Fascinating Film And TV Facts #41

Did you know French and Saunders met at drama school and developed a double act called ‘The Menopause Sisters’? It included them wearing tampons in their ears, but the show was not particularly successful – in fact, the manager of the club at the time described them as having ‘no star quality’ at all. How things change…

It only took half a century, but fire-breathing, building-crushing giant lizard Godzilla has been granted Japanese citizenship. The star of the page and screen was awarded residency status by Tokyo's Shinjuku ward earlier this year, and has already been given a very important job: tourism ambassador. Yes, really.

Uzo Aduba may have won an Emmy and a Screen Actors Guild award for her portrayal of Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren in Orange is the New Black, but she almost gave up acting altogether just before she was cast in the Netflix comedy drama. In fact, the very day she decided to throw in the towel to become a lawyer, she got the call to say she had been cast. "5:43pm, I'll never forget it," she recalls.

What do Aslan and Queen Elizabeth II have in common? Well, they dated in the 1980s. Or rather the actors who played them did. Liam Neeson and Helen Mirren had a dalliance but it wasn’t to be – as he married Natasha Richardson (who tragically died) and she wed American film director Taylor Hackford

The Daleks are a cultural institution, but they weren't always so popular. Terry Nation's pepper-pot creations were initially dismissed by Doctor Who's creator Sydney Newman, who thought the "bug-eyed monsters" were too sci-fi for the show; something that went against his vision of it being a way to educate children about science and history. Following persuasion from series producer Verity Lambert, he finally relented, leading to their debut in 1963 serial The Daleks. The rest, as they say, is history.