Right. Here’s the future. In the year 200andGoogleitbecausewedidnot, once all the disinfectant from Leona Lewis’ Olympic Opening Ceremony Performance has sterilized Britain, there is to be some exciting news. Naomi Watts is going to do exactly what Meryl Streep has just done here in 2012.

But she’s going to do it slightly more creepier – and be all PRINCESS DIANA and everything.

Okay. Quick reminder on who Princess Diana is, just before everyone jumps on the bandwagon and starts holding aloft an ironic piece of bunting with a smashed arm of a princess on it or something.

So, Princess Diana was a woman, who married a man whom she did not love (That’s Prince Charles, that guy who once stood 20 miles from a working class civilian and didn’t complain about it at all) Alas, it didn’t work out – both parties allegedly got off with other people, and it was all a bit of a car crash to be honest.

It doesn’t really matter who Princess Diana was. Suffice to say her buttocks was not as pert as Pippa Middleton, she just contributed to various charities instead. Charities are like Children in Need, but they give the money to impoverished minorities, rather than a hedge fund for Terry Wogan’s minibar, per se. Like we say, it doesn’t really matter what charity is or indeed represents.

Here’s the lowdown on this Princess Diana biopic. Obviously, you all know how to type in ‘IMDB’ into Google, but you’re here now – and god, we may as well, right? The wonderlist for Completely Undocumented Life of Princess Diana is as follows:

NAOMI WATTS – PRINCESS DIANA
WHOEVER THE HELL WROTE ‘THE LIBERTINE?’ – SCREENWRITER

The power troupe of Hollywood there, in full force as per usual. The Breakfast Club of our hearts. The Emilio Estevez of our chronic loneliness. (Or ‘Paula Abdul’ if you want the clinical terminology)

Upon the casting, Naomi Watts said quite a large quantity of things about trophy polish and ‘must get a new diaphragm for Elton’s after-party’, but once we breezed past all that, the gist appears to be:

“It is such an honour to be able to play this iconic role – Princess Diana was loved across the world and I look forward to rising to the challenge of playing her on screen.”

Congratulations Naomi Watts! THIS IS ALL SO INCREDIBLY NECESSARY.

One mild concern – who’s going to play Cat Deeley in the crucial Paul Burrell performing terrifying the Chicago soundtrack with the vigour of a repressed 70s Gimp Candyman on Stars in Their Eyes scene?

Bit worried.

Playing Margaret Thatcher must be great for an actress like Meryl Streep. Thesps just love it when they get the chance to play vile people from history. Murderers, rapists, sex offenders and the like give an actor the opportunity to feel brave and bold.

And ol’ Streepy knew too well that pretty much everyone on Earth hates Thatcher. This is something that made her ”more interested” in portraying the heartless witch in ‘The Iron Lady’.

And Meryl has some theories on why everyone despised her so much and… well… she’s off the mark really.

The Oscar-winning actress (we’re legally obliged to say that or people from Hollywood come and crack our shin-bones with slender golf clubs) was shocked at the level of hatred for the former British prime minister, which is a clear highlighting of just how little interest she had in the world during the ’80s and ’90s.

Streep said:

“We give our elected leaders iconic stature almost to have things to tear down, to work out all sorts of our own psychological problems and needs and venomous feelings. So I wondered about all the times that Margaret Thatcher was spoken about being unfeeling.

“And I thought, ‘Well, why was that? Was she really completely unfeeling?’ And as a public figure in a much smaller way myself, I understand that feeling of being stripped of your humanity. Was she a monster?

“While we were making the film, people had such strong and particular and specific venom for her. It was sort of stunning. It made me all the more interested in where her humanity lay.”

So, researching the part, you’ll assume that Meryl worked out why Thatcher was so reviled by many Brits, right? WRONG. See, Streep believes the anger directed towards Maggie Thatcher was largely down to the fact she was a woman.

“I did suspect that there was a weird special rage about her because she was a woman. From all sides. The policies that she pursued were the same policies that Geoffrey Howe pursued, although he’s not loathed and detested with the same intensity. And I think that it is a discomfort with, and a confusion about, women in leadership roles.

“For feminists it’s a betrayal because she doesn’t do the right thing, and so you hate her more than you’d hate a man who stood for the same things.”

It may have had something to do with the countless riots that took place under her stewardship, as well as the fact that industrial production fell massively during her government, which is seen as an affront to the working classes. In short, there were nearly 3.3million unemployed in Britain in ’84, compared to 1.5million when she came to power in ’79.

In 1990, when she resigned, over a quarter (28%) of children in Great Britain were considered to be below the poverty line. Thanks to the procedures she put in place, that number kept rising after her time in Downing Street, leading to Britain’s having the highest childhood-poverty rate in Europe.

And she talked funny.

The North of England hates Margaret Thatcher almost unreservedly. Seriously. Being a Tory in Ultra-Labourite Manchester is akin to being a leper. A leper who likes the music of James Blunt. A James Blunt loving leper in a Liverpool FC shirt.

And so, when Meryl Streep appeared randomly at Freya and Graham McAnally’s wedding at Manchester town hall, you’d have to assume only one thing…

…that locals gathered ’round Streep, figured she was the closest thing they’d get to seeing Thatcher in the flesh, and kicked her to death.

According to the Daily Mail, Freya and Graham were tying the knot at Manchester Town Hall on the same day as Streep was filming scenes for Thatcher biopic, The Iron Lady.

What a way to have your special day utterly ruined.

Freya said:

‘It was all very surreal – Meryl Streep was standing there dressed as Margaret Thatcher. It almost feels like it didn’t happen. I thought it was amazing, the last thing you expect is an A-List celebrity at your wedding.’

Ah yes! That’s right! It wasn’t actually Thatcher! It’s nice Meryl Streep who was just dressed up as one of the most appalling humans ever spat out of an unfortunate vagina.

And it wasn’t just Streep. The cast and crew were filming at Manchester Town Hall because it looks a bit like the inside of the Houses of Parliament. Alongside the Oscar winning actress was Jim Broadbent (playing Denis Thatcher) and Richard E Grant (playing Michael ‘Withnail’ Heseltine).

The cast and crew clubbed together and gave the couple a card, champagne, flowers, a glass vase and a copy of the film’s call sheet for the day.

Graham, not missing a beat, worried that a bunch of Hollywood stars might upstage his wedding, said:

‘It turned out to be to our advantage as there were more lights around and the town hall had been given an extra clean for the filming.’

And then the locals barged in dressed as miners and kicked Meryl Streep to death.

Possibly.

The best way to win the respect of your acting peers is to go ugly. Monstrously ugly. For example, people fawn over those brave enough to play Hitler. Or a wife-beater. Or some kind of sex offender.

In the case of Meryl Streep, she’s being touted as a likely Oscar winner for her turn as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.

It takes nerve to play the biggest on-screen monster since Cloverfield.

Alas, it hasn’t opened on these British shores yet (sad really, it would’ve been perfectly pitched amongst the strikes currently going on – perhaps we can have some more when it comes out, eh unions?) but critics have been making a fair ol’ noise about it.

The Guardian referred to Streep’s performance as “astonishing and all but flawless; a masterpiece of mimicry which re-imagines Thatcher in all her half-forgotten glory,” while the Daily Mail noted; “Streep’s portrayal will, I have no doubt, come to be seen as a magnificent portrait of Lady Thatcher.”

You’ll be thrilled to learn that, in the film, we do get to see Thatcher as a frail old woman, reminding us all that she is indeed, about to die.

Of course, as Hollywood is prone to copy other Oscar winning films, we strongly suspect we’ll be seeing Brad Pitt playing Norman Tebbit and a gritty turn from Angelina Jolie playing Edwina Curry in a biopic about eggs and shagging John Major (played by a hatstand painted grey).

Oscar nominations will be announced on Los Angeles on January 24th, and The Iron Lady is directed by Phyllida Lloyd, which is clearly not a real name.

Splendid.

We’ll start with the bad news – there’s going to be a film about Margaret Thatcher. Want the mediocre news?

Meryl Streep might be playing Thatcher. And now for the amazing news – it’s being directed by Phyllida Lloyd. You know, the woman who directed Mamma Mia! This means that the film will almost certainly contain a sequence when, wracked with private guilt over the sinking of the Belgrano, Margaret Thatcher decides to cheer herself up by putting on a pair of dungarees and doing the splits while Nigel Lawson – played by Pierce Bronson – atonally grunts his way through an old disco tune.

This Margaret Thatcher film is going to be AWESOME. But only if it contains the exact sequence that we’ve just described.

Meryl Streep used to be famous for earnestly playing painfully serious roles in films like Out Of Africa and Sophie’s Choice. But lately, with films like The Devil Wears Prada and Julie & Julia, she’s found a brand new audience by playing berserk old women with silly voices who lost touch with reality long ago.

Meryl Streep is now going to play Margaret Thatcher in a film. We’re just saying.

Anyway, following the success of The Queen and all those other Tony Blair film, it’s only natural that films based on other prime ministers were going to be rushed into production. And Margaret Thatcher is the perfect subject, because who else is there? John Major? Too dreary. Gordon Brown? Too depressing. David Cameron? Too overwhelmingly creepy.

So Thatcher it is. The Telegraph reports:

The biopic titled “Thatcher” will focus on the period immediately prior to the Falklands war, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Producers are said to be in talks with Streep, one of the most successful actresses in Hollywood, who is seen as one of the few women capable of convincingly playing Lady Thatcher.

In a funny sort of way, we agree with the producers. Meryl Streep really is one of the few women capable of convincingly playing Margaret Thatcher. She’s already got her loopy Julia Child voice ready to go, so all she needs to do is slap on a 10p Rod Hull wig and the Oscar will be hers.

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Right, everyone needs to calm down. Get a nice sweet tea, run yourself a hot bath, sprinkle rose petals around the house. Allow your clothes to slide gently from your body, and dab sprinkles of baby oil onto your thighs. That’s it. Mmm, feel the soft breeze leaping and dancing around your underpants.

Now put on that Best of Alexander O’Neal compilation that was specifically designed to soothe you. And relax. Relaxed? Then listen carefully – there isn’t an Oscar curse. That’s right. Shhhhh…

Yes, it’s true that Sandra Bullock’s wholesome life partner MIGHT have spent a few long evenings smearing his podgy sausage hands all over a woman with tatts on her bosoms, but this could have been going on for AGES. Even during Sandra’s period in the desert when she was just another non-Oscar winner. A nobody.

As for the others – Halle Berry, Reese Witherspoon, Julia Roberts, the one who was a boy in that film about being confused – they were all probably just terrible wives.

Now wake the hell up, because here’s something really uplifting! It’s a handful of beautiful thespians who still have husbands/lesbian partners, despite winning an Oscar! See? There’s no hex! You’re so SWEET with your silly craziness.

Helen Mirren

Helen Mirren has been married since 1997, and she’s still married, even though she won an Oscar for pretending to be the Queen. Ahh, she was great in that film, she really caught the Queen’s hilarious mannerisms. Great performance. Just wonderful. Really really wonderful. Look, we’ll be honest, we haven’t seen The Queen, alright.

Frances McDormand

Despite having her marriage to Joel Coen (of Coen Brothers fame) severely tested when Frances McDormand won the Best Actress Oscar for her role as the police officer in Fargo, the pair managed to come through it all unscathed. So much so that they have a little boy called Pedro Coen.

Jodie Foster

Jodie Foster has won a couple of Oscars, and no one seems to be going on about how she was then forced to somehow navigate a bitter divorce from her husband. Granted, this might be because Jodie Foster is a lesbian. But still.

Meryl Streep

If any woman’s name is synonymous with the Best Actress Oscar, it’s Meryl Streep’s. She’s been nominated 53 times. And yet, in all that time, she has continued to enjoy a wonderful sexual union/marriage with a sculptor called Don Gummer. Even when she actually won one, in the early 1980s, the pair somehow managed to not get divorced.

Jessica Tandy

For those who can’t quite remember, Jessica was the cabbage-faced star of Driving Miss Daisy – the tale of an old biddy learning all about racism from Morgan Freeman. It won her an Oscar, which she somehow managed to accept, without then quietly informing her husband of fifty years that, actually, it’s over. The pair continued to be married right up until she died.

This was a guest post by Josh Burt from Interestment Comedy. Woo.

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Julie and Julia has all of the winning ingredients of your lady-happy chick-flick, mixed with some run-of-the-mill award baiting biographical gubbins and sprinkled with a couple of ‘it’ leads – but this recipe is overcooked.

It’s hard to find a more likeable lady in Hollywood than Amy Adams, with the innocent twinkle in her eye and an irresistible charm to her performances, she is perfectly capable here of portraying one half of this twin-bio as Julie Powell. The other half comes from Meryl Streep, in another performance for her to literally chew on in the hope it’ll shit out a few more awards. Here she jumps into some big shoes to play the hormonally challenged Julia Child.

It is really Streep’s show – as you would expect – managing to make a decent embodiment of Child and her eccentricities, including the voice that sounds like a drowning goat. It’s a thorough performance and slaps a bit of smugness on Streep’s part (she must have had some space in her awards cupboard to fill).

As Julie starts blogging her way through Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, we get flashbacks to Child becoming the legendary master chef that she was known as. It’s a tale of two women who struggle through culinary woes and the only missing piece from the biopic checklist is the usual drug addiction act – but the only cold turkeys are the ones in her fridge.

The film never really exceeds its expectations but manages to be an enjoyable romp. It doesn’t even act as gratuitous food porn (you’ll have to look elsewhere for that), as all the culinary delights on offer won’t urge you to be prepping lobster thermidor any time soon.

As the plot trickles on we just see the two characters’ meteoric rise to success, with few struggles on the way. Only Julie comes across an obstacle in the form of the most pathetic break-up argument ever to have been committed to the silver screen (we’ve shouted at children in the street with more ferocity). In fact, Julie’s boyfriend Eric (Chris Messina) is a wet blanket, given nothing to do but stuff his ridiculously sculpted face and then hit on Adams – how could we possibly like a character who gets paid to do that?

The film seems to build-up to a meeting between the two leads that never happens, and the happy ending is loosely pinned together in the cheesiest way possible. Julie and Julia themselves are a couple of sweet characters with a nice bit of decorative icing on top, but after indulging on them for too long we felt the urge to be sick.

‘Spray Rating: 3/5

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As we may have mentioned already, last night hecklerspray got to report from the red carpet at the 2009 BAFTAs.

And, it’s fair to say, we were rubbish. Thanks to a mixture of horrible weather, a position on the BAFTAs red carpet directly opposite all the real journalists and our own genuinely backwards people skills, we ended up coming away from the BAFTAs with nothing more than trenchfoot, a lack of feeling in any of our extremities and this slightly humiliating video.

We’ll have a full BAFTA report coming up in a few hours – but in the meantime, do feel free to revel in this visual evidence of our thundering social ineptitude.

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Le good and le bad.

Folded:

• Fentimans’ ginger beer (‘botanically brewed’ – send us some please)
• Has Rob Brydon got hair plugs? (certainly looked like it on telly the other day. They’d probably suit him – if we couldn’t see where the stitches burrow into his scalp)
• www.cjdavies.com (he’s not a happy bunny, but he is a funny bunny)
• High Velocity Bowling on PS3 (just don’t crack your 42” plasma by letting the controller fly out of your hand)
• Look at this dapper dude (right on, prez)

Creased:

• They’re going to make a prequel to The Thing (even though this is written by Battlestar Galactica regular Ronald D. Moore, it’s still about as welcome as a cold sore)
• Dreary Meryl Streep (and she hopes the Oscar goes to…)
• Facebreaker on PS3 (make a boxer from your own photo who looks nothing like you. That’s it)
• Kate Winslet in ‘that dress’ (she steps out of the dress, gravity takes its toll like a pebble dropped from 10,000 feet. That’s the truth, guys. The sad, sad truth)
• Cristiano Ronaldo (prat? Oh, God, yes)