Tony is to tour his Richard Burton lecture, entitled Lion of the Welsh.

Commissioned for (and first presented at) the 15th Bradford International Film Festival in March, the lecture offers a re-consideration of the work of Burton, who died 25 years ago this year. Using many of Burton’s own words and clips from his films, this portrait of the melancholy Welsh lion looks at the raw power of his performances from a 35-year career in Hollywood and beyond.

Tony will present Lion of the Welsh at BFI Southbank on Thursday, August 6, at 6.20pm in NFT2. Tickets are £5. The lecture will be followed by a screening of Look Back in Anger. The event is featured within the BFI’s substantial Burton season, for which Tony provided the notes. Nineteen films will play throughout August.

On Sunday, August 23 he will be at the Chapter in Cardiff. The lecture forms part of a double-bill with the Oscar-winning documentary Dylan Thomas and starts at 5pm in Cinema 2. Tickets are £5.20. The evening will be concluded by a separate screening of Under Milk Wood and a Q&A, hosted by Tony, with director Andrew Sinclair.

More tour dates to be announced soon.

Whilst soaking up the filmic excesses of the recent Edinburgh International Film Festival Tony recorded an interview for a new Radio 4 documentary on the evergreen appeal of Billy Liar.

The programme, Billy Liar at 50, will go out sometime in August.

Tony’s book Made in Yorkshire boasts an entire chapter on the making of the film with a never-before-seen photograph of actress Topsy Jane on location in Bradford with director John Schlesinger. Topsy began the film but fell ill and was replaced by Julie Christie, who gave a star-making performance.

A feature by Tony on this little-known fact will appear in the September edition of Cinema Retro magazine.

Tony has just finished his 8th Fantastic Films Weekend, and what a ride it turned out to be.

The FFW, which Tony set up back in 2002, is three packed days of horror, sci-fi and fantasy movies designed with fans in mind by a fan himself. It was a delight to host and to meet so many of the people who love and respect the kind of programming that forms the FFW’s beating heart.

Thanks to all of you who were Bradford-bound, who offered words of support and who have been banging the drum ever since.

And thanks to Mike Hodges and the Scar Crow gang for being brilliant.

Tony’s accidental career as an actor continues…

After cameo roles in the Austin Brothers’ feature Cricket and Peter Kershaw’s short Cinema of Horror, Tony has branched out into theatre.

On Wednesday night he will be heard as the voice of the Telescreen in a new production of 1984 mounted by the Bradford-based theatre company Paper Zoo.

The production has made the news thanks to the inspired casting of John Hurt - Winston Smith in Michael Radford’s movie of the book, made in 1984 - as Big Brother. Hurt will be seen in specially-filmed sequences that will be projected on screen during the show.

Damien O’Keefe plays Winston, Julia O’Keefe plays Julia and Ben Eagle is O’Brien, the sinister Party inquisitor.

1984 plays at the National Media Museum on Wednesday, June 3, at 7.30pm. The performance is repeated on Thursday, June 4, at 11am.

Tony’s 2005 book Beating the Devil, his acclaimed examination of Jacques Tourneur’s Night of the Demon, continues to provoke debate.

In a lengthy piece written for the latest edition of Little Shoppe of Horrors, film historian Denis Meikle offers a reconsideration of the two versions of the movie using Tony’s book as a jumping-off point.

Meanwhile legendary author Ramsey Campbell, interviewed for the Horror Reanimated website, reveals that Demon is his favourite all-time work of horror. In paying tribute to the movie he adds “There’s a very useful book about it by Tony Earnshaw.”

Coming from Mr. Campbell, that’s as good as it gets.

Tony is seeking information on, and pictures from, Gene Roddenberry’s Spectre, the pilot for a TV series that never was.

Made in the UK in 1977, this atmospheric TV movie never made the grade for a series. It starred Robert Culp, Gig Young and John Hurt in a tale of an occult detective investigating an aristocratic English family.

If anyone can help they can contact Tony via this website.

Excerpts from Tony’s 2004 Screentalk interview with British filmmaker Mike Hodges, conducted during the 10th Bradford Film Festival, appear in the new edition of Archive, published this month by the National Media Museum.

The Q&A has been published to coincide with Hodges’ return to Bradford on Sunday, June 14, as the Guest of Honour at the 8th Fantastic Films Weekend. He will be present for screenings of two of his films: the director’s cut of The Terminal Man and the camp classic that is Flash Gordon.

Other gems in the FFW line-up include Hammer’s The Satanic Rites of Dracula, the Amicus chiller Madhouse, Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr with live musical accompaniment, Serbian zombiefest Zone of the Dead and the magnificent Aliens in glorious 70mm.

News came through on Friday that lovely Ken Annakin had died at his home in California. He was 94.

Ken was a special guest at the 6th Bradford Film Festival in 2000. At that point he was 86 but remained enthusiastic and passionate about filmmaking. He was a superb guest and hugely popular with fans of widescreen cinema.

Tony was in touch with Ken late last year. The news of his death came as a shock, particularly as it emerged just 24 hours after his colleague and contemporary Jack Cardiff also passed away.

Ken and Jack were gentlemen and artists. The world of cinema is a smaller place without them in it.

Tony described Jack Cardiff as “his oldest friend” on the basis that Jack was a mate and, at 94, was the oldest person he knew. Jack died today. The loss to cinema is incalculable.

Over more than five years during various Bradford Film Festivals Tony interviewed Jack around half a dozen times. Perhaps the best Q&A was an overview of William Tell in 2002 - the first film Jack was to direct but which collapsed when funding ran out.

Jack made his entre into cinema in 1918. He made his last film, as a consultant, about three years ago. He remained interested in, and passionate about, film until the last.

He was a giant. He was a gentleman. And he was a good friend.

We will all miss him.

Tony has completed the latest Bradford International Film Festival - the 15th in the event’s history and his tenth as artistic director.

Personal high points included on-stage interviews with Slumdog writer (and Oscar-winner) Simon Beaufoy, Bond series producer Michael G. Wilson, veteran star Derren Nesbitt and ex-Python Terry Jones, with whom Tony later enjoyed a pint or three in Bradford’s legendary real ale house The Fighting Cock.

There was also the thrill of seeing himself on screen, albeit briefly, in Peter Kershaw’s 9-minute short Cinema of Horror.

Next up for Tony is the 8th Fantastic Films Weekend (June 12-14) to which he is putting the finishing touches.

Right now he is enjoying three whole weeks off work. Ah, freedom!