You’ll die laughing
JAMIE’S COMIC DREAM
AFTER playing the creepiest man on TV, Jamie Dornan is keen to do more comedy.
The star of BBC1’S New Year’s Day drama The Tourist reckons his role as a serial killer in The Fall resulted in him being typecast.
But Jamie, best known for playing a bondage obsessed billionaire in the Fifty Shades of Grey films, wants to keep things lighter in future.
He said: “I would like to do more comedy. At one point, I thought I would and then The Fall came and people were not looking to me for that.
“What am I drawn to? It could be a dramatic six-part thing to a funny play.
“I don’t plan that much as it is hard to plan in this industry.
“There is no way I won’t do comedy but it may not be next year.”
However, Jamie revealed there are some laughs in The Tourist. The sixpart series sees Jamie play a British man who is hounded off the road by a truck in the Australian Outback.
When he wakes up injured in hospital, he has no memory of who he is and where he came from.
His character’s past is connected to the people chasing him – and when his memory returns, it sets off a series of explosive revelations.
The show also features Shalom Brune-franklin – Line of Duty’s DC Chloe Bishop – and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, the Icelandic star of Trapped, plus Aussie actors Damon Herriman, Alex Dimitriades and Danielle Macdonald.
Sex
Jamie played evil killer Paul Spector alongside Gillian Anderson in awardwinning 2013 TV hit The Fall.
And his most famous big screen role so far is as sadistic Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.
But he showed his lighter side earlier this year in the role of a hapless spy in comedy movie Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar.
the Belfast-born dad of three, 39, reckons his screen icon is 54-year-old “smooth operator” Jamie Foxx, who started out in comedy.
He said: “He’s so multifaceted in his talents, he is insane…
“He is very funny but oozes sex appeal and coolness and is a phenomenal actor. He has a great voice and is a great pianist.
“He is a proper man and has class. When you are in his presence, you feel very uncool.”
halina.watts@people.co.uk
When you’re in his presence, you feel very
uncool
Her hair was patchy and bald in places.
Malika told us Parwana won’t eat anything she prepares; she winces and cries if she eats bread.
The nutrition counsellor quickly does a raft of tests, including measuring Parwana’s upper arm which looks no thicker than a broom handle. At four years old, Parwana weighs 9.10kg. She should be double that.
Her mother is given a prescription for RUTF, the high energy peanut paste which promotes growth.
UNICEF is the sole supplier of RUTF in Afghanistan.
We currently have supplies in our warehouses but we will soon need more.
At the pharmacy, Malika collects 28 sachets of RUTF and right then and there, sits down, tears open a packet and urges her frail daughter to eat. Parwana gently takes a bite. But as she swallows, she winces in pain. Her stomach is tender.
She eats slowly and steadily. Fifteen minutes later, she sighs and needs a rest. Parwana will need four of these
sachets each day for a week. Then she will return to the clinic for tests and more supplies of RUTF.
This cycle will continue until she is out of danger. She is, of course, one of the lucky ones.
UNICEF has warned that, without urgent action, 1.1 million children under the age of 5 could be at risk of dying from severe acute malnutrition. This is why we need the global community to rally and support the children of Afghanistan.
This is a make or break moment.
NOVEMBER 28
It’s a chilly start as I set off for Bamyan in the central highlands.
As Afghanistan spirals deeper into crisis, I’m here to better understand how malnutrition hits rural people.
Frozen waterfalls and snow-covered peaks flank us as we wind our way through the Koh-i-baba mountains. Gazing at the arid soil, I wonder how anyone makes a living on this land. On the rooftops of most houses there are already piles of sticks, dry bushes and dried animal manure fashioned into bricks for burning throughout winter.
With half the country – 23 million people – unable to afford a nutritious diet and with rising food prices, malnutrition rates are climbing.
At Bamyan Provincial Hospital, the director takes me to the ward where children with complicated cases of severe acute malnutrition are being treated.
Cases have increased by around 30% but, the director cautions, this is just the start of winter. It will get worse.
In the first bed, at just 60 days old, is tiny Hamid.
He stares ahead, too weak to be interested in my wiggly fingers or silly faces.
His exhausted mother, Fatima, sits by his bedside. She is malnourished and unable to produce enough breast milk. She is grateful for the hospital support but also says she cannot stay for two weeks while her son recovers. She has three other children.
Her husband, like so many in Afghanistan, used to be a day labourer for cash-in-hand.
Work has dried up and he now tries to sell vegetables on a mobile cart in Bamyan. Sometimes he makes $1 or $2 per day. The family of five live on bread, rice and potatoes. There’s no money for eggs or lentils or meat or fruit or fuel. She looks at me, resigned and hopeless. Unusually in a ward for such severe cases of malnutrition, there’s a wee shriek. Someone is trying to get my attention. In the next bed, Danyal, eight months old, is the most alert of the children in the cots.
He has been here for nine days. His father worked for a Chinese contractor, but that ended after August.
UNICEF’S ready to use therapeutic food has been a large part of Danyal’s recovery.
His mother beams with gratitude and relief and asks to take more home.
Every mother tells the same story: in the last few months, her husband has lost his job; they have no savings; their children are getting sicker.
Most upsetting is this: they have no hope that things will improve.
That is why we need governments and financial institutions to support the people of Afghanistan now, in their hour of need – for children like Hamid who are fighting for life, and for children like Danyal who, thanks to the right healthcare at the right time, is fighting back.
Girl of four had an upper arm as thin as a broom
handle