It's not uncommon to be struck with sudden labour while out in public when you're heavily pregnant. There's many a story hitting the papers about kind strangers delivering babies in traffic jams, car parks, bus stops etc. - but imagine if that stranger was Brian Blessed?

Brian Blessed opens up about his midwife experience for the first time

When one woman found herself with an unexpected urge to push while out in Richmond Park, she probably became resolved to the fact that she had to try and deliver her own child. Fortunately for her, help arrived in the form of British stage and television actor Blessed who happened to be out running when he came across the woman about to give birth under a tree.

Continue reading: Brian Blessed Reveals He Once Delivered A Stranger's Baby In The 60s

Brian Blessed Forced To Withdraw As 'King Lear' After On-Stage Collapse

By Ed Biggs in Movies / TV / Theatre on 31 January 2015

Brian Blessed

Following the incident in in January, doctors have urged the huge-voiced actor to withdraw from the rest of the play's run because of a heart condition.

British actor Brian Blessed has been forced to withdraw from his starring role in a production of ‘King Lear’, having collapsed on-stage during a performance a couple of weeks ago.

The 78 year old actor collapsed during the January 19th performance at Guildford's Holy Trinity Church after delivering only a couple of lines before fainting and falling off a raised platform. He was treated off-stage and bravely returned just twenty minutes later to complete the rest of the epic tragedy.

Brian Blessed
Brian Blessed has been forced to cancel his 'King Lear' performances due to a heart condition

Continue reading: Brian Blessed Forced To Withdraw As 'King Lear' After On-Stage Collapse

Brian Blessed, 78, Collapses On-Stage While Playing King Lear

By Michael West in Movies / TV / Theatre on 21 January 2015

Brian Blessed

Brian Blessed returned to the stage to finish the performance.

Brian Blessed, the 78-year-old veteran actor, collapsed on-stage while playing King Lear in Guildford on Monday night (January 19). The actor had begun to deliver his opening lines in Shakespeare's tragedy when he failed and fell from a raised platform.

Brian Blessed collapsed on-stage in Guildford

Daily Mail critic Quetin Letts reported that Blessed's fellow actor Noel White said: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is not part of the play. Is there a doctor in the house?"

Continue reading: Brian Blessed, 78, Collapses On-Stage While Playing King Lear

Brian Blessed Reveals He Turned Down The Chance To Play Doctor Who

By Ed Biggs in Movies / TV / Theatre on 05 August 2014

Brian Blessed Doctor Who

The actor was approached in the mid '60s to play the Doctor, but turned it down because he was too busy

Legendary English actor Brian Blessed has revealed that he was once offered the role of Doctor Who by the BBC, but turned it down because of his busy schedule.

Brian Blessed Doctor Who
The huge-voiced actor Brian Blessed could have been the second Doctor in the the mid '60s

Blessed told the Radio Times that he was approached and asked to step in as William Hartnell’s replacement in the mid-1960s. If he had said yes, Blessed would have been the second incarnation of the Doctor, but instead that role was taken by Patrick Troughton in 1966.

Continue reading: Brian Blessed Reveals He Turned Down The Chance To Play Doctor Who

Legends Of Oz: Dorothy's Return - Teaser Trailer

Dorothy Gale is barely back in her Tornado-ravaged hometown in Kansas five minutes than she is whisked off over the rainbow back to the topsy-turvy land of Oz once more to rescue her friends, the Scarecrow, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion and Glinda, and the rest of Oz's innocent residents from a terrible peril. At the helm of this new evil is the Jester, more frightening than funny, who plans to turn the leaders of Oz into puppets controlled for his own nefarious means. Along the way Dorothy and her beloved dog Toto meets a string of new and unusual characters including Wiser the Owl, China Princess, Marshal Mallow and former tree Tugg the Tugboat, as she sets off on another exhilarating adventure to find her friends.

'Legends Of Oz: Dorothy's Return' is a new animated fantasy based on both L. Frank Baum's 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' and his great-grandson Roger Stanton Baum's sequel 'Dorothy of Oz'. It has been directed by Will Finn ('The Road to El Dorado') and Dan St. Pierre ('Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey') and written by Adam Balsam, Randi Barnes ('Imagination Movers') and Barry Glasser ('Skateboy') with a film score by Oscar nominated singer Bryan Adams. This enchanting family movie with hit the US on May 9th 2014.

Click here to read - Legends Of Oz: Dorothy's Return movie review

Brian Blessed - The Prince's Foundation for Children & the Arts 7th annual carol concert at Holy Trinity Church - London, United Kingdom - Monday 9th December 2013

The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists! Review

By Rich Cline

Very Good

Aardman returns to hand-crafted clay-mation for this riotous seafaring romp.

The film is almost too crowded with witty visual and verbal gags to catch on a single viewing. Although it's also too corny to be a real classic.

The Pirate Captain (voiced by Grant) never gets any respect, especially with the Pirate of the Year competition gearing up. But his first mate (Freeman) and rag-tag crew (Tovey, Gleeson and Jenson) are fearlessly loyal. While accumulating plunder to win the award, they accidentally hijack a scientific ship and then travel with Charles Darwin (Tennant) to win a science prize in London. But this means that the crew needs to get dangerously close to venomous pirate-hater Queen Victoria (Staunton).

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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Trailer

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit, who lives a quiet life in The Shire. His peace is interrupted one day when Gandalf arrives on his doorstep, persuading Bilbo to hold a party in his home. Bilbo refuses but has no choice but to agree when Gandalf pesters him.

Continue: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Trailer

The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists Trailer

The Pirate Captain, although relentlessly optimistic, has never won the Pirate of the Year Award. Perhaps it has something to do with his crew - many of them are pirates but some aren't (and one is a fish dressed in a pirate hat). Or maybe it's because he doesn't have much of a success rate when it comes to stealing treasure.

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Man Of La Mancha Review

By Christopher Null

Weak

The translation from theatrical musical to movie musical doesn't get much more disastrous than in Man of La Mancha, a cheap, muddled, and badly put-together debacle that resoundingly establishes Arthur Hiller (who directed Love Story and Silver Streak) as one of cinema's most hit-and-miss directors.

La Mancha adapts the stage play with Peter O'Toole in the lead as both Don Quixote and Miguel de Cervantes: Cervantes is imprisoned by the Spanish Inquisition, finds his papers held ransom by his fellow inmates, and given a mock trial by them in order to determine whether they shall be returned. The trial takes the form of a reenactment of Don Quixote, Cervantes' adventurous tales of his alter ego. As the delusional Quixote, O'Toole jousts with a windmill and promptly rides to a nearby village, which he believes to be a castle holding his beloved Dulcinea (Sophia Loren). By his side is the lovable chubster Sancho Panza (James Coco), who sees the reality behind Quixote's grandiose delusions but finds himself taken in by them as well.

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Tarzan (1999) Review

By Christopher Null

Very Good

Tarzan the Ape Man gets the Disney treatment this year. For some classic characters (Snow White, Bambi), the transition has been a positive one. For others (Pocahontas), it's been a disaster. Thankfully, Tarzan is among the former group.

The last time we saw Tarzan, he was saving a Lost City in the worst film of 1998 (shockingly titled Tarzan and the Lost City). The story is a bit more traditional this time, with Tarzan adopted by gorillas after his human parents are killed by a leopard. When he grows up, a group of British explorers stumble upon him, and after the "You Tarzan, me Jane" exchange, the British bad guy, Clayton, decides he's going to take all the gorillas back to Britain for sale. Adventure ensues, along with a love story and singing.

Continue reading: Tarzan (1999) Review