Tim Plester, Game of Thrones and the Shirley Collins movie

Some of you will remember Tim Plester's beautiful morris-dancing memoir Way of the Morris, which came out in 2011. If you haven't seen it yet, there's still time... 

Well, Tim and his habitual collaborator, Rob Curry, of Fifth Column Films, are making a new folk-themed movie, this one about the life of Shirley Collins, with her co-operation. Details are sparse at the moment. But Rob tells me a couple of things, which are that the trip she took to the deep south with Alan Lomax in 1959 will be central to the narrative, as will "the women chewed up and spat out by the men of the folk rock scene". There are a Facebook page and a Twitter account you can follow if you'd like.

Sounds like a lot of people will be very interested in that, which is just as well as there may be a crowd-funding offer along shortly.

Also, they filmed Shirley Collins' first gig in 30 years, which took place at Union Chapel the other week.

I was meandering around the idea of writing about this when lightning struck over the weekend: glued to a DVD boxset of Game of Thrones, season three, a familiar face appeared on screen.

Nice pic. For it was Tim Plester, who has several strings to his bow, bearing out the adage that every character actor known to British casting directors will have an opportunity to appear in Game of Thrones before it's done. He was playing someone called Black Walder and hanging out in a rather unsavoury castle whose strategic importance moved several of the central characters to organise a wedding there.

The Red Wedding.

If you haven't seen season three of Game of Thrones and intend to, I urge to look away now.

I pinged off a message on Facebook congratulating Tim on his immortality, by virtue of being in one of the series currently on screen that will surely outlive its actors. And then I was shaken to my very bones, to the sound of The Rains of Castamere (got to love a show with its own self-referential folk music).

For Tim's is the second last face on screen at the end of season three, episode nine. Catelyn Stark's is the last and she is spouting blood from her throat, having been, well... See for yourself.

 Why Tim, why?

"What can I say? I sometimes get a little stabby at weddings x" came the reply.

* I'd like to congratulate Tim and his partner on the recent arrival of a baby girl, which has put the brakes on pre-production of the Shirley Collins film from Tim's end.

* If you'd like to receive posts from this blog directly into your Facebook newsfeed, you could *like* its Facebook page and then use the drop-down menu to indicate that it's one of your "interests". This will enhance the possibility that you'll get them. You could also follow me on Twitter at @emma1hartley