Diary: Sheriff Matthew lives on

We had it on rather good authority that Matthew MacFadyen was miffed to find his role in Ridley Scott's Robin Hood was minimal. Fair enough: Macfadyen was awarded the part of the legend's iconic villain, the Sheriff of Nottingham. But instead of being asked to let loose his inner Alan Rickman, his involvement was restricted to a few short scenes. However, when Diary collared him at the West End opening of Ghost Stories, a petrifying new play co-written by one quarter of The League of Gentlemen, the Spooks star assured us that, far from being peeved, he was overjoyed to find he'd had a stay of execution. "I was due to die," Macfadyen explained, "and then I got the script through and I survived; it was something of a curiosity to me. I can't imagine why they didn't go through with killing me off." If Scott's planning a Sheriff-heavy sequel, he'll have to wait for Macfadyen to finish with his next star-studded remake, The Three Musketeers, in which he'll play the alcoholic Athos. "And no," he adds, "I wasn't a Dogtanian fan".