Where have we gone? Answered

In case you were wondering about the long hiatus I seem to have taken from blogging, please note that summarizing all the news here seems a bit unnecessary and also makes it difficult for you, our reader, to skip the parts that don't interest you. Therefore I found it useful (both for quick headlines reading for you and more efficient updating for me) to set up a paper. This will show in headline format the stories i've come across about cast alumni and Potter related stuff on that day. There is also a selection of pictures and videos. We are still active on twitter at @danaholicsanony and will post a summary of the stories there also.

Believe me when i say it was not a decision made lightly as it impacts upon how summarised the news is and directs you away to other fansites - however i felt it was the best decision as i don't always get time in a day to update and therefore I'm not providing the best service for yourselves.

Hope you like the new format and please feel free to comment, constructively criticise and give your advice in the comments below.

We will still be posting original writing about films etc here so stay tuned!

Title for next Galbraith novel, Lumos sweepstakes, Win a signed copy of 'Very Good Lives', Trvial Pursuit giveaway

Great news for Strike fans came from Little Brown late last month:

We are proud to be publishing the third @RGalbraith crime novel, CAREER OF EVIL, this autumn. More details to come soon, including pub date.

— Little, Brown UK (@LittleBrownUK)

In other published work, by a different author (*ahem*) Lumos is giving away two signed copies of Very Good Lives , with winners selected from whoever donates £10 to Lumos by the end of the day:

Autographed copies of Very Good Lives are rare - chance to win one expires Sunday! @lumos http://t.co/MvWfXrhcGQ pic.twitter.com/l6KIRxx7bF

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 7, 2015

For those of you disappointed, we are giving away two, albeit unsigned, copies of the Harvard speech at the end of the month, so check out how to enter here.

In other stuff on offer in aid of Lumos, one fan is giving away a signed Percy Weasley picture:

Signed Percy Weasley photo by Chris Rankin FOR SALE! All proceeds go to @lumos 🎉🎉 http://t.co/OWAedkAGdk pic.twitter.com/CDusdpE8BC

— Charlotte ⚡️ (@always0romione) May 8, 2015

There is also a Lumos Sweeptakes for those in the USA, which includes a trip to the Wizarding World theme park. More details at Lumos.

In other competitions open to US residents, the Potter fansite Magical Menagerie are giving away Potter Trivial Pursuit:

Enter our giveaway to win @USAopoly's World of Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit! http://t.co/Ky1t7FHqmY

— Magical-Menagerie (@MM_Official) 

Finally, Queen Rowling appeared on the Today Show recently. Check out a clip below:

Danaholics Review: Brendan Gleeson and John Hurt at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival,Only Lovers Left Alive

When it comes near to February, we here at Danaholics get very excited as it means the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival is on it's way and we may get a chance to see any of the many films Potter stars made in Dublin. As many of the Potter stars hold their craft much closer to their heart than money, these films are often indie and do not make the big screen quickly if at all.

Although none of the movies we hoped for made it this far (Including The F Word, In Secret and G.B.F) we had the great pleasure of inviting the legend John Hurt back to our shores (more on that later) and Irish and Potter awesomeness Brendan Gleeson also had a premiere at the festival, the opening film in fact.

Tickets for Calvary sold out fast so unfortunately we didnt snag a ticket and as the weather was very gale-y and wet, we didnt make the premiere either. However, a review of the film is here and a picture of the great Mr Gleeson is left, courtesy of Film Ireland. The link above also includes a nice little clip of Gleeson as priest. The film also stars Gleeson's son and Bill Weasley actor Domhnall so we will review it ourselves when it hits cinemas in April!

Our excitement only grew when John Hurt, of Ollivander and War Doctor fame also attended the above premiere and made us happy to have snagged tickets to the screening of his film Only Lovers Left Alive.
We got to meet the actor, shake his hand and even ask him the below question:

Will we be seeing any more of the War Doctor, or indeed Ollivander?
 "He did what he needed. Better to quit while we're ahead".

 He didn't hear the Ollivander part of my Q. And my camera failed me, the picture right being the best it could muster *sadface*. But it was a wonderful and once in a lifetime experience, especially having him shy away from us at our previous encounter at the Half-Blood Prince premiere.


On top of this, the film itself was great and makes me look forward to Hurt's next work with Tilda Swinton, Snowpiercer.

The film, which I've heard of for quite some months through John's own twitter @WithJohnHurt, primarily follows a vampire couple (played by Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleson) who move slowly and gracefully through immortal life, seemingly to the sound of music (some of which was sent into the world by Adam, the male vampire) and living off blood bought from dodgy doctors. John Hurt plays a wonderful side part, that of Marlowe the witty and centuries old pal and almost blood dealer of Tilda Swinton's Eve. Other humourous support comes from Mia Wasikowska and Anton Yelchin.

The film is beautifully shot and comes with a light and witty tone to it that made me fall in love with it from the get-go. The music grabbed me from the very first record spin (you'll know what I mean when you see the opening scene) and the traditional yet modern take on vampirism is refreshing in a world of sparkly, sexy teen-culture-fuelled vamps. I also liked the references to pop and literature culture, especially where it insinuated that the vampires involved gave famous works to artists and authors from Shakespeare to Schubert.

To promote the film, John Hurt appeared on (franky terrible) Irish chatshow The Saturday Night Show. A clip is now below:



Irish fans can watch the show in full on RTE Player here.

UPDATED: And the Winner Is....

Our latest competition, which includes a signed booksleeve (signed by Evanna Lynch) and a runner-up prize of a Houdini programme has now come to a close after much promotion over a few weeks. 

We will be having a winner announcement soon, but for now here are the frontrunners:

and finally

UPDATED:
In the end up, we pulled the names out of the hat in the following order:

And the second runner up prize of a @HoudiniThePlay flyer goes to.... @mchandradcliffe !
— DanaholicsAnonymous (@DanaholicsAnony) November 20, 2013

The first runner-up prize of a Houdini programme goes to....@LunaticaOficial !
— DanaholicsAnonymous (@DanaholicsAnony) November 20, 2013

And the grand prize goes to the lovely @arikagranger ! I'll direct mail you in a second with the next steps.
— DanaholicsAnonymous (@DanaholicsAnony) November 20, 2013

UPDATED: OUR BIGGEST COMP YET: Win a Book Sleeve Signed by Evanna Lynch

We hoped we could offer our last prize of a programme for the stage show 'Houdini' signed by Evanna,but she ended up putting our admin Niamh's name on it. Whoops! So now we're giving away a signature she got back in 2011 at the last London Harry Potter premiere!

Interested? To enter, comment and share on the site here, like us on facebook and share this post on Facebook, or follow us on twitter and tweet this post. Any one of the three options is fine.

Furthermore, we will be giving away a second prize of a programme from the stage show Houdini which Evanna starred in recently.

A Look at Our Competition So Far...

We previously reported that we would be giving out quite a large number of prizes and for a steady week or so we did just that. The flow of prizes is slowing down a tad now as the prizes run out, but they will start flowing again soon!

In the meantime, here’s a sample of some the prizes awarded so far, along with a few responses from winners, some on winning, some on receiving their prize in the post. Mingled with these will be Potterhead origin stories as this was the aim and reason for this competition; to share experience and Potterdom!

Day 2: First 4 Dan Radcliffe Posters, which were won by Joane. Her thanks is seen above.

Her Potter story is below:

Day 4s winner has also received her prize and sent the following message:

She had won Telling Tales: An Interview with JK Rowling. She was a Potterhead from the start and was waiting for her lil bro to see the first film to get into it too!

Another winner, Mitch has just received his prize today of a Harry Potter address book and a Lego Harry Potter keyring:

Chloe, who won a set of old newsletter signed pictures of Dan Radcliffe, posted this thanks:

Rhys, much like myself got into the series through the first film. He has received one of the two Potter PC games he won.

Finally, our last winner, Wendy, hasn't received her prize yet, but she also shared her story of Potterdom. She won the August Teen Vogue that had Emma Watson as it's cover star.

(Other winners included Laura and Andrea).

Latest Danaholics Competition So Far!

It's Day 5 of our latest competition  in just 10 mins so here's a round-up so far! Still gathering Potterhead awakening stories but we have winners for days 1 to 3 and waiting for confirmation on day 4!

Day 1's prize of a Harry Potter Teddy went to Andrea, Day 2's Daniel Radcliffe posters went to Joanne and Day 3's Telling Tales: JK Rowling went to Jeanina!

Plenty more to come so check out the info here!

Upcoming Competition Where you Can Win Great Potter and Dan Prizes!

Summer 2013 Competition:
With our 7th birthday swiftly approaching this September, and 7 being a magical number, I've decided to run a bigger than ever competition. Beginning in the summer with tidbits such as posters, keyrings, Inishmaan leaflets and stickers, there'll be more substantial prizes to come including books and whatever else I can lay my hand on! Also, as always, we will have exclusive pics of Dan framed to give away, including some new ones we took at the Cripple of Inishmaan stagedoor.

Stay tuned for more!

Daniel Radcliffe Starts 'Cripple of Inishmaan' Run: EXCLUSIVE DANAHOLICS REVIEW

On June 8th last, Daniel Radcliffe had his first performance of The Cripple of Inishmaan at the Noel Coward Theatre London.
Our admin Niamh went along and below is her review. She also took a video at the stagedoor which can be seen at the bottom of the page. As the show is in previews, the review is reasonable and as it was written during the interval and immediately afterwards, it is a bit disjointed and over enthusiastic so bear with us!

Interval: so far the play,the acting and above all, the accents are superb. Daniel captures the movement of a person with a condition such as Billy's with ease. The ticks,the strained walking looks so realistic.

He had one or two minor slipups with the accent,but no single person from an area sounds exactly the same as another and this only occured on more passionate speech.

The costumes and scenery(which is on a rotated circle) are perfect for the era. Dan indeed has a bowlcut hairdo like i predicted!Overall the actors capture the black comedy of the piece,and are extremely talented.

Daniel, he seems,as always, to understand the innocent hope and optimism that defines Billy. Like it or not he's too good at playing orphans to stop!

Dan's performance hit overdrive in act 2! In particular his first scene and his second last are passionate and his movements as always are believable- what i mean is he is clearly in physical and emotional trauma.

 

Still kind of raging (annoyed in Irish slang) I didnt get to return to the stagedoor on the Monday night before it was over and get a good position. Wanted to tell Dan that his accent was good etc.

Happy Christmas and Hanukkah and thanks for everything!!!

Just as I sign off for a few days, I would like to wish you a Happy Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Happy holidays to every single special one of you that has followed, liked, subscribed and read our stuff over the year and I hope to keep all of you informed of the latest Potter cast news,films,images etc well into next year.
I recorded a very badly edited (and honest, i guess) Christmas message to you all which you can view below:

Hoping to bring you a new competition in the new year with lots of goodies and hope you have all the peace and gifts you want and deserve at this time of year!

UPDATE:Danaholics' 6th Birthday Competiton Begins With a Burst of Enthusiasm!

We've been fringing on announcing this since our sixth birthday in September, but now it is official: The latest incarnation of Greatest Follower Ever is under way!
The competition began with a bang a few minutes ago when our first question was answered within a matter of minutes!
Vanessa from Germany answered our question: Who wants to win a copy of Labyrinth by Kate Mosse to read before @TomFelton 's show comes out? Just be the 1st to tell us what character he plays.
For further details go here.
Stay tuned to our Facebook and twitter for more questions coming soon!

UPDATE:
Our second question went live tonight and two people answered mere minutes apart, one on facebook and one on twitter. The prize, Julie Walters' biography was won by Marissa from Canada!

There will be another question going on the Facebook and twitter simultaneously tomorrow evening! Stay tuned in either place to win.

Danaholics Celebrates Six Years Online-Competition for Greatest Follower Ever Part 5-First Prizes

Hey guys!
New followers, old followers, continuing followers, I LOVE YOU ALL! Therefore we are going to kick off celebrations(albeit,a bit late) by running a new competitions for fans! We have started adding info to our competiton section (which you can view here) of previous competions so you can get a looksee of the kind of stuff you have to do to win and what types of prizes we have offered.
Details havent been finalised yet of how you win, but I have begun adding items to the kitty.
Firstly we have some books;
For you Tom Felton fans, we have a copy of Labyrinth by Kate Moss, the book his upcoming Sky miniseries is based on.
For Molly Weasley actress Julie Walters buffs we have here Autobigraphy ..And Thats Another Story.
I'm sure you all have Beedle the Bard by now, but a copy is up for grabs anyway.
More bits will be added here in due course.

In memorabilia, we will be lining up posters, stickers, etc when we have gathered together what we have. We still have a couple of those exclusive Deathly Hallows moneyboxes lying about so they will be up for grabs.

We will also most likely do up a few more Danaholics exclusive images of Dan and other cast members to be framed.

Stay tuned for more!
Your loving admin,
Niamh

An Apology for Lack of Recent Updating To the Loyal Reader

Dear Loyal reader,
This post comes after at least two months infrequent posting. In the last few months, the twitter has been the main source I have used to bring you the Potter news and the blog has been rather bare. This has occured for a few reasons;
Firstly, I undertook a course over the summer that ate up my time like nobody's business, and this came to a cresendo in August. This course, and the exams in the first two weeks of September, gave me literally no time, except for weekends to do anything other that work or study. It was also a computer course which often left me hating the very technology I use to write this blog.
Secondly, and perhaps more detrimentally, our internet of late has been perilously slow, being of the USB mobile phone company kind. A single page takes an enternity to load and pictures or videos cannot be uploaded. This seriously threatened the integrity of my posts, mainly due to the fact that updating of an evening would often include several stories from different fansites, none of which could be loaded together. This can be seen as my own fault for deciding to expand from just Dan news (which is scarce) to the extended cast. This crappy internet leads to the last reason for how bad Danaholics has become:
my lack of real funding to improve the service. I am an unemployed student living at home and therefore rely on my parents to provide internet(which they think should not exceed a monthly cost of 20euro) and my little money cannot always be spent on mobile top-up. Therefore, when my monthly credit runs out, i cannot continue the retweeting i do on the twitter. Twitter is the final survival space of Danaholics and when that goes, we run seriously out of date.
I am not looking for charity or sympathy with this post; I am simply apologising in hopes that you, o loyal reader, will remain faithful and keep reading Danaholics.
I promise to update the last two months to the best of my ability for Daniel,Rupert,Emma,Tom and Matthew Lewis who are our most popular tags on the site and keep up to date as much as possible from now on. There will also be a competition(which I am aware I promised this month in honor of our 6 years online in various places) in October, so stay tuned!
Your ever loving Admin,
Niamh x

Danaholics vist the WB Studio Tour and Cover the Grand Opening

PHEW! That was a crazy few days for me (admin Niamh) and my friend Daniel in London! With little sleep and no computer I couldn't do this report when i got home yesterday, but here it is!
We were live-tweeting Saturday and trying not to spam you to much as we had a fit about the WB Studio Tour!
Danaholics first visited the Studio Tour itself and we will be throwing up all those photos soon on our Picasa account. Left is my favourite of us in the Great Hall.
The Tour was amazing and although we later worked out everything wasn't there we had a fabulous few hours walking around the sets.
A few comments;
The Great Hall is the start and first heart attack of the tour and includes a nice snippet of costumes from all four houses and some key teachers.
I was a bit insulted to find out Seamus' bed was missing from the boys common room among the Gryfinndor sets!

Butterbeer tastes fabulous and we both wished we could have it all the time.
One of my favourite bits was the green screen area where you get to see yourself driving the Weasley Ford Anglia and flying a broom...
The outdoor sets were especially fun as you could board the Knight Bus, sit in the Weasley car, ride Hagrid's motorbike and stand at 4 Privet Drive.
Creature effects and art works were second last on the tour.
The finishing bit is perhaps the most depressing as its the amazing awe-inspiring 34:1 model of Hogwarts...and they play the sad music too!!
the shop is AMAZE and has everything you could possibly ever want!



Next was the Grand Opening Red Carpet event, which we didn't see the entirety of because we spent so long in the studio! It felt kind of epic to leave as it was really beginning and casually walk past the press interviewing Rupert Grint and Tom Felton and say hi! Rupert waved back so, yay!
I am not a completely useless reporter however as I got some screen shots from the big screen and these will also be in the photo album. For interviews etc, consult our earlier post about the leading (lucky-with-press-passes) website reviews.

UPDATE: 4TH April
Sorry for the delay, uni work hit a premium the last few days when I returned from London! We now have almost 80 pictures in this album and the 'general WB studio tour coverage' from the sites is up now here.
We still have loads more pictures for you, so stay tuned!

In Case You Weren't Excited Enough About the @WB_StudioTour opening....

They just had to go and kill us some more with another quick motion video of the entire studios;


We will be covering the opening (and the tour) starting around i'd say 11-ish on March 31st as that is when me (your admin Niamh) and my Potter pal Daniel will be boarding the Shuttle bus!
We will be live-tweeting images and comments as we tour the studios and take in the red carpet arrivals, so follow us at https://twitter.com/#!/DanaholicsAnony if you aren't already and you can get up to the minute response by signing up for text alerts (totally free of charge) by clicking 'get texts' on the top of our twitter!
It's amaze..i use it to keep updated!
Remember to send us question suggestions by tweet for Rupert,Bonnie,Evanna and Tom and we'll try to get them asked!

More WB Studio Pictures Released; Danaholics Specualte About Red Carpet Event

I have just broken my Lenten fast to get this photo, left. WB Studio's Facebook has posted a brand new photo of the studio tour suggesting on their wall that they would post some more, getting us all excited for the March 31st opening. Thanks to HarryPottersPage for the tip.

Which gets me thinking about the red carpet event we were informed of a few days ago. Matthew Lewis is set to film Wasteland up until the 31st March, probably ruling out his participation. Who else might go? Rupert? Rowling? Daniel Radcliffe is set to be filming Kill Your Darlings in New York, most probably ruling him out too. Emma's plans are up in the air atm, but who knows maybe she'll make an appearance? And what about crew? Will Oscar nominated Stuart Craig turn up? David Heyman is a shoe-in as he always turns out for these events and is basically the head of all things Potter!
We will continue to speculate as cast and crew's plans become more clear.
Send us your thoughts! Here and on Twitter!

EXCLUSIVE BREAKING NEWS; Grand Opening for WBStudioTour to Include a Red-Carpet Event!UPDATE:You can win tickets for a special area

Warner Bros emailed me recently asking me to call them for information on OPENING DAY. I had previously requested information and got no reply.
Here is the news;
there is to be a "red-carpet event" being held in the afternoon for the official opening. They previously had decided against it, but have changed their mind. They didn't reveal too much (and I'm sworn to secrecy anyhow) but they said they will release an official statement to the press "shortly" and it will appear on their twitter and their website.
KEEP YOU POSTED!

Reminding you of course that we will be in attendance opening day and will bring you exclusive pictures etc from the awesome studio!

UPDATE 11TH MARCH
Nearly a month ago, we exclusively broke the news that for the Grand Opening of the WB Studio Tour, there was to be a red-carpet event. There still hasn't been any word on who's attending (we have speculated on this ruling out Dan,Emma,Matt Lewis,Tom Felton and the Phelps twins) but WB just updated the tour website offering you the chance to win 1 pair out of 250 pairs of tickets for an exclusive section of the red-carpet! More details can be found here.

UPDATED:NEW DANIEL WOMAN IN BLACK IMAGES!TOTAL FILM INTERVIEW,NEW INTERNATIONAL POSTER!

Mugglenet posted the first of these images with the Hi-Def poster (which i previously saw at Snitchseeker) today. Both can now be found in our Dan-Dan-Dan album here, while left is the migglenet picture which was sent to them by Momentum Pictures.
Our second image today is a sneaky shot i got of one sexy image accompanying a new total film article on the upcoming chiller. I will attempt to get either online links or scans for you now.You can see a preview at their website here and a better version of the image accompanies it.
I ALSO SPOTTED THIS NEW Woman in Black Poster on the Total Film site which is now on the twitpic here.
All will be posted in the Dan album.
SNITCHSEEKER posted scans earlier today which can be downloaded and read from here and here.They posted another few promos which can also be found in our Dan album. In the interview Dan dispels rumours of attachments to The Amateur Photographer and a remake of All Quiet on the Western Front.

UPDATE #2 23RD DEC:OUR CHRISTMAS GIVEAWAY SO FAR! 6 DAYS IN!

We're just over half way there, and I'm sure we'll have a few happy campers in the New Year when we send out prizes!
Day 1's winner was;@RadcliffeRules, number 5 was picked, which was a framed Danaholics exclusive picture!
Day 2's winner was; @DanRadExaminer, They have gotten back to us picking number 3, which gave them a choice..
Day 3's winner was;@mchandradcliffe, Meliani. She has responded for us to pick a number for her, so we picked 8...she wants her present to be a suprise so we'll update when she knows!
Day 4's winner was;@MsOwlAteMusic, Saoirse. She is yet to respond.
Day 5's winner was;@LauraLollipop96, Laura. Again, as this was only yesterday we are waiting for a response.
Day 6's winner was: @Debbie_Chesney,Debbie,who knew and RT'd for her prize of a Half-Blood Prince poster-=Congrats!
Day 7's winner was:@cathyxxmh ,Cathy. She rt'd and won subject dividers for a folder-Congrats!
Just posted Day 8, so have a look and see if you want the present we're offering today, if so just RT it, either by pressing the RT button or just copy and paste with RT in front.

As this progresses and people pick their numbers we'll tell you of their presents! From Day 7 to 10 we'll have a specific present up for grabs and based on RT'S we'll decide who wins!
We'll also post Day 6 and 7's winners asap and will post pics of the prizes when their decided on,and ask the winners to sen in pics in the new year!

DANAHOLICS 10 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS!

I revealed long go that to celebrate 10 years of Potter/you lovely people/5 years of Danaholics and more I decided to run a Christmas competition; and here it is:
Every day for 10 days, the best of you will be randomly chosen (if you don't want a gift, just say so and we'll pick another) as a TRULY GREAT FOLLOWER, and will get to choose a number between 1 and 10 to receive a random Harry Potter prize! I will try to make them un-crappy as I can, but limited funds means that they'll probably be something small or something I already have!
Sound good?? Please let me know your thoughts! We have previously run a few competitions that went well,so please accept my thanks with your prize!