Be still my beating heart

This week was almost too much fun with its many happy coincidences. After a surprisingly good time at WOMAD 2007 with an old friend and her Senegalese bands, I met Greg Grunberg, Masi Oka, Sendhil Ramamurthy and Ali Larter of the hit TV series Heroes in Singapore, and discovered that my favourite Doctor and Star Trek captain will feature together in one of Shakespeare's classic plays!

Thanks to my awesome marketing colleagues who've been managing our sponsorship of the TV series in Asia, I attended a Star World gala for the Heroes World Tour in Singapore. Though mostly star struck, I managed to snap some photos, stammer a few words, and even seized the opportunity to pitch for more (better?!) sci-fi programming on Star World 8). For those interested, there's a little recap of the Singapore Heroes tour over here and in the slideshow below. The Straits Times also published a Heroes feature in Satuday's Life! on Sept 1 - paid registration needed for the online article, but you can check out their vodcast here. Overall, the local fan response for Heroes was mind-boggling though many complained that the cast's public appearance in Vivocity was too short (10 mins!)

Meanwhile, the Royal Shakespeare Company just announced that Chief Associate Director Gregory Doran will lead the second ensemble in 2008 productions of A Midsummers Night's Dream, Hamlet and Love's Labour's Lost, featuring the return of Patrick Stewart as Claudius (aka Captain Picard and Professor X) and David Tennant as Hamlet and Berowne (currently the Tenth Doctor). On top of that, there's just been fantastic news for Doctor Who fans who've been rather anxious at the prospect of Ten's "departure", myself included! Even still, this won't stop me from planning a "Shakespearean sci-fi" trip to the UK next fall ;)

Lastly, it's not all play and no work! Ovi by Nokia, a brand new mobile internet services business, was launched this week at Go Play! Check out the Singapore Straits Times vodcast on N-Gage and this Business Week article on Nokia Barges into Mobile Services and Times on Nokia to Take Apple at its Own Game.