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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Oscar-nominee Mike Figgis joined Mark to talk about his book The Thirty-six Dramatic Situations, which he claims unlocks writer’s block. Hope Dickson-Leach who set up Raising Films joined us to talk about new release The Levelling (2016) in Coming Attractions. In One From the Vaults, Mark celebrated the 30^th anniversary of the release of Rita, Sue & Bob Too (1987). In List-O-Mania, as Twin Peaks returns to our screens after 25 years, he gave us Ten Reasons why David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) is brilliant. Our final guest Michael Smiley joined us to divulge his Guilty Pleasure: No Surrender (1985). Jonathan Demme passed away this month and in Sound & Vision Mark celebrated his seminal concert film about The Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense (1984), featuring the brilliant Burning Down the House.

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Greg Proops, in town for his Proopcast Smartest Man in the Room, joined Mark for this month’s Guilty Pleasure, describing the delights of Escape from LA (1996). Florence Pugh joined Mark to discuss Lady Macbeth (2016) and The Falling (2014) in Coming Attractions. In One from the Vaults, Jarvis Cocker discussed his stage show Room 29. Guest Anne Dudley joined Mark for Sound & Vision to talk about the music she composed for Elle (2016), Black Book (2006) and The Full Monty (1997) – and how it felt to win an Oscar. Mark paid homage to The Full Monty by talking about You Can Keep Your Hat On.

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