Simon Allen writes 80s-inspired horror film 'Curs>r'

Simon Allen has written Curs>r. Asa Butterfield, Iola Evans and Eddie Marsan are leading the cast of the horror-thriller that has recently wrapped principal photography in the UK.

Further coverage: Variety, Deadline and Screen Daily.

Simon Pegg is fortysomething waster Gary King, who lures four school pals - Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine and Eddie Marsan - out of their humdrum daily lives to complete the legendary pub crawl they failed to finish 20 years before in their boring home town of Newton Haven. But the lads' night out turns into a home counties version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers in a very funny, observant tale of midlife crisis, aliens and beer, the final part of Wright and Pegg's Cornetto trilogy.

Urban Myths: Bob Dylan review

The first in Sky Arts' new Urban Myths series of comedy drama, starring a very convincingly Bob-like Eddie Marsan.

Eddie Marsan drawls opaque riddles as Bob Dylan, in the first of a series of tall tales about the famous. August, 1993: Dylan arrives in London, alone, and proceeds to Crouch Hill, where Dave Stewart has told him to visit any time. At the address Bob's written down, Ange (Katherine Parkinson) confirms Dave (Paul Ritter) will be back in a sec, and shows him into the front room... it's the sort of gleefully ephemeral comic oddity BBC2 might once have felt able to indulge in.

James McAvoy is a very bad cop indeed in Baird's relentlessly grimy, brutal screen adaptation of Irvine Welsh's misanthropic novel. McAvoy's coke-, booze- and sex-addled DS Bruce Robertson is trying to lie and cheat his way up the Edinburgh rozzers' career ladder. It's a powerhouse performance and there's sterling support from the likes of Eddie Marsan and Shirley Henderson but, lacking the warmth and humour of, say, Trainspotting, it's a gruelling experience.

The sublime Love in Recovery wraps up on Wednesday 11th February, with the sixth and final instalment of Radio 4's touching comic drama. Written by Pete Jackson, the series follows the lives of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting group, made up of characters portrayed by Sue Johnston, John Hannah, Eddie Marsan, Rebecca Front and Paul Kaye, whilst Julia Deakin plays village hall cleaner Marion.

This Radio 4 comedy drama is set in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting room. Each episode focuses on a different character, played by a high-profile cast including Rebecca Front, Sue Johnston, John Hannah, Paul Kaye and Eddie Marsan. Written by Pete Jackson, it is inspired by his own experiences of being in recovery and is based on his attendance at AA meetings, where he says he found support in an unlikely assortment of people. The 15-minute episodes mix drama with black comedy as each character tells their story - from snobbish banker Fiona, who fails to combine her high-pressure job with her compulsive boozing, to journalist Simon, who has delusions of grandeur and a disastrous home life.

Radio Times review

This series never disappoints. The writing and acting is consistently top-notch and it balances dark comedy with human sorrow as expertly as a finely tuned racing car. In this episode we finally get to hear Andy's story.

The self-appointed head of the Alcoholics Anonymous weekly meetings has studiously kept his private life away from the rest of the group, but when he turns up in a suit -- or two suits as sarcastic Scot Simon keeps pointing out (the jacket and trousers don't match) -- their suspicions are aroused.

It is soon revealed that Andy (Eddie Marsan) is going on a date, his first ever date, after the meeting. And it is down to Simon (John Hannah), of all people, to persuade him not to wimp out.

As Carrie Fisher proved years ago, AA can be ripe for black comedy. And so it provides the setting for Love in Recovery (Radio 4), a brilliant six-part comedy drama written by Pete Jackson. Each of the 15-minute vignettes unspool like manic Canterbury Tales, offering a set of soliloquies built around the awkward weekly meetings of disparate characters.

The first episode saw Fiona (Rebecca Front) unload her tale of shallow excess and isolation in the banking world. "I always thought that you can't have a problem when you're drinking with friends but ... everyone's your friend when you're drinking," she pointed out. Episode two finds Julie (Sue Johnston) giving an unwaveringly powerful portrait of a woman, who attempted to find happiness at the bottom of a glass after her husband of 40 years left her ("He went off with the cleaner who ironically turned out to be a dirty bitch"). Eddie Marsan plays the needy group leader Andy (memorably described as "serial-killer nice"), who is constantly offering the participants biscuits ("they're from M&S"). The series feels sharp and fresh, its realism partly derived from writer Jackson's real