Our first guest is photographer and film-maker Mitra Tabrizian, whose eloquent and unsettling film Gholam (2017), centring on a minicab driver in London’s Iranian community during the Arab spring of 2011, releases in the week of the show.

Next, the delightfully entertaining and erudite Professor Sir Christopher Frayling returns to the show to talk about the 50^th anniversary of the release of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Frayling’s BBC radio 4 documentary, produced by Nick Jones who projects all the clips on our show, and broadcast shortly after the show, contains some eye-popping new revelations about Kubrick’s script, which throw astonishing new light on the film.

Christopher stayed on to discuss his Guilty Pleasure, Deathline, known in the US as Raw Meat – Gary Sherman’s little-seen 1973 British horror film set largely in London’s Tube tunnels, starring a particularly nasty Donald Pleasance.

Mark talks about the BFI’s Ingmar Bergman season, part of the global celebrations of the illustrious director’s centenary. We celebrate the master by showing a clip from one of Mark’s favourite pastiches: the scene in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) in which our titular teenagers encounter the Grim Reaper – and challenge him to a game of Twister.

You Were Never Really Here (2017) was released the Friday before our show and director Lynne Ramsay came on to talk about it. One of Mark’s favourite films is Ramsay’s early work Morvern Callar (2002). Mark welcomes its star Samantha Morton onto the stage and they talk about Samantha’s extensive back catalogue of films. Samantha promises to come back to introduce a Guilty Pleasure in a future show.

Released soon is Journeyman (2017), a passion project of our fifth and final guest Paddy Considine, who wrote, directed and stars in this drama about a boxer who suffers a head trauma after what was supposed to be his last fight.

We close the show to the haunting strains of Also Sprach Zarathustra over the famous clip in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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This is the first MK3D since the BAFTAs, the most interesting category at which, this year, was Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer. Previously on MK3D, actress Florence Pugh had talked about her lead role in Lady Macbeth (2016); director Lucy Cohen about her debut The Kingdom of Us (2017) and writer/director Rungano Nyoni about her first feature I am not a Witch (2017). The latter won the gong and Rungano returned to MK3D to talk about her experiences of the red carpet, and how winning a BAFTA might impact her next projects.

Guillermo Del Toro won the BAFTA for best director for The Shape of Water. Mark took the opportunity to do a List-O-Mania of his Top Ten films about Mermaids or Creatures from the Lagoon: 10. Siren of the Sea (1911). 9. Miranda (1948). 8. Waterworld (1995) – with Kevin Costner as a fish. 7. The Little Mermaid (1989). 6. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). 5. The Lure (2015), a comedy drama horror musical directed by Agnieszka Smoczyńska, about twin, man-eating mermaids who emerge from the water and perform in a nightclub. We got a clip to illustrate this one. 4. Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). 3. Song of the Sea (2014). 2. Local Hero (1983). 1. Splash (1984) – we also got a clip of this classic.

Dark River (2017) directed by Clio Barnard was released the Friday before MK3D. It stars Olivier Award-winning actress Ruth Wilson who joined us for our Coming Attractions segment to talk about her role as a farmer’s daughter in this harsh drama. She enjoyed learning how to look like she had been skinning rabbits and shearing sheep all her life – by doing it a great deal. There is little she doesn’t know about shearing now.

Our Guilty Pleasure this month came courtesy of Timothy Spall, who talked first of all about his film Stanley a Man of Variety (2016) – in which he plays all the parts – and the difficulties finding a distributor, before regaling us with stories about his long-standing love of Mary Poppins (1964). Nothing guilty about that!

Tonight’s showstopper was The Greatest Showman grand finale.

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In Here’s The Thing Mark regaled us with stories of his trip to Tromsø to play at the TIFF with Neil Brand and the Dodge Brothers, to accompany a silent movie. He also announced his upcoming BBC Series Mark Kermode’s Screen Stories, coming in April. He is joined on stage by guest Lucy Cohen, who comes to talk about her debut The Kingdom of Us (2017). In Coming Attractions, Mark heralds the release of Early Man (2018). Mark proudly announces that he has a writing credit on Friedkin’s film The Devil and Father Amorth (2017). Mark loves the stunt work in films and to honour it does a List-O-Mania on Top Ten Stunt Sequences in films. Another Coming attraction is Nightshooters (2018), a low budget martial arts film, its star Jean-Paul Ly comes to talk about and demonstrate his skills. Alex Cox comes to talk about his back catalogue Repo Man (1984) and Sid & Nancy (1986), and his love of The Prisoner television series. Tonight’s showstopper was My Way sung by Gary Oldman – now nominated for playing Churchill – here playing Sid Vicious in Sid & Nancy.

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In Here’s the Thing, Neil Brand came to talk about the Cinema Museum, formerly the workhouse where Charlie Chaplin lived and currently under threat of closure. Neil stayed on to play the piano throughout the show. Mark and Neil played the Get Carter (1971) theme tune on the piano and double bass, to introduce our next guest, director Mike Hodges, here to talk about Get Carter, Flash Gordon (1980), and about Nick Triplow’s book Getting Carter. In List-O-Mania Mark gave us a list of Christmas Movies That You Don’t Think Are Christmas Films. Gemma Arterton joined us to talk about her Guilty Pleasure, the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, a childhood favourite. She also talked about her upcoming projects, Vita and Virginia (2019) and The Escape (2017). She closed the show by singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas as a homage to Judy Garland in Meet Me In St Louis (1944), accompanied by Neil Brand on the grand piano.

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In Here’s The Thing Amma Asante came to talk about what it was like to receive an MBE, and about the hold-up of the release of her film Where Hands Touch (2019).

In List-O-Mania, Mark listed his Top Ten Mad Movie Moustaches, partly because of the Movember awareness-raising campaign but mostly because of Kenneth Branagh’s extravagant moustache in Murder on the Orient Express (2017), released this week.

In Coming Attractions, Robert Ziegler returned to talk about the upcoming concert at the Royal Festival Hall, for which Mark was rehearsing a harmonica solo in Touchez Pas Au Grisbi (Hands Off The Loot -1954). Mark showed us how far he had got with practising his solo – which was not very far.

Mark then introduced actress and singer Hannah Waddingham, most famous for Game of Thrones, and one of the soloists at the concert at the RFH. Accompanied by Ziegler, Hannah sang Put the Blame on Mame, made famous in Gilda (1946) by Rita Hayworth.

Next, Mark welcomes James and Dave Franco to talk about their Guilty Pleasure: The Room (2003) as well as their upcoming film The Disaster Artist (2017).

In Sound & Vision Mark flagged up his up-coming Celluloid Jukebox series on BBC Radio 2 by highlighting one of the films talked about in that show, Magic Mike (2012) featuring Channing Tatum. Mark also invites Johnny Greenwood up on stage to discuss his career as both lead guitarist and keyboardist for Radiohead as well as composing for films, such as We Need to Talk about Kevin (2011) and Phantom Thread (2017).

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Simran Hans returned once more to look back on her LFF recommendations in Here’s the Thing. For Coming Attractions, Rungano Nyoni joined Mark to talk about I Am Not a Witch (2017). On the back of the release of Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Mark gave us his Top Ten Sequels That Are Actually Good. In One from the Vaults, Legendary actress Sylvia Syms discussed Victim (1961). Actor and Writer Julian Barratt came to talk about his new film Mindhorn (2016), set on the Isle of Man, and about his Guilty Pleasure, Die Hard (1988). In Sound & Vision Mark talked about the opening credits of Hitchcock’s 1959 North by Northwest (1959) to mark the film’s re-release.

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Film critic Simran Hans joined us for Here’s the Thing to give her recommendations for the 61^st BFI London Film Festival. In List-O-Mania, to tie in with the release of Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! (2017), Mark gave us his Top Ten ‘Batshit Crazy’ films.  Director Ildiko Enyedi came to talk about On Body and Soul (2017) in Coming Attractions. Eddie Marsan, currently in The Limehouse Golem (2016), joined us to share his Guilty Pleasure (1966), Carry on Screaming. In One From the Vaults we looked back at the original tv miniseries of It (1990), and the current film (2017), comparing Bill Skarsgård’s and Tim Curry’s Pennywise. Guest Clarke Peters joined Mark for Sound & Vision which saw some beautiful renditions of Stormy Weather, Hellzapoppin’, and Five Guys Named Moe. In Sound & Vision Mark talked about the musical conversation in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) on the occasion of that film’s 40^th anniversary re-release.

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Simon Amstell came to talk about Carnage (2011). In our List-O-Mania, Mark gave us his Top Ten Festival Films. David Morrissey came to talk about his Guilty Pleasure: baseball pic The Natural (1984). Richard Curtis followed on by talking about his Guilty Pleasure, Emmanuelle II (1975).

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Mark paid tribute to the late Barry Norman. Film critic Simran Hans joined Mark to talk about how to break into film criticism. In Coming Attractions, Mark talked about Don Siegel’s 1971 The Beguiled in anticipation of Sofia Coppola’s 2017 adaptation. Basil Dearden’s Victim (1961) was this month’s One from the Vaults. Lindy Hemmings came to talk about costume design for film. Her catalogue includes Wonder Woman (released this week), Harry Potter, Lara Croft Tomb Raider, Bond, and most of Mike Leigh’s films. In anticipation of an MK3D show at Latitude, our List-O-Mania covered Top Ten Festival Films. Finally, George MacKay joined us to discuss his Guilty Pleasure, The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). In Sound & Vision, we looked ahead to the summer festivals and Mark talked about his favourite festival track, Isaac Hayes’ Wattstax (1973).

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Mark loved Michaël Dudok de Wit’s film The Red Turtle (2016) and we invited him to talk about that – and about his views on Mark’s Top Ten Animated Films in List-O-Mania. Director Duncan Jones talked about Mute (2018) in Coming Attractions. In One from the Vaults, we covered two films: Mark talked about Dario Argento’s 1970 debut The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), and conductor Robert Ziegler came to talk about the upcoming series at the Southbank Centre, Film Scores Live in which he would conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra as they accompanied Hitchcock’s 1960 classic, Psycho. Director Sarah Gavron joined us to discuss her Guilty Pleasure, The Breakfast Club (1985). In Sound & Vision, we celebrated the re-release of Mike Nichols’ The Graduate (1967) and Simon & Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence.

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