Tony and his wife, BBC journalist Danni Hewson, will be guests of the Yorkshire Press Awards on Thursday, November 12, at the Cedar Court Hotel, Wakefield.

The theme of the evening is Yorkshire Hollywood, and Tony’s book Made in Yorkshire will be among the prizes handed out to the various winners.

Special thanks to David Wilkinson at publishers Guerilla Books for donating the books.

Sheffield’s superb Showroom Cinema has become the latest regional film theatre to programme Tony’s Lion of the Welsh lecture on Richard Burton.

The date is Tuesday, November 10 - what would have been Burton’s 84th birthday. The evening kicks off at 7.15pm with the lecture followed by a screening of Under Milk Wood, directed by Andrew Sinclair. The event will conclude with a Q&A session with Mr. Sinclair, hosted by Tony.

Further dates to be announced soon.

As a pre-release plug for his new movie The Firm, writer/director Nick Love will be appearing at the Cineworld, Didsbury, tonight for a screening and Q&A session hosted by Tony.

Nick previously helmed The Business and Outlaw, among others, and is a serious cult figure among fans of lads’ films.

The screening begins at 6.30pm followed immediately by the Q&A.

The latest edition of Cinema Retro magazine (Lee Marvin features on the cover) contains a piece by Tony on the forgotten history of the classic ’60s movie Billy Liar.

John Schlesinger’s movie stars Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie as arch fantasist Billy Fisher and his free-wheeling love, Liz. Yet Christie was a late replacement for Topsy Jane, an unknown actress who had to quit the film due to illness.

The story is retold in Cinema Retro, and features an exclusive image of Topsy Jane and Schlesinger on location in Yorkshire in 1962. The picture was published for the first time in Tony’s book Made in Yorkshire, published last year by Guerilla Books.

Tony’s next commission for Cinema Retro is a report on the legendary unfinished film The Story of William Tell, starring Errol Flynn. The report is based on an exclusive interview with the late Jack Cardiff, conducted at Bradford Film Festival in 2002.

Peter Kershaw’s short film Cinema of Horror, in which Tony cameos as a zombie, has been included in the line-up for Horror UK.

The event, to be held in Fareham, Hampshire, on Friday October 29, is being tagged as a non-stop horror marathon under the banner ‘28 Hours Later’.

More information from www.horroruk.com

Tony delivered his Lion of the Welsh lecture to a sell-out audience at Cardiff’s Chapter Arts Cinema on Sunday night, following up with a Q&A session with Andrew Sinclair, writer/director of the film version of Under Milk Wood.

The evening included a screening of the film along with Jack Howells’ rarely-seen 1960 documentary Dylan Thomas.

The whole event was part of a special season dedicated to Richard Burton in this, the 25th anniversary of his death.

Tony will next be appearing in Wolverhampton and Pershore on September 2 and 3.

Tony will give the third presentation of his Richard Burton lecture Lion of the Welsh in Cardiff on Sunday.

The event takes place at the Chapter Cinema at 5pm, followed by a screening of the Oscar-nominated documentary Dylan Thomas. Later that evening Tony will host a Q&A with writer/director Andrew Sinclair prior to a screening of his classic 1972 adaptation of Under Milk Wood.

Shooting has wrapped on The Wicker Tree, a companion piece to The Wicker Man, written and directed by Robin Hardy and produced by Peter Snell.

A four-week shoot on locations across Scotland ended this week. The film, starring Brittania Nicol, Henry Garrett, Graham McTavish and Honeysuckle Weeks, will now go into post-production for a hoped-for summer 2010 release.

A singer and actress, Nicol gives a star-making performance and Garrett is similarly impressive. The film boasts much of the same mood of disquiet that pervaded The Wicker Man - testament to the power of the Hardy/Snell dynamic and the strength of the source material.

At the invitation of Robin Hardy, Tony was the only official journalist on the set. His exclusive location report will form the basis of the final chapter to his long-awaited book The Wicker Man - The Making and Mutilation of a British Film Classic, to be published by Sheffield-based Tomahawk Press.

The Wicker Tree is produced by Snell, Peter Watson-Wood and Alastair Gourlay. It is a British Lion Production and represents the company’s first venture into production for more than a decade. Snell, the producer of The Wicker Man and a 40-year producing veteran, came out of retirement to steer the film to completion.

Hardy now has his sights on a new project, Twilight of the Gods, set in Iceland.

The newly-released trailer for Cricket, the debut feature film from the award-winning Austin Brothers triumvirate, features Tony (as Russian gangster Chris Lentz) among the multitudinous cast.

Judging by the rapturous reception the trailer has received, the finished film, starring Dutch Dore-Boize, is going to be a winner. Full marks to Dan, Chris and Matt for pulling off a genuine indie film. Here’s to seeing it winning plaudits on the international festival circuit.

Premiere date and venue to be announced, but likely to be in Manchester where the film was shot.

On Sunday in connection with the Richard Burton season currently running at the Chapter in Cardiff, Tony was interviewed at length for BBC Radio Wales.

He was a featured guest on the Shan Cothi Show discussing Burton, his films, theatre roles and enduring legacy. The programme, hosted by Frances Donovan, went out on Sunday at 10am and can be heard via the BBC’s ‘listen again’ service.

The show ties in with the Chapter’s tribute to Burton. Tony will be in Cardiff on August 23 to present his Lion of the Welsh lecture and interview Andrew Sinclair, director of Under Milk Wood which is playing the same night.