Radio Times
type: channel
link: https://www.radiotimes.com
date: 2026-01-02T18:24:37.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: What The Traitors format twist means for the rest of series four
items: Praise be for holy sleuths
items: Why can’t we get enough of TV's crime-solving vicars in the likes of Grantchester and Father Brown?
items: 12 underrated TV gems from 2025 – from The Assembly to Worlds Apart
items: What were the most underrated TV shows of 2025?
items: 'Joanna charms everyone'
items: Can TV be so bad it's good?
items: Austen powers
items: Dame Joanna Lumley reveals her vegetarian Christmas plans: "Wouldn't it be lovely if we didn't kill things at Christmas?"
items: Jane Austen’s enduring and universal appeal revealed by hit writers, from Pride & Prejudice 1995 screenwriter to David Baddiel
items: Bleeps and bloopers
items: As All's Fair season 2 beckons, critical contempt for the hit Kim Kardashian show misses the point entirely
items: What are embarrassing TV moments in an age where nobody actually gets cancelled and there's no such thing as bad publicity?
items: 'Martha has a secret'
items: Simply Fabulous
items: Truth found in Troubles past
items: Subtle, soul-searching dramas tackling Northern Ireland’s Troubles are proving that few escaped this era unscathed
items: Amandaland star teases Christmas special reunion for Absolutely Fabulous icons as Jennifer Saunders joins cast
items: Beyond Paradise 2025 Christmas special teased by star as Martha hides a secret
items: Through the looking glass
items: Do we really need another season of Line of Duty?
items: So, what should we expect from Line of Duty season 7? I have some questions
items: Let the music speak
items: Too close to the sun
items: Get rid of the BBC? Careful what you wish for…
items: The Celebrity Traitors final review: Treachery and tears make for TV perfection
items: Celebrity Traitors final review: Treachery and tears make for TV perfection
items: Why ‘hellraisers’ like Richard Burton, Oliver Reed and Peter O’Toole will always bewitch us
items: The Celebrity Traitors final looms – but will Alan Carr and Cat Burns outwit the Faithful?

What The Traitors format twist means for the rest of series four
type: item
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: App
subject: App features
description: The BBC's latest series of their most popular show puts the audience at the centre of the action
encoded: Add series four of The Traitors to your watchlist And there was me all worried that returning to a “normal” version of Traitors after the phenomenal success of the celebrity version late last year would be akin to Dorothy’s return home after her colourful detour to Oz – not quite black and white, but certainly a bit drab. Indeed, we may not get the psychedelic characters of freshly anointed national treasure Alan Carr, the world’s first knitter Tom Daley and the silence-breaking scene stealer Celia Imrie, nor the nation-stopping moment (YET!) of Nick Mohammed’s U-turn on Joe Marler, but many of my fears were quashed within five minutes of the start of the new series. 22 people met on a train and travelled to a castle… not all of them would survive. Such a formula never broke for Agatha Christie and her many emulators; why would TV producers mess in 2025? They haven’t messed, but they’ve certainly tweaked. Many reliable elements are in place: we have notice of a former acquaintanceship – Ross and Netty previously knew each other “through mutual friends”, whatever that means – and a secret mother-daughter connection, as well as a disproportionate number of Welsh people, some of whom may not even be faking their accents, unlike in previous series. The big twist was hanging in the air, though, and what a gem it proved. Of the 22 contestants, all of whom wanted to be Traitors, unlike in the celebrity version, Claudia tapped on the shoulders of cyber consultant Steve, communications guru Rachel and barrister Hugo. So gleeful were they in their green cloaks, until Claudia announced the presence of the red-cloaked traitor in their midst – not just someone who would be ordering who they murdered with a shortlist, but who knew who they were, while keeping his or her own identity hidden. What a wonderful onion layer of intrigue to add to the already timeless gifts of seduction, betrayal, treachery and to-face fibbing coming our way in the next few weeks. It also means that, fo…

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Praise be for holy sleuths
type: item
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Modern TV dog-collar detectives explore morality and human nature as well as solving crimes
encoded: Add Grantchester to your watchlist How can there be so much murder in one otherwise quiet country parish? The answer, of course, is that there can’t. You may as well wonder how Grantchester’s vicar fits in any actual vicaring between all his crime-solving, or if any real-life cleric resembles a studio-system film star like Alphy, the ITV drama’s latest, and likely final, “Maigret of the manse”. Grantchester returns this week for series 10, with number 11 confirmed to be its last – sad news for a show that has always carried its profound messages deceptively lightly. For regardless of its comely setting, Grantchester goes a lot deeper than may at first appear. James Runcie, the creator of the original books, based his fictional vicar Sidney Chambers on the duties of his own father, a pre-Canterbury Robert Runcie, for whom “death did come to the door. There wasn’t any murder, but it was a life for my father that didn’t involve clocking off”. The author once told me he set out to write what he called “the story of postwar Britain, a study of morality through stories of crime”. And, sure enough, since it began in 2014, the TV version has danced nimbly between sleuthing caper and romantic intrigue, midcentury mores clashing with private passions and, ultimately, the burdens and delights of personal and social responsibility. Against the chintzy period backdrop of dog walks and picnics by the Backs, the compassionate worldview shared by Alphy (Rishi Nair) and his policeman friend Geordie (Robson Green) would seem to belong to a more modern era, a long way from TV’s ecclesiastical sleuths of old. Thirty years ago, we had Derek Jacobi in Cadfael. While the drama’s cerebral Benedictine monk was gentle and wise in his sleuthing, he was forced to leave justice to the whims of the king and the outcome of a scrappy sword fight. Even more limited was Father Dowling Investigates, about a Catholic priest whose job seemed to be more of a plot device than a vocation – a lack of serio…

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Why can’t we get enough of TV's crime-solving vicars in the likes of Grantchester and Father Brown?
type: item
date: 2025-12-29T17:00:25.000Z
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: BBC
subject: Contains Trailer
subject: ITV
subject: Magazine
description: A cosy whodunnit on the surface, Grantchester — like Father Brown — uses village murders as a gateway to bigger questions of faith, morality and human frailty, proving TV’s clerical sleuths are about far more than solving crimes.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. How can there be so much murder in one otherwise quiet country parish? The answer, of course, is that there can’t. You may as well wonder how Grantchester’s vicar fits in any actual vicaring between all his crime-solving, or if any real-life cleric resembles a studio-system film star like Alphy, the ITV drama’s latest, and likely final, 'Maigret of the manse'. Grantchester returns this week for series 10, with number 11 confirmed to be its last – sad news for a show that has always carried its profound messages deceptively lightly. For regardless of its comely setting, Grantchester goes a lot deeper than may at first appear. James Runcie, the creator of the original books, based his fictional vicar Sidney Chambers on the duties of his own father, a pre-Canterbury Robert Runcie, for whom "death did come to the door. There wasn’t any murder, but it was a life for my father that didn’t involve clocking off". The author once told me he set out to write what he called "the story of postwar Britain, a study of morality through stories of crime". And, sure enough, since it began in 2014, the TV version has danced nimbly between sleuthing caper and romantic intrigue, midcentury mores clashing with private passions and, ultimately, the burdens and delights of personal and social responsibility. Against the chintzy period backdrop of dog walks and picnics by the Backs, the compassionate worldview shared by Alphy (Rishi Nair) and his policeman friend Geordie (Robson Green) would seem to belong to a more modern era, a long way from TV’s ecclesiastical sleuths of old. Thirty years ago, we had Derek Jacobi in Cadfael. While the drama’s cerebral Benedictine monk was gentle and wise in his sleuthing, he was forced to leave justice to the whims of the king and the outcome of a scrappy sword fight. Even more limited was Father Dowling Investigates, about a Catholic priest whose job seemed to be more of a plot device than a vocation…

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12 underrated TV gems from 2025 – from The Assembly to Worlds Apart
type: item
date: 2025-12-23T08:00:38.000Z
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: Documentaries
subject: TV
subject: List
subject: Magazine
description: The best of the small screen over the past 12 months that you might have missed.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. As well as this year’s biggest TV juggernauts – Adolescence (Netflix), The White Lotus (Sky Atlantic), The Celebrity Traitors (iPlayer) et al – we have been spoilt with some relatively undiscovered gems. Here’s my Deserving Dozen… 1. Confessions of a Brain Surgeon - iPlayer Pioneering neurosurgeon Henry Marsh quotes French doctor René Leriche, who wrote, “Every surgeon carries within himself a small cemetery… a place of bitterness and regret.” Now retired, Marsh’s regrets are both professional and personal, humble and honest. 2. Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action - Netflix How did the former Mayor of Cincinnati create a TV phenomenon that pitched itself as a champion of free speech yet stood accused of ruining US culture? Comparing himself to Oprah Winfrey, Springer said, “She does a talk show, I do a circus. Just no lions.” 3. Worlds Apart - Channel 4 Six young Brits each team up with a pensioner to travel across Japan, solve puzzles and try to win a £50,000 prize. They trade energy and wisdom in a reality show not about age, but compassion and comradeship. 4. Last One Laughing - Amazon Prime Video Ten comedians try to make each other laugh, while not smiling themselves. More proof that there’s nothing funnier than watching someone trying to keep a straight face. 5. Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius - iPlayer A fascinating two-part documentary follows Austen’s own personal rebellion: only by rejecting an offer of marriage without love and putting herself in financial peril could she dodge a woman of her time’s lot and instead become its greatest-ever chronicler. 6. Once Upon a Time in Space - iPlayer The awe-inspiring triumphs and devastating tragedies of the two-decade space race, as remembered by those involved. Among them is Anna Fisher, the first mother in space, who told RT, “I didn’t want to be a female astronaut, just an astronaut.” 7. Live Aid at 40 - iPlayer <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/produ…

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What were the most underrated TV shows of 2025?
type: item
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: App
subject: App features
description: RT columnist Caroline Frost counts down her 12 television treats of 2025
encoded: As well as this year’s biggest TV juggernauts – Adolescence (Netflix), The White Lotus (Sky Atlantic), The Celebrity Traitors (iPlayer) et al – we have been spoilt with some relatively undiscovered gems. Here’s my Deserving Dozen…

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'Joanna charms everyone'
type: item
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Amandaland stars Lucy Punch and Dame Joanna Lumley on first impressions, fond Christmas memories and mini flamethrowers...
encoded: Amandaland is on Christmas Day at 9.15pm on BBC One. Add it to your collection Joanna Lumley and Lucy Punch first played mother and daughter in the 2004 film Ella Enchanted. Some 20 years later, Punch plays social climber Amanda with Lumley her scene-stealing mother Felicity, first in Motherland, and now in its spin-off Amandaland. While filming the festive special, the pair reflected on their reunion, Christmasses past and present, and what gift they’d buy for each other… Lucy, what were your first impressions of Joanna? LUCY In Ella Enchanted, we played a ghastly stepmother and stepsister to the heroine, then we were reunited for Motherland, which was lovely, and now this. All this time later, I’m a very different person, but I believe Joanna’s exactly the same: so smart and funny. She charms everyone. When you’re doing comedy, you need lots of good energy, and hers is infectious. Joanna, what have you learnt working with Lucy? Joanna I couldn’t admire Lucy more. I remember her playing my daughter, but I’m not sure they [the Motherland producers] even knew that. She’s blossomed in this. A lot of acting by many of us is interchangeable, but some people stand out, and Lucy’s always been slightly different. She brings something extra. What are your fondest memories of Christmas growing up? Joanna We were in hot countries so we never saw snow, but Mummy would get balls of cotton wool to put on the windows like snowflakes. We were out in the Malayan Mari when the Disney film of Alice in Wonderland came out. I was given an Alice doll, and it was as beautiful a thing as I’ve ever seen, with yellow hair and a hair band, a blue dress with a little white apron – thrilling. Isn’t it lovely what we remember visually? What gift would you buy each other for Christmas? Lucy I’d buy something very little, discreet and lovely, maybe a teeny, tiny book. Joanna likes little things. Joanna Lucy lives in California and has two boys, so I think I’d get her something that money can’t bu…

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Can TV be so bad it's good?
type: item
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Some shows thrive despite being slated by critics — because sometimes terrible telly is just what we need
encoded: Add All's Fair to your watchlist It’s important to say from the off that no one sets out to make bad TV; also that any self-professed expert should think long and hard before pouring scorn on anyone else’s creative enterprise. As Theodore Roosevelt opined, “The credit belongs to the man [or woman!] in the arena, who… fails while daring greatly.” Teddy’s words come to mind with the news that season two of All’s Fair is on its way – despite critics’ valiant attempts to bury it at sea. This is Disney’s all-female legal drama that cost a whopping $69.7million, with a hefty proportion going on the salary of real-life law student Kim Kardashian in her first acting role. The rest of it has gone on clothes, cars, Oscar-nominated co-stars, but perhaps not the script, hence its rare 0% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Equally rare, The Guardian and The Times both gave it zero stars – which turned out to be generous, after the Daily Mail dug in and awarded it minus three stars. Ouch! Why so harsh? Well, you could point to the barn-door acting, the bling, the mixed message of sisters doing it for themselves, as long as “it” involves roasting their rich husbands for every last dollar. You could be generous and say the fighting over jewellery is a metaphor for autonomy and emancipation – although I fear it’s really just about the jewellery. If there’s another drama to be made about women’s righteous anger (and after Riot Women I’m not sure there is), this isn’t it. This comes hot on the heels of Robin Hood, which The Guardian called “the most gloriously bad TV of the year”. Indeed, its Star Wars-esque opening caption hints at what’s to come; no need to film all those wars when they can be explained away. Instead, MGM+’s purse has stretched to casting Sean Bean as the Sheriff of Nottingham, who brings us his meting out of medieval justice as perfected in Game of Thrones, very possibly wearing the same cloak. Young Robin endures his own version of Batman’s origin story,…

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Austen powers
type: item
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: App
subject: App features
description: As Radio 4 marks 250 years since Jane Austen’s birth, Philippa Perry explains why the author remains so influential today
encoded: When I Met Jane Austen is on Radio 4 from Monday-Friday at 1145am and 1.45pm. Add it to your collection now This year, the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen, has seen ample celebration of the life and works of this singular observer of English life in the early 19th century. So far on TV, we’ve had a three-part documentary exploring Austen’s rebel spirit, the drama Miss Austen starring Keeley Hawes, and soon to follow is another version of Pride and Prejudice, this time with some big Netflix bucks and an all-star cast. When it comes to Austen, it seems broadcasters never scrimp, and Radio 4 is proving no exception – celebrating this important anniversary in style, with a dedicated season that has already featured a new take on Northanger Abbey, Radio 4 Extra mining its archive of classic dramas, and newly commissioned radio dramatisations of Pride and Prejudice (see below right) and, next weekend, Sense and Sensibility. The latter is also explored in a special episode of Bookclub on Tuesday (Austen’s 250th birthday) with Emma Thompson. Fans can also feast on a ten-part factual series, When I Met Jane Austen, in which her biographer, Dr Paula Byrne, asks a star line-up of guests – David Baddiel, Katherine Rundell, Val McDermid, Kate Atkinson, Andrew Davies, Amy Heckerling, Gurinder Chadha, Marlon James, Colm Tóibín and Philippa Perry – about how Austen’s work has shaped and influenced their lives and own creative efforts. Like so many of Austen’s many millions of fans across the world, psychotherapist and bestselling author Perry can barely remember life without recourse to the wit and wisdom of the author she credits with “changing her life” after she first encountered her work aged 12, and studied Pride and Prejudice for English O-level. So, what is so special about Austen’s small but peerless collection of works that includes six novels (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion), one novella (Lady S…

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Dame Joanna Lumley reveals her vegetarian Christmas plans: "Wouldn't it be lovely if we didn't kill things at Christmas?"
type: item
date: 2025-12-08T17:01:25.000Z
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: Comedy
subject: TV
subject: BBC iPlayer
subject: Christmas
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Two decades after Ella Enchanted, Dame Joanna Lumley and Lucy Punch reflect on festive traditions, family fun and their on-screen reunion.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Joanna Lumley and Lucy Punch first played mother and daughter in the 2004 film Ella Enchanted. Some 20 years later, Punch plays social climber Amanda with Lumley her scene-stealing mother Felicity, first in Motherland, and now in its spin-off Amandaland. While filming the festive special, the pair reflected on their reunion, Christmases past and present, and what gift they’d buy for each other… Lucy, what were your first impressions of Joanna? LUCY: In Ella Enchanted, we played a ghastly stepmother and stepsister to the heroine, then we were reunited for Motherland, which was lovely, and now this. All this time later, I’m a very different person, but I believe Joanna’s exactly the same: so smart and funny. She charms everyone. When you’re doing comedy, you need lots of good energy, and hers is infectious. Joanna, what have you learnt working with Lucy? JOANNA: I couldn’t admire Lucy more. I remember her playing my daughter, but I’m not sure they [the Motherland producers] even knew that. She’s blossomed in this. A lot of acting by many of us is interchangeable, but some people stand out, and Lucy’s always been slightly different. She brings something extra. What are your fondest memories of Christmas growing up? JOANNA: We were in hot countries so we never saw snow, but Mummy would get balls of cotton wool to put on the windows like snowflakes. We were out in the Malayan Mari when the Disney film of Alice in Wonderland came out. I was given an Alice doll, and it was as beautiful a thing as I’ve ever seen, with yellow hair and a hair band, a blue dress with a little white apron – thrilling. Isn’t it lovely what we remember visually? What gift would you buy each other for Christmas? LUCY: I’d buy something very little, discreet and lovely, maybe a teeny, tiny book. Joanna likes little things. JOANNA: Lucy lives in California and has two boys, so I think I’d get her something that money can’t buy – an experience of s…

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Jane Austen’s enduring and universal appeal revealed by hit writers, from Pride & Prejudice 1995 screenwriter to David Baddiel
type: item
date: 2025-12-03T17:01:35.000Z
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: Books
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: As Radio 4 marks 250 years since Jane Austen’s birth, Philippa Perry explains why the author remains so influential today
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. This year, the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen, has seen ample celebration of the life and works of this singular observer of English life in the early 19th century. So far on TV, we’ve had a three-part documentary exploring Austen’s rebel spirit, the drama Miss Austen starring Keeley Hawes, and soon to follow is another version of Pride and Prejudice, this time with some big Netflix bucks and an all-star cast. When it comes to Austen, it seems broadcasters never scrimp, and Radio 4 is proving no exception – celebrating this important anniversary in style, with a dedicated season that has already featured a new take on Northanger Abbey, Radio 4 Extra mining its archive of classic dramas, and newly commissioned radio dramatisations of Pride and Prejudice (see below right) and, next weekend, Sense and Sensibility. The latter is also explored in a special episode of Bookclub on Tuesday (Austen’s 250th birthday) with Emma Thompson. Fans can also feast on a ten-part factual series, When I Met Jane Austen, in which her biographer, Dr Paula Byrne, asks a star line-up of guests – David Baddiel, Katherine Rundell, Val McDermid, Kate Atkinson, Andrew Davies, Amy Heckerling, Gurinder Chadha, Marlon James, Colm Tóibín and Philippa Perry – about how Austen’s work has shaped and influenced their lives and own creative efforts. Like so many of Austen’s many millions of fans across the world, psychotherapist and bestselling author Perry can barely remember life without recourse to the wit and wisdom of the author she credits with “changing her life” after she first encountered her work aged 12, and studied Pride and Prejudice for English O-level. So, what is so special about Austen’s small but peerless collection of works that includes six novels (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion), one novella (Lady Susan) and the tantalisingly unfinished The Watsons and …

Bleeps and bloopers
type: item
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: App
subject: App features
description: We used to enjoy watching celebrities go off-piste — but now those moments are called “content” and have lost their frisson
encoded: Add The Most Embarrassing TV Guests to your watchlist It’s not often you feel sorry for Tom Cruise. Whether he’s diving headfirst into Paris’s Olympic stadium, defying gravity perched aloft Dubai’s Burj Khalifa or just donning a pair of Ray-bans to ride a motorbike along an ocean-front, he invariably epitomises cool, as if he were the love child of The Fonz and Huggy Bear – that is, with one exception. In 2005, he turned up on Oprah Winfrey’s chat show, ostensibly to promote his latest film. Instead, intent on expressing his love for future wife Katie Holmes, he variously shook his host’s shoulders, fist-pumped the floor and finally leapt onto the couch. Were we all having what he was having? Not so much. Instead, Winfrey spoke for everyone when she pointed out, “We’ve never seen you behave this way before.” In that brief, shining moment, Cruise “went viral” before it was a thing and proved he shares hallowed turf with Noel Edmonds (solemnly addressing his own Guardian statue in his recent documentary), Holly Willoughby (asking This Morning viewers, “Are you OK?” We’re fine!), Guy Goma (who went for a job interview at the BBC and ended up live on News 24) and Judy Finnigan (jaw-droppingly top-dropping at the NTA Awards). All have given us TV moments to watch through our fingers but never fully turn away from. Now they’re among those featured in an irresistible 5 documentary series (most embarrassing of all, it includes your friendly columnist as a nodding head, but don’t let that put you off). But why can’t we get enough of such clips? What puts the “fest” in “cringe”? It ill becomes us to dwell on the most obvious answer, everyone’s favourite German word schadenfreude, that is, pleasure derived from another’s misfortune, but it’s clearly a factor. Specifically, though, TV aims to offer us a world shinier, blander and more scripted than our real lives, so when humanity in all its foibles succeeds in breaking through, it’s both immensely jarring and wonderfully relat…

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As All's Fair season 2 beckons, critical contempt for the hit Kim Kardashian show misses the point entirely
type: item
date: 2025-12-03T11:59:58.000Z
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Comment
subject: Disney Plus
subject: Magazine
description: All's Fair is returning to our screens, showing that even zero-star reviews can’t stop a determined TV drama.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. It’s important to say from the off that no one sets out to make bad TV; also that any self-professed expert should think long and hard before pouring scorn on anyone else’s creative enterprise. As Theodore Roosevelt opined, “The credit belongs to the man [or woman!] in the arena, who… fails while daring greatly.” Teddy’s words come to mind with the news that season two of All’s Fair is on its way – despite critics’ valiant attempts to bury it at sea. This is Disney’s all-female legal drama that cost a whopping $69.7million, with a hefty proportion going on the salary of real-life law student Kim Kardashian in her first acting role. The rest of it has gone on clothes, cars, Oscar-nominated co-stars, but perhaps not the script, hence its rare 0% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Equally rare, The Guardian and The Times both gave it zero stars – which turned out to be generous, after the Daily Mail dug in and awarded it minus three stars. Ouch! Why so harsh? Well, you could point to the barn-door acting, the bling, the mixed message of sisters doing it for themselves, as long as “it” involves roasting their rich husbands for every last dollar. You could be generous and say the fighting over jewellery is a metaphor for autonomy and emancipation – although I fear it’s really just about the jewellery. If there’s another drama to be made about women’s righteous anger (and after Riot Women I’m not sure there is), this isn’t it. This comes hot on the heels of Robin Hood, which The Guardian called “the most gloriously bad TV of the year”. Indeed, its Star Wars-esque opening caption hints at what’s to come; no need to film all those wars when they can be explained away. Instead, MGM+’s purse has stretched to casting Sean Bean as the Sheriff of Nottingham, who brings us his meting out of medieval justice as perfected in Game of Thrones, very possibly wearing the same cloak. Young Robin endures his own version of Ba…

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What are embarrassing TV moments in an age where nobody actually gets cancelled and there's no such thing as bad publicity?
type: item
date: 2025-11-28T17:01:07.000Z
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: Entertainment
subject: TV
subject: Comment
subject: Magazine
description: We used to enjoy watching celebrities go off-piste – but now those moments are called "content" and have lost their frisson.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. It’s not often you feel sorry for Tom Cruise. Whether he’s diving headfirst into Paris’s Olympic stadium, defying gravity perched aloft Dubai’s Burj Khalifa or just donning a pair of Ray-bans to ride a motorbike along an ocean-front, he invariably epitomises cool, as if he were the love child of The Fonz and Huggy Bear – that is, with one exception. In 2005, he turned up on Oprah Winfrey’s chat show, ostensibly to promote his latest film. Instead, intent on expressing his love for future wife Katie Holmes, he variously shook his host’s shoulders, fist-pumped the floor and finally leapt onto the couch. Were we all having what he was having? Not so much. Instead, Winfrey spoke for everyone when she pointed out, “We’ve never seen you behave this way before.” In that brief, shining moment, Cruise “went viral” before it was a thing and proved he shares hallowed turf with Noel Edmonds (solemnly addressing his own Guardian statue in his recent documentary), Holly Willoughby (asking This Morning viewers, “Are you OK?” We’re fine!), Guy Goma (who went for a job interview at the BBC and ended up live on News 24) and Judy Finnigan (jaw-droppingly top-dropping at the NTA Awards). All have given us TV moments to watch through our fingers but never fully turn away from. Now they’re among those featured in an irresistible 5 documentary series (most embarrassing of all, it includes your friendly columnist as a nodding head, but don’t let that put you off). But why can’t we get enough of such clips? What puts the “fest” in “cringe”? View oEmbed on the source website It ill becomes us to dwell on the most obvious answer, everyone’s favourite German word schadenfreude, that is, pleasure derived from another’s misfortune, but it’s clearly a factor. Specifically, though, TV aims to offer us a world shinier, blander and more scripted than our real lives, so when humanity in all its foibles succeeds in breaking through, it’s both immens…

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height: 1000

'Martha has a secret'
type: item
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: App
subject: App features
description: An exclusive preview of Beyond Paradise this Christmas…
encoded: Add Beyond Paradise to your watchlist A smiling Barbara Flynn is being careful not to say too much about this year’s festive trip to Shipton Abbott — “they don’t tell me anything,” she clearly fibs. But she lets slip a few hints: “It starts with a party for the gang — we’re all having a lovely time, but of course it sets the scene for the first puzzle. And Martha has a secret; she wants to spring a surprise.” That’s all we get before Flynn firmly zips her lips. Previously a familiar face in shows from Open All Hours to Cracker, the veteran actor knows better than to spoil the fun for Beyond Paradise’s many fans. Since the show’s 2023 debut, Flynn has regularly stolen scenes as Anne — mum of Martha (Sally Bretton), prospective mother-in-law of DI Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall). “I adore Sally,” she says. “We had a lot of scenes together when the show began, talking about grief for Martha’s father, and it wasn’t long after my own husband had died, so it was good to have that outlet. That’s the wonderful thing about acting.” There has also been a slow but palpable thawing in Anne’s feelings for Humphrey. “Well, there’s the obvious mother-in-law thing, but yes,” Flynn agrees, “he’s divine. There’s the thing of him being clumsy, which is funny because Kris isn’t at all clumsy, he’s the opposite. But Humphrey is always in the wrong place doing the wrong thing. And there’s all that in this story.” With series four of Beyond Paradise (the first of the Death in Paradise spin-offs) currently filming, what does Flynn credit for its extraordinary success? “Most age groups are represented,” she reflects, “so you have this amazing place where people can go and see themselves and their own existences. And I think of something Kelby [Dylan Llewellyn] says in this Christmas episode, about a character ‘being home for Christmas’. It’s very gentle, but that warmth is key.”

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Simply Fabulous
type: item
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Lucy Punch’s sitcom gets a special present with Jennifer Saunders joining Joanna Lumley and co for a family get-together
encoded: Add Amandaland to your watchlist We’re in a stately but cosy country pile somewhere north of London, sipping big mugs of hot chocolate by a roaring fire, with a table set for dinner and a towering, twinkling tree. It’s mid-October, but it definitely feels a lot like Christmas. That’s because Amanda (Lucy Punch), whom we first met in Motherland but is now spinning happily in her own aspirational universe, is spending Yuletide with her mother Felicity (Joanna Lumley) at the home of her aunt Joan (Jennifer Saunders, in a bit of irresistible casting that sees the Absolutely Fabulous partners-in-disgrace reunited after nine years). “Working with Joanna has been the dream. She’s smart and funny, and just charms everyone,” Punch tells RT. “Now having Jennifer as another maternal figure in the mix, I’m in absolute heaven. As a child, I had all of the VHS tapes of French and Saunders, and I watched them on repeat. And now here we are.” Is it intimidating? “No, Jennifer’s brilliant to work with, coming up with ideas and lines, finding new stuff. She’s very generous.” Such festive bonhomie all feels a world away from Amanda’s usual habitat of South Harlesden – sorry, that’s “SoHa” if you’re Amanda, or “that area around Wormwood Scrubs” if you’re her fawning but frank pal Anne (Philippa Dunne), who’s inevitably come along for the ride this Christmas. “Anne’s plans to go to Ireland and be with her family have been disrupted by weather,” says Dunne. “Being Anne, she’s very upset about it, but once she’s with Amanda, it’s fine.” Bearing in mind Amanda’s condescension towards her faithful friend, why does Anne never rebel? “There have been a couple of times when the worm has turned,” says Dunne, “but generally for Anne, it’s about basking in the golden glow that Amanda gives, maybe hoping a bit of it washes off on her.” Somehow, Amanda’s downstairs neighbour, single dad and still potential love interest Mal, is also in tow. “Amanda’s a fish out of water in SoHa,” says actor Samuel …

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Truth found in Troubles past
type: item
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Writers are starting to explore Northern Ireland’s violent history to create soul-searching TV
encoded: Add Say Nothing to your watchlist In the very first reel, we’re reminded that “the Irish have been arguing over the same sh*te for 800 years”. So it comes as no surprise that the drama Say Nothing – about the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the toll they took, including a burden of silence carried by many to this day – has already drawn as much criticism as praise from all sides. Adapted from Patrick Radden Keefe’s non-fiction bestseller, it stars Maxine Peake as the former paramilitary Dolours Price, narrating and reflecting on her violent past – as the real Price and others did for Boston College’s “Belfast Project”, an oral history of the Troubles – before the drama flashes back to chart how Price and her sister Marian evolved from peaceful protestors into key members of the IRA unit that carried out the 1973 Old Bailey bombing. True, there’s a caperish quality to some of their “fundraising” antics – the sisters dress up as nuns to rob a bank at gunpoint – that presumably won’t sit well with victims of such violence. There’s nothing about loyalist paramilitaries’ equal and opposite activities, and the Republican mission is positioned as one of ideological zeal, with no account of the economic disparity suffered by Catholics. And Gerry Adams has, of course, denied ever being part of the IRA or its activities, the disclaimer after every episode providing a wry counterpoint to his vivid depiction on screen. Whatever it gets wrong, Say Nothing succeeds in bringing home the cost wrought to so many by virtue of era and circumstance – when living in a particular street, or drinking in a particular pub, construed a political act. Equally evocative is Trespasses, also adapted from a bestselling book and set at the height of the Troubles. The best TV drama I’ve seen this year, it depicts the forbidden love affair between teacher Cushla (Catholic) and lawyer Michael (married, Protestant), and delicately weaves the personal with the political. The stakes are made clear by t…

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Subtle, soul-searching dramas tackling Northern Ireland’s Troubles are proving that few escaped this era unscathed
type: item
date: 2025-11-25T09:34:36.000Z
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Channel 4
subject: Comment
subject: Magazine
description: Writers are starting to explore Northern Ireland’s violent history to create soul-searching TV.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. In the very first reel, we’re reminded that “the Irish have been arguing over the same sh*te for 800 years”. So it comes as no surprise that the drama Say Nothing – about the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the toll they took, including a burden of silence carried by many to this day – has already drawn as much criticism as praise from all sides. Adapted from Patrick Radden Keefe’s non-fiction bestseller, it stars Maxine Peake as the former paramilitary Dolours Price, narrating and reflecting on her violent past – as the real Price and others did for Boston College’s “Belfast Project”, an oral history of the Troubles – before the drama flashes back to chart how Price and her sister Marian evolved from peaceful protestors into key members of the IRA unit that carried out the 1973 Old Bailey bombing. True, there’s a caperish quality to some of their “fundraising” antics – the sisters dress up as nuns to rob a bank at gunpoint – that presumably won’t sit well with victims of such violence. There’s nothing about loyalist paramilitaries’ equal and opposite activities, and the Republican mission is positioned as one of ideological zeal, with no account of the economic disparity suffered by Catholics. And Gerry Adams has, of course, denied ever being part of the IRA or its activities, the disclaimer after every episode providing a wry counterpoint to his vivid depiction on screen. Whatever it gets wrong, Say Nothing succeeds in bringing home the cost wrought to so many by virtue of era and circumstance – when living in a particular street, or drinking in a particular pub, construed a political act. Equally evocative is Trespasses, also adapted from a bestselling book and set at the height of the Troubles. The best TV drama I’ve seen this year, it depicts the forbidden love affair between teacher Cushla (Catholic) and lawyer Michael (married, Protestant), and delicately weaves the personal with the political. The stakes …

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Amandaland star teases Christmas special reunion for Absolutely Fabulous icons as Jennifer Saunders joins cast
type: item
date: 2025-11-25T00:01:00.000Z
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: Comedy
subject: TV
subject: BBC iPlayer
subject: Christmas
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Lucy Punch’s sitcom gets a special present with Jennifer Saunders joining Joanna Lumley and co for a family get-together.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. We’re in a stately but cosy country pile somewhere north of London, sipping big mugs of hot chocolate by a roaring fire, with a table set for dinner and a towering, twinkling tree. It’s mid-October, but it definitely feels a lot like Christmas. That’s because Amanda (Lucy Punch), whom we first met in Motherland but is now spinning happily in her own aspirational universe, is spending Yuletide with her mother Felicity (Joanna Lumley) at the home of her aunt Joan (Jennifer Saunders, in a bit of irresistible casting that sees the Absolutely Fabulous partners-in- disgrace reunited after nine years). “Working with Joanna has been the dream. She’s smart and funny, and just charms everyone,” Punch tells RT. “Now having Jennifer as another maternal figure in the mix, I’m in absolute heaven. As a child, I had all of the VHS tapes of French and Saunders, and I watched them on repeat. And now here we are.” Is it intimidating? “No, Jennifer’s brilliant to work with, coming up with ideas and lines, finding new stuff. She’s very generous.” Such festive bonhomie all feels a world away from Amanda’s usual habitat of South Harlesden – sorry, that’s “SoHa” if you’re Amanda, or “that area around Wormwood Scrubs” if you’re her fawning but frank pal Anne (Philippa Dunne), who’s inevitably come along for the ride this Christmas. “Anne’s plans to go to Ireland and be with her family have been disrupted by weather,” says Dunne. “Being Anne, she’s very upset about it, but once she’s with Amanda, it’s fine.” Bearing in mind Amanda’s condescension towards her faithful friend, why does Anne never rebel? “There have been a couple of times when the worm has turned,” says Dunne, “but generally for Anne, it’s about basking in the golden glow that Amanda gives, maybe hoping a bit of it washes off on her.” Somehow, Amanda’s downstairs neighbour, single dad and still potential love interest Mal, is also in tow. “Amanda’s a fish out of water in SoHa…

Beyond Paradise 2025 Christmas special teased by star as Martha hides a secret
type: item
date: 2025-11-25T00:00:02.000Z
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: BBC iPlayer
subject: BBC One
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: "She wants to spring a surprise," says Barbara Flynn of her fictional daughter in the Beyond Paradise festive episode.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. A smiling Barbara Flynn is being careful not to say too much about this year’s trip to Shipton Abbott in the Beyond Paradise Christmas special – “they don’t tell me anything,” she clearly fibs. But she lets slip a few hints: “It starts with a party for the gang – we’re all having a lovely time, but of course it sets the scene for the first puzzle. And Martha has a secret; she wants to spring a surprise.” That’s all we get before Flynn firmly zips her lips. Previously a familiar face in shows from Open All Hours to Cracker, the veteran actor knows better than to spoil the fun for Beyond Paradise’s many fans. Since the show’s 2023 debut, Flynn has regularly stolen scenes as Anne – mum of Martha (Sally Bretton), prospective mother-in-law of DI Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall). “I adore Sally,” she says. “We had a lot of scenes together when the show began, talking about grief for Martha’s father, and it wasn’t long after my own husband had died, so it was good to have that outlet. That’s the wonderful thing about acting.” Read more: Death in Paradise and Beyond Paradise reveal guest cast for Christmas specials – including Doctor Who and Ted Lasso stars Return to Paradise stars tease crossover hopes – and reveal a major one that almost happened with beloved character There has also been a slow but palpable thawing in Anne’s feelings for Humphrey. “Well, there’s the obvious mother-in-law thing, but yes,” Flynn agrees, “he’s divine. There’s the thing of him being clumsy, which is funny because Kris isn’t at all clumsy, he’s the opposite. But Humphrey is always in the wrong place doing the wrong thing. And there’s all that in this story.” With series four of Beyond Paradise (the first of the Death in Paradise spin-offs) currently filming, what does Flynn credit for its extraordinary success? “Most age groups are represented,” she reflects, “so you have this amazing place where people can go and see themselves and their o…

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Through the looking glass
type: item
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: App
subject: App features
description: New tech can undoubtedly transform people’s lives, so is it AI or its creators that we should fear?
encoded: Add Chris McCausland: Seeing Into the Future to your watchlist Eighteen months ago, I sat in a packed conference room listening to the world’s richest man opine on many things. Treated like an all-seeing visionary not a businessman, Elon Musk was asked where he put the chance of an AI-related global disaster, what he termed “something terrible happening”. He replied: “10–20 per cent probability. The glass is 80-per-cent full. Look on the bright side.” While we wrestle with the promised pros and threatened cons of the AI tsunami, a new documentary – Chris McCausland: Seeing into the Future – offers a welcome respite from this existential overload, with a thrilling portrait of the benefits AI can bring. Never has one person been so perfectly positioned to present a show as here. Before the world of comedy called, McCausland – aka the man who saved Strictly – was a website developer with a degree in software engineering and, as he puts it, “a geek”. He was also born with a degenerative eye condition and has been blind since his mid-20s. He previously used a white stick and a guide dog, but didn’t get on with either. Now, aged 48, he has an iPhone offering accessibility tech that enables him to check train times, choose a T-shirt or buy a pint of milk, something he calls “a game changer in opening up the world and navigating the everyday”. When he shares the exhausting burden of endless dependence on others and his hunger for all the access offered by AI innovation, his lightness of touch and jokey manner belie his profound wish to be “just like everybody else”, and we’re rooting for him from the start. For his documentary, he travels to Silicon Valley, where – away from all the controversies of Facebook – Meta has developed a pair of AI-powered smart glasses. As soon as he puts them on, McCausland is given vivid descriptions of everything in front of him – it turns out he’s not interested in trees and lakes, so it’s off to shop for some vinyl. He travels in a driverles…

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Do we really need another season of Line of Duty?
type: item
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: App
subject: App features
description: AC-12 are back in business – but after that finale, what twists can Jed Mercurio possibly pull off next?
encoded: Add Line of Duty to your watchlist Adrian Dunbar, Martin Compston and Vicky McClure are seldom idle. In regular rotation like the figures on a Swiss cuckoo clock, no sooner has one of them completed their latest drama series on screen, than it’s time for another one of the trio to pop up. In Radio Times parlance, due to their frequency in our pages, they are what we fondly term "friends of the magazine". Of this phenomenon, two things are true. The first is that all three openly admit they wouldn’t have a tenth of their renown, and ability to greenlight so many solo TV projects, if they weren’t also Jed Mercurio’s chosen three – the leading alumni of the TV ratings juggernaut that was Line of Duty, his police corruption thriller that bowed out after six seasons in 2021, to an audience of 15.79 million, making it the highest rated UK drama since modern records began. Equally, they all know that, during their many sit-down interviews with RT, they can count the minutes on one hand before the question invariably comes… "When is it coming back?" Up to now the answer has always been a variation on, "We’d love to do it, but you’d have to ask Jed.” (Notice they don’t say "ask the BBC", in acknowledgement of the fact that Beeb bosses would obviously chew Mercurio’s hand off if it were holding a script - such power do those ratings bring a writer, good to see.) Until today when, finally, there is no need to ask, because the BBC has finally cemented the constant rumours, and confirmed that season seven is on its way. This is undoubtedly an (increasingly rare) good day to be a BBC boss, of the pop-the-cork variety, but is it good news more widely? Of course – no TV writer has been able to keep us on the edge of our seats in the way Mercurio managed through six seasons of a show that began life as a word-of-mouth sizzler on BBC Two, made household names of its leading trio and a selling point of Mercurio’s readiness to despatch ruthlessly other, bigger guest stars. It’s a rare …

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So, what should we expect from Line of Duty season 7? I have some questions
type: item
date: 2025-11-19T09:28:19.000Z
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: Drama
subject: TV
description: AC-12 are back in business – but after that finale, what twists can Jed Mercurio possibly pull off next?
encoded: Adrian Dunbar, Martin Compston and Vicky McClure are seldom idle. In regular rotation like the figures on a Swiss cuckoo clock, no sooner has one of them completed their latest drama series on screen, than it’s time for another one of the trio to pop up. In Radio Times parlance, due to their frequency in our pages, they are what we fondly term "friends of the magazine". Of this phenomenon, two things are true. The first is that all three openly admit they wouldn’t have a tenth of their renown, and ability to greenlight so many solo TV projects, if they weren’t also Jed Mercurio’s chosen three – the leading alumni of the TV ratings juggernaut that was Line of Duty, his police corruption thriller that bowed out after six seasons in 2021, to an audience of 15.79 million, making it the highest rated UK drama since modern records began. Equally, they all know that, during their many sit-down interviews with RT, they can count the minutes on one hand before the question invariably comes… "When is it coming back?" Up to now the answer has always been a variation on, "We’d love to do it, but you’d have to ask Jed.” (Notice they don’t say "ask the BBC", in acknowledgement of the fact that Beeb bosses would obviously chew Mercurio’s hand off if it were holding a script - such power do those ratings bring a writer, good to see.) Until today when, finally, there is no need to ask, because the BBC has finally cemented the constant rumours, and confirmed that season seven is on its way. This is undoubtedly an (increasingly rare) good day to be a BBC boss, of the pop-the-cork variety, but is it good news more widely? Of course – no TV writer has been able to keep us on the edge of our seats in the way Mercurio managed through six seeasons of a show that began life as a word-of-mouth sizzler on BBC Two, made household names of its leading trio and a selling point of Mercurio’s readiness to despatch ruthlessly other, bigger guest stars. It’s a rare universe where being Stephen Graha…

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height: 1280

Let the music speak
type: item
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Genius, inspiration and lots of hard work separate our biggest superstars from other so-called talents
encoded: Add One Shot with Ed Sheeran to your watchlist Ed Sheeran didn’t get to where he is without a parfumier’s nose for the zeitgeist. His new Netflix documentary – an hour long and filmed in one take by Philip Barantini, director of the hit drama Adolescence – sees him wandering the sunlit streets of Manhattan, strumming his guitar and singing the songs that have made him millions. It’s packed with heartwarming moments, from a surprise proposal to an open-bus singalong, but the slick production would count for nothing without, at its core, this modern troubadour’s skill in connecting with other people through music. How does he do it? For me, the best part of all of the “intimate” superstar documentaries – from Sheeran to Taylor Swift and Beyoncé to Coldplay – is when they show us the effort and inspiration involved. In an empty stadium before a gig, Sheeran explains the loop pedal he has made his own: “The key is timing, getting it on the one is the most important thing… then you add the keys…” The result: Shape of You, the first song to reach two billion streams on Spotify. Back in his home studio, he tells his producers that his wife told him off for taking their daughter out of her cot – “She’ll stop being trained to sleep, it’s a bad habit…” The result: Bad Habits, another two billion streams. Similarly, in Swift’s Miss Americana doc, the songstress is seen pouring her heart out, singing lyrics she’s written into her phone. She stands, hand in the air, ad-libbing as she goes, before shouting in amazed delight, “Did we just do a whole verse and chorus?” Sheeran says the initial spark of a good song is an unmatchable feeling. In Apple’s Beatles film, cameras catch the moment Paul McCartney plays around on his bass guitar and pulls Get Back (the song that gives the doc its title) out of the universe – it’s spine-tingling stuff. The Greatest Night in Pop charts how Lionel Richie herded dozens of the world’s greatest singers into musical cohesion to record We Are the Wo…

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Too close to the sun
type: item
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Why did some great postwar actors become better known for their hellraising than their performances?
encoded: Add Richard Burton: Wild Genius to your watchlist As Richard Burton appears on screen in kaleidoscopic colour, dressed in full armour and atop a horse, he is applauded by the adoring masses. The narrator proclaims, “In ten short years, he has conquered the world.” As it happens, he’s talking about Burton’s character, Alexander the Great, in the eponymous movie, but the words could apply to the actor himself. It was 1956, by when the young Welshman had already embarked on an extraordinary ascent, from the mining village of Pontrhydyfen, to Oxford University, to the London stage and Hollywood. Actor Siân Phillips remembers his West End debut – “he walked on and the whole theatre went cold” – while his first Hollywood role brought him an Oscar nomination, the first of seven. His voice, his presence, his love for poetry were all among his many splendid gifts, and he in turn offered them up to us. Why then, if you say the name “Richard Burton”, does a life of drama and diamonds immediately come to mind, one spent jumping between yachts and private jets in the glare of the paparazzi lens and, of course, a double marriage to Elizabeth Taylor? Because that’s all true, too. Burton was the primus inter pares of Britain’s still beloved mid-century stars, alongside the likes of Peter O’Toole, Richard Harris, Oliver Reed and co – a group of talented actors for whom the term “hellraiser” became a shorthand, as famous for their reckless real-life behaviour as for their undoubted dramatic talents. What was the unifying element, and why do they still bewitch us? For a start, they were all preternaturally gifted. Peter O’Toole “appeared on stage like an electric light,” is how he’s remembered by Anthony Hopkins, while Richard Harris brought us the tenderest of Camelots and even MacArthur Park (a 60s anthem I didn’t even realise for years was the same Richard Harris!). And they all arrived in London during an era of still unresolved postwar trauma, class collision and hedonistic freed…

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Get rid of the BBC? Careful what you wish for…
type: item
date: 2025-11-10T15:09:57.000Z
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: Current Affairs
subject: TV
subject: BBC
subject: Comment
description: Once the pride of Britain, the BBC now faces its biggest crisis yet – but would we really be better off without it?
encoded: Decades ago, I joined a cruise in blue waters off the southern coast of Turkey, where our captain spoke no words of English except "tips here" – until somehow, through the usual blustering British-person-meets-rest-of-world chats, he established where I worked. For the next three days, I was summoned to mealtimes with a shout of "BBC" that echoed across the Med. It was a different time: when our national broadcaster’s brand was considered up there with Coca-Cola for global recognition, and the NHS for trustworthiness. 30 years later, and mentions of "the BBC" once again abound, but this time to a collective eye-roll at yesterday’s headlines that a catalogue of controversies has culminated in both the director-general and the CEO of BBC News falling on their swords over the editing of a 2021 Donald Trump speech. Monday saw the BBC Chair Samir Shah add his apology for the "error of judgement" that caused the furore. Tim Davie’s resignation speech included reference to the intense personal and professional demands that have punctuated his five years in British media’s top job – those years have seen a roll-call of on-air talent disappearing from screen after a litany of behaviour variously criminal (Huw Edwards), allegedly bad (Gregg Wallace) or political (Carol Vorderman, Gary Lineker). The departures of Davie and his news chief Deborah Furness are more redolent of 2004. I was among those queuing up, some in tears, to bid a fond farewell to Greg Dyke after he quit as D-G, as did his Board Chairman, after the government complained about the news coverage of the dossier – "sexed up" as alleged by reporter Andrew Gilligan – putting the case for Iraq’s nuclear weapons and justifying invasion. We know the rest. Possibly apart from some of those involved in that debacle, there were no calls then for the binning of the BBC – this week’s episode feels more rotten and existentially threatening. We learned through a memorandum leaked to The Telegraph that the BBC desperately tr…

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Get rid of the BBC? Careful what you wish for…
type: item
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: App
subject: App features
description: In the wake of resignations from both the director-general and the CEO of BBC News, those calling for the closure of the BBC have not fully considered the consequences for broadcasting and Britain at large.
encoded: Decades ago, I joined a cruise in blue waters off the southern coast of Turkey, where our captain spoke no words of English except “tips here” – until somehow, through the usual blustering British-person-meets-rest-of-world chats, he established where I worked. For the next three days, I was summoned to mealtimes with a shout of “BBC” that echoed across the Med. It was a different time: when our national broadcaster’s brand was considered up there with Coca-Cola for global recognition, and NHS for trustworthiness. Thirty years later, and mentions of “the BBC” once again abound, but this time to a collective eye-roll at yesterday’s headlines that a catalogue of controversies has culminated in both the director-general and the CEO of BBC News falling on their swords over the editing of a 2021 Donald Trump speech. Monday saw the BBC Chair Samir Shah add his apology for the “error of judgement” that caused the furore. Tim Davie’s resignation speech included reference to the intense personal and professional demands that have punctuated his five years in British media’s top job – those years have seen a roll-call of on-air talent disappearing from screen after a litany of behaviour variously criminal (Huw Edwards), allegedly bad (Gregg Wallace) or political (Carol Vorderman, Gary Lineker). The departures of Davie and his news chief Deborah Furness are more redolent of 2004. I was among those queuing up, some in tears, to bid a fond farewell to Greg Dyke after he quit as D-G, as did his Board Chairman, after the government complained about the news coverage of the dossier – “sexed up” as alleged by reporter Andrew Gilligan – putting the case for Iraq’s nuclear weapons and justifying invasion. We know the rest. Possibly apart from some of those involved in that debacle, there were no calls then for the binning of the BBC — this week’s episode feels more rotten and existentially threatening. We learned through a memorandum leaked to The Telegraph that the BBC desperately tr…

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The Celebrity Traitors final review: Treachery and tears make for TV perfection
type: item
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Alan Carr’s tearful, triumphant reveal crowned a finale that proved live, un-binged television can still unite the nation.
encoded: Warning: this article contains spoilers for the final of The Celebrity Traitors. Add it to your watchlist. Finally, we have a winner, and it’s watch-in-real-time, unstreamed, un-binged TV. It’s a rare and beautiful thing in 2025 to sit staring at the screen, knowing millions around the country are sitting on similar edges of seats, waiting to find out which of the five remaining players will emerge triumphant of The Celebrity Traitors. And what did we get? With only five left from the original 19 who entered the castle — two Traitors, three Faithful — it was all about alliances. Joe and Nick were in such cahoots working out how to oust the others, I spent the first hour wishing one of them had turned out to be a Traitor. Instead, the second best moment of the night came another way, with Nick ultimately joining the others in banishing Joe – could you hear your neighbours shouting at the screen?! That was the warm-up for the best, biggest twist of all, when Alan Carr came through as the final, solitary traitor left standing, telling the others, almost sadly, "I am, and have always been, a Traitor." Nick collapsed, David sighed, Alan cried and the sweet Faithful pair ended up comforting him in his moment of guilty triumph. It was perfect, must-watch TV. Following another effortlessly successful daytime mission that proved the celebs to be far better at physical challenges than they have ever been at unearthing Traitors, it was all about the penultimate Round Table. You know a show has fulfilled its promise of surprising us when one of the country’s premier historians is reduced to role of "useful idiot", but that’s where David Olusoga found himself – stuck in the middle as Faithful Joe and Nick battled to outwit Alan and Cat. All that classical training and scholarship served Olusoga not – ultimately, he just didn’t have the skills, or possibly stomach, to either betray or sniff out the treachery around him, which doesn’t really reflect that badly on him, I suppose. I…

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Celebrity Traitors final review: Treachery and tears make for TV perfection
type: item
date: 2025-11-06T22:44:31.000Z
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: TV
description: Alan Carr’s tearful, triumphant reveal crowned a finale that proved live, un-binged television can still unite the nation.
encoded: Finally, we have a winner, and it’s watch-in-real-time, unstreamed, un-binged TV. It’s a rare and beautiful thing in 2025 to sit staring at the screen, knowing millions around the country are sitting on similar edges of seats, waiting to find out which of the five remaining players will emerge triumphant of the Celebrity Traitors. And what did we get? With only five left from the original 19 who entered the castle - 2 Traitors, 3 Faithful - it was all about alliances. Joe and Nick were in such cahoots working out how to oust the others, I spent the first hour wishing one of them had turned out to be a Traitor. Instead, the second best moment of the night came another way, with Nick ultimately joining the others in banishing Joe – could you hear your neighbours shouting at the screen?! That was the warm-up for the best, biggest twist of all, when Alan Carr came through as the final, solitary traitor left standing, telling the others, almost sadly, "I am, and have always been, a Traitor." Nick collapsed, David sighed, Alan cried and the sweet Faithful pair ended up comforting him in his moment of guilty triumph. It was perfect, must-watch TV. Following another effortlessly successful daytime mission that proved the celebs to be far better at physical challenges than they have ever been at unearthing Traitors, it was all about the penultimate Round Table. You know a show has fulfilled its promise of surprising us when one of the country’s premier historians is reduced to role of "useful idiot", but that’s where David Olusoga found himself – stuck in the middle as Faithfuls Joe and Nick battled to outwit Alan and Cat. All that classical training and scholarship served Olusoga not – ultimately, he just didn’t have the skills, or possibly stomach, to either betray or sniff out the treachery around him, which doesn’t really reflect that badly on him, I suppose. Instead, Joe’s strength of purpose saw Cat disposed of, but that same zeal proved his undoing at the very last Ro…

Why ‘hellraisers’ like Richard Burton, Oliver Reed and Peter O’Toole will always bewitch us
type: item
date: 2025-11-04T00:01:05.000Z
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: Documentaries
subject: TV
subject: Comment
subject: Magazine
description: Why did some great postwar actors become better known for their hellraising than their performances?
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. As Richard Burton appears on screen in kaleidoscopic colour, dressed in full armour and atop a horse, he is applauded by the adoring masses. The narrator proclaims, “In ten short years, he has conquered the world.” As it happens, he’s talking about Burton’s character, Alexander the Great, in the eponymous movie, but the words could apply to the actor himself. It was 1956, by when the young Welshman had already embarked on an extraordinary ascent, from the mining village of Pontrhydyfen, to Oxford University, to the London stage and Hollywood. Actor Siân Phillips remembers his West End debut – “he walked on and the whole theatre went cold” – while his first Hollywood role brought him an Oscar nomination, the first of seven. His voice, his presence, his love for poetry were all among his many splendid gifts, and he in turn offered them up to us. Why then, if you say the name “Richard Burton”, does a life of drama and diamonds immediately come to mind, one spent jumping between yachts and private jets in the glare of the paparazzi lens and, of course, a double marriage to Elizabeth Taylor? Because that’s all true, too. Burton was the primus inter pares of Britain’s still beloved mid-century stars, alongside the likes of Peter O’Toole, Richard Harris, Oliver Reed and co – a group of talented actors for whom the term “hellraiser” became a shorthand, as famous for their reckless real-life behaviour as for their undoubted dramatic talents. What was the unifying element, and why do they still bewitch us? For a start, they were all preternaturally gifted. Peter O’Toole “appeared on stage like an electric light,” is how he’s remembered by Anthony Hopkins, while Richard Harris brought us the tenderest of Camelots and even MacArthur Park (a 60s anthem I didn’t even realise for years was the same Richard Harris!). And they all arrived in London during an era of still unresolved postwar trauma, class collision and hedonistic fr…

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The Celebrity Traitors final looms – but will Alan Carr and Cat Burns outwit the Faithful?
type: item
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: App
subject: App features
description: The penultimate episode delivered pure chaos – Celia Imrie betrayed over dinner, Kate Garraway banished after baring her soul, and Alan Carr cracking under pressure as Joe Marler starts to sniff out the truth.
encoded: Add The Celebrity Traitors to your watchlist To quote Claudia Winkleman, it was a rollercoaster 24 hours. The Faithful finally caught Traitor Jonathan, and then Celia Imrie was murdered in plain sight by Alan Carr quoting Shakespeare. Even this eye-catching round-up doesn’t sufficiently convey the drama producers managed to conjure up in the penultimate episode of this series, now being watched by a reported 12 million pairs of eyeballs. You have to hand it to Alan Carr, he doesn’t shy from a challenge. Having recovered disturbingly quickly from murdering his pal Paloma in week one, he was at it again last night, betraying another great pal, with a toast at the dinner table. Thus was Celia Imrie summarily dispatched, betrayed with a Judas almost-kiss by a man she "adored" but had come to suspect. As Cat Burns grinned, "Only Alan could do something like that!" Other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play? With the Faithful blind to one of their own being murdered at the table, the dinner party made for quite an emotional pause in the middle of this frantic series, everyone reflecting on their time in the castle, how changed they were, how inspired they felt, what fun it had been… and finally Kate Garraway came into her own, with a moving testimony after some very hard few years. Not that it did her any good, mind you. David Olusoga, still the unknown entity within the group, said, "I didn’t expect to feel changed by it, and I do, and that is a surprise." And it was Kate who said the most pertinent thing of all at the table – that it was hard to spot Traitors, "because we’re just bedazzled" – surely the cue for all the Faithful to look up and realise the most bedazzling person of all was the Chatty Man nodding along in agreement, while preparing to cast yet another murderous spell… Suddenly, it was the morning after the night before, with the group proving once again their complete ineptitude in catching Traitors is matched only by their competence and teamwork when…

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