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His timing, for instance, was legendary – every um and er was absolutely deliberate. “His voice is a sort of mid-Western twang, but it’s unlike any other,” surmises David Lynch. “Many people have done imitations of it, but lots of the timing of the phrases and the word-structures are just unique to him… It’s really great timing he’s got.”Metzstein highlights Stewart’s great breadth as an actor. “If you see a Charlton Heston performance, there’s an incredibly narrow range it’ll be in; he’s only going to play an invincible guy with a big jaw. Stewart lets inadequacies creep into his roles – that makes him greater In westerns, he was much more complex than John Wayne.

Stewart could be great in more types of films than most stars.”`James Stewart – Last of the Good Guys’ is on BBC2 at 6.35pm on 23 Dec and repeated at 1.50pm on 2 Jan. A season of his films runs throughout the festive period on BBC2 See our Christmas Film Guide, p50-53. Shepherd’s Bush Green is often viewed as a down-market Clapham Common, but get beyond the Tube and there are treats in store for the unsupecting visitor

There aren’t many places in London whose name, in the abstract at least, evokes a warm, seasonal sort of feeling. There are no Christmas Roads or Baby Jesus Avenues in the A to Z.

Nominally, the best that London has to offer is Shepherd’s Bush, a location with admittedly tenuous festive connotations which is badly in need of some festive kitsch and glitter. But a look beyond the bounds of the world’s most neglected patch of grass reveals an area of west London with a friendly face and a cosmopolitan history.
First impressions of Shepherd’s Bush are not good. The Central Line exit from the Tube spits you out onto the charmless racetrack of the Uxbridge Road, which forms one side of the Shepherd’s Bush Common triangle. The common itself was a popular venue among the homeless for a night’s sleep and, at the turn of the century, around 250 people bedded down there each night.