Caught & Social: Curtains close on movie marathon

After 16 days and 207 movies, the 55th BFI London Film Festival, which drew 133,000 cinema-goers, ended last night. The final screening was reserved for Terence Davies’s The Deep Blue Sea. As well as Tom Hiddleston and Sarah Kants, two of the stars of the film, the closing night gala also saw Jim Broadbent, David Walliams (and his mum, Kathleen), and Sandra Hebron, who was waving farewell to the festival after nine years as artistic director.

Scene & heard

Many stars play games with the paparazzi, but Hugh Laurie’s version in Paris, seems more sinister than most. “I was chased on the old scooters,”the singer and actor told US TV. “That’s a very exciting thing. I scored two – I knocked two of them off.”

Fellow singer and actor Johnny Hallyday, is to play his first ever solo show in the UK. The Franco- Belgian crooner will play the Royal Albert Hall in 2012. Even more exciting than the Olympics, we’re sure you’ll agree.

But also sad reports from the same venue after George Michael cancelled a show after coming down with a virus. What’s worse, some scurrilous types yesterday suggested that Michael altered official gig photos to hide his paunch.

In other music news, Alex Turner has questioned the name of his band Arctic Monkeys. “It sounds like a first band name, doesn’t it?”he tells Q. “It’s so bad that the tribute bands don’t sound worse. I saw there’s an Aertex Monkeys, that’s pretty clever.”

Sophie makes escape

Despite our struggling economy, some people are still opening places to go and eat nice food and spend lots of money. This week, the nightclub impresario Matt Hermer opened his new Japanese restaurant Senkai in London. Among those spotted tucking into the menu were Sophie Ellis-Bextor and husband Richard Jones who, we’re told, sensibly escaped before the wild partying began.

Brummie shindig

Yes, we covered the i’s Birmingham birthday yesterday. But we just couldn’t resist showing you a couple more pictures from the night. Here’s i’s boss Stefano Hatfield (top centre) with ad man Trevor Beattie (left) and his brother Paul from the Jack and Ada Beattie Foundation, while our sports editor, Matt Gatward (second from left, right), catches up with some of our loyal readers.

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