Ewan McGregor films an appeal for Pakistan's children

UNICEF UK Ambassador Ewan urges the UK public to help Pakistan's children whose lives have been devastated by the floods. Pakistan is facing a growing humanitarian crisis as worsening floods are affecting even more people than the Boxing Day Tsunami and Haiti earthquake combined. Millions of children have lost their homes and have no food or clean water. More and more of these children are at risk of contracting deadly waterborne diseases like dysentery, diarrhoea and cholera.

Ewan aims to raise funds

Ewan takes centre stage to save play

Ewan has come to the rescue of a young theatre company after its new production threatened to fail because of a lack of funds.

Set up by a group of actors frustrated by the scarcity of interesting roles, The Factory won rave reviews for its inaugural production of Hamlet in 2008.

However, despite the critical acclaim and support from the likes of Sir Elton John and Bill Nighy, the company's new play Boiling Frogs by Steven Bloomer faced closing before it even opened. Producer Liam Evans-Ford said a planned three-week run at the Southwark Playhouse was left hanging in the balance after the company failed to get a £10,000 grant from the Arts Council.

It was then that McGregor stepped in. The actor has agreed to take part in a fund-raising evening next Wednesday where he will talk about his life and career.

Tracey Emin has donated a print to be auctioned at the £50-a-ticket event, with all proceeds going towards the play about civil liberties protesters, which opens on September 14. McGregor said: "I am incredibly impressed with the skill and commitment of the other actors and everyone involved. Really an inspiration for all."

For ticket information: www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk

From Trainspotting to Plane Spotting

From Trainspotting to Plane Spotting

My favorite Scottish Ewan, who leapt to fame in the film "Trainspotting" took to the air from the air base at Lossiemouth in an RAF fighter jet piloted by his brother this week. He then flew along Glen Tilt, known as "Star Wars Alley", where training flights roar across the countryside at low levels at 620mph. The valley is said to resemble the channel on the Death Star finale of the space epic. Ewan's sortie, with flight lieutenant Colin McGregor at the controls, raised £4,000 for the Children's Hospice Association of Scotland. It also gave some good publicity for two of Ewan's films - "Black Hawk Down" and the latest Star Wars film. The McGregor brothers were born in Crieff in Perthshire.

And there will be more programmes besides across BBC One, Two and Four, including a very exciting documentary featuring Ewan and his RAF pilot brother Colin calledThe Real Battle of Britain. They'll be getting very hands-on experience, flying through our skies, reliving the experiences of young airmen. For Colin it's a chance to see if his modern jet-fighter training compares to the seat-of-the-pants skills needed to master a Spitfire.

A BBC Four documentary I'm looking forward to is Spitfire Women, which tells the remarkable story of the women who flew planes for the Air Transport Auxiliary - the unsung heroines as it were.

I hope that together all these programmes will help persuade even the stoniest old sceptic that this aerial conflict, fought over the second half of 1940, really was as historically significant, and as personally resonant, as all the myths would have us believe.

Martin Davidson is commissioning editor for BBC History

The Battle Of Britain season will be on air in September to mark the 70th anniversary of the WW2 air campaign

Ewan (Beginners)

Beginners

Mike Mills

• Country: USA
• Year: 2010
• Language: English
• Producer: Leslie Urdang, Dean Vanech, Miranda de Pencier, Lars Knudsen, Jay Van Hoy
• Screenplay: Mike Mills
• Runtime: 104
• Programmes:

  official description

  Five years after Thumbsucker, director Mike Mills returns to the Festival with another winning indie dramedy that balances humour, sorrow and romance with aplomb. Beginners deftly juggles two chronologies to tell the heartwarming story of two major points in the life of Oliver (Ewan McGregor), a talented illustrator. One timeline follows the slow-burning deterioration of Oliver’s father (Christopher Plummer), who is dying of cancer. But his impending death is not the only news that has caught Oliver off guard; his divorced father, at the age of seventy-five, has also come out of the closet. Just like that, he gets a new wardrobe, a new boyfriend and an entirely new outlook on life. Following his father’s death, a bereaved Oliver becomes somewhat of a shut-in. As Beginnerstakes us through his personal journey, the film flashes forward, intercutting a budding relationship between Oliver and a young French actress (Inglourious Basterd’s Mélanie Laurent) whom he meets at a costume party that he attends under duress. The twin narratives gradually reveal subtle associations about how Oliver reacts to both these unpredictable relationships, and how his father and girlfriend motivate him to surpass his self-prescribed limitations. McGregor and Laurent have natural onscreen chemistry, and Plummer is outstanding in his rich portrayal of a dying man who is finally able to live honestly, breaking out of his shell so near the end of his life. The ensemble cast lends the film a warm, understated aura that never feels the least bit contrived. Mills is at the top of his game in crafting dynamic mood pieces that steer clear of the usual trappings found in American independent cinema. The outcome is a thoroughly enjoyable character study about people opening up and discovering themselves despite age, preconceptions and illness. Jane Schoettle

  director bio

  Mike Mills was born in Los Angeles, California and studied at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. His work as a graphic designer has been featured in gallery exhibitions in France, the Netherlands and the United States. He has directed commercials as well as music videos for artists such as Moby, Yoko Ono, Air and Everything But The Girl. His short films include Deformer (98), Paperboys (01) and The Architecture of Reassurance (99). His feature films are Thumbsucker (05), which screened at the Festival, Does Your Soul Have a Cold? (07) and Beginners (10).

  full credits

  • Principle Cast: Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Melanie Laurent, Goran Visnjic
  • Director: Mike Mills
  • Producer: Leslie Urdang, Dean Vanech, Miranda de Pencier, Lars Knudsen, Jay Van Hoy
  • Cinematographer: Kasper Tuxen
  • Editor: Olivier Bugge Coutté
  • Sound: Leslie Shatz
  • Production Designer: Shane Valentino

When his seventy-one-year-old father (Christopher Plummer) comes out of the closet, Oliver (Ewan McGregor) must explore the honesty of his own relationships. From the director of Thumbsucker.