Summary

  • News updates for Wednesday 3 February 2016

  • Halle Berry on "heartbreaking" Oscars diversity debate

  • Dara O Briain "thrilled" to be part of new Robot Wars

  • Love Story stars O'Neal and McGraw reunite on stage

Live Reporting

Neil Smith and Kev Geoghegan

  1. Visual Effects Society awards Star Wars and The Revenant

    A scene from Star Wars: The Force AwakensDisney/Lucasfilm

    With the Oscars race now at the midway stage, the Visual Effects Society has handed out its annual awards in Los Angeles.

    Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Revenant both picked up multiple awards, while the much celebrated Mad Max: Fury Road picked up just one for its "toxic storm" sequence. 

    It could open up the Academy Awards visual effects category, where Fury Road is in the running against Ex Machina, The Martian, The Revenant and Star Wars.

    On the TV side, Game of Thrones was the big winner in four categories.

    Ridley Scott, director of The Martian, was also presented with a lifetime achievement award at Tuesday's event.

    Read more on this story.

  2. Kaws sculptures on show in Yorkshire

    A series of gigantic cartoon sculptures have popped up in the Yorkshire countryside, in the first solo exhibition in the UK by US artist Kaws.

    The BBC's arts editor, Will Gompertz, has been for a walk around the Yorkshire Sculpture Park to take in the massive artworks. Here are his thoughts on the exhibition.

    There's no doubt about it, these sculptures look mighty incongruous in the Wakefield landscape. They are a long way from much of the other work that can be seen in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park's 500 acres. Not least, the modernist pieces produced by those two towering post-war British artists, Dame Barbara Hepworth and Sir Henry Moore, both of whom grew up within a few miles of the park.

    Their outdoor work responded to the landscape, and often aimed to be at one with it. Kaws' Pop Art pieces have none of that subtlety - they are designed to jar and call attention to themselves: pieces of pop culture that were conceived in the urban environment now living wild among the trees and hills of England.

    They won't be to everyone’s taste, but the formal questions they pose around scale, materials and context are worth dwelling upon. From the Australian outback to Brazil’s sloping hills of iron, pop culture is all-pervasive, there is no escape - not even in the rolling hills of West Bretton.

  3. Halle Berry: Oscars lack of diversity 'heartbreaking'

    People

    Halle BerryGetty Images

    Halle Berry, the first and, to date, only black actress to win the Oscar for best actress has called the continuing lack of diversity in the Academy Award nominations "heartbreaking".

    Speaking at the 2016 Makers Conference in the US, Berry said she had inititally thought the Oscar she won for Monster's Ball in 2002 would be an agent for change.

    I believed that in that moment, that when I said [in my acceptance speech], 'The door tonight has been opened,' I believed that with every bone in my body that this was going to incite change because this door, this barrier, had been broken.

    Since her win, only three African-American actresses have been nominated for the award: Gabourey Sidibe in 2010 for Precious, Viola Davis in 2012 for The Help, and Quvenzhane Wallis in 2013 for Beasts of the Southern Wild.

    Berry said she was disappointed that none had repeated her success.

    And to sit here almost 15 years later, and knowing that another woman of colour has not walked through that door, is heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking because I thought that moment was bigger than me. It's heartbreaking to start to think maybe it wasn't bigger than me. Maybe it wasn't. And I so desperately felt like it was.

    Read more on this story.

  4. Matthew Perry 'scared' over playwriting debut

    Former Friends star Matthew Perry has admitted he was "scared to write something on my own" after enjoying so much success as Chandler Bing in the popular US sitcom.

    "I'd never written anything by myself before," he told BBC arts correspondent Rebecca Jones. "I'd always written with a partner.

    "[But] I started writing and these monologues came out, so I realised what I was writing was a play."

    The result of his labours is The End of Longing, a four-hander that begins previewing this week at London's Playhouse Theatre.

    The actor says the play will appeal to "the Friends generation" with its story of "four very broken people who are trying to find love."

    Listen to Rebecca's interview below and read more about the play here.

  5. Rihanna to perform at Brit awards

    RihannaAP

    Rihanna will perform at this year's Brit awards, joining a line-up that already includes Adele, Justin Bieber, Coldplay, James Bay, Little Mix, The Weeknd and Jess Glynne.

    The singer released her eighth studio album, Anti, on the streaming service Tidal last week.

    It's her third time singing at the Brits, an event where she has been named best international female solo artist twice.

    Here's how the Brits announced the news.

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  6. Get involved

    Kev Geoghegan
    Arts and entertainment reporter

    If you want to share some thoughts on today's line-up of stories, then please get in touch by tweeting @BBCNewsEnts or emailing entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

  7. Good morning

    Neil Smith
    Entertainment reporter

    Another day awaits us on the entertainment live page - what will it bring?

    Well, Matthew Perry for one. The former Friends star has a new play in the West End, so we'll be finding out what he has to say about it.

    We'll have the latest developments in the Oscars diversity row, with Halle Berry becoming the latest celebrity to offer her thoughts on the matter.

    And we'll also have news on what the National Theatre has in store as it unveils its plans for the year ahead.

    Stick with us and we'll keep you in the loop and fully briefed - and if you missed out on yesterday's live page, have a quick ganders now.