People Roundup

Toby Jones stars as Alfred Hitchock in a BBC Two drama about his relationship with the model and actress Tippi Hedren. The Girl, which airs on Wednesday 26th December at 9pm, also features Imelda Staunton as Hitchcock's wife, Alma, and Penelope Wilton as Peggy Robertson, who was his production assistant.

Peter Capaldi triumphed at the British Comedy Awards, winning the Best TV Comedy Actor gong for the role of Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It. Among the other nominees he beat to the title was Hugh Bonneville. [BBC News, 13 Dec 2012]

Steven Moffat's first TV work, the teen drama Press Gang, will be one of the shows feted when ITV celebrates 30 years of children's television on the commercial channel. A one-hour documentary marking the 30th anniversary of Children's ITV - which was launched on 3rd January 1983 - will be shown on ITV1 on Saturday 29th December at 6.30pm, and between 9.25am and 6pm on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th January CITV (which started on 11th March 2006) will be showing a selection of its iconic shows, including the first and last episodes of Press Gang. Two episodes of Children's Ward - which was produced by Russell T Davies, who also wrote for it - are to be shown as well, as is an episode of Button Moon, whose theme music was co-composed by Peter Davison. [Radio Times, 18 Dec 2012]

Yasmin Paige returns as Beth Mitchell when the second series of BBC Three comedy Pramface begins its run of six episodes on Tuesday 8th January at 10pm.

The two-part BBC Four drama Spies of Warsaw - starring David Tennant - starts on Wednesday 9th January at 9pm. Set in 1937, it features Tennant as Colonel Jean-Francois Mercier, the French military attaché in Warsaw. With Hitler's shadow looming over mainland Europe, Mercier is grossly suspicious of the German military's intentions, but must juggle his formal duties at stifling diplomatic functions with the often death-defying realities of espionage. The drama also stars Burn Gorman as French bureaucrat Jourdain.

The Symphonic Spectacular in Sydney, Australia was hosted by Alex Kingston and Mark Williams, who were interviewed beforehand by local Breakfast show Today; the Sydney Opera House itself has provided a behind-the-scenes video featuring the presenters and composer Murray Gold. Meanwhile, Dudley Simpson was a special guest at the show on Wednesday - the classic series composer met up with his modern series counterpart Gold and conductor Ben Foster, and was also presented with a print of all eleven Doctors, celebrating his contribution to over 250 episodes of the series. [Dallas Jones/Doctor Who Club of Australia, 21 Dec 2012]

A variety of Who names have been nominated in the 2013 WhatsOnStage Awards: Billie Piper is up for The DIGITAL THEATRE Best Actress in a Play for The Effect; her husband Laurence Fox, alongside Arthur Darvill, Cian Barry, Jolyon Coy, Matthew Lewis and Lewis Reeves, are nominated for both the Best Play Revival and The IMAIL Best Ensemble Performance awards for Our Boys; Best Supporting Actress in a Play - Fenella Woolgar (Hedda Gabler) and Helen McCrory (The Last of the Haussmans); Best Supporting Actor in a Play - Adrian Scarborough (Hedda Gabler), Mark Gatiss (The Recruiting Officer) and Tim McInnerny (Scenes from an Execution); The STAR Best Actress in a Musical - Imelda Staunton (Sweeney Todd); The JO HUTCHISON INTERNATIONAL Best Solo Performance - Simon Callow (A Christmas Carol). Voting remains open until Thursday 31st January 2013.

While on the subject of award nominations, the writer Robert Shearman is in the running for the Short Story Collection Of The Year title in the This Is Horror Awards 2012 for his anthology Remember Why You Fear Me. Voting is open until 12.01am GMT on Friday 4th January 2013.

In Memoriam:

The newsreader Kenneth Kendall has died at the age of 88. In 1955, he achieved the distinction of becoming the BBC's first in-vision newsreader, and 11 years later he made a cameo appearance in Doctor Who, playing himself as a newsreader in episode 4 of the story The War Machines. He also had a cameo as a newsreader in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. After leaving the world of news, Kendall moved to the Isle of Wight, where he ran an art gallery. [The Independent, 14 Dec 2012]