Grant appeals for return of script

Hugh Grant has appealed for help tracking down personal items stolen from his car, including a script. The actor tweeted on Sunday night about the theft, writing: “In the unlikely chance that anyone knows who broke into my car tonight and stole my bag, please try and persuade them to at least return my script. Many weeks’ worth of notes and ideas. And perhaps [also return] my children’s medical cards.”

Grant, who reportedly put his house in Notting Hill, west London, up for rent in October last year, did not say where the theft took place. He asked for the items to be returned to Coach Films in Ealing, west London. The cricketer Kevin Pietersen tweeted in reply: “Our street being invaded by scumbags?”

Also responding to Grant, the comedian David Baddiel wrote: “I’m sorry. I’ve had very bad writer’s block.” Grant last appeared on screen in the BBC drama A Very English Scandal, playing the late Liberal party leader Jeremy Thorpe, for which he was nominated for several awards.

He did not say which production the script in the car was for. Grant is currently working on Toff Guys, a Guy Ritchie film about a British drug lord, and the HBO series The Undoing, which also features Nicole Kidman and Donald Sutherland. Grant made his name in the 1994 film Four Weddings and A Funeral and went on to appear in a number of romantic comedies.

‘No rape scenes in under-15 films’

Scenes of rape and other forms of sexual violence will no longer be allowed in films classified for under-15s in a shake-up of the British ratings system. The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) will on Thursday publish new classification guidelines explaining in detail why films get the ratings they are given, from U up to R18. By far the biggest change is around films that include sexual violence and pornography. The board said the changes were a result of a shift in public opinion over the last five years.

Under the new guidelines no film that contains depictions of rape or strong sexual violence will be allowed a rating below a 15. An example of a film that would probably fall foul of the new system is the 2008 Keira Knightley period drama The Duchess. It was given a 12A rating but would now most likely get a 15 because of a scene where a woman is held down by a man on a bed and it is implied he is about to rape her.

“The feedback we have had from the public during the current consultation is that they don’t think there is any place for depictions of sexual violence at 12A at all,” said Craig Lapper, the head of compliance at the BBFC.

The guidelines also say depictions of sexual violence in 15-rated films must not be “detailed or prolonged”. That would mean the 2017 Taylor Sheridan thriller Wind River, which starred Elizabeth Olsen as an FBI agent, would get an 18 rating.

Banksy art sold for six-figure sum

A Banksy artwork that appeared on a nondescript garage in a Welsh town has been sold to a dealer for a six-figure sum. The garage’s owner, Ian Lewis, has sold the piece, Seasons Greetings, to the Essex-based Banksy expert John Brandler but it will stay in Port Talbot, at least for the time being. Lewis, a steelworker, who has found it hard to sleep after unexpectedly becoming the owner of a precious piece of art, is said to be hugely relieved. An estimated 20,000 people are thought to have visited his garage since it appeared just before Christmas and round-the-clock security has had to be introduced to protect the artwork. It created a cottage industry in souvenirs — mugs, coasters, keyrings — carrying the image of the work. Brandler said Season’s Greetings would stay in Port Talbot for a minimum of two to three years but might be moved into the town centre. He said Lewis had turned down higher offers to keep the work in the town. The Banksy appeared just before Christmas in Taibach, close to the Tata steelworks. From one angle, it shows a child in a bobble hat with a sled, apparently enjoying a snow shower and trying to catch the flakes on their tongue. But from another, it becomes clear that what is falling on the child is a shower of ash.