THE COLLECTION and A KIND OF ALASKA Karen Kohlhaas's tart and tender productions of two short plays by Harold Pinter, for the Atlantic Theater Company, proved that American actors can speak fluent Pinterese and, in Lisa Emery's portrait of a woman waking from a coma, featured one of the year's most poignant performances.
The telecoms giant paid a bumper £738m for the package, which it will put out to tender for production later this year.
It is lumped under "cutting and slicing machine setters, operators, and tenders," a production category dominated by people slicing paper in mills and printing plants.
Laura Mansfield, the chair of Pact, said that for BBC Studios to be "truly competitive" the corporation must make at least some of its big, long-running in-house productions out to tender to independent production companies "from day one" if the spin-off gains approval.
Along with the contract already granted, Lukoil has tendered for 23 production wells, and plans another tender this year for another 50 or so.
Channel 4 says that the contract was awarded fairly following a competitive tender process "with production companies with Formula One credentials", believed to include North One Television.
The corporation has also freed up its rules regarding the proportion of children's, news and current affairs shows that will be made available for tender to outside production companies.
Michael Buffong's entertaining production is tender and true.
In response to complaints, Congress ended any status as legal tender in 1876, halted production of the Trade dollar (except for collectors) in 1878, and agreed to redeem any which had not been chopmarked in 1887.
