seemingly fatal fall from the roof of St Bart’s Hospital at the end of the last series. Series 3 of Sherlock is due to be shown on BBC1 later this year. Sorry America but it looks like you are going to have to wait until early next year before you get to see the answer to the question of Sherlock’s death on PBS.

Matt Smith kissing Jenna-Louise Coleman

Is Doctor Who Too Sexy? – the director of the first series of Doctor Who has said he feels the show has now become too sexual.

Waris Hussein directed An Unearthly Child back in 1963 with William Hartnell playing the part of the Doctor and the parts of his then three companions were played by Carole Ann Ford, Jacqueline Hill and William Russell. The four episodes of the first series were soon overshadowed by the next series which featured The Daleks.

Indian-born director Hussein says that he believes Doctor Who now has an element of sexuality in its programmes and said in an interview with the BBC ‘Why bring in this element when in fact you needn’t have it there?’

He went on to say how surprised he was that with the recent rebirth of The Doctor there had been a scene showing the Doctor “snogging” his new companion Clara Oswald, played by Jenna-Louise Coleman.

Hussein said on Radio 4′s Reunion Show that he believed the Doctor should maintain an air of mystery and unavailability about him just as Sherlock Holmes did.

This year is a big one for the sci-fi series as it celebrates its 50th anniversary. There is a special 3D episode planned which will see the return of former Doctor David Tennant and Doctor’s assistant Billie Piper as well as the current Doctor, Matt Smith and assistant Jenna-Louise Coleman.

Star Trek Into The Darkness Movie Premiere – the latest outing for the Star Trek sci-fi franchise had its premiere at London’s Empire Cinema yesterday evening.

The cast was out in force (resists ‘may be with you’ remark!) and there were plenty of great outfits on view as well as a near wardrobe malfunction.

By all accounts the stand out female outfits for the night came from actress Alice Eve who stars as Dr Carol Marcus. She looked stunning as she wore a figure hugging grey suede look dress with a black belt to the actual movie premiere and an even better looking black dress to the after movie party at Aqua.

Although there is not believed to be romance in the air just yet it is more than likely that Alice will have a good long future in the Star Trek movies as it is a character with the same name who eventually gave birth to Captain Kirk’s children in the original 60′s television series.

If you have not heard much of Alice before then you can tell just from her parents that she is not only going to be super attractive but also a talented actress. Her father is Trevor Eve, forever Eddie Shoestring for those of the right age in the 70′s or perhaps you might remember him from his role as Det Supt Peter Boyd in the BBC drama Waking the Dead. He is also remembered for his part in the long-running tv ad for Nescafe Gold Blend (that’s Taster’s Choice if you are in the US) where he starred opposite his real-life wife the very attractive Sharon Maugham.

Although both of Alice’s outfits went down well with both the crowd and the assembled press fellow cast member Zoe Saldana, who plays Lt Uhura in the movie, was a little more troubled as she narrowly avoided a wardrobe malfunction in her white skirt which started to blow up in the wind threatening to reveal her underwear. It was only the intervention of Alice, Benedict Cumberbatch (John Harrison) and Zachary Quinto (Spock) that saved her blushes.

The movie has received some really good reviews although we guess the hardcore Trekkies will see it regardless of what is said by the movie critics. Star Trek Into The Darkness will go on general release on 09 May in the Uk and on 17 May in the US. It would be a fair bet that the movie will do well at the box office as so far the Star Trek movie franchise is estimated to have taken in excess of $1 billion in the US alone.

Benedict Cumberbatch Filming New Series Of Sherlock – the brilliant detective will soon be back on our screens as Benedict Cumberbatch and the rest of the Sherlock cast are currently in Cardiff filming scenes for the next series.

As well as featuring Cumberbatch as Sherlock, Martin Freeman as Watson, Mark Gatiss as Mycroft Holmes and Una Stubbs as Mrs Hudson there will be at least one new villain in the new series. It was announced on Twitter that the new series will feature at least one episode starring Danish actor Lars Mikkelsen. Mikkelsen is the brother of Hannibal and Casino Royale star Mads Mikkelsen and is himself well-known for playing some unpleasant characters in The Killing and Borgen.

It looks like Mikkelsen will be playing the role of Charles Augustus Magnusson. For fans of both the Sherlock series and the original Conan Doyle stories this almost certainly means a clever variation on the 1904 short story The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton. The original story shows us why the Milverton character is known as the “king of the blackmailers” as he extorts money from the great and the good by unearthing secrets they want to keep out of the public eye.

There has been much speculation over the shooting in Cardiff this week after Martin Freeman was spotted with a stunt double and smoke was seen coming from one of the buildings being filmed. It would not be the first time Freeman’s character has been in danger during a Sherlock adventure as he has suffered many troubles in the first few episodes including having a number of explosive devices strapped to him.

There are to be 3 2-hour shows in the next series and the titles of the shows are: The Empty Hearse, The Sign Of Three and His Last Vow.

World’s Sexiest Movie Stars – the readers of film magazine Empire have decided on the sexiest movie stars in the world and the good news for UK film fans is that the winners of both sexiest man and sexiest woman are British.

As a hint to a former child star turned singer the awards prove that you don’t have to go to extremes to be thought of as sexy by the public. Emma Watson has more than moved on from her first movie role as Hermione in the Harry Potter movie series.

Emma was the only British actress to make the Top 10 of the sexiest female movie star list with the next highest placed British female actress being Keira Knightley in 17th position with Kate Beckinsale, Gemma Arterton and Emily Blunt following just after Keira.

Emma beat off some strong international competition for the award with Scarlett Johansson coming in 2nd place, followed by Jennifer Lawrence in 3rd place.

Just to prove that the Empire readers have not forgotten those sexy ladies from the classic movies if the past Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly both got into the Top 50 list.

As far as the sexiest movie actors go the men’s title was also taken by a Brit with none other than Sherlock himself, Benedict Cumberbatch, finding himself on the top of the pile.

Benedict’s victory may surprise many US readers who only see the 37-year old in some very unromantic roles such as Khan Noonien Singh in Star Trek, Smaug in The Hobbit and of course the notoriously crusty Sherlock. He does however have a very large and loyal fanbase (often referred to as Cumberbitches) and it seems that he won the sexiest movie actor poll by some way attracting over 50k votes.

Although it doesn’t really fit in with his movie image Benedict seems pretty pleased by the new accolade as he said apart from finding it ‘hysterically funny’ he did admit that it ‘puts a spring in your step. It’s nice, you swagger a little bit, it’s enjoyable.’

Unlike the women’s poll it was mostly other British actors who were Benedict’s main competition for the sexiest man title with Tom Hiddleston in 2nd place followed by Henry Cavill.

It really is quite a change in the sexiest actor listings as it was not that long ago that Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp and George Clooney would have all been shoe-ins for the Top 10 but not one of them made the top placings this time round.

Here are the Top 10 Sexiest Woman in the Movies as voted for by Empire readers in 2013:

1. Emma Watson
2. Scarlett Johansson
3. Jennifer Lawrence
4. Kristen Stewart
5. Anne Hathaway
6. Emma Stone
7. Mila Kunis
8. Natalie Portman
9. Angelina Jolie
10. Zoe Saldana

and here are the Top Sexiest Men in the Movies as voted for by Empire readers in 2013:

1. Benedict Cumberbatch
2. Tom Hiddleston
3. Henry Cavill
4. Ryan Gosling
5. Robert Downey Jr
6. Chris Hemsworth
7. Robert Pattinson
8. Michael Fassbender
9. Hugh Jackman
10. Bradley Cooper