Russell Crowe and Helen Mirren at State of Play UK premiere

Russell Crowe and Dame Helen Mirren lit up the UK premiere of State of Play in Leicester Square last night. Crowe, sometime poet, musician and all-round renaissance man, looks like he's taking the opportunity to recite some verse – Wordsworth's Daffodils perhaps? – into Dame Helen's ear Photograph: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

In State of Play, Russell Crowe plays an investigative reporter chasing a story on a full-blown conspiracy between the US government and a shadowy corporation, enduring a few bollockings from Dame Helen Mirren's hard-nosed editor along the way. But here, they seem to have made up enough to do a Mamma Mia!-style dance Photograph: Mike Marsland/WireImage.com

Hold the front page! State of Play is directed by Kevin (Last King of Scotland) Macdonald, and is a transatlantic refit of the acclaimed BBC TV series. Whereas the newspaper in the miniseries was modelled on the Guardian, the Washington Globe in the film is a stand-in for the Washington Post Photograph: Dave M Benett/Getty

Here, Russell Crowe appears to have taken a leaf out of the Tom Cruise How to Be the Star of Your Film Premiere self-help book. Here he is applying tip No 6, Say Cheese, Not Cheesy, with the People Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

Another day, another premiere ... yesterday Tamara Ecclestone was warping it up with the Star Trek posse. Here she's joined by Robert Montague for the State of Play do Photograph: Dave M Benett/Getty

What's in your dossier? Mariella Frostrup keeps a firm grip on budget leaks Photograph: Dave M Benett/Getty

Here's Charles Dance at the State of Play premiere, to keep our spuriously journalistic thread alive – he scooped (geddit?) a part in Woody Allen's Scoop in 2006. OK, so not such a scoop after all Photograph: Ferdaus Shamim/WireImage.com

Here's Dame Helen Mirren again, but this time squired by young Dominic Cooper. Maybe she picked up some of his Mamma Mia! moves Photograph: Daniel Deme/EPA