Radio Times
type: channel
link: https://www.radiotimes.com
date: 2026-01-09T07:01:08.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: What Lisa Kudrow really thought about fame and success before Friends defined her
items: Jennifer Aniston raw, unfiltered and as you've never seen her before: "It's irksome to be called beautiful"
items: Pauline Collins: "Sometimes you’re chosen for your flaws"
items: Pauline Collins: 'Sometimes you’re chosen for your flaws'
items: Prunella Scales: 'I'm terrified of everyone – well, a bit'
items: Prunella Scales on her marriage to Timothy West, Fawlty Towers and why TV sitcoms were her "least favourite form of work"
items: Jilly Cooper: "I just think I'm a drip with no confidence"
items: Dame Jilly Cooper: 'I just think I'm a drip with no confidence'
items: Patricia Routledge: 'I'm a cynical realist - I can't stand all the luvvie stuff'
items: Dame Patricia Routledge: 'I'm a cynical realist. I can't stand all the luvvie stuff'
items: Ozzy Osbourne in 2002: "I'm the working-class hero – not bad for a guy from Aston"
items: From the archive: 'Mad and Bad in Beverly Hills'
items: 'The press tried to say I was wicked': Behind the real Princess Margaret
items: John Hurt's last interview with Radio Times
items: Life on the Road: is Ricky Gervais "milking" David Brent?
items: Ronnie Corbett in his own words
items: Dad's Army is back – but does it work on the big screen?
items: Miriam Margolyes loves retirement in India, hates being called a celebrity
items: Robert Lindsay and Maureen Lipman reflect on the fickle fortunes of television fame
items: Denis Healey: "I rather regret I never tried but I didn’t want to be prime minister"
items: Jenna Coleman: "You're in Doctor Who knowing it will never last"
items: Call the Midwife's Jenny Agutter: "I do love playing a nun"
items: Miranda Richardson on her role in BBC1's period comedy Mapp and Lucia
items: Miriam Margolyes on success, sexuality – and meeting will.i.am
items: Anna Chancellor: Who cares about rejection? Your mistakes make you
items: Jean-Jacques Burnel on why the Stranglers are playing at the BBC Proms
items: Gregg Wallace and John Torode on the enduring success of MasterChef... and their relationship
items: Helen Hunt on getting naked in The Sessions as a sex surrogate

What Lisa Kudrow really thought about fame and success before Friends defined her
type: item
date: 2026-01-09T07:00:35.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Comedy
subject: TV
subject: Interview
description: Before Phoebe became stratospherically iconic, Lisa Kudrow was navigating motherhood, money and a fame she never actively pursued. This rarely candid, unearthed interview gives a strikingly unfiltered look at ambition, insecurity and the pressure of the public eye.
encoded: It's 1999 and Friends is in its fifth season. Lisa Kudrow has shot to stardom as Phoebe Buffay and is making her first foray into the world of film. But she's reluctant to let the success of Friends define her career – or her marriage. With disarming frankness, she opens up to Radio Times about balancing fame with family life. This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine in 1999. OK, she’s a 35-year-old blonde actress who plays Phoebe, the ditzy, aspiring but tuneless folk singer with new-age pretensions in one of the world’s most popular sitcoms, but when she studied biology at the prestigious east-coast college, Vassar, she had only one ambition: to meet a bright, rich man. “That’s how superficial I was,” she sighs. “The whole point was to marry good merchandise, so we could have genetically appropriate children. I thought everything was figured and mapped out, that my husband would be intellectually superior to me and successful so I could pursue whatever career I wanted. A lot of women go about their lives like that.” So what happened? “Well,” she says, playing with her hair and smiling to reveal traditionally impeccable Hollywood orthodontistry, “I went into acting.” Not that she wanted to at first. She planned to follow her father, Lee, a renowned headache specialist, into medicine. “Actors seemed idiots and so phoney. I’d seen them on talk shows discussing their troubled personal lives. Of course, we all have problems to some extent – no one is living in a fifties sitcom – but actors examine them more. I assumed they were dumb and the profession might change me into someone who isn’t the best parent or spouse.” But after joining an improvisation company in Los Angeles, the Groundlings, her views changed. “I realised everything has value and finally asked myself the question, ‘Why?’ which puts life into perspective. ‘Why does my husband have to be intellectually superior? What if I just love him, you know.’” Reasonable enough. Then what? “Oh…

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Jennifer Aniston raw, unfiltered and as you've never seen her before: "It's irksome to be called beautiful"
type: item
date: 2026-01-02T07:00:34.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Comedy
subject: TV
subject: Interview
description: This is the one where Jennifer Aniston gave one of her most candid interviews.
encoded: It's the summer of 1997. Friends has been airing for almost three years and its popularity is almost unprecedented. Jennifer Aniston, along with her five co-leads, is one of the most famous actors in the world. Still relatively early in her Hollywood career, she sits down with Radio Times to talk life, love and fame – and proceeds to give one of her rawest interviews to date. This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine in July 1997. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2030/12/GettyImages-138427197-39b7d1b.jpg" width="2407" height="3000" alt="Jennifer Aniston with shoulder-length layered hair and subtle highlights crouches on the floor, resting her chin lightly on her hand. She wears a sleeveless grey vest, dark wide-leg pants, and black lace-up shoes. She looks directly at the camera with a calm, confident expression against a plain light background." title="Friends star Jennifer Aniston" /> She is known the world over as rich-kid Rachel from Friends, instantly recognisable on account of that haircut. But, unlike her screen counterpart, Jennifer Aniston hasn’t had it easy. Cultural phenomena come in all shapes and sizes, and America’s First Haircut must be one of the most enchanting as she curls herself foetally, knees tucked insouciantly under her chin, in a London hotel suite previously “cased” by her minder, to discuss life and other imponderables, such as success. “It’s a bit of a shock for anyone,” says Aniston, who plays Rachel, the rich girl turned waitress in Friends. “I don’t think it’s changed me, although others assume it has, and treat me differently. I’m still the same person – but a bit happier because I’m doing what I love, and have a healthier bank balance. "Some actors strive for fame, but I find it surreal and silly. When I see myself on a magazine cover I don’t think it’s me – just someone doing a job, who’s all glammed-up. I find it boring having to talk about myself. It’s amazing that all of a…

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Pauline Collins: "Sometimes you’re chosen for your flaws"
type: item
date: 2025-11-07T15:10:01.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Movies
subject: Magazine
description: In 1996 the late Pauline Collins hosted RT's Andrew Duncan in her home in Hampstead, north London, for an interview.
encoded: This article was first published in Radio Times magazine in October 1996 to promote Screen Two drama Flowers of the Forest. She is indelibly "mumsy" and probably always has been, a robust woman even though only 5ft 2in, slightly wary and a bit defensive at times, so it was no surprise when she wagged a finger at me and warned, "If you use the words ‘nutty’ or ‘wacky’ I shall be very cross." We had escaped temporarily from the rigorous subject of her first television performance for four years — as an expert in the satanic ritual abuse of children — to a more comforting although abstruse discussion of radionics, a form of healing based on the theory that every organ of the body gives out vibrations that can be diagnosed. Ho hum, I think, as she says sternly, "I have found that it works. It’s been used on horses for years. It used to be called ‘putting your horse on the box’. They take a piece of hair, or clipping from a hoof, put it in a box and send it to the practitioner who ‘douses’ it to find out what’s wrong. The same process works with humans. If you go to a practitioner in person, he puts a metal plate on the stomach and uses a machine in order to get vibrations through his fingertips." It sounds very "alternative", I suggest. "You are scoffing, Sir," she replies. "I knew you would. Why are you scoffing?" We are at her home in Hampstead, the notorious north London epicentre of nutty… sorry, avant garde ideas. "There are lots of alternative things," she continues. "Chinese medicine has been going for a million years and now they agree it works. Why are people so suspicious? Most men have a sceptical nature. John [Alderton, her husband] has. I think we should be far more sceptical about putting all those chemicals and antibiotics into our bodies. I’ve used homeopathy since I was 40. Nothing specific was wrong, but I felt tired, like a car that needed a good service." She hoped to keep her mind in equal trim by studying physics, but this was doomed. "It was hard …

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Pauline Collins: 'Sometimes you’re chosen for your flaws'
type: item
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: App
subject: App features
description: In 1996 the late Pauline Collins hosted RT's Andrew Duncan in her home in Hampstead, north London, for an interview. The subheading read: "Nice, normal and happily married for nearly 30 years, Pauline Collins was made for the role of Shirley Valentine. But her career takes a sombre turn when she plays a child abuse expert in this week's Screen Two"
encoded: This article was first published in Radio Times magazine in October 1996 to promote Screen Two drama Flowers of the Forest. Add Shirley Valentine to your watchlist She is indelibly "mumsy" and probably always has been, a robust woman even though only 5ft 2in, slightly wary and a bit defensive at times, so it was no surprise when she wagged a finger at me and warned, "If you use the words ‘nutty’ or ‘wacky’ I shall be very cross." We had escaped temporarily from the rigorous subject of her first television performance for four years — as an expert in the satanic ritual abuse of children — to a more comforting although abstruse discussion of radionics, a form of healing based on the theory that every organ of the body gives out vibrations that can be diagnosed. Ho hum, I think, as she says sternly, "I have found that it works. It’s been used on horses for years. It used to be called ‘putting your horse on the box’. They take a piece of hair, or clipping from a hoof, put it in a box and send it to the practitioner who ‘douses’ it to find out what’s wrong. The same process works with humans. If you go to a practitioner in person, he puts a metal plate on the stomach and uses a machine in order to get vibrations through his fingertips." It sounds very "alternative", I suggest. "You are scoffing, Sir," she replies. "I knew you would. Why are you scoffing?" We are at her home in Hampstead, the notorious north London epicentre of nutty… sorry, avant garde ideas. "There are lots of alternative things," she continues. "Chinese medicine has been going for a million years and now they agree it works. Why are people so suspicious? Most men have a sceptical nature. John [Alderton, her husband] has. I think we should be far more sceptical about putting all those chemicals and antibiotics into our bodies. I’ve used homeopathy since I was 40. Nothing specific was wrong, but I felt tired, like a car that needed a good service." She hoped to keep her mind in equal trim by studying phy…

Prunella Scales: 'I'm terrified of everyone – well, a bit'
type: item
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: App
subject: App features
description: In January 1995 the late Prunella Scales met RT's Andrew Duncan at the Savoy Hotel in London to talk about her marriage to Timothy West, Fawlty Towers and why TV sitcoms were her "least favourite form of work". The subheading read: "Quite unlike the acerbic Sybil Fawlty, Prunella Scales is modest, self-critical and rarely given to passionate outbursts. Just don't call her a 'luvvie'…"
encoded: This interview was originally published in January 1995 to promote BBC Two series Signs and Wonders. Add Fawlty Towers to your watchlist She appears apprehensive as she walks into the River Restaurant at the Savoy Hotel. There is not a hint of the regal hauteur or shrewish snobbery she brought to her two most well-known roles - the Queen in Alan Bennett's Single Spies, and Sybil, which still resonates 20 years after Fawlty Towers. There is no reason why there should be. She has played innumerable characters (in the four-part thriller Signs and Wonders she is the anguished mother of a girl who is seduced by a mind-bending cult) and is one of Britain's most versatile and best-loved actresses. "Being a character actress means you're not very pretty really," she says softly, smiling. She and her husband, actor Timothy West, envy their 28-year-old son Sam, also a successful actor, because, she adds, "he'll never lose a part through not looking good enough, which has happened to both of us. A blow to the ego? Yes, but you tend to think, 'Here we go again.' There's a wonderful line by Thornton Wilder: a 12-year-old girl is rubbing her cheeks to make them look attractively pink and her mother tells her, 'Stop that. You're quite pretty enough for all normal purposes.' I think I'm quite pretty enough for all normal purposes." As she sips champagne, she seems ill at ease and asks, "Does this make everyone terribly indiscreet by the time pudding arrives?" I hope so, I reply. She is introspective and shy, but given to bursts of good humour which light up her whole face. "I'm terrified of everyone. Well, a bit," she insists. "Most actors I know are deeply unsure of themselves. Vulnerability is more important to us than confidence." Surely not, when she's had a career as successful as hers? "Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish," she says quickly, raising her voice. "We're slaves to opportunity. It's very much a matter of luck. Tim and I are extraordinarily lucky, but there have been many di…

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Prunella Scales on her marriage to Timothy West, Fawlty Towers and why TV sitcoms were her "least favourite form of work"
type: item
date: 2025-10-28T11:15:25.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Drama
subject: TV
description: First published in the 1990s, this archive interview sees the late Prunella Scales reflecting on Fawlty Towers, family life and fame.
encoded: This interview was originally published in January 1995 to promote BBC Two series Signs and Wonders. She appears apprehensive as she walks into the River Restaurant at the Savoy Hotel. There is not a hint of the regal hauteur or shrewish snobbery she brought to her two most well-known roles - the Queen in Alan Bennett's Single Spies, and Sybil, which still resonates 20 years after Fawlty Towers. There is no reason why there should be. She has played innumerable characters (in the four-part thriller Signs and Wonders she is the anguished mother of a girl who is seduced by a mind-bending cult) and is one of Britain's most versatile and best-loved actresses. "Being a character actress means you're not very pretty really," she says softly, smiling. She and her husband, actor Timothy West, envy their 28-year-old son Sam, also a successful actor, because, she adds, "he'll never lose a part through not looking good enough, which has happened to both of us. A blow to the ego? Yes, but you tend to think, 'Here we go again.' There's a wonderful line by Thornton Wilder: a 12-year-old girl is rubbing her cheeks to make them look attractively pink and her mother tells her, 'Stop that. You're quite pretty enough for all normal purposes.' I think I'm quite pretty enough for all normal purposes." As she sips champagne, she seems ill at ease and asks, "Does this make everyone terribly indiscreet by the time pudding arrives?" I hope so, I reply. She is introspective and shy, but given to bursts of good humour which light up her whole face. "I'm terrified of everyone. Well, a bit," she insists. "Most actors I know are deeply unsure of themselves. Vulnerability is more important to us than confidence." Surely not, when she's had a career as successful as hers? "Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish," she says quickly, raising her voice. "We're slaves to opportunity. It's very much a matter of luck. Tim and I are extraordinarily lucky, but there have been many disappointments - shows failing, not g…

Jilly Cooper: "I just think I'm a drip with no confidence"
type: item
date: 2025-10-06T12:55:22.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Books
subject: Interview
description: In 1996 the late Jilly Cooper welcomed RT's Andrew Duncan into her Gloucestershire home for a memorable interview over lunch.
encoded: This article was first published in Radio Times magazine in April 1996, when Jilly Cooper featured on Radio 3's Private Passions as her novel Appassionata was being released. What more is there to say about Jolly Jilly, the everlasting Essex girl [born in Hornchurch, but brought up in Yorkshire], gap-toothed and voluble, batty about animals who she claims love her more than people, flattering as only the deeply insecure can be? It takes a heart of stone not to preen at all those, "Gosh, you are brilliants", even though you realise she says it to every boy, girl, dog, cat, and cockatoo for all I know. She has enough compassion to fuel a nunnery and enough sexual imagination to empty it in a hurry. Her latest bonkbuster, Appassionata, does for the world of orchestras what her previous four have done for showjumping, polo, television and toyboys in her fictional county of Rutshire, and includes many of her familiar heroes such as dastardly Rupert Campbell-Black. It is a world of divinely masterful men, women who worry about their breast size, characters twee at times and robustly sexual [there’s a coupling on the glockenspiel] at others. Her husband Leo, a publisher of military history who spends a few days each week at his London office, says her own life is entwined in her fiction (her sadly departed dog Barbara is forever immortalised as the mongrel "Gertrude"), and although he skims the books – he is only human – he coined the pun "sex and Chopin" for Appassionata. Her mother adds that she was always attracted to preppy, blond, upper-class cads. Certainly, her own life is a sitcom, only more amusing and, sometimes sadly, over the top. It would be tempting, in this cynical age, to believe it is all a good marketing ploy, but the glorious thing about her is that she is genuine. No one could pretend to be that seriously dippy. On the other hand, could anyone that seriously dippy spend three years writing such long books? Real life is a mystery, so we might as well rel…

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Dame Jilly Cooper: 'I just think I'm a drip with no confidence'
type: item
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: App
subject: App features
description: In 1996 the late Jilly Cooper welcomed RT's Andrew Duncan into her Gloucestershire home for an interview over lunch. The subheading read: "Jilly Cooper, like a character in one of her novels, mixes in circles where everyone is wealthy, famous or aristocratic. But what lies beneath that jolly, dotty veneer?"
encoded: This article was first published in Radio Times magazine in April 1996, when Jilly Cooper featured on Radio 3's Private Passions as her novel Appassionata was being released. Add Rivals to your watchlist What more is there to say about Jolly Jilly, the everlasting Essex girl [born in Hornchurch, but brought up in Yorkshire], gap-toothed and voluble, batty about animals who she claims love her more than people, flattering as only the deeply insecure can be? It takes a heart of stone not to preen at all those, "Gosh, you are brilliants", even though you realise she says it to every boy, girl, dog, cat, and cockatoo for all I know. She has enough compassion to fuel a nunnery and enough sexual imagination to empty it in a hurry. Her latest bonkbuster, Appassionata, does for the world of orchestras what her previous four have done for showjumping, polo, television and toyboys in her fictional county of Rutshire, and includes many of her familiar heroes such as dastardly Rupert Campbell-Black. It is a world of divinely masterful men, women who worry about their breast size, characters twee at times and robustly sexual [there’s a coupling on the glockenspiel] at others. Her husband Leo, a publisher of military history who spends a few days each week at his London office, says her own life is entwined in her fiction (her sadly departed dog Barbara is forever immortalised as the mongrel "Gertrude"), and although he skims the books – he is only human – he coined the pun "sex and Chopin" for Appassionata. Her mother adds that she was always attracted to preppy, blond, upper-class cads. Certainly, her own life is a sitcom, only more amusing and, sometimes sadly, over the top. It would be tempting, in this cynical age, to believe it is all a good marketing ploy, but the glorious thing about her is that she is genuine. No one could pretend to be that seriously dippy. On the other hand, could anyone that seriously dippy spend three years writing such long books? Real life is a mys…

Patricia Routledge: 'I'm a cynical realist - I can't stand all the luvvie stuff'
type: item
date: 2025-10-03T12:38:18.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Interview
description: In 1994 the beloved star of stage and screen sat down with Radio Times ahead of playing a medieval abbess for the BBC.
encoded: This article was first published in Radio Times magazine in March 1994, to promote the BBC programme Omnibus: Hildegard. She sips champagne (“I began to go on the wagon, but it’s so boring”), and insists on photographs being taken before lunch because, she explains with a most un-Hyacinth Bucket lack of social awareness, “I won’t need to worry about getting gravy on my chin. Why am I being interviewed? I don’t enjoy talking about myself and I don’t want to discuss ‘it’. If I find you putting words into my mouth, I’ll have your guts for garters,” she laughs. “But don’t worry. I’m a cynical realist. Scepticism keeps everything toned up, don’t you think?” Putting on glasses to read the menu, she adds, “Let us see what is afoot.” She uses a lot of quaint expressions, and there is humour behind her formidable pose. “Heavens,” she shrieks – well, almost – “Sauce diable. I won’t walk out because I want a good lunch, but it’s not appropriate when I’m working on it.” ‘It’ is at first sight, Patricia Routledge admits, an unlikely subject for a TV drama documentary – St Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th-century German abbess, no less. It would be a mistake, but yawn if you must. Indeed, when she mentioned the idea to producer James Runcie, with whom she’d worked on a programme about Barbara Pym, he asked, “Who the hell is she?” Her reply was direct: “Ask your dad” (James’s father is Robert Runcie, former Archbishop of Canterbury). “I didn’t expect anyone to take it seriously, but six months later he said, ‘I know you’re busy with Keeping Up Appearances being a big success, but what about this Hildegard?’” So it comes to pass that this Tuesday there will be an Omnibus programme, Hildegard, about one of the most remarkable women of the Middle Ages, a scholar, composer, sainted exorcist, preacher, ecologist, writer, musician, and poet. “I’d never heard of her until 1986, when someone gave me a cassette of her music and I became absolutely hooked on its purity,” she says. Hildegard, the…

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Dame Patricia Routledge: 'I'm a cynical realist. I can't stand all the luvvie stuff'
type: item
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: App
subject: App features
description: In 1994 the beloved star of stage and screen sat down with Andrew Duncan of RT ahead of playing a medieval abbess for the BBC. The subheading read: "Hyacinth would approve: here's Patricia Routledge sipping champagne after a day's filming in Canterbury Cathedral. But the actress is far less interested in keeping up appearances…"
encoded: This article was first published in Radio Times magazine in March 1994, to promote the BBC programme Omnibus: Hildegard. Add Keeping Up Appearances to your watchlist She sips champagne (“I began to go on the wagon, but it’s so boring”), and insists on photographs being taken before lunch because, she explains with a most un-Hyacinth Bucket lack of social awareness, “I won’t need to worry about getting gravy on my chin. Why am I being interviewed? I don’t enjoy talking about myself and I don’t want to discuss ‘it’. If I find you putting words into my mouth, I’ll have your guts for garters,” she laughs. “But don’t worry. I’m a cynical realist. Scepticism keeps everything toned up, don’t you think?” Putting on glasses to read the menu, she adds, “Let us see what is afoot.” She uses a lot of quaint expressions, and there is humour behind her formidable pose. “Heavens,” she shrieks – well, almost – “Sauce diable. I won’t walk out because I want a good lunch, but it’s not appropriate when I’m working on it.” ‘It’ is at first sight, Patricia Routledge admits, an unlikely subject for a TV drama documentary – St Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th-century German abbess, no less. It would be a mistake, but yawn if you must. Indeed, when she mentioned the idea to producer James Runcie, with whom she’d worked on a programme about Barbara Pym, he asked, “Who the hell is she?” Her reply was direct: “Ask your dad” (James’s father is Robert Runcie, former Archbishop of Canterbury). “I didn’t expect anyone to take it seriously, but six months later he said, ‘I know you’re busy with Keeping Up Appearances being a big success, but what about this Hildegard?’.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/10/keeping-up-appearances-9eba144.jpg" width="3951" height="2619" alt="Three women from Keeping Up Appearances — Hyacinth Bucket stands in the centre with a confident smile, flanked by her sisters Rose and Daisy, all dressed in bright 1990s outfits, posing cheerfu…

Ozzy Osbourne in 2002: "I'm the working-class hero – not bad for a guy from Aston"
type: item
date: 2025-07-23T14:00:18.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Entertainment
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: In light of the news of Ozzy Osbourne passing away at the age of 76, revisit this interview from when RT met the Prince of Darkness in LA in 2002 – after The Osbournes had made Ozzy a TV star.
encoded: This article was first published in Radio Times in October 2002. I arrive early, park outside the gates, notice two crosses carved into the front door and a bronze plaque that says, "Never mind the dogs. Beware of the owner." A police car pulls up and two men come out of the house to ask what I’m doing. Security is strict in the Beverly Hills street, off Sunset Boulevard, since the bizarre inhabitants of number 513 became the most sensational family on American television, outperforming Sex and the City in the ratings and winning an Emmy last month for outstanding reality series. The unlikely focus of The Osbournes is the family of a Birmingham-born heavy-metal star, the self-styled "Prince of Darkness", lead singer with Black Sabbath until he was fired and went solo in 1978, amassing an alleged £40 million fortune. Now Ozzy Osbourne's a shuffling testament to the ravages of alcoholism, drug addiction and indiscriminate sexual adventures. The interior of his house is mock Gothic – cherubs, stained-glass windows, crucifixes. Pictures of the family – wife Sharon (his manager), daughters Aimee, 18 (who declined to appear in the first series: Sharon says, "She’s the only sane member"), and Kelly, 17, and son Jack, 16, are arranged on a hall table. Photographs of dogs and cats line the circular staircase, with crosses on them. Such an animal lover, you might think, particularly when you watch him on TV stumble around trying to save a herpes-ridden cat from coyotes. Perhaps it’s an attempt at redemption – he once shot 17 of his cats in a drunken rage. He greets me wearing black tracksuit bottoms, T-shirt, crosses on gold chains round his neck, rings, including one with a Union Jack motif, and OZZY carved with a needle and lead from a pencil on to the fingers of his left hand when he was jailed for theft in his adolescence. His arms dangle by his side, fingers trembling, voice slurred and stuttering, myopic behind his round blue sunglasses, hearing impaired by years of dec…

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From the archive: 'Mad and Bad in Beverly Hills'
type: item
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: App
subject: App features
description: In light of the news of Ozzy Osbourne passing away at the age of 76, revisit this interview from when RT sent Andrew Duncan to meet the Prince of Darkness in LA in 2002 — when The Osbournes had made Ozzy a TV star. The subheading read: "Outrageous, exhibitionist, very rude… and a 'frightened little man'. Is there even more to the reality TV sensation than meets the eye?"
encoded: The Osbournes is on Amazon Prime Video. Add it to your watchlist This article was first published in RT in October 2002. I arrive early, park outside the gates, notice two crosses carved into the front door and a bronze plaque that says, "Never mind the dogs. Beware of the owner." A police car pulls up and two men come out of the house to ask what I’m doing. Security is strict in the Beverly Hills street, off Sunset Boulevard, since the bizarre inhabitants of number 513 became the most sensational family on American television, outperforming Sex and the City in the ratings and winning an Emmy last month for outstanding reality series. The unlikely focus of The Osbournes (already on MTV and beginning this week on Channel 4) is the family of a Birmingham-born heavy-metal star, the self-styled "Prince of Darkness", lead singer with Black Sabbath until he was fired and went solo in 1978, amassing an alleged £40 million fortune. Now Ozzy Osbourne's a shuffling testament to the ravages of alcoholism, drug addiction and indiscriminate sexual adventures. The interior of his house is mock Gothic — cherubs, stained-glass windows, crucifixes. Pictures of the family — wife Sharon (his manager), daughters Aimee, 18 (who declined to appear in the first series: Sharon says, "She’s the only sane member"), and Kelly, 17, and son Jack, 16, are arranged on a hall table. Photographs of dogs and cats line the circular staircase, with crosses on them. Such an animal lover, you might think, particularly when you watch him on TV stumble around trying to save a herpes-ridden cat from coyotes. Perhaps it’s an attempt at redemption — he once shot 17 of his cats in a drunken rage. He greets me wearing black tracksuit bottoms, T-shirt, crosses on gold chains round his neck, rings, including one with a Union Jack motif, and OZZY carved with a needle and lead from a pencil on to the fingers of his left hand when he was jailed for theft in his adolescence. His arms dangle by his side, fingers trem…

'The press tried to say I was wicked': Behind the real Princess Margaret
type: item
date: 2018-09-11T15:59:33.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Author Andrew Duncan recalls his 1969 meeting with the Queen's sister – and what her thoughts were on the future of the monarchy
encoded: I first met Princess Margaret nearly 50 years ago, when I wrote to her asking to meet in connection with a book I was researching, perhaps optimistically and arrogantly called The Reality of Monarchy. I’d travelled with the Queen and Prince Philip to various parts of the world, talked to them at functions and interviewed several members of the family. She agreed immediately. I found her then, and in subsequent meetings, amusing, relaxed and helpful, not at all the allegedly imperious, controversial and mocked royal figure of popular imagination. She was 39, in a difficult marriage to photographer Lord [Tony] Snowdon. The pair were the “black sheep” of the family, a prominent, elderly royal told me. Another senior royal added, “God’s tooth, what a narrow squeak Margaret wasn’t the older daughter. A catastrophe. How long would the monarchy have lasted if Snowdon had been consort? Dreadful, dreadful.” When is The Crown season 3 on Netflix? Who is in the cast, and what is going to happen? The true story of Princess Margaret’s ‘forbidden love’ for Peter Townsend Netflix teases a first look at Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret in The Crown series 3 Apartment 1a Kensington Palace, where she and Snowdon lived, was not lavish, although £85,000 [nearly £2 million today, a quarter of which was paid by the Queen] was spent on refurbishing it before they moved in. Princess Margaret rented four rooms to her husband for his work. There was just one spare bedroom. The drawing room looked out onto the garden. There were two large sofas with a drinks trolley behind one and a desk jumbled with papers. Underneath the desk was a shopping basket and a handbag. Objets d’art were cluttered around the room and the focal point was a black grand piano, where Margaret would sing of an evening to the delight of some and the anguish of others. It was covered in photographs of the family. “Hello, waiting for Princess Margaret? I’m sorry she’s keeping you waiting.” It was Viscount Linley, …

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John Hurt's last interview with Radio Times
type: item
date: 2017-01-28T15:48:00.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: Radio
subject: TV
subject: audio
description: Speaking to Radio Times after first being diagnosed with cancer in 2015, an upbeat Hurt discussed his life, career, recent knighthood and current work
encoded: This morning brought the sad news that legendary British actor Sir John Hurt has died, aged 77. Hurt starred in over 100 films during his career, notably The Elephant Man and Midnight Express, which garnered him Oscar nominations, Alien, 1984 and The Harry Potter movies, as well as TV including Doctor Who. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June 2015. In August of that year, an upbeat Hurt discussed his life, career, recent knighthood and current work on Radio 4’s Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell with Radio Times. Read the full interview below... "Insane?” asks the newly ennobled actor, Sir John Hurt. “I know I’ve gone mad at times. Of course I have. There’s a thin dividing line between that and sanity and you don’t know where you are a lot of the time. The line is fictitious, and alterable. You can move around within it.” Thus begins another rollicking conversation with one of our most distinguished actors, twice nominated for an Oscar (Midnight Express and The Elephant Man), winner of four Baftas (including for The Naked Civil Servant), an incarnation of Doctor Who in 2013, and wand merchant Mr Ollivander in several Harry Potter films. He admits some of his 200-plus credits have been “stinkers” for money to finance a hell-raising life, now curtailed, with mates like Peter O’Toole, Oliver Reed, Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon. He was surprised to be knighted by the Queen last month. “I did nothing to encourage it,” he says, and after a pause adds mischievously, “Some people do, you know.” It would be indelicate to discuss names, but we know those who have turned it down. “Albert [Finney] refused because he says he’s only just got used to being called ‘Mr’. And so did Paul [Scofield]. They’re not agin’ it, but didn’t want it for themselves. “I like being Sir John – it works, doesn’t it? Or John. The only thing that sticks in my craw is when people say ‘Mr Hurt’. I tell them it’s no longer correct.” Yet, vanity seems alien to him. For years he refused to have a mirro…

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Life on the Road: is Ricky Gervais "milking" David Brent?
type: item
date: 2016-08-19T06:57:00.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Movies
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: Interview
description: The creator of The Office admits he'll "have to kill off Brent soon" – but not quite yet
encoded: Ricky Gervais, control freak, failed pop star, astute businessman, multimillionaire comedian, seems the perfect interviewee – unprotected by aides – answering every question with wit and a few giggles. He says he doesn’t care what people think. “I know that sounds arrogant, but it’s the opposite. There’s nothing I can alter if someone doesn’t like me.” Nevertheless, the façade slips as he launches into a foul-mouthed tirade against critics. “I know I’m a grumpy old man. Maybe it’s genetics and we’re programmed to get grumpy at 55.” He warns he’ll tweet this interview “as a marketing tool, if you haven’t slagged me off”. He is frequently trolled on Twitter, which is some sort of accolade. “Twitter can also be used as an awareness campaign for the few things that make my blood boil – animal cruelty, injustice and religious intolerance. “Twenty years ago, it would have taken ten years standing outside Tesco to get 100,000 signatures. Now you do it in a few days. That’s social media at its best – people caring and making a difference. “Sometimes, though, when I’m bored I take a picture of myself in the bath, so I can’t get on my high horse and claim I always try to change the world.” View oEmbed on the source website There are scribbled notes on the inside of his left wrist – prompts from the previous evening when he tried out a 30-minute routine in a 400-seat theatre for a proposed tour later this year. “If Hollywood never called again, or TV dried up, I’d do stand-up, which I love,” he says. “I don’t know if I’m sane or not. I think I am, but then so do insane people. “The truth is, I don’t care. I’m happy. Even if I hadn’t won awards and made money, I couldn’t have spent my life better, playing at what I love, writing and directing. I even feel good paying tax. “That doesn’t mean I like it, but if I earn a million I should share it with the government. As a working class kid, I got free schooling, university and healthcare.” The council house boy from Reading, whose …

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Ronnie Corbett in his own words
type: item
date: 2016-03-30T22:01:00.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Comedy
subject: News
subject: TV
description: As the celebrated comedian passes away aged 85, here's a classic 2011 interview from the Radio Times archive
encoded: With the sad news that Ronnie Corbett has passed away aged 85, we're taking a look back at the comedy icon through this wide-ranging interview from 2011, where Corbett discusses his early days, struggles with ageing and impressions of modern comedy. I’m in a dismal, carpet-stained conference centre in East Croydon on a wet weekday afternoon about to meet a hard-of-hearing 80-year-old comedian. Life doesn’t get much more exciting than this. Ronnie Corbett, national treasure with a tinkling cackle and a jaunty skip that belies his age, explains he wants to meet here because it’s near his home, easy parking, and without the bustle of strangers who might accost him, forcing him to whip out his mobile phone and pretend to talk portentously on it to avoid contact. Not that he’s unfriendly – far from it – but time is limited and he wants to concentrate. The Two Ronnies… Although The Two Ronnies ended in 1987 after 16 years, he’s had a renaissance since a 2006 appearance in Extras with Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. “I was caught snorting cocaine in a toilet,” he laughs. “Anne [his wife of 46 years] wasn’t sure. It could have gone the wrong way, but the saving grace was Moira Stuart being my supplier. Last December the BBC spent a lot of money celebrating my 80th birthday, which was nice, and then I did The One Ronnie, a Christmas Day special. Now ITV have snatched me from the jaws of the BBC. That wasn’t difficult. I’m up for anything if it’s interesting and attracts me.” One recent venture is a sitcom When the Dog Dies [the second series is currently on Radio 4 Extra]. “I love radio and have done a little bit for years – since Workers’ Playtime in the 1950s. It’s also a good springboard for comedians.” He’s garrulous, a rare entertainer more interested in others than himself, and keeps asking questions: have you been on holiday? Where do you live? How did you get here? A master of non sequiturs, he meanders into riffs that have nothing to do with our conversation. Th…

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Dad's Army is back – but does it work on the big screen?
type: item
date: 2016-02-05T09:00:00.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Movies
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Toby Jones, Bill Nighy and Catherine Zeta-Jones talk about living up to the expectations of fans around the world.
encoded: It must have seemed like a good idea at the time – take some of Britain’s best-loved actors, including the expatriate Catherine Zeta-Jones, and make a feature film based on the iconic half-hour television sitcom, Dad’s Army, which ran for 80 episodes from 1968 to 1977, watched by up to 18 million viewers, with two million still enjoying repeats. How could it fail? Jimmy Perry, now 92, who devised and co-wrote the TV series with David Croft, as well as It Ain’t Half Hot Mum and Hi-de-Hi!, says, “When I heard they were going to make a film I thought, ‘Oh dear’. They are very brave. We had several meetings and I thought I should step back and let them get on with it. I’m a television person. Film is not my cup of tea. The 1971 film version didn’t work somehow. David said he missed the live audience. It’s marvellous, though, that people want to do stuff.” Steady chaps. Don’t panic. First they recruited the actors. “I was impressed with the excellent cast”, says Perry. Toby Jones, 49, and 5ft 5in [The Hunger Games, Captain America, an investment banker in last year’s Capital on BBC1], originally turned down the part of pompous Captain Mainwaring. “You have to be cautious taking on such a project, because there’s an enormous fondness for the show. We all thought it was mad to try to re-create it. Then I saw the script and cast and it became a selfish decision of mine to accept: there are some very funny situations, and I assumed the other actors would help me look good.” Bill Nighy [Sergeant Wilson] was swayed by the chance to work with “the brilliant” Jones and Michael Gambon [Private Godfrey]. “He’s so amusing. We’d sit on the beach at Bridlington, east Yorkshire, [where filming took place], and he’d make me laugh until I couldn’t speak.” Catherine Zeta-Jones had a nostalgic motive for playing a glamorous journalist, Rose Winters, allegedly sent by The Lady magazine to report on the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard patrolling the Dover coast to thwart a beach invasion from …

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Miriam Margolyes loves retirement in India, hates being called a celebrity
type: item
date: 2016-01-26T11:52:00.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The actress talks about her new series The Real Marigold Hotel and life in India
encoded: Miriam Margolyes, her irrepressibility covering up for shyness, doesn’t allow political correctness, career prospects or tact to inhibit her. She’s an overweight, rip-roaring blast of good humour, sense, and explicit language, which sounds innocent coming from her girlish voice, who spent three weeks in Jaipur, India, with seven other over-60s, for a three-part series to test the opportunities for retirement there. She arrives for lunch at a fashionable London restaurant hugging a two-litre bottle of sparkling water, and orders smoked salmon and fish of the day from waiters who are instantly attentive to her. “We all worried about how we’ll come over because we work in television, but I didn’t modify my behaviour. Now...” she says, clipping a napkin holder round her neck, “so I don’t spill food on my breasts. They’re 44G. Or even F. Huge.” She has no inhibitions, was once a life model at an art school, and the voice of Sexy Sonia in a soft-core audio production. But we digress, as is often the case with her. “Please don’t call us celebrities,” she continues. “I detest the word. I worried because all except me have been in some ‘celebrity’ programme. I’d never do that, even though I’ve been offered a very great deal of money [she earned £10,000 for this show]. I don’t like the title. It’s stupid to be associated with the Marigold films [The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and last year’s sequel, about a group of ageing expatriates in India] because it leads to false expectations. I wanted ‘Eight Old Farts in India’. We might get a pasting from the critics. They’ll say, ‘Who do these people think they are?’ I won’t watch because it will annoy me and I can’t deal with looking at myself on television. It’s a supreme horror.” She loved the experience, however. “I accepted because I wanted to visit India again. We all ended up with a profound admiration for the country, its wonderful people, and felt privileged. Of course we were apprehensive in the beginning. The group are n…

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Robert Lindsay and Maureen Lipman reflect on the fickle fortunes of television fame
type: item
date: 2015-10-21T13:12:46.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Comedy
subject: News
subject: TV
description: As the pair return to comedy for new series Bull, they take a look back over their storied careers
encoded: The cordial political tussle starts sooner than I imagined. Two articulate, outspoken, good-humoured, Labour-supporting actors, Robert Lindsay and Maureen Lipman, are watching the lunchtime television news at Pinewood studios when Tony Blair is interviewed. "Your hero," Lindsay mutters, with some disapproval. "I wouldn't go that far," says Lipman. "That's not what you said to me the other day..." he replies. They leave it there, for a while. They're filming a three-episode sitcom, Bull, in which Lindsay plays the eponymous owner of a dysfunctional antiques shop and Lipman is his sister and incompetent assistant, Beverley. All morning she's been reshooting a scene where she sits in a chair, smoking herbal cigarettes incessantly ("probably half of 30 this morning"), pretending to be knocked forward by a cuckoo clock and telling a potential employee, "We'll let you know." "I can take it. I'm a masochist," she says, adding ironically, "I'm glad I did all that work on Shakespeare at drama school." She and Lindsay are perfect foils at 69 and 65 respetively, old enough to be honest and admit unexpected fame made them both insufferable for a while, and also to discuss how therapy helped. He is reserved, watchful at first; she is immediately lively and irreverent. View oEmbed on the source website He told a Hay Festival audience in 2013 that he had little respect for his profession, apologised for being an actor, and says he'd like to give it up. "Actors always say that, especially as we get older. What is it with us? There's that awful realisation, 'What else could I do?' Look at Angela Lansbury, still touring at 89. She's probably gone, 'I'm no good at DIY, can't cook very well...'" "Bob and I are old technicians," Lipman says, "but we tempt fate and it's our defence to say we're doing no more, but there's not an actor alive who doesn't want the phone to ring with a nice – or even a rotten – job. We don't know what to be when we're not acting, even though it's sometimes no…

Denis Healey: "I rather regret I never tried but I didn’t want to be prime minister"
type: item
date: 2015-10-06T12:30:57.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Current Affairs
subject: News
subject: TV
description: "I went into politics because I wanted to stop a third world war, and you have to be a politician to do that"
encoded: Denis Healey died on 3rd October 2015 aged 98. This interview was first published in Radio Times in May 2015 Baron Healey of Riddlesden [“Call me Denis”] opens the door of his large home in East Sussex and, leaning on a stick, the 97-year-old former defence secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer and deputy leader of the Labour Party, leads me into his conservatory. “What’s all this about?” he asks, as he shuffles along. I explain it’s a four-part BBC2 documentary commemorating the 70th anniversary of VE Day and a tribute to men and women, like him, born in the First World War who lived through the Depression, fought in the Second World War and whose stoic achievements helped create modern Britain. He stops, turns to stare at me beadily through large bifocals, smiles, and asks, “What’s the French for ‘balls’? Oh, I know – couilles.” It’s a splendid summing-up of his personality – humorous, learned, self-mocking and pithy – harking back to a time before spin doctors extracted the personality from politicians. "I never worried about dignity – ever." He was on The Morecambe and Wise Show, "made a fool of myself" with Dame Edna Everage and Mike Yarwood, and appeared in a Sainsbury’s ad for smoked salmon and champagne. "They paid me £30,000. Obviously that’s why I did it. I was called a champagne socialist because I’ve a nice house but I’m not a great drinker of champagne." We sit in two comfortable, but very low, armchairs and I begin to shout at him. Even so, I’ll have to repeat questions 27 times in 45 minutes although, when he does hear, he bats back answers with alacrity. His memory is sharp and he gives a number of responses identical to those I’ve heard before. He even vaguely remembers a lunch we had 26 years ago when he introduced me to porcini mushrooms – exotic in those days – and said he would buy some the following month in Florence. He’s frail, as to be expected, and mostly toothless. "I have dentures, but don’t wear them. I have enough teeth for my purposes…

Jenna Coleman: "You're in Doctor Who knowing it will never last"
type: item
date: 2015-09-18T10:50:00.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: Sci-fi
subject: TV
description: Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman reveal the secrets of their successful partnership as Doctor Who returns to BBC1
encoded: Note: This interview took place before the announcement of Jenna Coleman's departure from Doctor Who They're an incongruous couple, perhaps one of the most unlikely pairings on television: he's 6ft: she's 5ft 2 and sometimes has to stand on an apple box when they're filming together. He's 57, cadaverous, an Oscar winner and a bit battered by life; she’s 29, fresh-faced, cherubic. He was the foul- mouthed enforcer Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It (2005–12) and lead singer in a punk band the B*****ds from Hell; she was a demure acquaintance of Prince Harry last summer (they had tea at a polo match), and was in Emmerdale for four years. This week, the 12th Time Lord, Peter Capaldi, and his companion Clara Oswald, played by Jenna Coleman, begin the ninth series of Doctor Who since its 2005 revival. Their relationship is at the heart of the show and, he explains, "It has no equivalent in TV or fiction, a friendship between an alien creature and an extremely bright, clever and brave young woman. It's unusual for a man of my age to be friendly with such a youthful lady. She wants to go out into the universe and enjoy herself, happy to be reckless and in danger. I was so lucky it was Jenna because it might not have worked with anyone else. It's tricky to come into a long-established show, especially as the lead, and Jenna has proved to be a wonderful actress and friend." She recalls they had lunch together after the hype and secrecy surrounding his role. “I’d no idea who would take over from Matt Smith, and when I was told it was Peter, it was one of those ‘aha, that makes sense – genius’ kind of moments. But the first thing he said to me was, ‘There will be no romance in the Tardis.’” He smiles. They spark off each other in an easy way. He’s self-effacing and seems curiously vulnerable; she’s lively and confident. “I was keen there shouldn’t be a romantic element,” he says. “It would have been completely creepy. It’s fine if you have handsome young men like Matt and David…

Call the Midwife's Jenny Agutter: "I do love playing a nun"
type: item
date: 2015-01-18T07:00:00.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: “Downton isn’t something I’ve watched much. It’s a wonderful fantasy of English life, but we [at Midwife] are reality, albeit a bit removed"
encoded: Jenny Agutter invites me to a gastropub in Camberwell, an outpost of south London, near to where she and her Swedish property developer husband, Johan Tham, have lived for 14 years. “People think Camberwell doesn’t exist because it’s not on the Underground. I nearly wore my ‘Bring the Tube to Camberwell’ campaign T-shirt. It’s a wonder- fully culturally mixed area, with every part of the world represented, and only 30 minutes from the West End. The vegetable store round the corner, run by a Greek Cypriot, even sells breadfruit, which used to be transported from the South Seas to feed Caribbean slaves because it’s high in carbohydrates.” Fascinating, I say, and she smiles. Now 62, slim and looking at least ten years younger, she’s been working since she was 11 years old, most famously as Roberta in The Railway Children at 17, and remains easy-going and gentle. “I’ve satisfied a lot of ambitions, but never wanted to be a big star. I wouldn’t have been good at it. For the Oscars you’re meant to walk down the red carpet, but I snuck in the back door. Not the thing to do!” She’s had long experience of interviews. Richard Harris, with whom she starred in The Snow Goose in 1971, advised her never to become bogged down with the truth (“It’s only entertainment”), but she has no artifice and denies her painful breakup with the late Patrick Garland, who directed the film and was 17 years her senior, precipitated her move to the US when she was 21. “People like to think you have to be kicked up the butt to do something different. I just felt like a new start.” But, first, more mundane considerations. She admits to a slight problem in her role as Sister Julienne (below) in Call the Midwife, which begins its fourth series today. “I keep asking if I can sneak in a pair of silk pyjamas to wear, but they’re very strict in the lingerie department so it’s just white winceyette and wimples for me.” Midwife, with its brutish sentimentality, nostalgia for the 50s and homilies (“Certainty…

Miranda Richardson on her role in BBC1's period comedy Mapp and Lucia
type: item
date: 2014-12-29T06:00:00.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Comedy
subject: News
subject: TV
description: “The trouble is I haven’t obeyed the rules or done things I’m supposed to do. I don’t like to repeat myself. No one was tough enough to say to me, ‘Shut up, calm down, this part will do you good, blah blah blah’"
encoded: Miranda Richardson and I have an afternoon rendezvous in a downstairs room (number 2; cost, around £400 a night) at a boutique hotel in west London with a king-size bed, walls prettily painted in historic green and Thai white, and a roll-topped Victorian bath with a rainfall shower. It’s the hotel where, in room 16, Kate Moss and Johnny Depp are said to have filled their bath with champagne. Perhaps Miranda, 56, and I could use it for a similar activity, although I’m not sure the BBC – whose PR rep sits guard on the bed – could stretch that far to publicise a three-part series based on EF Benson’s comic novels about cultural snobbery and English silliness in the 1930s. Indeed, such frivolity would be spectacularly out of place with Richardson, who is thankfully unpredictable, scorns celebrity, is personally and professionally independent and once warned me, “I don’t suffer fools gladly.” Today she promises that “This interview could go off in any direction,” as well she might, considering the weirdly inappropriate location. Richardson plays Miss Elizabeth Mapp, a cornucopia of middle-class gossip and envy, who rents her house, with its “library” of fake books, for the summer to the widowed Mrs Emmeline “Lucia” Lucas – played by an equally brilliant Anna Chancellor. The series, which captures the gentility and curtain twitching of the fictional seaside town of Tilling, is from a bygone age. No sex. No violence. “There’s an undertow,” says Richardson, smiling. “Do you mean it’s not like Hnormal telly? The writing is better?” Her face is transformed in the series by a set of protuberant false teeth that gives her fixed smiles a saccharine duplicity. “I kept breaking them when I took them out. Fortunately they are mendable and easy to talk with after you’ve let them settle for ten minutes. I’d put them in after make-up, wriggle them around my mouth, and there she blows. They put me in character.” The series, scripted by Steve Pemberton, was filmed mostly in the Citadel …

Miriam Margolyes on success, sexuality – and meeting will.i.am
type: item
date: 2014-11-03T16:40:00.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Comedy
subject: News
subject: TV
description: "I’m surprised I haven’t been more successful," says the Trollied star
encoded: Meeting Miriam Margolyes is always a joyous, outspoken occasion and now she’s 73 she says she has nothing to lose. “I’m here to answer any questions. I’ve burnt my boats and there they are – smouldering in public view.” We’re in the kitchen of her home in Clapham, south London, which she bought for £21,500 in 1973, and is now worth more than a million. It’s a patriotic road with plaques commemorating street parties for the birth of Prince George and a royal wedding. “I have the good fortune to get Christmas cards from Prince Charles and the organisers asked if they could exhibit one of them on a table. Certainly not! I do not put my Christmas cards out for public viewing.” She pours me a glass of tap water, rustles in the fridge for ice and lemon. “My cleaning lady has gone to Lourdes, so everything is a bit of a mess.” Like many voluble extroverts, Margolyes cowers under self-doubt, desperately wants to be liked, but is scared a lot of the time. She says she’s “appallingly selfish” and likes to shock, but is deeply sensitive. A mass of contradictions. “You’re not expecting consistency?” she chides, laughing. She’s a virtuoso of voices and her conversation is punctuated with accents. “I don’t practise them. It’s a gift.” Once the Queen asked her what she did and she replied, “I’m the best reader of stories in the world.” After the Queen had moved on, Margolyes kept talking. “Be quiet,” said the Queen, who’s possibly the only person who’s been able to silence her. Margolyes also owns a flat next door, a clifftop house on St Margaret’s Bay, Kent, two houses in Australia, one in Italy – “That’s five and a half,” she says, adding on her fingers. “I have to keep working because, although I have land, I’m not cash rich and don’t have the wealth of high- profile actresses – don’t say I’m an ‘actor’. That’s a bit too modern. I wish I had a million in the bank. I like round figures. I am a round figure. But I’m not eating my heart out. “I’m grateful to be working at my age, …

Anna Chancellor: Who cares about rejection? Your mistakes make you
type: item
date: 2014-02-25T15:51:38.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Comedy
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Prim and posh in Four Weddings, Anna Chancellor is passionate, outrageous and a breath of fresh air...
encoded: It’s the tea-time rush hour in west London and Anna Chancellor can’t find a parking place for “my crappy old Audi”, so she dashes into the restaurant and asks me to order sausages while she resumes her search. Alas, they only have hot dogs and I don’t reckon the stylish Ms Chancellor is a hot dog person. “You’re right,” she says when she returns. “I couldn’t take the sausage out of a hot dog because it would be floppy.” She smiles. “I want a normal one. I’m married to a Muslim and he doesn’t like pork. Is the overall impression that I’m a mad woman?” I resist replying, “No, just quackers” as she’s too often associated with her part as Duckface, the jilted bride in the 1994 film, Four Weddings and a Funeral. She is marvellously outspoken and vibrantly indiscreet (qualities slightly countered by requests of “Please don’t quote that”), but nevertheless delectable company, open and trusting. “I’m nearly 50, you know,” she says, proudly. She’s 48 and could pass for a decade younger. She scans the menu, can’t find her glasses, asks me to read it and orders steak and chips with a cup of black tea. “How sweet of you. I haven’t eaten yet today.” She has an aristocratic and moneyed pedigree. One of her ancestors was the brother of Jane Austen, her mother’s great-grandfather was Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, and her second cousin six times removed was Lord Byron. “My generation was at the end of an era. There had been money and titles, but there was none left, nothing to inherit, so we just bounced around with an open heart and a wonderful naivety. If I’d said I wanted to be an actress – and I am an actress, not an actor, ‘vive la différence’ – it would have seemed as unlikely as wanting to be an astronaut. I’ve always been a people pleaser although I hate that term. I’m mostly sunny, but there’s the other side to my optimistic and positive character. My grandmother [Lady Perdita Hylton] nearly killed herself with depression, which made Mum withheld and proud. I irritate mys…

Jean-Jacques Burnel on why the Stranglers are playing at the BBC Proms
type: item
date: 2013-08-12T17:07:00.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: audio
subject: News
subject: Radio
description: "Isn’t it ironic that the iconic BBC, which people call the Establishment, can be more adventurous than any other broadcaster? They take risks and that’s pretty cool"
encoded: He’s been jailed for three weeks in Nice for affray, spent a year experimenting with Class A drugs, delighted in bashing audiences with his Fender Precision bass guitar (“If gigs didn’t end in a riot, or we weren’t booed off stage, it wasn’t good”), punched an English journalist and debagged a disrespectful French one before gaffer taping him to the Eiffel Tower (“I only took him up to the first floor, though,” he explains later, as if in mitigation), so I’m a little wary of meeting Jean-Jacques Burnel, co-founder of punk group the Stranglers, though our encounter is less surprising than his upcoming performance with the band beneath the bust of Sir Henry Wood at the Proms, the first “alternative” group to appear there since Soft Machine in 1970. “JJ” cancels a first meeting near his holiday home in Montauroux, south of France (he has another house in Chiswick, west London) because he doesn’t want to risk riding his Triumph motorbike in a predicted storm. Next day, a smiling, polite, grey-haired man drives up in a Volvo with a copy of the Telegraph on the front seat. Heavens, JJ’s become a monarchist. In the 1980s he wrote Garden of Eden, about the Queen and her “useless children”. “Now,” he says, “I argue the case for constitutional monarchy, which I never thought I’d do. Take the p***s out of me as much as you like,” he adds, laughing. “It’s no longer the Stranglers against the world. It’s the Stranglers with a few friends.” Time (he’s 61) is the great mellower, and the Stranglers have morphed from being disreputable, aggressive and uncompromising, through a variety of musical styles, to become – almost – pop classics in the 39 years since they formed in 1974, as the Guildford Stranglers. He knows he’s lucky to be alive. “I’ve seen quite a few fall by the wayside and die... At uni [Bradford] I discovered karate and when I indulged in heroin and cocaine I reached rock bottom – everyone does. Fortunately I went back to karate and decided to clean up. I’m a six dan i…

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Gregg Wallace and John Torode on the enduring success of MasterChef... and their relationship
type: item
date: 2013-03-12T11:59:00.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: Reality TV
subject: TV
description: "We have our own lives, otherwise we’d morph into each other. I don’t want his personality, and he doesn’t want mine"
encoded: Gregg Wallace and John Torode start their ninth series of MasterChef this week, two unlikely celebrities hitched to a juggernaut television series broadcast several nights a week for the next two months. Ebullient Londoner Gregg, a loquacious connoisseur of the world’s worst jokes, and cerebral Australian (if that’s not an oxymoron) John, do not seem immediately compatible. John, 47, is tall and quiet. Gregg, 48, is not. Gregg’s tumultuous life includes being abused by a babysitter’s husband when he was eight, discovering at 14 that his real father was a work colleague of his mother, not the alcoholic husband with whom she lived. He left school at 15 with no qualifications, started a fruit and veg business that went bust for £7 million in 2004. John, brought up in suburban tranquillity in New South Wales by his grandmother when his mother died aged 31 from cardiomyopathy, came to England with his first wife when he was 25, and worked in various restaurants before opening his own, Smiths, in London in 2000. Perhaps the only similarity, apart from a love of food, is they’ve both had difficult personal lives recently. Gregg separated from his third wife Heidi last year after 18 months and a subsequent brief relationship with a glamour model, Cara Franco, ended after a few months. John and his second wife Jessica parted after four years. He has two children with each wife; Gregg has custody of two teenagers from his second wife, Denise (his first ran off with a flower market salesman after six weeks). Their partnership is strong, says John, because they never socialise together and haven’t visited each other’s homes. “We have our own lives, otherwise we’d morph into each other. I don’t want his personality, and he doesn’t want mine. We share a dressing room and are so close in the studio I can see inside his ears, smell his breath and know which aftershave he’s wearing. We have respect bordering on affection and hardly ever fall out. The longest debate we’ve had over co…

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Helen Hunt on getting naked in The Sessions as a sex surrogate
type: item
date: 2013-01-18T12:21:00.000Z
creator: Andrew Duncan
subject: Comedy
subject: Movies
subject: News
subject: TV
description: "It's a special movie and the shock [of her being naked] is part of it. I never thought, 'My God, I can't do this'"
encoded: Helen Hunt sits in a hotel room, her back to sunshine flooding through the window, so it’s hard to see her face properly. “How would you feel if I knit while we talk?” she asks, taking needles and wool from her lap. “I might seem like a crazy lady, but it’s a present for my daughter.” (Eight-year-old Makena’lei, which means “many flowers of heaven” in Hawaiian.) It seems incongruous to watch her knitting away while we discuss how she feels, aged 49, about spending most of her latest film stark naked, as a sexologist altruistically bringing a paralysed polio sufferer to sexual fulfilment. A last taboo – sex and disability? “I guess so,” she says. “Stupidly.” The Sessions, which has garnered Hunt both Bafta and Oscar nominations as supporting actress, is based on a 1990 article On Seeing a Sex Surrogate by the late poet and journalist Mark O’Brien (played in the film by John Hawkes). O’Brien was paralysed from the neck down after contracting polio when he was six. He hired a certified sex surrogate, Cheryl Cohen Greene, a married mum and now grandmother who is still working, to relieve him of his virginity at the age of 38. The sex scenes are leavened by a surprising amount of humour, particularly when O’Brien discusses his predicament with a Roman Catholic priest (William H Macy). Hunt was nervous, “but not so much that I didn’t show up. It’s a special movie and the shock [of her being naked] is part of it. I never thought, ‘My God, I can’t do this.’ I was so moved by the script. My partner [producer/director Matthew Carnahan, father of Makena’lei] read it and wept because he thought it was so beautiful. One obstacle was my self-consciousness but I had lunch with Cheryl, and she was very extrovert, so that’s how I play her. “I’d never heard of surrogates so I had no pre-judgement but I realised it’s serious work, which was a foot on the gas to get me through any nerves. Sex makes us nervous. We joke about it, have shame. They give this film an R-rating yet provide vi…

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