Radio Times
type: channel
link: https://www.radiotimes.com
date: 2025-11-28T17:02:07.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Blackadder's Ben Elton reveals how Stephen Fry responded to his "few-holds-barred" portrayal in new memoir
items: Bob Geldof talks always being bored of Band Aid, the end of rock 'n' roll and Taylor Swift
items: Medieval Prince Harry "would have killed" William, imagines Young James Bond author – as he compares King Charles to a murdered monarch
items: Exploring Zambia, the star of BBC One's Kingdom
items: Sally Magnusson dishes on King Charles III reporting the weather – and why she doesn't miss Reporting Scotland following 27-year run
items: Michael Palin reveals how a Monty Python sketch saved him from being thrown in a Venezuelan jail
items: As seen on Apple TV's The Last Frontier: Discover Alaska the luxurious way
items: Jane Goodall: 'We must all do our bit to make the world a better place'
items: Dame Jane Goodall: 'We must all do our bit to make the world a better place'
items: Rob Brydon reveals why he initially turned down new BBC series – and what changed his mind
items: Gavin & Stacey icon Joanna Page dishes on her new memoir Lush! - and why she wrote it in the car at 5am
items: Adam Kay argues the NHS is the UK’s greatest institution but “one of the worst employers”
items: Whitstable Pearl offers a taste of the Kent coast – and the real star is the location
items: Rhys James reveals why a US version of Mock the Week is probably not happening
items: 'Every character is a part of me, even the nutters'
items: Trainspotting writer Irvine Welsh teases potential sequel series - and whether iconic roles could be recast
items: Carol Kirkwood on her new novel – and social media: 'No disrespect to Gary Lineker, but I’ll stick to weather’
items: Where to see the world's wildest animals from Apple TV+'s The Wild Ones
items: Walking The Salt Path like Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs
items: Simon Reeve reveals embarrassing moment cut from TV broadcast: "I felt guilty and stupid"
items: 5 travel spots where you can discover the dinosaurs of the past
items: Larry Lamb: 'I miss Gavin & Stacey – but it's not up to me if we'll see Mick again'
items: Martin Clunes says Greenland would be full of "massage" parlours for the military if Trump took over
items: Tour de Fred: Following Fred Sirieix's trail through Northern Ireland and Donegal
items: Chris Chibnall calls new novel "Broadchurch-adjacent" after "full-on" Doctor Who writing experience
items: Inside Jeremy Pang's Hong Kong Kitchen
items: The best medicine
items: 'Cancer is very funny!' – Mark Steel on finding the laughs in life's darkest moments
items: Colum McCann on epic new novel Twist and the famous fan who left him humbled
items: 'I wanted to escape aspects of my life': Gordon Buchanan on mental health and hiding in nature

Blackadder's Ben Elton reveals how Stephen Fry responded to his "few-holds-barred" portrayal in new memoir
type: item
date: 2025-11-28T17:01:14.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Books
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Author, comedian and dramatist Ben Elton found writing his autobiography therapeutic – but will the many famous friends he mentions agree?
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Ben Elton, it’s obvious, is slightly floored by the question – but it’s actually pretty straightforward: “Why does everybody hate you?” Maybe it’s because the query comes not from me, interviewing him over Zoom from Australia where he now lives. (In fact I find him the very opposite of hateable: frank, funny, thoughtful, self-aware and generous.) No, the question in question comes from the publisher of Elton’s new autobiography – and good friend – Larry. “When I took him the idea, it was his first comment,” says Elton. “Not ‘Oh great, I can’t wait to hear you on the subject of Blackadder’, but ‘You’ll have to address the question: Why does everybody hate you?’” The answer – like everything else in Elton’s book/life – is tackled with head-on humour. “Everybody doesn’t hate me. That’s why I’ve written 16 novels,” he says (modestly neglecting to mention the smash-hit musicals, seminal stand-up routines and million-dollar movies he’s written, nor even national-fabric sitcoms such as The Young Ones, Blackadder and Upstart Crow). “But clearly I irritate some people. My gaucheness, my enthusiasm, my Mickey Rooney tendencies – ‘Let’s do the show! It’s going to be brilliant!’ – I can see how that would irritate people, especially in Britain, which has a default approval of false humility. If my dear friend Stephen is doing an interview about his book, he’ll say [excellent impression of Mr Fry], ‘Oh, it’s awful, pure nonsense. Don’t read it, let’s talk about something else!’ – and people love that. “But I’ll say, ‘It’s the best thing I’ve done, I’m so pleased with it, please read it!’ – and that doesn’t seem to wash. In the book, I deal with a few people who’ve been mean about me [they really have, and he really does], but I think I’ve done it in a nice way and paid respect. I think I’ve got it just right – but there I go again!” So why write a memoir and not, say, novel number 17? “I started to think about an autobiography…

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Bob Geldof talks always being bored of Band Aid, the end of rock 'n' roll and Taylor Swift
type: item
date: 2025-11-24T17:01:57.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: audio
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: "I don’t think there's any more we can do with Band Aid."
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Not many people change the world, but Bob Geldof did. So why is he so ambivalent about his achievements with Live Aid? Geldof and writer Paul Vallely discuss their new book Live Aid: The Definitive 40-Year Story. Let’s start with you, Bob. Or should we call you Bobsy, or Brother Teresa, as the new Live Aid book reveals you’re sometimes known? BOB GELDOF No, Bobsy is just something Freddie Mercury used to call me. He’d get on the phone and go, “Well, Bobsy darling…” And Brother Teresa is a joke I made up for the foreword of this book. Normally I’m just called things like “irritating”. Did you think in 1985 that we’d all still be sitting here talking about Live Aid 40 years later? BG: No. I mean, after seven years I got these silver models of the Band Aid logo made up and inscribed to say thank you to the guys who’d helped, because I thought, “That’s it, there’s no need for us to exist. We’re not going to be Save the Children and go on for ever.” So we had a dinner – everyone was overwhelmed that I was buying dinner, for a start – and I handed them out, and I gave one to myself, which is in the cupboard somewhere. And that was 33 years ago. But the need for us to press on became apparent. People kept supporting us. PAUL VALLELY: £2 million still comes in every year [through the Band Aid Trust]. BG: But I get bored so easily. In this case that’s mitigated by the effect Band Aid’s still having – it’s keeping millions of people going – and by the rage I feel when I see injustice. But, being very honest, often this s**t bores me. You’re bored of Band Aid? BG: It always bored me. So does making records, so does rehearsing. It bores the arse off me. I only did one day’s rehearsal for the current Boomtown Rats tour. Can’t stand it. If I forget the words, I’ll make them up on the hoof. That’s the way I am. PV: Let me contradict you, Bob. You are one of the most sustained, resilient, persistent, driven people that I’ve ever …

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Medieval Prince Harry "would have killed" William, imagines Young James Bond author – as he compares King Charles to a murdered monarch
type: item
date: 2025-11-18T00:01:10.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Books
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Singer, comedian, actor, author... not one to rest on his laurels, Charlie Higson's latest book is a joyful and irreverent romp through 1,000 colourful years of the British monarchy.
encoded: When I thank Charlie Higson for joining me, he says, “Oh, it’s a pleasure to talk about myself!” Which is awkward, as we’re not really here to talk about him at all. It’s not that he’s not interesting: he’s been lead singer in an 80s funk-punk band; the genius behind 90s catchphrase-jackpot The Fast Show; and the acclaimed writer of James Bond novels, children’s books and several successful TV dramas. It’s just that the subject of his new book is even more interesting – red-hot-poker-up-the-bottom interesting, in fact. Willie, Willie, Harry, Stee is a history of our country’s kings and queens, from William I to Charles III. As Higson says, those “bemoaning the behaviour of present-day royals such as Prince Harry… [need reminding of the] alarming, violent, often sordid” stuff their predecessors got away with, including (look away now, Wills) fratricide. Had Harry been a medieval prince, reckons Higson, “he would have killed his brother, locked his father up, taken the throne for himself, and everyone would have said, ‘Hooray! Finally, a good strong king!’ That style of monarchy would have suited him. As an ‘army chap’, he’d have promoted himself as a warrior for his country. Out of all of them, he probably would have been the one who succeeded.” View oEmbed on the source website The outlook would have been less rosy for Meghan: “This idea that she’s corrupted him – turned him into a woke, Netflix-documentary-making poodle – would have seen her besmirched as a she-wolf, like Queen Isabella [of France]”. And not much better for Charles: Higson sees the current King as a modern-day Edward II (he of red-hot poker fame), whose “own wife shoved him into a castle, locked him up and murdered him. That would have been Charles’s fate”. My conversation with Higson took place before the latest revelations concerning the King’s own errant brother, Andrew, but the author’s not shy about making criminal comparisons. “It’s like The Godfather,” he says. “There’s this family dynasty, …

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Exploring Zambia, the star of BBC One's Kingdom
type: item
date: 2025-11-05T10:53:40.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
description: Drama, action, comedy – African wildlife has it all. So, how can you get exclusive access to the stars of Kingdom?
encoded: The elephant in the room here is an actual elephant in the room. I’ve popped back to my safari camp suite for a post-lunch nap, you see, and found a 900-stone pachyderm in my sitting area. (The Albida Suite has open walls and it turns out Nelly and friends like to wander in to drink from its plunge pool.) This is one of the perks of doing a safari in Zambia rather than more touristed destinations such as Kenya or South Africa – and is possibly why David Attenborough and the crew of Kingdom chose Zambia for its epic four-year shoot. The natural history blockbuster, which follows four animal families over almost half a decade, was shot in Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park, and that’s where I began my own, sadly rather briefer, safari. Nkwali Camp, which I’d booked through experts Robin Pope Safaris (robinpopesafaris.net), gazes aristocratically down over a hippo-filled river, its collection of breezy wood-and-thatch cottages seemingly playing hide-and-seek with each other in a forest of ebony trees. Browse this safari holiday from Newmarket Holidays & experience your own trip to Africa Game drives are undertaken in 4WDs with a couple of rows of seats fixed high on the vehicle’s back end – so everyone gets a great view, and in a further crucial contrast with the sometimes cattle-truck experience of a safari in such honeypot destinations as Kenya’s Maasai Mara or South Africa’s Kruger, it soon becomes apparent that we have the animals more or less to ourselves. When, within minutes of the beginning of my first drive, we come across a small herd of zebras, I wait for what I previously thought was the inevitable chug-chug-chug of a dozen other vehicles joining us – and it never comes. “Exclusivity” is a much-bandied word in luxury travel, but here it’s more than a mere snobbish refusal to holiday with Ordinary Folk. Without a ravening pack of Land Cruisers waiting to descend every time an animal is spotted, you feel as if you’re really interacting with the landscape an…

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Sally Magnusson dishes on King Charles III reporting the weather – and why she doesn't miss Reporting Scotland following 27-year run
type: item
date: 2025-10-28T00:01:35.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Books
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: After an eventful three decades on TV news, broadcaster Sally Magnusson is refocusing her efforts on her literary endeavours.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Ask Sally Magnusson what she misses after finishing her 27-year run on Reporting Scotland six months ago, and the long pause while she tries to think of something is as telling as her actual answer. “I’ll be incredibly honest with you,” she says eventually. “I don’t really miss it. I miss colleagues, but I’m still on the WhatsApp group, and we meet up.” So she now gets all the perks with none of the work? “Well, yes. But I don’t get the money, either.” Certainly Magnusson earned her wages: across her years on Reporting Scotland, Breakfast Time and others, she recalls covering such dark times as Dunblane, Lockerbie, Zeebrugge, Princess Diana’s funeral and Covid – which she found just as harrowing in its way as those other, more dramatic stories. But there were happier moments, too (“so many!”). And, pushed for examples, this time there is no hesitation at all. “One of the most joyful was the day that Prince Charles and Camilla came and did the weather on my programme. That was a huge amount of fun, especially trying to get Camilla to do it. Charles read off the autocue with great aplomb and did the whole thing very well, but when I asked Camilla she said, ‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly!’ Charles encouraged her, though, and he held her handbag while she had a go. She wasn’t quite as good as him… but be careful how you tell that story, because I don’t want to make it look as if she was terrible.” (If you’re worried that RT has just blown Magnusson’s chances of an honour, relax: she got her MBE in 2023.) Now, at any rate, the 70-year-old has time to write. Previously, she’d squeezed her literary output in around the day job and bringing up five children – all the more remarkable when you consider the breadth of her work, from a moving memoir of her mother’s dementia (“I wanted to describe her at each stage, so I would never forget how she smiled, or moved her hands through her hair, or put her lipstick on”) to children’s st…

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Michael Palin reveals how a Monty Python sketch saved him from being thrown in a Venezuelan jail
type: item
date: 2025-10-20T20:00:34.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Books
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Sir Michael Palin’s wanderlust is undimmed at 82, but how does the comedian defuse a dangerous situation?
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. You could almost hear the sigh of collective disappointment from the country’s female population. I’d asked Michael Palin – perhaps a little insensitively, given it’s only two and a half years since his wife of 57 years died – if he might be looking for a new travelling companion. And the answer was polite (of course) but emphatic: “I do miss Helen very much on holidays. I was away with all my children and grandchildren in Italy recently, and it was lovely, but I realised I was 25 years older than the next oldest person there. You do need someone your own age to share your perspective and roll your eyes with – but I’m not really in the market for meeting anyone else.” Bad news for the nation’s womenfolk, perhaps – anyone who’s seen any of his TV travelogues knows he’d be the perfect person to squire you around foreign climes – but at least we all get to accompany the former Python in his witty, insightful, lightly learned written accounts. The latest of these, Michael Palin in Venezuela, accompanies September’s three-part series of the same name. But why Venezuela? “The decisions on where we go are taken by myself and Neil Ferguson, the director. He’s the one who says, ‘I want to go somewhere else,’ while I’m saying, ‘I’d rather stay in bed for a couple more days.’ But I never really want to stay in bed or sit in one place too long: I love travelling. It’s a form of global fidgeting.” It sounds like he has a travel companion already then. Do they bicker like a couple? “Oh no, I’m far too agreeable. We have constructive conversations. I say, ‘I’m 82. I might fall over if I go there.’ He says, ‘You’ll be fine.’ And Channel 5 – who are presumably paying the insurance bill – seem very keen to keep me travelling, too.” That still doesn’t explain Venezuela, I point out. “It’s always been a mysterious country to me, but with something seductive about its name. It also fits the bill for what we try to do in these shows, w…

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As seen on Apple TV's The Last Frontier: Discover Alaska the luxurious way
type: item
date: 2025-10-14T13:00:56.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
description: Want to explore wild Alaska without the fear of frostbite? A cosseting cruise offers hot tubs and fine dining alongside spectacular scenery.
encoded: “This is Alaska,” says local lawman Frank Remnick (Jason Clarke) to his CIA counterpart as they consider the difficulties of rounding up 18 convicts on the loose across the state’s frozen wastes in Apple TV’s The Last Frontier. Daunting, sure, but “This is Alaska, too,” I think to myself as I accept some champagne and nibble a Princess Love Boat Dream – a “heart-shaped dessert with layers of chocolate-raspberry mousse and vanilla-raspberry cream on a shortbread cookie base” – on board the Grand Princess, where I’m experiencing Alaska in rather more comfort than Remnick or his 18 unwelcome guests. Request a brochure and get inspiration for your next holiday While The Last Frontier’s frostbitten felons check in (and, in some cases, promptly check out) when their prisoner transport plane crash[1]lands in the middle of a snowy forest, my Air Canada jet glides safely into Vancouver. There I spend a few very pleasant days among its excellent food markets, parks and beaches before boarding Grand Princess for my Voyage of the Glaciers cruise, which will wind its delightfully unhurried way north to Anchorage. Three ‘port days’ give me a flavour of the Last Frontier (also Alaska’s official state nickname); two ‘scenic cruising’ days provide spectacular views of glaciers and icebergs without my even having to leave the (extreme) comfort of my hot tub; and the itinerary’s single ‘sea day’ allows me to savour the ship’s spas, bars and even ‘Movies under the Stars’, where I happily goggle a Harry Potter on the open top deck’s huge screen, hunkered under a blanket with cookies. Slightly more adventurous are the 150-odd excursions available through Grand Princess (similar ones can be booked independently, of course). Options range from mild to wild, but each one drops you deeper into the landscape or lifestyle of Alaska than the ship alone ever could. Each port day, helicopters whisk passengers up to other-worldly icefields where huskies howl; floatplanes trace fjords and emerald i…

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Jane Goodall: 'We must all do our bit to make the world a better place'
type: item
date: 2025-10-02T11:29:41.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Documentaries
subject: TV
subject: Interview
description: The legendary conservationist on her life among chimpanzees, battling sexism, and why hope is hard work.
encoded: This article was first published in Radio Times magazine in November 2021, to promote the BBC Radio 4 drama In the Shadow of Man. Most people would be quite excited to have a play about their life on Radio 4. Ethologist Jane Goodall, however, admits she's "getting used to that sort of thing. And wait till you see who's playing me in the film that's being made..." She won't name names, but bearing in mind "it's got Leonardo DiCaprio behind it", we can expect someone fairly stellar. And perhaps, at last, Goodall will stop being mistaken for fellow primate expert Dian Fossey, who was played by Sigourney Weaver in Gorillas in the Mist. "Everybody mixes us up," sighs Goodall. "But it can be funny. I was on a plane once, and the flight attendant said, 'It's an honour to have you on board, Miss Fossey.' I smiled, and didn't say anything, and thought, 'She's going to go and tell people who she had on her flight today, and they're going to tell her that Dian Fossey's dead, and she's going to think she's seen a ghost.'" Even if people don't know Goodall's face, they're living in a world profoundly shaped by her work. Transplanting herself from genteel Bournemouth to the jungles of Tanzania's Gombe Stream National Park in 1960, she was the first to record evidence of tool use by chimpanzees. "I saw what we now call termite fishing," she recalls. "A chimp broke off a grass stem, pushed it down into the termite mound, then pulled it very carefully out and picked off the termites to eat. And boom! It was so remarkable – and I had such a mix of amazement and disbelief – that I didn't even send a telegram until I'd seen it on a few more occasions. Because at that time, Man was defined as the only creature capable of using tools." Put simply, Goodall's observations redefined humanity. Her discoveries helped convince a sceptical scientific establishment that chimps and humans shared a common ancestor. She saw their emotional depth up close, watching chimps hug, kiss and even tickle e…

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Dame Jane Goodall: 'We must all do our bit to make the world a better place'
type: item
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: App
subject: App features
description: The legendary conservationist on her life among chimpanzees, battling sexism, and why hope is hard work.
encoded: This article was first published in Radio Times magazine in November 2021, to promote the BBC Radio 4 drama In the Shadow of Man. Most people would be quite excited to have a play about their life on Radio 4. Ethologist Jane Goodall, however, admits she's "getting used to that sort of thing. And wait till you see who's playing me in the film that's being made..." She won't name names, but bearing in mind "it's got Leonardo DiCaprio behind it", we can expect someone fairly stellar. And perhaps, at last, Goodall will stop being mistaken for fellow primate expert Dian Fossey, who was played by Sigourney Weaver in Gorillas in the Mist. "Everybody mixes us up," sighs Goodall. "But it can be funny. I was on a plane once, and the flight attendant said, 'It's an honour to have you on board, Miss Fossey.' I smiled, and didn't say anything, and thought, 'She's going to go and tell people who she had on her flight today, and they're going to tell her that Dian Fossey's dead, and she's going to think she's seen a ghost.'" Even if people don't know Goodall's face, they're living in a world profoundly shaped by her work. Transplanting herself from genteel Bournemouth to the jungles of Tanzania's Gombe Stream National Park in 1960, she was the first to record evidence of tool use by chimpanzees. "I saw what we now call termite fishing," she recalls. "A chimp broke off a grass stem, pushed it down into the termite mound, then pulled it very carefully out and picked off the termites to eat. And boom! It was so remarkable – and I had such a mix of amazement and disbelief – that I didn't even send a telegram until I'd seen it on a few more occasions. Because at that time, Man was defined as the only creature capable of using tools." Put simply, Goodall's observations redefined humanity. Her discoveries helped convince a sceptical scientific establishment that chimps and humans shared a common ancestor. She saw their emotional depth up close, watching chimps hug, kiss and even tickle e…

Rob Brydon reveals why he initially turned down new BBC series – and what changed his mind
type: item
date: 2025-09-29T23:01:10.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Entertainment
subject: TV
subject: BBC
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: A new series sees Rob Brydon journey around the southern states of the US to discover the origins of country music.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Be honest, Rob. Do you actually like country music? I am genuinely very fond of it and genuinely keen to know more. When [the BBC] first offered me this [three-part series], I declined it because I thought, “I’m no authority on country music”, and it might be perceived as a little opportunistic. But then they came back with the angle of discovering it and I thought, “Well, that entitles me to do it”. Because when some Johnny off the TV like me swans off to make a documentary, I think there has to be a reason for it. You’re being too modest. You’re actually a country music superstar: your version of Islands in the Stream, with Ruth Jones, got to number one… That was a novelty record for Comic Relief! I tell my kids, “We were at number one for seven days”. But I do do a bit of singing in this series. Among other things, we go to an Elvis Festival in Franklin, Tennessee, and I meet all these Elvi. I put on my Elvis suit, they announce me, I go out on stage… and it’s blank looks all round. I’m not known over there, so it’s just this short, middle-aged Welshman singing Elvis. I really had to hold my nerve. This series takes you right round the southern states. What was your general impression? It’s a whole other country from the rest of the US. Down there, it’s work, play, family and God. We saw a lot of spindly white wooden church steeples, a lot of beautiful disused barns, a lot of lovely open front porches and a lot of food. They’re not on a health kick down there – even the “healthy” options come smothered in a blanket of melted cheese, and the trail mix has M&Ms in it. The people are wonderful though – hugely courteous and very friendly. Take Heidi Parton: she’s Dolly’s niece, and she performs at [her aunt’s theme park] Dollywood. She’s the epitome of southern hospitality – if any holiday-maker goes up and says “Hello”, she’ll stay and chat with them. There are a few “eccentrics” out there in the backwoods though,…

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Gavin & Stacey icon Joanna Page dishes on her new memoir Lush! - and why she wrote it in the car at 5am
type: item
date: 2025-09-25T14:40:35.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Books
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
subject: RT Book Club
description: From career lows to Gavin & Stacey, Joanna Page’s memoir Lush! tells all. But why did she write it in her car at 5am?
encoded: “I’m probably not even allowed to say this,” confides Joanna Page, pausing for perhaps 0.4 seconds before saying it anyway. “I wanted to call my book ‘Breathe Through Your Anus’.” The explanation tumbles out just as quickly (“It’s something our teacher at Rada told us to do, and I thought it was quite a fitting title”), but it’s typical of the way the Gavin & Stacey star talks: winningly wide-eyed, utterly unfiltered, 19 (or 20!) to the dozen, and always on the edge of laughter. In the end – and in a nod to one of Stacey’s most repeated lines – Page has called her memoir Lush! It’s no less frank or relatable (or scatologically funny) for all that, though. “When I realised I was going to write a book,” she admits in the acknowledgements, “I got over-excited, thought I was Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City and went straight out to buy a handbag I could carry my notepad and pens in. Then I realised I was going to have to actually write the thing and s**t myself.” It turns out she was right to panic, as producing a book when you’ve got four young children, four guinea pigs and two dogs to look after is no breeze. “I’d go and sit in our garage to write, and my husband would be like, ‘I’ll look after all of them’ – but that apparently involves him popping in every five minutes to ask me something. So then I started going to car parks to write, just sitting there in my car trying to get it done in the middle of the night until I thought ‘This is getting a bit dodgy’ – or maybe a bit dogging-y – so I’d go back and park outside my own house, not daring to go inside in case I woke the kids, and keep writing in my car till five in the morning.” Refreshingly for an actor’s autobiography, she’s just as candid about her career lows: lad-mag photographers getting her drunk for raunchy shoots, mendacious directors tricking her into sex scenes, a handsy TV presenter trying to feel her up on set (she won’t name him because “he’s not on telly any more. He got his comeuppance”). An…

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Adam Kay argues the NHS is the UK’s greatest institution but “one of the worst employers”
type: item
date: 2025-09-08T23:01:44.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Books
subject: Magazine
subject: RT Book Club
description: The debut novel of former doctor Adam Kay is a medical mystery that shines a stark light on the NHS today.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. “Hopefully everyone out there thinks I look like Ben Whishaw,” says Adam Kay. And it’s quite possible they do: Whishaw played Kay in the BBC’s 2022 adaptation of his mega-selling medical memoir This Is Going to Hurt. “My main criterion when casting it was ‘extremely handsome’,” admits Kay. But he’s less concerned with the looks of the leading man in any screen version of his new book – and first novel – A Particularly Nasty Case. “There’s only 20 per cent of me in [the main character] Eitan,” explains the author. “He’s a very messy doctor, and I like to think that I wasn’t quite that messy.” “Messy” may be an understatement though: in the darkly funny thriller, Eitan is a consultant rheumatologist (“the least sexy part of medicine”), returning to work after time off with a bipolar condition, who becomes convinced that his manager’s death from a heart attack was actually murder. “So it starts not as a ‘whodunnit’ but as an ‘ifdunnit’,” says Kay. If you think that sounds far-fetched, think again. Kay writes with all the authority of a man who spent six years as an NHS doctor before becoming a writer, but nevertheless had a team of “medical advisers” check the manuscript. “I’m 15 years out of the game now – it would be a major roll of the dice asking me for medical advice – so I got some clever friends of mine to read the book and flag anything they thought wouldn’t work. Worryingly, they gave it a clean bill of health.” It was important for Kay to get the science right, he says (and he admiringly mentions Agatha Christie “because as a trained pharmacist, all the poison knowledge in her books is absolutely spot-on”). But what about the human side? Doctors don’t really do away with their rivals, do they? “Well, I hope I wasn’t the only student at medical school who listened to lectures and thought, ‘Oh, well that would be quite a good way to kill someone.’ Luckily, I had just about enough morals to never go through wi…

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Whitstable Pearl offers a taste of the Kent coast – and the real star is the location
type: item
date: 2025-08-12T15:30:56.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
subject: Magazine
description: Inspired by the Kent-set crime drama Whitstable Pearl, our writer takes you to the real Whitstable – a working harbour town where salty breezes, shingle beaches and freshly shucked oysters are the stars of the show.
encoded: Kerry Godliman pioneered it, but I’m naming it. Whitstable Pearl is “seafood noir” – and if it hasn’t yet inspired a whole copycat TV genre (which it probably will), it has certainly inspired a few visits to its real-world milieu. The crime show, set on the Kent coast, is currently into its third series of salty, sinister murders and lingering glances across the shingle, with Godliman as the seafood-slinging sleuth. But the true star is the location: real-life Whitstable has all the bobbing oyster yawls, creaking hulls and fresh-fish-fuelled charm of the show, but without simmering suspense between mussels and main course. Browse our tours of the UK and Ireland here Truth be told, you don’t need a murder mystery to find intrigue in Whitstable. A short hop from London – under 80 minutes by train – it’s long on seaside appeal. The harbour is still working, the high street still hosts actual marine supplies stores among the Breton-top-toting boutiques, and there’s still the sense that locals would be here with or without the influx of weekenders and the occasional TV camera crew. Start, as Godliman’s Pearl Nolan herself might, with a wander along Harbour Street. It’s a pick ’n’ mix of vintage stores, artist-run galleries and those irresistibly browsable little shops where everything seems to smell of driftwood and lavender. A few steps farther is the Harbour Market, where oysters are shucked to order for just £2.50 each, and you can pick up nautical knick-knacks. It’s either delightfully authentic or one puff of wind away from twee, depending on your mood and how many Whitstable Brewery Oyster Stouts you’ve had from the open-air bar next to the oyster-shuckers… The beach itself is no golden-sanded sprawl; instead, it’s a salt-tang shinglescape, fringed with candy-coloured beach huts and shaped by centuries of North Sea breezes. It’s a beach for dog-walkers and daydreamers, not for sandcastles or sunbathing, though when I visited last month the water was warm enough for…

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Rhys James reveals why a US version of Mock the Week is probably not happening
type: item
date: 2025-08-04T23:01:45.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Comedy
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Comedy is a way of controlling embarrassment for Rhys James – so did writing his memoirs burst his balloon?
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Did you hear the one about the stand-up comedian who’s actually a complete introvert? Well go ahead and laugh, says Rhys James, Live at the Apollo luminary and perennial panellist on BBC2’s Mock the Week. He describes his first book, out this week, as “a dread memoir” – then adds, hurriedly, “but funny”. “Sorry, it’s hard to explain your own book, because it’s like describing yourself on a dating app: ‘Aren’t I amazing?!’” he says. “But it’s not about the dark, horrible, scary kind of dread: it’s about the dread of small, social things, like having to go for a couples dinner, or go down the pub, or make a speech – and this massive underlying fear of things going wrong or being embarrassing.” In fact, You’ll Like It When You Get There is perhaps best summed up by its revelation that the sentence James feared most as a child was “Come downstairs and say hello”. And that when plans are cancelled, he still “celebrates with an Andy Murray fist pump”. And a howl-out-loud anecdote about pretending to be French to avoid conversation (in fact, three anecdotes about pretending to be French). So far, so relatable – but why then become a comic? “Introverts aren’t just those skulk-in-the-corner guys; it’s more complicated than that. If you go to the pub with me, I in no way seem like an introvert, because I’ll be dominating conversation – I won’t shut up. But that’s how introversion manifests for me: I’m ‘confident-presenting’. I’m desperately trying for there not to be a silence, because my introverted brain can’t hack it. "My ‘villain origin story’ is when I was 14 and had my trousers and pants pulled down in front of classmates, and I vowed to get laughs on my own terms for ever more – and actually stand-up comedy is a great way of controlling the situation. It suits an introvert because you’re basically saying, ‘All face me and I’ll speak!’ If someone shouts out, you basically go, ‘Shut up!’ And that’s what being an introv…

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'Every character is a part of me, even the nutters'
type: item
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: App
subject: App features
description: More than 30 years on from the original, Irvine Welsh reveals why he’s written a new sequel to Trainspotting
encoded: Add Trainspotting to your watchlist. To order Men In Love for below its RRP, click here. Ewan McGregor as Renton, Robert Carlyle as Begbie, Jonny Lee Miller as Sick Boy… whether you know Trainspotting from having read the book, watched the films or just from the famous movie posters, you will undoubtedly find it hard to picture anybody else as those characters. Yet, there’s a cocky young upstart who thinks he could do a job there if Trainspotting’s sequel, Men in Love – published on 22 July – gets the adaptation treatment. “I could probably play them all quite well,” reckons Irvine Welsh, the 66-year-old author of both novels. “I think I could do a decent hard man for Begbie; the cynical outsider, like Renton; I can probably have a go at the lover, Sick Boy; and I can definitely do the hapless fool, lovable loser thing for Spud. It’s because every character you write is a part of you, even the nutters. All you can really hope for is that the nutters are repressed parts of you.” In fact, Welsh played small parts in both Trainspotting films, and when asked about a possible big ten-hour, Netflix-style series based on Men in Love, he says he’s “been working with Bobby Carlyle on something like that, but I’d love to just get some brilliant young actors and recast the whole lot again, starting from [prequel] Skagboys”. So could he pip McGregor to the lead role? “The casting people might have something to say about that. And the Hollywood financiers wouldn’t be too enthused either.” Still, stranger things have happened. Welsh expects his West End musical version of Trainspotting to open next year and he’s also collaborated on a “disco soul album” released as a companion to Men in Love this week. There are surprises in store for his characters, too. Although it picks up just after Trainspotting finishes, the story’s “heroes” are changed – or at least changing – men. Renton is, says Welsh, “looking for love”; Spud has “found the girl of his dreams” and Sick Boy is even consi…

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Trainspotting writer Irvine Welsh teases potential sequel series - and whether iconic roles could be recast
type: item
date: 2025-07-21T20:00:19.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: More than 30 years on from the original, Irvine Welsh reveals why he’s written a new sequel to Trainspotting.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Ewan McGregor as Renton, Robert Carlyle as Begbie, Jonny Lee Miller as Sick Boy… whether you know Trainspotting from having read the book, watched the films or just from the famous movie posters, you will undoubtedly find it hard to picture anybody else as those characters. Yet, there’s a cocky young upstart who thinks he could do a job there if Trainspotting’s sequel, Men in Love – published on 22 July – gets the adaptation treatment. “I could probably play them all quite well,” reckons Irvine Welsh, the 66-year-old author of both novels. “I think I could do a decent hard man for Begbie; the cynical outsider, like Renton; I can probably have a go at the lover, Sick Boy; and I can definitely do the hapless fool, lovable loser thing for Spud. It’s because every character you write is a part of you, even the nutters. All you can really hope for is that the nutters are repressed parts of you.” In fact, Welsh played small parts in both Trainspotting films, and when asked about a possible big ten-hour, Netflix-style series based on Men in Love, he says he’s “been working with Bobby Carlyle on something like that, but I’d love to just get some brilliant young actors and recast the whole lot again, starting from [prequel] Skagboys”. So could he pip McGregor to the lead role? “The casting people might have something to say about that. And the Hollywood financiers wouldn’t be too enthused either.” Still, stranger things have happened. Welsh expects his West End musical version of Trainspotting to open next year and he’s also collaborated on a “disco soul album” released as a companion to Men in Love this week. There are surprises in store for his characters, too. Although it picks up just after Trainspotting finishes, the story’s “heroes” are changed – or at least changing – men. Renton is, says Welsh, “looking for love”; Spud has “found the girl of his dreams” and Sick Boy is even considering marriage. Watch the original …

Carol Kirkwood on her new novel – and social media: 'No disrespect to Gary Lineker, but I’ll stick to weather’
type: item
date: 2025-07-07T23:01:53.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Books
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: With a busy TV schedule and her fifth novel – Meet Me at Sunset – published this month, the forecast couldn’t be sunnier for BBC weather presenter Carol Kirkwood. Just don’t cloud her horizon with thoughts of retirement.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Carol Kirkwood – weather presenter, novelist and the woman who rejected George Clooney for being too short. “George has the rest going for him,” she says appraisingly, “but somebody taller would be better.” She’s talking – ostensibly – about who would play the character of Nicolas, if her new novel, Meet Me at Sunset, were made into a film, but she’s clearly spent some time thinking about the handsome Hollywooder in non-literary contexts too. “I always go to George Clooney [when I’m trying to visualise a face] for Nicolas. But then, I go to George Clooney for an awful lot…” Kirkwood didn’t have to try too hard either to imagine a look for the other central character in the book, Camille. “She’s a successful designer who goes back to Majorca, a place she loves, though this time she’s running away from a shattered love affair, and the story’s full of betrayal, blackmail, lies, deceit, romance and lots of escapism,” she explains. “But the whole idea came from a holiday in Majorca a couple of years ago and there was a lady who came into the restaurant a few times and always ate alone… “People watching is one of my favourite things to do, and she was fascinating: very chic, slim, in a beautiful suit, with her hair in a French chignon. She always had a salad, a glass of white wine and she sat very upright – and looked out to the sea every night. I thought, ‘What’s her story?’ – and she was in my mind the whole time I was writing this book.” Meet Me at Sunset, published on 17 July, is Kirkwood’s fifth novel and she’s previously reached number two in The Sunday Times bestsellers list, so does the BBC stalwart now list ‘writer’ as her occupation on forms? “No, I would still put TV presenter.” So she doesn’t align herself with peers who use the #notaweathergirl hashtag to fight what they see as demeaning sexism in the profession? “I never think like that. I am what I am, and I don’t really care what anybody thinks of me. An…

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Where to see the world's wildest animals from Apple TV+'s The Wild Ones
type: item
date: 2025-07-01T15:30:37.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
subject: Magazine
description: Seeing animals in their natural environment doesn’t mean you have to compromise on comfort...
encoded: If you usually take an ex-Royal Marines sniper with you on holiday, you can stop reading now. For you, it will be enough simply to watch The Wild Ones (which starts on Apple TV+ next week) and copy the exploits of its presenters – wildlife cameramen Declan Burley and Vianet Djenguet, plus the former Royal Marines Commando who’s keeping them safe, Aldo Kane. From the deserts of Mongolia to the frigid oceans off Canada, the trio visit unpromising and inhospitable environments in search of tigers, whales, leopards and more, returning with the most amazing footage. But if you’re more “mild one” than Wild One, there are easy-breezy versions of each of their six trips – even as effortless as easing yourself onto a cruise ship… SO YOU WANT TO SEE... Tigers THE WILD ONES WAY Find the Malayan tiger (one of the world’s most endangered) in the rainforests of Malaysia. THE MILD ONES WAY Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan is one of the best places on Earth to see wild tigers (tourism.rajasthan.gov.in). Just a few hours’ drive from Jaipur – and its maharajas’-palaces-turned-luxury-hotels – this former royal hunting ground is now a protected sanctuary, where Bengal tigers prowl amid lakes, ruins and banyan forests. Guided jeep safaris run daily, but the best time to visit is between October and March, when the weather’s cooler and animals cluster near shrinking waterholes. Request a brochure and get inspiration for your next holiday SO YOU WANT TO SEE... Bears THE WILD ONES WAY Use thermal night imagery to track the Gobi bear across the Mongolian desert. THE MILD ONES WAY Alaska might sound even more extreme than Mongolia – except, of course, that it’s easily done by cruise ship (try princess.com). Almost all Alaska itineraries (by boat or car) include a stop in Ketchikan, from where you can take a short seaplane or coach ride to nearby spots such as Anan Creek or Neets Bay, where brown and black bears gather in summer to feast on salmon. Elevated viewing platforms mean you’ll…

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Walking The Salt Path like Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs
type: item
date: 2025-06-03T15:53:01.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
subject: Magazine
description: You don't need to walk all of the South West Coast Path to appreciate its wonders.
encoded: Join one travel writer’s gloriously half-hearted homage to The Salt Path – the extraordinary true story of Raynor Winn and her husband Moth’s 630-mile trek along the South West Coast Path, now a major film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs. In contrast, this luxury-loving imposter tackles just 40 miles (some by bus), fuelled by hot tubs, fish and chips, and samphire-scented hand cream. From cliff-hugging trails and Cornish pasties to barefoot beach walks and indulgent dinners, it’s a long-weekend escape that proves you don’t have to rough it to feel the magic of the coast. I’m a cheat. A charlatan. A fraud. Raynor Winn and her husband Moth – played by Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs in new film The Salt Path – walked the full 630-mile length of the South West Coast Path, flimsy eBay tent on back, after Moth was diagnosed with terminal brain disease and they were made homeless. Request a brochure and get inspiration for your next holiday I, on the other lavishly moisturised hand, am doing about 40 miles – several of them by bus – over four days, based at a luxury hotel (hence the grapefruit-and-samphire-scented mitts). Dishonesty never tasted so good, though, I reflect as I demolish my first ill-earned cardboard carton of fish and chips… or so necessary. It took Raynor and Moth two summers to complete the Path, between 2013 and 2014, and the official recommendation (southwestcoastpath.org.uk) is to allow 52 days. I’ve only got a long weekend, so have lasered in on a section in Cornwall that bulges like a badly stuffed backpack with clifftop drama, sheep-nibbled meadows, irresistibly paddle-able beaches… and great public transport links for if/when I need to bale out of a walk and head back to the Watergate Bay Hotel (watergatebay.co.uk) for a sole-soothing spell in the sunset-view hot-tub and a Huckaback IPA. In fact, it’s an effort to get off public transport. The train from London (gwr.com) arcs within splashing distance of the sea in places, with Panavi…

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Simon Reeve reveals embarrassing moment cut from TV broadcast: "I felt guilty and stupid"
type: item
date: 2025-05-27T13:42:37.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Documentaries
subject: TV
subject: BBC iPlayer
subject: BBC Two
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Simon Reeve is headed to Scandinavia in his new series.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Wait… You gave Cornwall a whole series, but Scandinavia only gets three programmes? "You’re trying to get me into trouble immediately, aren’t you? Well, yes, we’re squeezing more than a million and a half square miles into three shows, but that’s telly – skipping in a shallow way through massive issues. I’m not claiming this is an encyclopaedic take; it’s just me pottering around an area I find interesting. And I did Russia in three programmes too, you know!' You’ve snuck Iceland and Finland in there as well, and they’re not even Scandinavian! "I was mildly worried about that, but it’s not as though I’m going to start a religious war. Obviously I’m only ever one major mistake away from being cancelled, but I think the Scandis are too nice to get worked up about it. I might get a few eggs thrown at me, but BBC viewers don’t normally express their views violently. I did get a bolt chucked at me in Belfast: it was a chunky M24 one, like you’d use to rivet down an oil tanker. "But that was during a riot, so I’m not sure it was aimed personally at me because they hated my second series or something. Anyway, we wanted to incorporate the drama of Iceland and the issues of Finland, which has this incredibly long border with Russia and which is now a bit of a flashpoint where they’re worrying about potential future conflict." And you? Were you scared of getting hit by a stray missile? "No, it’s just so beautiful and glorious there – a magical, frozen winter landscape, with snow on the ground but the trees perfectly covered in snow, too – that you can’t imagine anything terrible happening there. But that’s not the historical reality. The Finns have been invaded multiple times in horrific ways, so after the Cold War, while other countries demilitarised, the Finns were thinking, 'Hang on, we’re going to wait another century to be really sure.' And now they’ve got this massive army – 900,000-strong, the largest in Western Euro…

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5 travel spots where you can discover the dinosaurs of the past
type: item
date: 2025-05-20T14:45:53.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
subject: BBC
description: Want to walk with Earth's ancient inhabitants in real life? Here’s how to discover your own inner palaeontologist.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. If the new Walking with Dinosaurs has got your inner child – or actual child – roaring with excitement again, we’ve got some brontosaurus-sized news for you. The scarily well-rendered CGI brutes on screen are more lifelike than in their last outing, 26 years ago, but still nothing beats the real thing – walking where T rex once stomped, or staring into the fossilised face of a triceratops or two. And it’s surprisingly easy to do: here are five prehistoric holiday hotspots for which the word “roarsome” was (nearly) invented... Dinosaur Provincial Park – Alberta, Canada Alberta’s Badlands look like someone let a T rex loose on a giant chocolate cake: all jagged ridges and sticky, swirled mudstone. This Unesco World Heritage Site (albertaparks. ca/dinosaur) has coughed up more than 50 dinosaur species – even casual hikers can trip over fossils. The park offers guided fossil safaris, where palaeontologists let you dig up 75-million-year-old bones. You can’t keep them, but you’ll leave with the kind of smug dinner-party anecdote no one can top. (“Oh, you went to the Maldives again? I found a hadrosaur femur.”) Base yourself in nearby Drumheller, home of the excellent Royal Tyrrell Museum (tyrrellmuseum.com), where the exhibits look like Hollywood sets but come with scientific credentials. Request a brochure and get inspiration for your next holiday Lark Quarry – Queensland, Australia When the new Jurassic World film hits cinemas in July, it will be hard-pushed to offer more drama than Lark Quarry – home to the world’s only recorded dinosaur stampede. Here in the Queensland outback, one day about 95 million years ago, 150 tiny two-legged dinos were ambushed by a predator – and panicked, leaving behind over 3,000 footprints in the mud. That mud hardened, time passed and now it’s like standing on an ancient film still. The on-site interpretive centre (dinosaurtrackways.com.au) is brilliantly informative, but it’s the foot…

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Larry Lamb: 'I miss Gavin & Stacey – but it's not up to me if we'll see Mick again'
type: item
date: 2025-05-19T23:01:29.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Comedy
subject: TV
subject: Magazine
description: The actor spoke to Radio Times magazine about his debut novel All Wrapped Up.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. So, why on earth does one of the country’s most beloved actors write a novel? I work in an interesting business. People think it’s about glitz and fame, but it’s not about that. It’s about how regular working people deal with situations – they do a job that from the outside appears glamorous, but most of the time is quite the opposite. It’s not about red carpets; it’s about going out and doing a job and making a film. I wanted to celebrate that, so I wrote an adventure story set on a Caribbean island, all seen from the point of view of the first assistant director – who is really the central person on any film or television shoot, because they’re the one who deals with anything that goes wrong through the course of a shoot. It’s not about the actors, it’s about the people who pull together to get the film made. Sorry, that was a bit of a long sentence – as I read the book back to myself, I thought: "Wow, you write some long sentences!" There are some fairly short and, ahem, "pithy" sentences too… Well, you’ve got to be true to your subject, right? There is plenty of tough, fruity language, but it’s not coarse, it’s witty. And it’s the women as much as the men, and the middle class as much as anyone else. I know a lot of middle-class families who are far more foul-mouthed than I am! And All Wrapped Up is about the real-life people doing extraordinary work. As a film or TV actor, the first time you meet your co-actors is at the read-through, and you might not see them again until you all get together to watch the film. But the people you see every single day are the crew: they meet you as you arrive, they put you in your caravan, they put you in your costume, they get your makeup done, they get you a cup of tea – they’re the ones that become your family. So it’s the crew who have all the juicy stories about Larry Lamb being a real diva? You do hear a bit of that stuff from them! They certainly know where the bodies …

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Martin Clunes says Greenland would be full of "massage" parlours for the military if Trump took over
type: item
date: 2025-04-22T09:22:16.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Entertainment
subject: TV
subject: ITV
subject: Magazine
description: Clunes is discovering more about the islands of the Atlantic.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Last year we saw you in Islands of the Pacific, this time it's Islands of the Atlantic. When do we get Islands of Poole Harbour? "I'll get there! If there’s an appetite for it, I would love to go on doing these programmes, because I think islands are fascinating studies in human nature. The more of them I see, the more I learn about the commonalities of island life: people are tackling the same problems but in their own ways that are unique to their culture. For instance, this series takes us from the tropical Bijagos Islands off the coast of Guinea-Bissau in West Africa to Arctic Greenland – but all the islanders have to work so hard to live." And you mucked in to help out? "Well, I did try and get out of it in the Faroe Islands. I was supposed to be diving for mussels, in a dry-suit, but I thought about throwing a sickie, because I’ve used one before and it was a disaster. The act of diving means pointing your head towards the bottom of the sea, which means the air in the suit goes to your feet, so your feet inflate like a lifebuoy and you become a victim of the waves, thrown around like an idiot. "But they do work hard, these islanders. Nobody has just one job. For instance, still in the Faroes, we met this farmer called Harriet Olafsdottir – she's a shepherdess, she runs an Airbnb and she also primps up and decorates her sheep, photographs them and sells the photos online." Sign up to our mailing list to receive more content like this from Radio Times Travel, Shop and Money - click here Life must be easier on the tropical islands that you visited, surely? "Well, that’s interesting. On São Tomé, off the west coast of Africa, the oceans are full of fish, food literally grows on trees – children can just pluck a mango off a branch – but there’s real poverty. People are carving out their life in the ruins of the Portuguese empire, where the jungle has started to consume the buildings, and they kind of squat in the…

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Tour de Fred: Following Fred Sirieix's trail through Northern Ireland and Donegal
type: item
date: 2025-03-26T17:38:41.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
description: Follow Fred Sirieix's tracks around the north of Ireland – taking in wild seascapes, walks with alpacas and a pint of Guinness.
encoded: I look at my companion’s skin and contemplate, accidentally aloud, how warm it would keep me. “We’ll soon be selling beanie hats made out of it,” nods John, our guide. In my defence, I should perhaps point out that it is very windy indeed here on Ireland’s Atlantic coast – and that the companion whose hide I’m eyeing up is an alpaca, like a llama but with softer, more wool-like fleece. John keeps 50 of the sweet-natured beasts on a ruggedly beautiful patch of emerald upland called the Knockamany Bens, leading guests on hour-long walks with them (wildalpacaway.com). On mine, I rubber-neck furiously, torn between the photogenic furballs themselves and the breath-robbing views – the honey-coloured beach of Five Fingers Strand one-way, dramatic cliffs the other. We’re on the Inishowen Peninsula, the northernmost sliver of Donegal, where a quirk of cartography means Northern Ireland shares an east-west border with the South. Request a holiday brochure from one of our partners I’m following in the footsteps and tyre-tracks of Fred Sirieix, whose Tour de Fred: Northern Ireland reaches its finale here (and can be viewed on ITVX). The five-part series sees the broadcaster and former maître d’ cycle round from Dublin to Londonderry before crossing back into the Irish Republic for a taste of Inishowen. It’s a trip that’s really easy to replicate, even if you’ve no intention of straddling a saddle. Sirieix arrives in Dublin by ferry (irishferries.com), which has a certain romance, but there are cheap flights in and out of Dublin, Derry and Belfast. Hiring a car will open up some of the most dangerously scenic drives in Europe, but for safety’s sake bring a co-driver to share with, because it’s impossible to keep your eyes on the gorgeous road around, say, the Causeway Coast or rolling uppy-downy country roads of Antrim. Accommodation takes in everything from wee ma-&-da B&Bs to grand country-house estates; mealtimes will leave you satisfyingly stuffed whether it’s local livesto…

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Chris Chibnall calls new novel "Broadchurch-adjacent" after "full-on" Doctor Who writing experience
type: item
date: 2025-03-25T00:01:56.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Books
description: From BAFTAs to books — Chris Chibnall is forging a new career in crime fiction, and his debut novel is set a few miles from Broadchurch...
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. The smile vanishes. A chill descends. Words crackle through the ether: "I will hunt… you… down." Chris Chibnall is telling me what will happen to me if I give away any spoilers about his debut crime novel – and though he’s joking (I think), the Broadchurch and Doctor Who writer/showrunner is absolutely serious about his first foray into the printed word. "I wanted to write a book precisely because I knew it would be really hard work,” he explains. “I’d been wanting to do one for a decade or two, and after the first season of Broadchurch, a few publishers got in touch. But then I was doing seasons two and three, then the Doctor Who offer came along [Chibnall was showrunner 2018–21]. I came out of all that and thought, ‘What’s on the bucket list?’ A novel was number one on that list, and it was such a joy to go from the most full-on television show you can do, and switch to just me and a laptop and some words." Oh, so it was a relief not to have to worry about furiously proprietorial fans or meddling BBC producers any more? "No, I didn’t think that on Doctor Who! You don’t worry about that stuff when you’re writing a story, you’re just looking for something fresh and original. And I love the collaboration of TV, and being part of a group endeavour. It’s just that I wanted to take away all the stabilisers and mitigations and see if I could make something on my own when there’s nowhere to hide." He certainly has. Death at the White Hart is a gripping thriller, which sings off the page thanks to brilliantly drawn characters and fizzing dialogue. Although the strange, unsettling murder at its centre occurs in a pretty west Dorset village with thatched cottages and two pubs, it’s anything but "cosy crime": the setting is absolutely recognisable as real, 2025 Britain – complete with overworked Amazon drivers and villagers having to turn their homes into Airbnb rentals to make ends meet. Then, of course, there’s the newly …

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Inside Jeremy Pang's Hong Kong Kitchen
type: item
date: 2025-03-19T17:13:30.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
subject: ITVX
description: Chef Jeremy Pang knows all the best places to find the authentic flavours of Hong Kong.
encoded: Feeding chicken’s feet and so-called thousand-year-old eggs to famous people might sound more like a bushtucker trial on I’m a Celebrity... than a travelogue-cum-cookery show, but they’re all on the menu in Jeremy Pang’s Hong Kong Kitchen, new on ITVX this week. The six-part series features Pang taking his guests – from TV presenter Mel Giedroyc to chef Simon Rimmer – on a foodie adventure amid the flavour-saturated streets of Hong Kong. Pang – familiar to viewers from appearances on Ready Steady Cook, Saturday Kitchen and his own show, Jeremy Pang’s Asian Kitchen – hails from three generations of Chinese chefs, so he certainly knows his way round a wok. So, where does he eat in Hong Kong himself, and how can visitors ensure that their trip is truly delicious? Sign up to our mailing list to receive more content like this from Radio Times Travel, Shop and Money - click here Touch down and tuck in “Flights into Hong Kong usually land quite early in the morning, so I drop my luggage off with the hotel concierge then go straight to a roast meats place until my room is ready. You can just Google 'roast meats central Hong Kong' and they’ll all be pretty good, because it’s a real HK thing and there’s a great deal of competition. “The way to order is to pick two meats, which will come on a massive bed of rice with a little sliver of vegetables. I usually add half a salted duck egg, then take the little bits of that to put into my rice to season it. “When I arrived for our recent filming trip, I went straight to a place on Queen Victoria Street called Lung Kee, which is brilliant.” ... Or try some fast food “If you want to ease yourself in to Hong Kong food, the fast-food joints you find in the shopping centres are really good – chains like Maxim’s or Fairwood. They have big picture menus up on the wall, so you can see what you’re getting, and you just give the number of what you want to order. “You’ll be well fed for a fiver, and it’s good, freshly made food: roast duck, ba…

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The best medicine
type: item
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Mark Steel found strength in laughter while he was undergoing treatment for throat cancer — and friends in unexpected places
encoded: To order The Leopard in My House by Mark Steel for £20 (RRP £22), click here So, just how funny is cancer? Comedian – and cancer patient – Mark Steel thinks about this for a second, then replies decisively. “It’s very funny! There’s nothing more amusing than puncturing the pomposity of a situation, which is why I don’t think I’ve ever been to a funeral where there’s not been a really good joke because someone has said something outrageous. My copy of the book [The Leopard In My House, Steel’s memoir of his “Adventures in Cancerland”] just arrived this morning, and I’ve been dipping in and remembering all the funny things that happened – like the Polish man next to me in the critical care unit of the cancer ward the morning of my operation, who just calmly lit up a cigarette.” In fact, the book is packed with laugh-out-embarrassingly loud moments (such as when Steel is trying to get through to his doctor on the phone, and posits a canned hold message saying “Remember, your tumour is important to us”. Or when he’s told his primary cancer is “occult” – medical jargon for “hidden” – and he asks if he needs to see a doctor or an exorcist). Steel is absolutely serious, though, when he talks about how humour got him through the uncertainty, terror and physical brutality of treatment after his throat cancer was first discovered in 2023. One comedian friend tossed him a pack of Strepsils, saying “That should sort it”. On another occasion – after the radiotherapy took Steel’s voice – the comic Seann Walsh “hoped it would come back as a comedy Chinese voice from the 1970s, so that I’d be cured of cancer but cancelled”. Even more close to the darkly-funny bone was the reaction of Steel’s son Elliot, also a stand-up, who accompanied his dad when he initially received his diagnosis – and filled the pregnant silence afterward by observing that he might be getting on the property ladder sooner than expected. (“I was really proud of him for saying that,” recalls Steel senior.) Even …

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'Cancer is very funny!' – Mark Steel on finding the laughs in life's darkest moments
type: item
date: 2025-03-18T00:01:05.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Books
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: "If I'd read that Jimmy Tarbuck was ill, would I have found his number and called him? Of course not."
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. So, just how funny is cancer? Comedian – and cancer patient – Mark Steel thinks about this for a second, then replies decisively. “It’s very funny! There’s nothing more amusing than puncturing the pomposity of a situation, which is why I don’t think I’ve ever been to a funeral where there’s not been a really good joke because someone has said something outrageous. My copy of the book [<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Leopard-House-mans-adventures-cancerland/dp/1529941024/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.OdCoFEKRogzLwII8ak1MZNbvHOiAwTYL8M2yXeCQdGa2IEU18ZsrovIw_Jgb-tR1PzmvPJFtBxIH66X2dwZq6hhjnuNPZDz0V-qX52sALyeSGPUNVWTHtPH_FA7CoG5DhJQnsqbQ5VWX5F2I3s8lPjrQguKLM0-W6M8O4u61Y5kYDJe4jpysqtbRsO6I_NY9gQf5lU0PExUMfLX2d-SFuImQ7Z-8lSzD3Sv7vq94wmeN0mDpBBKFkzT0qGDcfBCYB8TmvXwUrguPvu9NppjilcqwACUJ-O1adP0GjDgEPuOEUio3EPwUgbRC0YY9wdC4K30GnksvpV70dEAda7pALw.zaGE8pQPSvWWmflnr7bHC4C4o5cGIemNE5llvPqxTZo&qid=1742223561&sr=1-1&tag=radtim0b-21&ascsubtag=radiotimes-2235960" target="_blank" rel="sponsored">The Leopard in My House, Steel’s memoir of his “Adventures in Cancerland”] just arrived this morning, and I’ve been dipping in and remembering all the funny things that happened – like the Polish man next to me in the critical care unit of the cancer ward the morning of my operation, who just calmly lit up a cigarette.” In fact, the book is packed with laugh-out-embarrassingly loud moments (such as when Steel is trying to get through to his doctor on the phone, and posits a canned hold message saying “Remember, your tumour is important to us”, or when he’s told his primary cancer is “occult” – medical jargon for “hidden” – and he asks if he needs to see a doctor or an exorcist). Steel is absolutely serious, though, when he talks about how humour got him through the uncertainty, terror and physical brutality of treatment after his throat cancer was first discovered in 2023. One comedian friend tossed him a …

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height: 1189

Colum McCann on epic new novel Twist and the famous fan who left him humbled
type: item
date: 2025-03-11T00:01:26.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Books
subject: Magazine
description: Colum McCann speaks to Radio Times Magazine about his latest novel, Twist.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. What do Bono, JJ Abrams, Salman Rushdie, Sting and Pope Francis have in common? They’re all fans of Colum McCann. And they’re not the only ones, either: the Dublin-born, New York-based writer has been translated into 40 languages, sold more than a million copies of his 2009 novel Let the Great World Spin in the USA alone, and has picked up literary awards from France to China (not to mention an Oscar nomination). If it sounds like he’s brought some odd bedfellows together, that’s right on brand for him. Connecting the world via stories is his life’s work, he says – and, indeed, the subject of his latest, Twist. "It’s a book about the repair and sabotage of underwater cables," he explains. "Like most of us, I thought that the world’s internet traffic shot up in the air and was passed around by satellites before being beamed back down to us. But, actually, nearly all our intercontinental information is shooting through tubes in the darkness at the bottom of the sea." Speaking over Zoom from his Manhattan apartment, he tells me, “You and I are bouncing through those tubes at this very second. I’m going through a black box at 60 Hudson Street, which is where everything from New York gets channelled through, then I go out to a landing station in either Long Island or New Jersey, then shoot underwater and land in Cornwall, whizzing up fibreoptic cables that in the UK mostly follow the railway lines. It’s miraculous, but these cables are very exposed. "You could go down to the landing station in Cornwall, and more or less tread on the place where the cables come in from the sea. With a crowbar, you could probably lift up the manhole cover, drop some explosive in there, do some immediate damage. And Britain is one of those places that could be isolated quite easily.” Even more potentially catastrophic, he says, is damage to cables at sea. “I’m worried this will become a new and prominent form of warfare. Around 10 trillio…

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'I wanted to escape aspects of my life': Gordon Buchanan on mental health and hiding in nature
type: item
date: 2025-02-25T00:01:11.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Books
subject: Magazine
description: Ahead of new book In The Hide: How The Natural World Saved My Life, Gordon Buchanan opens up about his revered career to Radio Times Magazine.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. “I don’t have any supernatural beliefs,” insists Gordon Buchanan. “But…” continues the BBC’s best-known and most-decorated natural history cameraman, “I guarantee that if I sit for four hours waiting for an animal to do something, then decide it’s not going to so I’ll pour myself a cup of coffee… then that will make the animal do something. I’ve actually done that, occasionally: gone to pour a piping-hot coffee, just to drive things along.” So that’s the secret behind a career that’s seen Buchanan wield the camera on programmes such as Planet Earth and Frozen Planet, present the hugely popular Family & Me documentaries and pick up an MBE for services to conservation and wildlife filming along the way. But even with the coffee trick in his toolbox, he’s “had his KitKat moments”, he admits (referencing the 1989 advert in which a wildlife photographer waits ages for a panda to emerge from its hiding place – then misses a pair of them roller-skating as he breaks for a chocolate biscuit). “Any wildlife film-maker who says that’s never happened to them is maybe not being 100 per cent truthful. “Last year I was working on the Big Cats 24/7 series. Lions can be incredibly docile and lazy, so one day it was really hot, the lions were fast asleep, they hadn’t moved for four hours, so I thought, ‘I’m just going to catch up on that podcast.’ I had one earphone in, one out, and my brain left the Okovango Delta and went somewhere completely different – and of course that’s when the lions got up and started moving. I’ve learnt that if you want to get the footage, you’ve got to be engaged and try to predict what might happen next.” By way of a more successful example, the Glaswegian mentions filming urban leopards in Mumbai (which also makes for a surprisingly edge-of-the-seat chapter in his beautifully written new memoir, In the Hide). “For Planet Earth II, we were trying to capture them hunting and we had 30 nights to do it. Th…

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