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Vangelis, the electronic-music pioneer who won an Oscar for “Chariots of Fire” and composed such other landmark film scores as “Blade Runner,” died Tuesday, the Athens News Agency reported. He was 79.

The self-taught musician enjoyed a long career in European pop music before the magical colors and textures of his 1970s solo albums brought him to the attention of film and TV producers. The use of a track from his 1975 album “Heaven and Hell” as the theme for Carl Sagan’s PBS series “Cosmos” brought his name and music into prominence in America.

But it was his music for the 1981 film “Chariots of Fire” that brought him worldwide fame. Producer David Puttnam made the unorthodox choice for his period sports drama after hearing Vangelis’s music for the French nature documentary “Opera Sauvage” and the studio album “China.”

As he often did, Vangelis performed all of the instruments, including synthesizer,...

In the series Carbon Copy, we give you trivia on the connecting dots between many countries’ music. This week, we look at how the composers turned Demis Roussos' "Lovely Lady of Arcadia" into songs for a Hindi film in 1993 and another in 1994

The post How Nadeem-Shravan Turned An English Original Into Two Hindi Songs For Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke And Salaami appeared first on Film Companion.

Melvin Ragin, known as “Wah Wah Watson” for the quivering, darting, wonderfully textured sounds he conjured from his guitar and wah wah pedal in countless sessions for stars of soul and funk, died on Wednesday. He was 67 years old.

“It’s with a heavy heart that we regret to announce the passing of my loving husband Wah Wah Watson today at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica,” the guitarist’s wife, Itsuko Aono, said in a statement. “He will be greatly missed, but music is eternal. Wherever he is,...

Pogonophiles up and down the land, rejoice! Jeremy Paxman had Twitter all of a flutter yesterday evening (August 12) when he showed off an impressive beard on the BBC's flagship late-night current affairs show Newsnight.

Having entertained Digital Spy with a press statement namechecking both Demis Roussos and Uncle Albert from Only Fools and Horses, Paxman endeared himself to us further by sticking to his journalistic credentials and saying that when deciding whether to shave or not, he will not be swayed by public reaction to his facial furniture.

As Newsnight fans wait to see if Paxman will acknowledge Monday's media furore on air, DS takes a light-hearted look at why the forthright broadcaster is such a hit, beard or no beard.

1. Jeremy Paxman has his fingers on the pulse of popular culture, make no mistake.

2. You will always get an honest and succinct weather report when Paxo's around.

3. Paxman's powers of recall are beyond compare.

Menier Chocolate Factory, London

The fun starts, in Lindsay Posner's triumphant production of Mike Leigh's best-known play, before Beverly has even sorted out the nibbles, as we inspect Mike Britton's 70s masterpiece of a set (burnt orange colour-coordination, faux sheepskin carpet, cheeseplant, hideous "fibrelight" – the works). Jill Halfpenny's Beverly is fantastic (to use one of her favourite words) throughout. She is a brilliant dancer and as she gets going in her over-the-top green ballgown to Demis Roussos's "Forever and Ever", the rest of the cast look ever more passive, woebegone and excruciated. Halfpenny perfectly catches Bev's dark side – her selfishness, sexual frustration and dangerous stupidity. Catatonic "Tone" is excellently played, with aggressive edge, by Joe Absolom, and Andy Nyman is spot-on as Bev's almost sympathetic husband Laurence. Natalie Casey's priceless Angela, a nurse, dresses like a shepherdess doll and asks for gin as if it were Ovaltine,...

Menier Chocolate Factory, London

Mike Leigh has often been accused of condescension towards his characters. Lindsay Posner's perceptive revival of this 1977 landmark reminds us that we are not being invited, unless we so choose, to mock the social aspirations of Leigh's Essex quintet: in reality, the play is a Strindbergian study of marital hell and of a joyless materialism that has since become the defining characteristic of British life.

There are no grotesques in Posner's production: simply a group of people whose lives are steeped in rancour and sadness. Beverly taunts and sexually humiliates her estate-agent husband, Laurence, while he patronises her for her impracticality and presumed lack of taste in liking Demis Roussos. Meanwhile Tony, the surly ex-footballer whom Beverly sets out to seduce, behaves with thuggish violence towards a wife whose mouth he threatens to seal with Sellotape. And Susan, the middle-class divorcee fleeing her punkish daughter's rumbustious party,...

Weddings. Don't ya just love them? The happy couple exchanging their vows. The free champagne. The endless standing around while the photographer man spends yonks assembling the massed hordes to smile cheesily at a camera lens. Not to mention the banquet meals, the awkward speeches and the equally uncomfortable dad dancing to 'The Lady In Red' or some other time-honoured classic.

So, as with weddings, let's look at some of the familiar hallmarks that are present and correct in The Wedding Of River Song...

The Quaking Groom

Like some of the grooms trembling at the thought of their blushing brides not making it to the aisle, our hero is also trembling in his boots. Yes, The Doctor has realised that Judgement Day has arrived on April 22nd 2011. It's the moment that he meets his maker, zapped by River Song in an astronaut suit and left to die before he can regenerate.

It may have been a decade of fashion and music disasters but the ‘70s also had some seriously funky food. Lydia Brownlow rediscovers classics like Baked Alaska.

It's time to dig out your bell bottoms and pull on your platform shoes as the '70s are back! It may not have been the most memorable decade, but in the food world it is strangely popular again as we are being urged to once more sample such culinary delights as Chicken Kiev, Beef Stroganoff, and Chili Con Carne. So brush down your sideburns and light up your lava lamps while you listen to a little Manhattan Transfer or Demis Roussos on your music center and puzzle over your Rubik's Cube. You may want to skip the cheese and pineapple cubes on cocktail sticks and pass on the wines of the day, Mateus Rose, or Blue Nun, but please do sample these...

Having landed the lead in this summer's biggest blockbuster, the 24-year-old talks fame, family and why she'll always be a Gravesend girl

"I am in a silly mood today," says Gemma Arterton. As she's bouncing around a photo studio in a gigantic feather duster of a dress trying to do an impression of Sesame Street's Big Bird, it's hard to disagree. So far Arterton's entertained the room with her Alison Steadman in Abigail's Party ("I love Demis Roussos") and an accurately nasal Kenneth Williams: "Oooaaahheeeuuh, heee taaaalked wiiith aaaall theeeese voouuuoowels." She's explained her utterly useless test for drunkenness in which she'd ask herself to multiply 12 x 12. "Then after a few years I realised I'd just memorised the answer 144 and I was actually pissed! What an idiot!"

Every so often she'll have a breather to debate the merits of the new Christian Louboutin thigh-length pom-pom boots or recent...