Tony has curated his second season of films for London’s National Film Theatre.

In August the NFT will present a season entitled Hollywood Nonconformist comprising 14 titles from the McQueen canon. Rarities will include Baby, The Rain Must Fall and An Enemy of the People, the latter McQueen’s gutsy attempt at Ibsen.

To kick off the strand Tony will present a new lecture on McQueen’s career in films. The talk, Steve McQueen: Hollywood Nonconformist, takes place at 6pm on Tuesday, August 3, in NFT3. Tickets are £5. The McQueen tribute comes in what would have been his 80th year.

This season represents Tony’s second collaboration with the NFT following a significant strand dedicated to Richard Burton in 2009.

The London-based Film Distributors’ Association has announced the end of Cinema Days, the long-standing weekend of film previews and press conferences targeted at the UK’s regional film journalists.

The event has been running for more than 20 years and was an invaluable tool for regional journalists in providing access to new releases and related talent. The FDA says changes in the film sector make the event no longer viable.

Regional journalists affected by the axing of Cinema Days should write to the FDA and its managing director, Mark Batey, to air their views freely and fully.

Any regional journalist or broadcaster interested in being part of The Guild of Regional Film Writers should contact Tony Earnshaw via this website.

The National Film Theatre in London has commissioned Tony to write and deliver a new lecture on the life and films of Steve McQueen to tie-in with the 80th anniversary of the year of his birth.

Provisionally entitled Steve McQueen: Hollywood Nonconformist, the 60-minute illustrated lecture will tie-in to a planned retrospective of the actor’s films, which Tony is curating. The season is his second collaboration with the NFT and follows the Richard Burton strand that ran throughout August 2009.

Meanwhile Lion of the Welsh, Tony’s lecture on the life and times of Richard Burton, is still touring locations across the UK. It will next be presented as part of the 1st Holmfirth Film Festival in May.

Tony is to interview legendary British film critic Barry Norman as part of the inaugural Holmfirth Film Festival (May 22-29 2010).

The Q&A is slated for 7.30pm on Thursday, May 27, at the Picturedrome Cinema, Holmfirth’s very own independent picture house. The event will mark Tony’s second on-stage encounter with Barry, who previously was his guest at the 14th Bradford International Film Festival in 2008. The interview will be punctuated with clips from Barry’s favourite films as well as focusing on the multitude of stars he met during a 40-year career.

The following afternoon Tony will present Lion of the Welsh, his acclaimed illustrated lecture on the life and career of Richard Burton, at the Old Bridge Hotel. The 60-minute lecture, illustrated with clips from several of Burton’s film and television appearances, starts at 4.30pm. The invitation to Holmfirth follows in the wake of several others all across the UK including London’s National Film Theatre, the Showroom Cinema in Sheffield and Chapter in Cardiff.

Tickets for An Evening with Barry Norman are £12 and are available from the festival box office on 01484 681388 or via holmfirthfilmfestival.co.uk

The Lion of the Welsh lecture is a free event.

Tony’s accidental career as an actor continues with both a touring theatre production and the release of a new feature film.

Following its sell-out shows at the National Media Museum last summer, Bradford-based Paper Zoo’s excellent production of George Orwell’s 1984 is to begin touring the UK. The play will first travel to Manchester followed by more venues to be announced. Damian O’Keefe and Ben Eagle are the antagonists; Tony provides the voice of the all-seeing Telescreen. The production received national acclaim for its innovative use of the image of John Hurt, cast as an omnipotent Big Brother and seen on a giant screen above the stage.

Tony’s feature film debut as Russian gangster Christopher Lentz in the Austin Brothers Production Cricket will receive its cast and crew screening on Saturday, February 27, in Manchester. This low-budget independent production stars Dutch Dore-Boize as a trucker who inadvertently tangles with the Mafia.

An appearance by Tony on Sky News this week led to a reunion of sorts with Colin Brazier, now one of Sky’s premier presenters.

Both Colin and Tony worked at the Yorkshire Post in the mid-’90s. So it was with some amusement that Tony found himself being interviewed by his former colleague about the increasing number of Hollywood blockbusters being shot on location in the North of England.

The item, which went out on Tuesday, marked Tony’s second appearance on Sky this year.

Tony’s book Beating the Devil, an examination of the making of the classic ’50s horror movie Night of the Demon, continues to pick up great reviews almost five years after it was published.

The latest praise for Tony’s most successful and acclaimed book, headlined “A Demon of a book”, can be found on the website Xenoramic Musings, and is re-printed here in full:

“I got a wonderful book for Christmas this year- Beating the Devil, which is all about the making of one of the best horror/monster movies ever made. It’s written by Tony Earnshaw, and until they have a seance and call up the artists who have passed away, there will be no finer source about this film. Ever. It has everything you would want to know about the movie. Some people would like to have this sort of thing on the DVD, but I’m one of those Luddites who would rather read a book than read material off a TVor computer screen. Much more leisurely and much less eyestrain. It’s really well written and contains tons of interviews and archival history from the movie and from England as well. It also makes me want to read the source material for the movie, the short story “Casting the Runes” (which made Dana Andrews eat prunes, I’ve heard tell).”

Beating the Devil is still available in limited quantities from Tomahawk Press.

Tony has completed two long days of shooting on the new historical drama The King’s Speech, which filmed in Leeds and Bradford earlier this week.

The movie stars Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham-Carter, Derek Jacobi and Timothy Spall. Tony, cast as a policeman, took part in a key scene in which Firth, playing the Duke of York (later King George VI) delivers an excruciating speech at the British Empire Exhibition in 1925. The moment was a pivotal turning point in the young prince’s life as the world discovered for the first time that he had a pronounced stammer.

Filming took place in near-freezing temperatures on the terraces at Leeds United’s Elland Road ground. It was Tony’s first experience of life as a background artiste on a major motion picture and follows his involvement in Peter Kershaw’s short subject Cinema of Horror, Werner Schweizer’s documentary Von Werra and the forthcoming feature Cricket, the eagerly-awaited debut from the Austin Brothers, in which he plays a Russian gangster.

The King’s Speech is scheduled for release in late 2010 or early 2011. The director is Tom (The Damned United) Hooper.

Tony will join the multitude thronging Odsal Stadium on Wednesday and Thursday this week as a massive crowd scene is recreated for the new period drama The King’s Speech.

Having previously acted in a feature film and a short, appeared in a documentary and provided a voice-over for a stage play, Tony has never provided his services as a ‘background artiste’ - or movie extra as it’s commonly known. He’ll be marching, hopefully in time, as a marine officer as Prince Bertie (later King George VI), played by Colin Firth, takes the salute prior to making his infamous speech in 1925.

An estimated 600 extras will be massed for the sequence. Approximately 200 will be soldiers with the rest gathered for a big crowd scene. Early weather reports forecast snow.

It’s all glamour in the movies, you know…

Tony was delighted to see colleagues from the Yorkshire Post collecting a bunch of gongs at the Yorkshire Press Awards.

The haul included best photographer, best business writer, best political writer and, to top it all, newspaper of the year.

Many congratulations to all concerned.