Steve coogan

We may have had the verdicts and the sentences in the hacking trial, but the biggest question remains unanswered: who’s going to play everyone in the movie? There’s one clear and obvious frontrunner for the part of Rebekah Brooks: Bonnie Langford. Sadly, however, Ms Langford has heavy panto commitments and cannot be released for filming. So we’ll have to make do with a B-list purveyor of ginge instead – Nicole Kidman, perhaps, or Julianne Moore. (Cate Blanchett might have got a look-in if we’d avoided the temptation to base everything on the hair, but Brooks herself never did so why should we?) Andy Coulson should be played by Ewan McGregor, though only if he promises not to repeat his God-awful ‘estuary’ accent from The Ghost.

Philomena is based on the true story of an Irish woman searching for the son stolen from her by the Catholic Church 50 years earlier, and although, as a cinematic experience, it could so easily have felt as if you were being repeatedly slapped round the head by a copy of Woman’s Own, it is, thankfully, quite a few notches up from that. Indeed, as directed by Stephen Frears, it is quiet, restrained, unfussy, and has, at its heart, an injustice so grave it will make your blood boil. You will also cry. Seven minutes in, and I was already crying. Not proud, but it is a fact. Dame Judi Dench stars as Philomena, which is, of course, beyond wonderful, as any film starring Dame Judi Dench will be highly watchable, whatever.

What Maisie Knew is an adaptation of the Henry James 1897 novel, updated to Manhattan in the now, and is described in the bumf I received as ‘heart-warming’, which is utterly strange, as it’s a child-caught-in-the-middle drama, and just so painful. It’s compelling. It’s exquisitely done. It’s brilliantly acted. (According to the most recent figures,  the chances of Julianne Moore turning in a duff performance are 0.00 per cent.) But it’s not a comfortable watch, which should not put you off, of course. There must be discomfort at the cinema just as there is discomfort in life, as Socrates might have said, if he had lived to experience film.

The thing is, I love the character of Alan Partridge so much it may well be that, when it came to this film, I left my critical faculties outside the screening room, possibly somewhere along Wardour Street. If you see them, might you return them? I would hate them to fall into the wrong hands, or be sold to the highest bidder. Anthony Lane of the New Yorker, for example, has always been after my critical faculties and the late film critic Roger Ebert was once quoted as saying he’d pay anything for them; anything. Luckily, he was American, and they would never be allowed to leave the country, but you see what I’m saying? Why it’s important I get them back?