The Saturday briefing

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

- by CAROLINE FORD

Is there anything you're yearning to know? Send your questions, on any subject, to the contacts given below, and we will do our best to answer them...

I read that Tom Holland was injured during a stunt while filming the new Spider-Man film and it made me wonder if there are any other actors who have been injured doing their own stunts.

Robert Brannigan, Carlisle, Cumbria

While many actors wisely leave the dangerous stuff to professional stunt performers, some brave, or perhaps foolhardy, actors doing their own stunt work.

Actors like Jackie Chan and Tom Cruise are famous for performing their own stunts, and both have been injured multiple times.

In 2017, Cruise broke his ankle during a roof-jumping stunt in London for Mission: Impossible 6. Martial arts film star, Chan, has injured his eye and neck while on set, broken his back sliding through a glass plate in Police Story and fractured his skull while filming Armour Of God in 1986.

Sylvester Stallone was taken to hospital following a fight scene with costar Dolph Lundgren in Rocky IV and Michelle Yeoh tore a knee ligament filming a rooftop chase sequence for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Sadly, some actors have died while working, including Roy Kinnear in 1988, after he fell from a horse during the filming of The Return Of The Musketeers. In 1993, Brandon Lee, son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee, was killed on the set of The Crow.

Michael Crawford’s stunts as accident-prone Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em are legendary.

He nearly suffocated in one stunt, after being buried in a lorry-load of sand. However, Crawford’s most significant injury occurred in his Las Vegas show EFX in 1995, when he slid down a wire and jumped onto stage. The stunt led to a hip replacement and his departure from the production.

Has Britain's Official Secrets Act, which relates to Rudolf Hess, been extended to 2041?