In brief: Ripley in Reggie Perrin remake

Martin Clunes is to take the lead role in a BBC remake of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. Veteran British actress Wendy Craig will play his mother and Fay Ripley has been signed up to play his long-suffering wife, Elizabeth. David Nobbs, who wrote the Reggie Perrin novels and adapted them for television, starring the late Leonard Rossiter, will co-write the new series with Simon Nye, creator of Clunes's previous show Men Behaving Badly………….. Sharon Osbourne, the former X Factor judge, has accepted a public apology and substantial undisclosed libel damages from the Sun newspaper over its claim that she was driving husband Ozzy "to destruction"………... The actor Ricardo Montalban, best known for his role in the 1970s television series Fantasy Island, has died aged 88.....…… Hugh Laurie has told Playboy magazine why his US medical drama, House, is less popular in the UK than in America. "I'm quite dubious anytime I hear any of my countrymen playing American. I think that's why House doesn't do so well in England," he said. "The British are wise to me. Any sort of linguistic affectation drives the English absolutely mad” …………. ·