Video - Stephen Fry: 'Pope should not have state visit'

More than 50 public figures have added their names to a letter in The Guardian newspaper saying the Pope should not be given the "honour" of a UK state visit.

Authors Terry Pratchett and Philip Pullman and actor Stephen Fry are among those critical of the Vatican record on birth control, gay rights and abortion.

Stephen Fry told the BBC why he signed the letter.

Video - Meet The Author: Sir Terry Pratchett

In the latest in the BBC News Meet The Author interviews, Sir Terry Pratchett discusses I Shall Wear Midnight, the latest in his best-selling Discworld series.

Sir Terry talked exclusively to Nick Higham about his latest book, his writing techniques and how he tries to make serious subjects funny.

A nicely packaged drama that really delivers

Here's one of life's little conundrums: what is the correct procedure to follow when you see a grown-up reading the work of JK Rowling or Terry Pratchett on a train?

Sky doesn't make many dramas, but when they do they make them well. Going Postal is Sky's latest Terry Pratchett adaptation, a big budget extravaganza in two parts, filmed upon elaborate sets and exquisitely costumed, that lovingly recreates Pratchett's weird and wonderful alternative universe of Discworld.

Richard Coyle stars as confidence trickster and irrepressible charmer Moist Von Lipwig, spared from the gallows to perform the equally lethal task of reviving the Ankh-Morpork postal service. Postmaster General is an office with a one hundred per-cent mortality rate, with several fingers of suspicion pointing firmly in the direction of ruthless entrepreneur Reacher Gilt (David Suchet) who will stop at nothing to impose his Clacks communication system upon the populace.

Frantic, funny, romantic, silly and frequently touching, Going Postal delivers in many, many ways.

Nearly always it's the quiet ones that surprise you with their anger. Terry Pratchett's delightful series of surreal Discworld novels have long bewitched readers. Pratchett novels have always acted as gentle satires of our world, but Going Postal, the latest of his novels to be filmed by Sky was, by Pratchett's standards at least, monumentally angry.

Porcine bankers, the celebration of corporations, the moral vacuity of the concept of victimless crime and, er, the incorrect use of apostrophes, were all fed into the novel that was the source for this Sky adaptation. The anger was mollified for family viewing - but only slightly.

David Suchet, almost unrecognisable as a villain who resembled an ageing, heavy metal star, played Reacher Gilt - the rapacious owner of Clacks, a network of semaphore towers which are Discworld's take on the internet.

This was a man who had taken advantage of a banking crisis to move in and steal Clacks from its inventor. Gilt was enraged when the patrician Lord Vetinari (Charles Dance) pardoned conman Moist von Lipwig (Richard Coyle) on the understanding he revive the Discworld's postal service to provide some competition to Clacks.

Part of the glory of this fabulous chunk of entertainment was that Sky eschewed CGI in favour of lavish sets, constructed with lashings of sparkling invention. Going Postal looked amazing. Luckily, everything else about the production was dazzling too.

Coyle was roguish but sympathetic, and Andrew Sachs, as his assistant, bumbled along like a cross between his Fawlty Towers duffer Manuel and the original grandfather from Only Fools And Horses. Claire Foy, as Adora Dearhart, smouldered convincingly.

Cable Girl: Going Postal

Sky's new adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel Going Postal is lovingly detailed and fantastically good fun - bank holiday weekend telly done to a tee.

With its teatime scheduling and raft of fabulously named characters, you could have been forgiven for supposing Going Postal was intended as a family-friendly fairy tale. But there was a delicous darkness about this handsomely mounted adaptation of the 33rd novel in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series that definitely needed a parental advisory sticker.

Corrupt bankers, the mindless adulation of progress, the absurdity of 'victimless crime'; this was Pratchett aiming two barrels at a galaxy of pet hates - including, delightfully, missing apostrophes - all gathered around the yarn of conman Moist von Lipwig and the accursed Ankh-Morpork post office. And he was well served with a richly rendered visualisation of Discworld, from avalanches of unsent letters to a menagerie of curious characters, that made for a Delicatessen-style visual feast.

And you could have a lot of fun wondering where Dickens and Tolkien ended and Pratchett began, such was the weight of literary influence. But it went deeper than that. Drawing on first-class performances - Richard Coyle excellent as a believably conflicted von Lipwig; Claire Foy a sneering delight as Adora Deerheart, the perfect anti-love interest for the perfect anti-hero - Going Postal sent out a heartfelt plea to celebrate the individual over the corporate, the human over the machine. On that score Going Postal was a special delivery.

Terry Pratchett's Going Postal delivers for Sky1

Drama is most-watched multichannel show of the day with 879,000 viewers.

Terry Pratchett's Going Postal Part One review

The first of a two-part adaptation of Terry Pratchett's novel, Going Postal may be the best yet of Discworld stories brought to the small screen...

Sky has said it's trying to build a reputation for drama, and it's certainly going the right way about it. This adaptation of Sir Terry Pratchett's 33rd Discworld novel concludes tonight and it's a gloriously-realised, filmic vision of the fantasy universe.

It follows Sky's recent adaptations of Pratchett's Hogfather and The Colour Of Money, as well as bestsellers by Martina Cole and Chris Ryan. And with 20 more feature-length films in the works, all based on novels, Sky is definitely going to be giving the other channels a run for their money drama-wise.

Tonight opens excitingly, with the Ankh-Morpork post office in flames and under threat of closure from a flying banshee. The stellar cast is headed by Richard Coyle as conman-turned-postmaster Moist von Lipwig and Claire Foy as Adora Belle Dearheart.

But it's the spectacular scenery and special effects that make this an absolutely first-class show.