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Six degrees of Angela Dotchin or, how not to track down rumors - Lord of the Rings news - J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings

September 09, 2000 at 18:27:14

It's been a wacky 24 hours. We heard that Xena: Warrior Princess was being cancelled and then, hooray!, the fans had saved the day and the show is not being cancelled. And we've learned more about Angela Dotchin than you can imagine, but we still have no idea of whether she'll appear in George Lucas' 'Star Wars: Episode II' or Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings'.

While scouring New Zealand news sites for Angela Dotchin stories, we learned that in April a writer decided that the world-famous New Zealand soap opera Shortland Street could serve as the basis for a Six Degrees game. Did you know more than 2,000 actors had appeared on the series? We didn't know New Zealand had 2,000 actors (no offense intended to our Kiwi friends).

Then we learned that Robyn Malcolm was helping to form a national acting troupe called the New Zealand Actors Company with Simon Bennett, who helped nurture the budding career of Angela Dotchin on Shortland Street (and she now not only stars in her own syndicated television series, Jack of All Trades, she occasionally directs for Shortland Street).

Malcolm, you may recall, won brief international recognition when it was discovered she had been given a small role in Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings". She even received some followup attention.

While cruising around the official Jack of All Trades Web site we noticed that Stephen Papps, who plays the ruthless and luckless Captain Brogard, also happened to co-write the play "Blowing it" with LOTR co-writer Stephen Sinclair.

And then one shouldn't overlook the fact that the talented Ms. Dotchin also co-starred with Kevin Smith in "Lawless 2", a telemovie made and broadcast in New Zealand. Smith has appeared as Ares and Hercules' mortal brother Iphicles on numerous episodes of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess, and Young Hercules.

So, there appear to be no news stories about Ms. Dotchin and any upcoming blockbuster movies in New Zealand, but she and her 2,000+ Shortland Street compadres don't lack for publicity or international appeal. Maybe if the New Zealand Defense Forces don't come through for Peter Jackson, he can hire the Shortland Street Irregulars to fill in as hobbits, Rohirrim, and Dunedain for his "Lord of the Rings" movies.