Radio Times
type: channel
link: https://www.radiotimes.com
date: 2025-10-22T17:09:31.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: View from my sofa: Gareth Malone
items: Gareth Malone: "I'm not busting a gut to do Strictly"
items: Caught in the crosshairs
items: Keeley Hawes formed a mother-son bond with Freddie Highmore, her co-star in thriller The Assassin
items: 'Beautiful chaos!'
items: ‘It made sense of a lot of things’: Johnny Vegas on ADHD, stand-up burnout and Ideal's comeback
items: The Gold Standard
items: Meet the cops and robbers
items: The Gold season 2 will reveal details of Brink’s-Mat heist aftermath that have "never been reported"
items: Future imperfect
items: Past master
items: Charlie Brooker: 'I'm not anti-tech – I fear people being radicalised by what they see online'
items: Black Mirror season 7 director reveals filming secrets behind emotional new episode
items: Ten Questions with Aimee Lou Wood
items: 'I became aware of race at drama school'
items: Tamara Lawrance on Get Millie Black and the challenges faced by Black female-led shows
items: Aimee Lou Wood says Netflix's Toxic Town reveals an uncomfortable truth
items: Lessons weren't learnt
items: 'They were incredible'
items: Jodie Whittaker hopes Netflix's Toxic Town shines a light on true story of a mass poisoning
items: David Tennant on There She Goes, Staged and his Doctor Who return
items: The Windsors Coronation Special: "It's good to tell jokes about the royals"
items: Andrew Buchan on Better, embodying a ruthless kingpin and playing men in crisis
items: Call the Midwife stars talk Christmas gifts, hidden talents and karaoke
items: Peter Capaldi and Jessica Raine on Amazon thriller The Devil's Hour
items: Where is The Last Kingdom filmed?
items: Manson: the Lost Tapes – new footage reveals how Charles Manson brainwashed his followers
items: "You don’t see this job portrayed on TV" – Nicola Walker explains how new BBC divorce drama The Split is breaking new ground
items: The Split star Stephen Mangan on his past life studying law – and why he's much better suited to being an actor
items: Robert Rinder reveals how he found hope from his devastating WDYTYA finds

View from my sofa: Gareth Malone
type: item
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: App
subject: App features
description: The choirmaster will be celebrating his 50th on stage — followed by hot yoga
encoded: Add BBC Cardiff Singer of the Year to your watchlist What’s the view from your sofa? A compromise between my desire for an enormous cinema-size screen and my wife’s [English teacher Becky] desire to have something appropriate. I have very nice speakers on stands – if the kids [Esther, Gilbert and Dvora] knock them off, I’ve told them I will kill them! Who controls the remote? I’m embarrassed by how stereotypical it is, but I like to be near the remote. Although, honestly, it’s mostly word of mouth controlling it, friends recommending stuff. We rarely watch things at the same time as other people unless it’s The Traitors, Race across the World or Gladiators. What have you been enjoying recently? Couples Therapy is fantastic – the way they craft those stories so your sympathies swing from one person to the other. Orna Guralnik [the therapist] is an amazing television presence. Also, What We Do in the Shadows is hilarious. I run around the streets of north London, shouting, “Bat!” Are you ever still surprised by your TV career? I remember my wife and I were in our tiny rented flat in West Hampstead, talking about how The Choir could change everything. We had no idea what that meant in practice – the attention, opportunities, challenges – but we went for it. It became this monster and I suddenly found myself having lunches at the BBC. It’s strange. The last time you spoke to RT, you talked about burnout. Do you watch out for that now? Yeah, it’s pretty classic, isn’t it? I got into the public eye when I was about 30 with no children, going to the gym and filming two days a week. Suddenly, I’ve got three children, my series are longer, bigger, so I drop the gym membership. At the end of last year, I was like, “OK, I need to sort myself out and feel better.” I started taking vitamin D and going to hot yoga and I feel absolutely great. You’re about to go on tour with Sing-along-a-Gareth. How have you prepared for that? I’m determined to build more exercise into the schedul…

GettyImages-1439337736-ae448a5.jpg
width: 4183
height: 2789

Gareth Malone: "I'm not busting a gut to do Strictly"
type: item
date: 2025-10-20T23:01:57.000Z
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: Entertainment
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: The choirmaster will be celebrating his 50th on stage — followed by hot yoga.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. What’s the view from your sofa? A compromise between my desire for an enormous cinema-size screen and my wife’s [English teacher Becky] desire to have something appropriate. I have very nice speakers on stands – if the kids [Esther, Gilbert and Dvora] knock them off, I’ve told them I will kill them! Who controls the remote? I’m embarrassed by how stereotypical it is, but I like to be near the remote. Although, honestly, it’s mostly word of mouth controlling it, friends recommending stuff. We rarely watch things at the same time as other people unless it’s The Traitors, Race Across the World or Gladiators. What have you been enjoying recently? Couples Therapy is fantastic – the way they craft those stories so your sympathies swing from one person to the other. Orna Guralnik [the therapist] is an amazing television presence. Also, What We Do in the Shadows is hilarious. I run around the streets of north London, shouting, “Bat!” Are you ever still surprised by your TV career? I remember my wife and I were in our tiny rented flat in West Hampstead, talking about how The Choir could change everything. We had no idea what that meant in practice – the attention, opportunities, challenges – but we went for it. It became this monster and I suddenly found myself having lunches at the BBC. It’s strange. The last time you spoke to RT, you talked about burnout. Do you watch out for that now? Yeah, it’s pretty classic, isn’t it? I got into the public eye when I was about 30 with no children, going to the gym and filming two days a week. Suddenly, I’ve got three children, my series are longer, bigger, so I drop the gym membership. At the end of last year, I was like, “OK, I need to sort myself out and feel better.” I started taking vitamin D and going to hot yoga and I feel absolutely great. You’re about to go on tour with Sing-along-a-Gareth. How have you prepared for that? I’m determined to build more exercise into the schedul…

Caught in the crosshairs
type: item
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Keeley Hawes is back in Greece, this time playing a ruthless killer – but family is also at the heart of her new thriller, The Assassin
encoded: Add The Assassin to your watchlist When Keeley Hawes heard she was being cast opposite Freddie Highmore, she had one priority: “a Zoom to check we weren’t repelled by each other”. The relationship between the two actors, both on screen and on set for The Assassin – the latest scintillating serio-comic thriller from Jack and Harry Williams (The Tourist, The Missing), coming to Amazon Prime Video – suggests that the Zoom call went well. In fact, as they sit in a wind-buffeted trailer on an exposed stretch of the Greek coastline, the co-stars are sympatico to an unusual degree, with no clashing egos. View Green Video on the source website Hawes is, of course, one of British television’s biggest names, her CV stretching from Spooks and Tipping the Velvet to Bodyguard and Miss Austen. Highmore followed a first act as a child star with bona fide US small-screen stardom in the Psycho prequel TV series Bates Motel and the medical serial The Good Doctor. The pair play mother and son Julie and Edward, whose messy, awkward relationship is defined by emotional distance and secrecy. Julie has retired from her clandestine life as a hired killer and now lives in a hillside cottage on a remote Greek island; he is an earnest investigative journalist, meeting her for the first time in four years with some significant life news and a burning desire to identify his father (“There will be references to Mamma Mia!” Highmore laughs). Then that old “one last job” rears its head for Julie and all hell breaks loose. “This has flown by,” says Hawes, who’s dressed in the retired assassin’s costume of vest top and three-quarter-length khaki trousers. “Getting on isn’t a given and if you’re not having fun, it can feel like a long time to be away from home.” “We’re oddly on the same page, even more than one might think,” says Highmore, every inch the holidaying hack in crumpled shirt and jeans. “There are moments when we look at each other and think: ‘We’re sort of the same person in this weird w…

The-Assassin-3-5997c2b.jpg
width: 8640
height: 5760

Keeley Hawes formed a mother-son bond with Freddie Highmore, her co-star in thriller The Assassin
type: item
date: 2025-07-14T23:01:58.000Z
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Keeley Hawes is back in Greece, this time playing a ruthless killer – but family is also at the heart of her new thriller, The Assassin.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. When Keeley Hawes heard she was being cast opposite Freddie Highmore, she had one priority: “a Zoom to check we weren’t repelled by each other”. The relationship between the two actors, both on screen and on set for The Assassin – the latest scintillating serio-comic thriller from Jack and Harry Williams (The Tourist, The Missing), coming to Amazon Prime Video – suggests that the Zoom call went well. In fact, as they sit in a wind-buffeted trailer on an exposed stretch of the Greek coastline, the co-stars are sympatico to an unusual degree, with no clashing egos. Hawes is, of course, one of British television’s biggest names, her CV stretching from Spooks and Tipping the Velvet to Bodyguard and Miss Austen. Highmore followed a first act as a child star with bona fide US small-screen stardom in the Psycho prequel TV series Bates Motel and the medical serial The Good Doctor. The pair play mother and son Julie and Edward, whose messy, awkward relationship is defined by emotional distance and secrecy. Julie has retired from her clandestine life as a hired killer and now lives in a hillside cottage on a remote Greek island; he is an earnest investigative journalist, meeting her for the first time in four years with some significant life news and a burning desire to identify his father (“There will be references to Mamma Mia!” Highmore laughs). Then that old “one last job” rears its head for Julie and all hell breaks loose. “This has flown by,” says Hawes, who’s dressed in the retired assassin’s costume of vest top and three-quarter-length khaki trousers. “Getting on isn’t a given and if you’re not having fun, it can feel like a long time to be away from home.” “We’re oddly on the same page, even more than one might think,” says Highmore, every inch the holidaying hack in crumpled shirt and jeans. “There are moments when we look at each other and think: ‘We’re sort of the same person in this weird way.’ Or certainly on …

'Beautiful chaos!'
type: item
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Johnny Vegas on his passion for antiques and art, his ADHD diagnosis – and why his heart is no longer in comedy
encoded: Add Johnny Vegas's Little Shop of Antiques to your watchlist Where does Bono end and Paul Hewson begin? What divides Michael Caine and Maurice Micklewhite? Johnny Vegas – star of Ideal, scene-stealer of panel shows and sitcoms and lachrymose, splenetic, heavy-drinking stand-up – has been considering personas recently. Born Michael Pennington, he is on jovial, thoughtful form over Zoom while discussing Quest’s Johnny Vegas’s Little Shop of Antiques, in which he turns a lifetime habit of collecting bric-a-brac into a fledgeling business by opening a pop-up shop in Cheshire. “It’s about another of Michael’s pastimes,” he concedes. “I’ll always be trading under the name of Johnny Vegas, but I’m doing less comedy now, so Johnny is getting squeezed out as Michael comes into play. I love being Johnny, but it’s nice to take people by surprise and show my artistic, creative side. I don’t just go from pub to pub, making people’s dreams come true!” Like Channel 4’s Johnny Vegas: Carry On Glamping, his new series depicts the establishment of a genuine enterprise, telegenic charm and ballast provided by Vegas’s inquisitive, acquisitive nature and his double act with long-suffering assistant Bev Dixon. It came about as Vegas was considering thinning out his own collection, and the production company all but dared him to do so. By way of demonstration, he’s speaking to me from his home in St Helens, seated in front of a Star Wars pinball machine, a neon champagne-bottle wall fixture and some faintly terrifying dolls. “I’ve only ever bought to keep,” he explains. “I’ve traded with other people and I’d started befriending other dealers, but would anybody out there share my taste? It was exciting to go shopping for a living without getting into trouble for bringing another bizarre item home.” His children – 22-year-old Michael from his first marriage and nine-year-old Tom from his second – are used to it. Tom apparently told him that if his house continued like this, it could look li…

https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/07/28278607S0011-f9dc117-e1751372274660.jpg
width: 8053
height: 5370

‘It made sense of a lot of things’: Johnny Vegas on ADHD, stand-up burnout and Ideal's comeback
type: item
date: 2025-06-30T23:01:57.000Z
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: Entertainment
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Johnny Vegas on his passion for antiques and art, his ADHD diagnosis – and why his heart is no longer in comedy.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Where does Bono end and Paul Hewson begin? What divides Michael Caine and Maurice Micklewhite? Johnny Vegas – star of Ideal, scene-stealer of panel shows and sitcoms and lachrymose, splenetic, heavy-drinking stand-up – has been considering personas recently. Born Michael Pennington, he is on jovial, thoughtful form over Zoom while discussing Quest’s Johnny Vegas’s Little Shop of Antiques, in which he turns a lifetime habit of collecting bric-a-brac into a fledgeling business by opening a pop-up shop in Cheshire. “It’s about another of Michael’s pastimes,” he concedes. “I’ll always be trading under the name of Johnny Vegas, but I’m doing less comedy now, so Johnny is getting squeezed out as Michael comes into play. I love being Johnny, but it’s nice to take people by surprise and show my artistic, creative side. I don’t just go from pub to pub, making people’s dreams come true!” Like Channel 4’s Johnny Vegas: Carry On Glamping, his new series depicts the establishment of a genuine enterprise, telegenic charm and ballast provided by Vegas’s inquisitive, acquisitive nature and his double act with long-suffering assistant Bev Dixon. It came about as Vegas was considering thinning out his own collection, and the production company all but dared him to do so. By way of demonstration, he’s speaking to me from his home in St Helens, seated in front of a Star Wars pinball machine, a neon champagne-bottle wall fixture and some faintly terrifying dolls. “I’ve only ever bought to keep,” he explains. “I’ve traded with other people and I’d started befriending other dealers, but would anybody out there share my taste? It was exciting to go shopping for a living without getting into trouble for bringing another bizarre item home.” His children – 22-year-old Michael from his first marriage and nine-year-old Tom from his second – are used to it. Tom apparently told him that if his house continued like this, it could look like a mun…

Screen-Shot-2019-03-08-at-11.32.52-dedbba3.png
width: 1288
height: 778

The Gold Standard
type: item
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: App
subject: App features
subject: App archive 100
description: Neil Forsyth’s The Gold ended with some of the Brink’s-Mat robbers in prison – but what happened to the rest of the gang and their incredible haul?
encoded: This article was first published in Radio Times magazine in June 2025. Add the new series of The Gold to your watchlist The 1983 Brink’s-Mat heist may have begun with six villains in a van, but the £26 million in gold bullion they stole launched one of the longest and most expensive investigations in the history of the Metropolitan Police. The first series of the BBC1 drama The Gold ended with some of the gang in prison and the police – led by Hugh Bonneville’s DCS Brian Boyce – realising they had only been hunting half the haul. The second series, once again written by Guilt and Bob Servant creator Neil Forsyth, picks up the trail in the late 1980s to consider what might have happened to the rest. “We go into new areas of international crime funded by the proceeds of the gold while the police, now a depleted task force, are still trying to engineer some sort of result,” Forsyth explains from his home just outside London. “It’s about how Brink’s-Mat still defined these people even when they were trying to escape it, and the escalating pressures that put on them.” Boyce and his compact team of Nicki Jennings (Charlotte Spencer) and Tony Brightwell (Emun Elliott) are bolstered by controversial copper Tony Lundy (Stephen Campbell Moore) to focus on two primary targets: small-time gangster Charlie Miller (Sam Spruell, briefly glimpsed in Spain at the end of series one) and John Palmer (Tom Cullen), the West Country gold smelter now laundering his wealth in a Tenerife timeshare scam, and whose position alongside Queen Elizabeth II in the Sunday Times Rich List causes considerable establishment embarrassment. The truth is always a slippery concept for dramas rooted in but not beholden to the facts; while Palmer was a real person, Miller and his accomplice Douglas Baxter (Joshua McGuire) are composite characters created to unclutter the narrative. Forsyth’s interpretation of individual scenes also vary from the most plausible, to the most agreed upon, to the most dramatica…

24505023-copy-7984ebd-e1748615304571.jpg
width: 1444
height: 963

Meet the cops and robbers
type: item
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Who's who in the second series of The Gold
encoded: Add the new series of The Gold to your watchlist The Cops Brian Boyce (Hugh Bonneville) Because the money is spreading so far and wide, it’s increasingly difficult for Boyce’s team to keep up, especially as their operation is facing pressure to scale back: they’re now working from a basement in Tottenham Court Road. They struggle on regardless and Boyce’s reliance on Jennings and Brightwell becomes key. Lundy couldn’t be more different to Boyce, but he gets results. As long as Boyce doesn’t know how he’s got them, he’s prepared to let Lundy get on with it. Tony Lundy (Stephen Campbell Moore) Lundy was part of the supergrass system but now it looks like the end of his career. He’s been cleared of corrupt practices, but his superiors want to move him into retirement. Then he’s picked up for Boyce’s task force because of the contacts he uses outside normal procedure. Lundy’s almost an old-school bounty hunter whose mission it is to track down Charlie Miller. We’re never quite sure how trustworthy or legal his methods are, but his intentions are good. Tony Brightwell (Emun Elliott) and Nicki Jennings (Charlotte Spencer) Brightwell is more confident, self-assured, and relaxed — more jaded, too, perhaps — but with as much determination and integrity as before. His connection with Boyce and Jennings is stronger — they’re now fully endorsed by Boyce who’s reaching the end of his career, so they’re taking on a lot of his responsibilities. Brightwell is secretly slightly in awe of Lundy, seeing him as this lone wolf who has his own methods — and they work. Jennings and Brightwell still have that fire, but this time it’s burning quietly: they’re in their groove and understand the job now, even as the trail is going global. Jennings is like a little rottweiler, she is always on guard and it’s hard to earn her trust. She doesn’t like Lundy and thinks he’s bent, but she comes round to him because Boyce trusts him, and she sees Boyce as a wise man you have to respect. Like Dumbled…

24522188-copy-df87eb7-e1748615276126.jpg
width: 1452
height: 968

The Gold season 2 will reveal details of Brink’s-Mat heist aftermath that have "never been reported"
type: item
date: 2025-06-02T23:01:35.000Z
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: BBC
subject: Magazine
description: The second season of the hit BBC drama lands this weekend.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. The 1983 Brink’s-Mat heist may have begun with six villains in a van, but the £26 million in gold bullion they stole launched one of the longest and most expensive investigations in the history of the Metropolitan Police. The first series of the BBC1 drama The Gold ended with some of the gang in prison and the police – led by Hugh Bonneville’s DCS Brian Boyce – realising they had only been hunting half the haul. The second series, once again written by Guilt and Bob Servant creator Neil Forsyth, picks up the trail in the late 1980s to consider what might have happened to the rest. “We go into new areas of international crime funded by the proceeds of the gold while the police, now a depleted task force, are still trying to engineer some sort of result,” Forsyth explains from his home just outside London. “It’s about how Brink’s-Mat still defined these people even when they were trying to escape it, and the escalating pressures that put on them.” Boyce and his compact team of Nicki Jennings (Charlotte Spencer) and Tony Brightwell (Emun Elliott) are bolstered by controversial copper Tony Lundy (Stephen Campbell Moore) to focus on two primary targets: small-time gangster Charlie Miller (Sam Spruell, briefly glimpsed in Spain at the end of series one) and John Palmer (Tom Cullen), the West Country gold smelter now laundering his wealth in a Tenerife timeshare scam, and whose position alongside Queen Elizabeth II in the Sunday Times Rich List causes considerable establishment embarrassment. The truth is always a slippery concept for dramas rooted in but not beholden to the facts; while Palmer was a real person, Miller and his accomplice Douglas Baxter (Joshua McGuire) are composite characters created to unclutter the narrative. Forsyth’s interpretation of individual scenes also vary from the most plausible, to the most agreed upon, to the most dramatically compelling. “Sometimes people use the phrase ‘creative licence’…

522204-6e448d7.jpg
width: 4285
height: 2857

Future imperfect
type: item
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: App
subject: App features
subject: App archive 100
description: As Black Mirror returns with more cautionary tales about new tech, Charlie Brooker has one eye on the past, but says he's not 'anti-tech'…
encoded: This article was first published in Radio Times magazine in April 2025. Add Black Mirror to your watchlist This year is more reflective,” Charlie Brooker says of his seventh season of Black Mirror. “While I was writing it, I was thinking about how the Beatles’ Get Back documentary used technology to bring the past back to life. It was startling, like staring through a periscope into 1969, so reliving moments from the past was definitely on my mind.” This tone is most evident in the fifth of the new season’s six stories, Eulogy, in which solitary Philip (Paul Giamatti) experiences new technology that enables him to step into old photographs in search of memories of a long-estranged lover, now deceased, so that he can contribute to her memorial service. “One of the key ingredients,” says Brooker of what he calls his “Rolodex of ideas”, “is a technology whose appeal and use you can absolutely understand. It’s always a bit of a barometer for an episode: would you use it yourself?” And would he? “Oh yeah, although maybe only in small doses with a therapist present. I found myself having to read an actual eulogy for my dad while we were finishing the episode. My mum had dug out some old photos I hadn’t seen in 40 years; one had my dad going to a fancy-dress party wearing a plastic ape mask and a coat with something written on it. I thought, ‘If only I could step in, I could read it…’” Brooker, 54, who started out writing for a gaming magazine, tries to keep an admirably open mind when it comes to his sons – 13-year-old Covey and Huxley, 11 – and screens. “It would be hypocritical of me to go, ‘Get off that machine, it’s a sunny day outside!’ I just hear echoes of my parents. Instead, I’m often saying to them, ‘Why are you playing Fortnite? You should be playing Split Fiction!’ I’m probably annoying like that. “I’m not anti-tech in that way that people might think. The thing that scares me about the future is disinformation, people getting radicalised or misled by the horr…

NetflixPolygonCharlie519v1-f717c73.jpg
width: 8192
height: 5464

Past master
type: item
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Starring in Black Mirror took Paul Giamatti back to his loft party days on the Lower East Side – but were they memories he wanted reminding of?
encoded: Add Black Mirror to your watchlist For Paul Giamatti, the new Black Mirror episode Eulogy was a journey into a parallel past. As his character, New Englander Philip – “a guy who’s a little stuck, pretty content but with some unresolved issues from his past” – stepped back into old photos of life squatting in Manhattan’s loft apartments in the early 1990s, Giamatti also came to reflect on his own gloriously chaotic formative years. “I knew a lot about that world,” says the 57-year-old on set in Shepperton, far more approachable and cheerful than the curmudgeonly roles that brought him to prominence in the likes of Sideways and Billions. “The rooftops on set are re-created very accurately, exactly the kind of place I lived in on the Lower East Side, although a few years later than Philip. “What I mostly remember about those years was scrapping around, looking for work, then having a baby in this ridiculous apartment that was in no way suited to having a baby. It was a real death trap, open sockets in the walls… There were no dividing walls, so we made them out of bookshelves. It was a good time.” The work picked up eventually. Now, with two Oscar nominations (for Cinderella Man and The Holdovers) to his name, Giamatti is one of America’s most in-demand actors. He is also no stranger to working in the UK, having shot here on a range of projects, including Saving Private Ryan, Downton Abbey and, er, Thunderpants. “I love that movie!” Giamatti beams of the 2002 film he made with Rupert Grint post-Hogwarts. “There’s a kind of sanity to the work here that we lack in America. It doesn’t feel rushed. The days are normal and there’s an eye towards people having a life outside of work, which is not the case in America a lot of the time.” Giamatti was delighted to return to Britain to film Eulogy, despite the unusual demands it placed on him: “I don’t often feel that I consciously bring anything of my own life into something, but there were definitely moments of thinking about …

Black-Mirror-PaulGiamatti-0909024.jpg
width: 5492
height: 3661

Charlie Brooker: 'I'm not anti-tech – I fear people being radicalised by what they see online'
type: item
date: 2025-03-31T23:01:23.000Z
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: Sci-fi
subject: TV
subject: Magazine
subject: Netflix
description: The Black Mirror creator spoke to Radio Times magazine about the new season.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. As Black Mirror returns with more cautionary tales about new tech, Charlie Brooker has one eye on the past. This year is more reflective,” Charlie Brooker says of his seventh season of Black Mirror. “While I was writing it, I was thinking about how the Beatles’ Get Back documentary used technology to bring the past back to life. It was startling, like staring through a periscope into 1969, so reliving moments from the past was definitely on my mind.” This tone is most evident in the fifth of the new season’s six stories, Eulogy (see over the page), in which solitary Philip (Paul Giamatti) experiences new technology that enables him to step into old photographs in search of memories of a long-estranged lover, now deceased, so that he can contribute to her memorial service. “One of the key ingredients,” says Brooker of what he calls his “Rolodex of ideas”, “is a technology whose appeal and use you can absolutely understand. It’s always a bit of a barometer for an episode: would you use it yourself?” And would he? “Oh yeah, although maybe only in small doses with a therapist present. I found myself having to read an actual eulogy for my dad while we were finishing the episode. My mum had dug out some old photos I hadn’t seen in 40 years; one had my dad going to a fancy-dress party wearing a plastic ape mask and a coat with something written on it. I thought, ‘If only I could step in, I could read it…’” Brooker, 54, who started out writing for a gaming magazine, tries to keep an admirably open mind when it comes to his sons – 13-year-old Covey and Huxley, 11 – and screens. “It would be hypocritical of me to go, ‘Get off that machine, it’s a sunny day outside!’ I just hear echoes of my parents. Instead, I’m often saying to them, ‘Why are you playing Fortnite? You should be playing Split Fiction!’ I’m probably annoying like that. “I’m not anti-tech in that way that people might think. The thing that scares me about the …

Charlie-Brooker-Black-Mirror-2e82e9a.jpg
width: 8192
height: 5462

Black Mirror season 7 director reveals filming secrets behind emotional new episode
type: item
date: 2025-03-18T16:09:34.000Z
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: Sci-fi
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
subject: Netflix
subject: On demand
description: New episodes of Black Mirror are landing on Netflix this April.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Paul Giamatti is standing in a Shepperton studio, poring over some old polaroids. It's not, perhaps, what one would expect for the filming of an episode of the tech-savvy Black Mirror, the often bleak dystopian anthology series created by screenwriter Charlie Brooker. But don't be fooled - there's still a sci-fi twist in this tale. In the episode, one of six due to be released this year, Giamatti's character Philip is informed of the death of an ex-partner, and asked for stories of her younger years to be included at her memorial service. All he can offer are buried memories and old polaroids - but with the help of an immersive Artificial Intelligence (played by Patsy Ferran), he's able to step into those photos, with the images of gigs, rooftop parties and hotel rooms from decades ago coming to life around him. Behind the scenes, it was co-directors Chris Barrett and Luke Taylor who had to make the immersive photos look convincing. "We wanted things to be tangible," says Taylor. "If the actors couldn't reach out and touch it, it wouldn't be connected to Philip's memory. The more real things felt, the more they actually would be." Rather than take the easy route of computer-generated imagery, the figures in the photos are dancers, prepped by acclaimed movement coach Polly Bennett. Positions were held for several minutes during filming as Giamatti and Ferran explored the space, with the physical photo itself taken at the end to avoid changing how the scene would be shot. "Polly was responsible for how good it looks," says Barrett. "If you or I were to freeze, we'd probably strike a pose, but she helped the dancers move... and then pause. It wasn't so much about being frozen but about capturing a moment in time." The directors also had to dodge their instincts to frame that all-important final image perfectly. "We wanted the photos to feel candid and captured," says Taylor. "It should look like someone's just gone: …

Black-Mirror-s7-mag-set-pics-4532b01.jpg
width: 6336
height: 4224

Ten Questions with Aimee Lou Wood
type: item
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: App
subject: App features
subject: App archive 100
description: From a White Lotus resort in Thailand to a gritty real-life story in Toxic Town Corby, the actor is finding her voice
encoded: This article was first published in Radio Times magazine in March 2025. Add The White Lotus to your watchlist Sex Education has been the midwife to a generation of new acting talent, from Time Lord Ncuti Gatwa and SAS Rogue Hero Connor Swindells to erstwhile Barbie Emma Mackey. Aimee Lou Wood won a Bafta for her role in the series — now, the 31-year-old is basking on a Thai beach in The White Lotus. She is also appearing in Toxic Town, based on the true story of a group of Corby women who went to court to prove their children’s limb differences resulted from the council’s steelworks reclamation. Six years on from your TV debut, you’ve just spent seven months in Thailand making one of the biggest shows on TV. Is that journey from Sex Education to The White Lotus as mad as it sounds? It is quite mad. We had no idea how Sex Education was going to go down, whereas The White Lotus is the first time I’ve been a superfan of something I’m in – which is scary. How has it felt to watch your Sex Education castmates move on? It’s been great. I remember Ncuti [Gatwa] looking at everyone during season four, going: “We are 30-year-olds. We need to graduate!” It was a bit untethering at first when it finished, wondering what my life was without this thing. As it gets further away, it feels more like a fever dream. There was a pressure when it first came out, of being put into a certain mould, but we’ve all done our own thing since. Your characters in both that and The White Lotus, Aimee and Chelsea, seem superficially similar: kind, curious, a bit green and stuck in a toxic relationship. Would you agree? Because they’re both me, there will always be things I’m expressing that are of a similar frequency or energy. Even though they’re both underestimated, they’re on very different life journeys and are very different at their core. I feel people think I play similar characters if they have northern accents. If I had an RP accent, I wonder whether they would? Chelsea was originally Am…

https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/02/shutterstockeditorial15144405ec-copy-f6a7eb7-e1740152712195.jpg
width: 755
height: 502

'I became aware of race at drama school'
type: item
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Tamara Lawrance hopes that her role as a Jamaican detective will be a game-changer – for her career and primetime TV
encoded: Add Get Millie Black to your watchlist Tamara Lawrance has had a big 18 months. Having stolen scenes from Bella Ramsey and Jodie Whittaker as a mother imprisoned for killing her baby in the deadly serious Time, she then played Lennie James’s externally ebullient, inwardly troubled daughter in the funny and affecting Mr Loverman. She’s now bagged that most coveted of gigs, the eponymous television detective in Booker Prize winner Marlon James’s debut drama series Get Millie Black. And yet, despite the quality, profile and variety of these projects, she’s “free and available at the moment,” she says with a smile. “I’ve been very lucky with my career, but some of my friends are like, ‘You’re leading this show. How come you don’t have another job yet? I thought you’d be in Hollywood now!’” the 30-year-old actor explains. “Listen, I’m in north London washing my dishes… It’s still hard – getting momentum is a struggle. People in the industry are speaking more about metrics and social media numbers – producers need to guarantee something will make money, so they’re more likely to cast somebody with a huge following, instead of taking a risk. I think people are craving newness – how many productions of Jane Eyre can you put on? Hopefully, this year opens doors.” None of this, it should be emphasised, is said with a hint of self-pity. Lawrance, speaking to me from her home (and not washing up, at least as far as I can tell), is by turns serious and playful, intense and relaxed, warm and challenging, and always admirably matter-of-fact. And if there’s any justice, playing Millie Black should be a game-changer for her. Lawrance is magnificent as a detective working on the Jamaican Police Force’s missing persons unit three years after a disastrous case saw her forced out of the Met. Her best friend is closeted professional partner Curtis (Gershwyn Eustache Jr); her sister Hibiscus (Chyna McQueen) transitioned some years earlier and lives among the “Sunshine Ladies” in Kingston’…

64833S1Get-Millie-Black-Gallery-6-19ca55b-e1740154387127.jpg
width: 3648
height: 2434

Tamara Lawrance on Get Millie Black and the challenges faced by Black female-led shows
type: item
date: 2025-02-25T00:01:39.000Z
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Channel 4
subject: Magazine
description: The Get Millie Black star chatted to Radio Times magazine about the exciting new detective drama.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Tamara Lawrance has had a big 18 months. Having stolen scenes from Bella Ramsey and Jodie Whittaker as a mother imprisoned for killing her baby in the deadly serious Time, she then played Lennie James’s externally ebullient, inwardly troubled daughter in the funny and affecting Mr Loverman. She’s now bagged that most coveted of gigs, the eponymous television detective in Booker Prize winner Marlon James’s debut drama series Get Millie Black. And yet, despite the quality, profile and variety of these projects, she’s “free and available at the moment”, she says with a smile. “I’ve been very lucky with my career, but some of my friends are like, ‘You’re leading this show. How come you don’t have another job yet? I thought you’d be in Hollywood now!’” the 30-year-old actor explains. “Listen, I’m in north London washing my dishes… It’s still hard – getting momentum is a struggle. People in the industry are speaking more about metrics and social media numbers – producers need to guarantee something will make money, so they’re more likely to cast somebody with a huge following, instead of taking a risk. I think people are craving newness – how many productions of Jane Eyre can you put on? Hopefully, this year opens doors.” None of this, it should be emphasised, is said with a hint of self-pity. Lawrance, speaking to me from her home (and not washing up, at least as far as I can tell), is by turns serious and playful, intense and relaxed, warm and challenging, and always admirably matter-of-fact. And if there’s any justice, playing Millie Black should be a game-changer for her. Lawrance is magnificent as a detective working on the Jamaican Police Force’s missing persons unit three years after a disastrous case saw her forced out of the Met. Her best friend is closeted professional partner Curtis (Gershwyn Eustache Jnr); her sister Hibiscus (Chyna McQueen) transitioned some years earlier and lives among the “Sunshine Ladie…

Get-Millie-Black-Channel4-TamaraLawrance-41a49a2.jpg
width: 2500
height: 1667

Aimee Lou Wood says Netflix's Toxic Town reveals an uncomfortable truth
type: item
date: 2025-02-25T00:01:01.000Z
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Magazine
subject: Netflix
subject: On demand
description: The Toxic Town star chatted to Radio Times magazine about the new Netflix series.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Sex Education has been the midwife to a generation of new acting talent, from Time Lord Ncuti Gatwa and SAS Rogue Hero Connor Swindells to erstwhile Barbie Emma Mackey. Aimee Lou Wood won a BAFTA for her role in the series — now, the 31-year-old is basking on a Thai beach in The White Lotus. She is also appearing in Toxic Town, based on the true story of a group of Corby women who went to court to prove their children’s limb differences resulted from the council’s steelworks reclamation. Six years on from your TV debut, you've just spent seven months in Thailand making one of the biggest shows on TV. Is that journey from Sex Education to The White Lotus as mad as it sounds? It is quite mad. We had no idea how Sex Education was going to go down, whereas The White Lotus is the first time I’ve been a superfan of something I’m in – which is scary. How has it felt to watch your Sex Education castmates move on? It’s been great. I remember Ncuti [Gatwa] looking at everyone during season 4, going: “We are 30-year-olds. We need to graduate!” It was a bit untethering at first when it finished, wondering what my life was without this thing. As it gets further away, it feels more like a fever dream. There was a pressure when it first came out, of being put into a certain mould, but we’ve all done our own thing since. Your characters in both that and The White Lotus, Aimee and Chelsea, seem superficially similar: kind, curious, a bit green and stuck in a toxic relationship. Would you agree? Because they’re both me, there will always be things I’m expressing that are of a similar frequency or energy. Even though they’re both underestimated, they’re on very different life journeys and are very different at their core. I feel people think I play similar characters if they have northern accents. If I had an RP accent, I wonder whether they would? Chelsea was originally American but she now has your accent. Why was it changed? Why …

toxic-town-aimee-lou-wood-jodie-whittaker-5480955.jpg
width: 1200
height: 800

Lessons weren't learnt
type: item
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Writer Jack Thorne and the star of his new drama, Jodie Whittaker, shine a light on the battle won by mothers who fought the Corby toxic waste case
encoded: Add Toxic Town to your watchlist Is the smoke OK for baby?” asks Jodie Whittaker, cradling a mithering two-week old. It’s an innocent question, but considering we’re on the set of Jack Thorne’s four-part drama Toxic Town, which is dressed to look like a council house in the Northamptonshire town of Corby, it feels inadvertently loaded with significance. Yes, she’s reassured, the smoke used for special effect is also used at National Trust properties and completely harmless. The same couldn’t be said of the air that was actually inhaled by Susan McIntyre, played by Whittaker on screen, who led a group of local mothers in a decade-long campaign to expose the biggest case of child poisoning since thalidomide. With the help of Corby-born solicitor Des Collins (played by Rory Kinnear), they proved the link between toxic dust created by the Labour council’s reclamation of a shuttered steelworks site between 1984 and 1999, and the disproportionately high numbers of children born with limb difference over that period. In doing so, 19 settlements were reached and legal history was made. The landmark decision was the first in the world to establish a link between atmospheric toxic waste and the impact on babies carried by women breathing it in. If you’ve never heard of it, you’re in good company. Neither had Thorne, Whittaker nor anyone else in the cast. A low-key 2020 Horizon documentary aside, it has been largely forgotten since the verdict in 2009; even at the time, with the exception of the Sunday Times reports that brought several of the mothers together in the first place, it made remarkably few headlines. “A friend of mine from Corby told me about the case, and I was outraged and embarrassed that I hadn’t heard about it,” says executive producer Annabel Jones, who – alongside Charlie Brooker – is half the brains behind Black Mirror and whose idea this series was. “We met the mums of all 19 families. Because it had taken them so long to win the case and the council had …

https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/02/9ToxicTownnS1E300293301-copy-265000c-e1739722910326.jpg
width: 1152
height: 768

'They were incredible'
type: item
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Jodie Whittaker plays Susan McIntyre, who fought in the Corby toxic waste case
encoded: Add Toxic Town to your watchlist Why did this story and playing Susan McIntyre matter to you? These lionesses were incredible. They had their cubs in their mouths, and however long it took, they carried them to the finish line. They weren’t lawyers but they knew that they were right. Had the council been the ones fighting for justice, they might have had a bigger headline. A story is never finished if it’s still having an impact. Lessons haven’t been learnt, unfortunately — water companies are being fined for dumping sewage and major buildings and housing projects have been built over reclamation sites. You hope the containment is there, but we have no sense of whether there’s going to be a disaster down the line. Did you meet Susan before filming? No, but the mums did come on set one day. It was really emotional and nerve-racking, because I knew how fiery Susan was. If she didn’t like the way I was doing it, she’d say so. I was very needy and asked her, “Do I sound like you?” Because that accent mixing Corby and Glasgow is challenging! She just said, “Yeah,” and gave me a big cuddle. After that, the narcissistic actress got her head out of her arse. This was not about me! How do you feel about Susan now, having embodied her struggle? Susan, as a single parent, was fighting before it even started. A woman who is opinionated, who doesn’t conform and speaks her mind is instantly met with a brick wall — people have made up their minds already. It was easy to pin Connor’s limb difference on her behaviour or lifestyle, the medication she’d been on, the fact she liked a drink. Her son was in hospital, having operation after operation and was in so much pain, and she was blamed. I’ve not had to experience screaming into a tunnel when you know you’re right and everyone’s saying you’re wrong. I’m sure, emotionally, she wasn’t OK with being hated in the town, but she marched that march anyway. What impact do you hope Toxic Town will have? I asked Susan whether she feels the p…

TT104Unit00476-RT2-2570307.jpg
width: 8640
height: 5760

Jodie Whittaker hopes Netflix's Toxic Town shines a light on true story of a mass poisoning
type: item
date: 2025-02-18T00:01:02.000Z
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
subject: Netflix
subject: On demand
description: Jodie Whittaker chats to Radio Times magazine about leading new Netflix drama Toxic Town.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Why did this story and playing Susan McIntyre matter to you? These lionesses were incredible. They had their cubs in their mouths, and however long it took, they carried them to the finish line. They weren’t lawyers but they knew that they were right. Had the council been the ones fighting for justice, they might have had a bigger headline. A story is never finished if it’s still having an impact. Lessons haven’t been learnt, unfortunately — water companies are being fined for dumping sewage and major buildings and housing projects have been built over reclamation sites. You hope the containment is there, but we have no sense of whether there’s going to be a disaster down the line. Did you meet Susan before filming? No, but the mums did come on set one day. It was really emotional and nerve-racking, because I knew how fiery Susan was. If she didn’t like the way I was doing it, she’d say so. I was very needy and asked her, “Do I sound like you?” Because that accent mixing Corby and Glasgow is challenging! She just said, “Yeah,” and gave me a big cuddle. After that, the narcissistic actress got her head out of her arse. This was not about me! How do you feel about Susan now, having embodied her struggle? Susan, as a single parent, was fighting before it even started. A woman who is opinionated, who doesn’t conform and speaks her mind is instantly met with a brick wall — people have made up their minds already. It was easy to pin Connor’s limb difference on her behaviour or lifestyle, the medication she’d been on, the fact she liked a drink. Her son was in hospital, having operation after operation and was in so much pain, and she was blamed. I’ve not had to experience screaming into a tunnel when you know you’re right and everyone’s saying you’re wrong. I’m sure, emotionally, she wasn’t OK with being hated in the town, but she marched that march anyway. What impact do you hope Toxic Town will have? I asked Susan whe…

David Tennant on There She Goes, Staged and his Doctor Who return
type: item
date: 2023-06-21T08:00:09.000Z
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: Comedy
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: The Big RT Interview
description: The Good Omens star spoke with Radio Times magazine about his prolific work-life, the "family business" and returning to Doctor Who.
encoded: This week’s television has a David Tennant for everyone. On Wednesday, he returns to BBC2 in a one-off special of There She Goes, alongside Jessica Hynes playing Simon and Emily, parents of two children including one with a severe learning disability. It clashes, rather unfortunately, with the third episode of ITV1’s Litvinenko, in which he stars as the Russian dissenter who accused Vladimir Putin of ordering his assassination. Not enough Tennant for you? Later that evening, you can flick over to BBC One and watch him reunited with Michael Sheen for their ongoing Zoom meta-com Staged. Or, for those who prefer Tennant delivering a cheekily engaging voiceover, you will find him narrating more aquatic encounters with nature on Sunday with Spy in the Ocean. Even for a man with his work ethic and an enthusiastic fanbase ready to lap it all up, isn’t this a bit much? "I don’t know if it’s remarkable or unfortunate," he muses, wryly articulate as ever during a rare week off (sitting in a kitchen that, thanks to Staged, is now almost as famous as he is). "But having five kids does generate a certain necessity to keep going, and I do like to know what the next thing is because I don’t think one ever quite relaxes. Ultimately, though, you want your work to be seen by as many people as possible." If nothing else, this glut of televised Tennant (Tennivision?) demonstrates his formidable range. While Litvinenko is a necessarily serious piece about an unfathomably brave man, his remarkable widow and the despot they defied, There She Goes is a very different type of real story. Writers Shaun Pye and Sarah Crawford, whose teenage girl Joey has the same chromosomal condition as Simon and Emily’s daughter Rosie, continue to wrench breathtakingly candid, sad and funny stories from the frontline of parenting as Rosie uncomprehendingly enters puberty. "You can’t really slip a bus ticket between the real family and the family on the show," says Tennant, whose character may have reined in…

david-tennant-54b291b.jpg
width: 620
height: 413

The Windsors Coronation Special: "It's good to tell jokes about the royals"
type: item
date: 2023-04-29T07:00:29.000Z
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: Comedy
subject: TV
subject: Interview
description: The show forms part of Channel 4's alternative coronation viewing.
encoded: This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. Despite The Windsors bearing her family name, the Queen never featured in Channel 4’s uproariously soapy spoof – she simply wasn’t silly enough. The same, it seems, cannot be said of her eldest son and heir. "A couple of people asked whether we were going to ‘do’ Charles now he's king," says Bert Tyler-Moore, co-creator of the series with his late writing partner George Jeffrie. "Of course we are, because he hasn't changed! We didn't take the mickey out of the Queen, less because of her role as head of state than her as a person. King Charles is still all the things that we took the mickey out of before." Rich meat indeed for a comic actor as gifted as Harry Enfield, who’s clearly enjoying his newfound seniority on the set of the show’s Coronation Special, in Hertfordshire’s Brocket Hall (the ancestral pile of convicted fraudster and former reality TV darling Lord Brocket). Solemnly entreating Radio Times magazine to "bow", he ascends from the kitchens to a room whose walls are covered in portraits of predecessors including, ominously, Charles I. In the scene, the faintly befuddled future king and Camilla (Haydn Gwynne) are debating the budget for the coronation with Wills (strait-laced, vowel-mangling Hugh Skinner) and Anne (Vicki Pepperdine, reprising her Mrs Danvers-style Princess Royal). Wills and Anne counsel thrift, restraint and, ideally, a Holiday Inn off the M4 as the venue, with the backing of PM Rishi Sunak (Amit Shah, Happy Valley’s homicidal pharmacist). Charles and Camilla aren’t so sure. "I enjoy ceremony and ritual when it's done well,” says Gwynne later. “The royals offer that symbolic connection to our pasts and ancestors that I find quite moving. But I'm glad I'm not the one deciding how much to spend.” “I'm glad for the pomp and parties, but you've got to be mindful of what you're spending and when,” adds Louise Ford, who plays newly minted Princess of Wales Kate Middleton. “No one …

The-Windsors-Coronation-SpecialKing-CharlesPR-cc12698.jpeg
width: 3000
height: 2000

Andrew Buchan on Better, embodying a ruthless kingpin and playing men in crisis
type: item
date: 2023-02-13T14:32:41.000Z
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: BBC
subject: BBC iPlayer
subject: Interview
description: Speaking to Gabriel Tate in Radio Times magazine, Andrew Buchan discusses his new role in BBC's Better and what helped get him into the mindset of a drugs kingpin.
encoded: This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. Andrew Buchan has a useful face and demeanour for an actor: handsome enough to take a lead and sufficiently adaptable for character roles, plus a placid and affable manner allowing deeper emotions to surface when required. Seen to most telling effect as Broadchurch’s grief-stricken plumber Mark Latimer, it has lately come in handy for his two most recent roles in The Crown (as Andrew Parker Bowles) and This England (playing Matt Hancock), both controversial, high-profile series. Now, Buchan’s starring in BBC One’s new five-parter Better as Col McHugh, a property developer whose easy-going persona disguises the ruthlessness of a drugs kingpin. How did you, a seemingly unflappable 43-year-old, manage to tune out the noise? "I’ll never forget flying over to LA for a screen test once and thinking, I could become a nervous wreck here. I had a strong word with myself – it’s got to be just me and this other person doing the scene, otherwise I’m going to fall apart. I’ve tried to apply that to everything and not think too much about the exterior stuff." What was it like to play Col McHigh in Better, after playing the man who broke Princess Anne’s heart and then the politician who became the pantomime villain of COVID and I’m a Celebrity? "It was refreshing! I definitely search for roles that make me afraid and this seemed packed full of those moments, because Col has quite a few facets. "On one hand he’s calm and in control, on the other he’s a broken, complex man dealing with trauma. I was interested to see him unravel." Col seems wholly beyond correction – something Buchan clearly relishes. "I was on set with Peter Mullan once, and said, ‘I think I’m going to have to be quite vile towards you in this next scene.’ He smiled at me and said, ‘I know. It’s great, isn’t it? It’s like a holiday.’ I’m quite light and smiley in general, so playing someone like Col was fun." The criminal underworld isn’t entirely ali…

Andrew-Buchan-e5ff882.jpg
width: 1280
height: 853

Call the Midwife stars talk Christmas gifts, hidden talents and karaoke
type: item
date: 2022-12-25T17:55:39.000Z
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Interview
description: What would Helen George and Megan Cusack get their Call the Midwife characters for Christmas? Read on to find out.
encoded: It's finally Christmas and the midwives of Nonnatus House are ready for the festivities – with a talent show on the agenda this Yuletide season. Ahead of the Call the Midwife Christmas special, airing later today, Radio Times magazine sat down with Trixie star Helen George and Nancy actress Megan Cusack to talk all things festive. Helen George Gabriel Tate: The midwives are taking part in “Poplartunity Knocks” this year. What’s your hidden talent? Helen George: My partner Jack once said that I’m really good at packing for holidays, so that’s probably my hidden talent! It’s useful with the family – I can get a lot in a suitcase and we’re having a mini-break this Christmas, so I’ll be using my talent then. Other than that, I sing, and have done from before I started acting. I’m about to play Anna in a touring production of The King and I. GT: Do you sing for fun as well? HG: For fun it’s usually a bit of jazz. Maybe Billie Holiday, but not really performing it, more for myself. I don’t think Billie Holiday should ever be replicated for karaoke; that doesn’t feel appropriate! On a night out, it would be the Spice Girls. GT: Who is the most talented member of the Midwife cast? HG: We’re a pretty talented bunch. Jenny Agutter [Sister Julienne] is amazing because she’s not only the most fantastic actress, but also has this incredible other life where she does so much for charity. Cliff Parisi [Fred Buckle] is obviously “Mr Showman” and fabulous. Laura Main [Shelagh Turner] is very quiet, but a different character from what you might imagine – she loves to sing and dance. GT: What would you buy Trixie for a present this year? HG: I’m not a fan of the new medical bags, so I’d quite like a different one of those for her. They’re supposed to be clean and wipeable, but they’re also very awkward and bulky. I much prefer my old leatherbound one, which I still have at home, actually. GT: What would she get you? HG: Something beautiful from Fortnum & Mason. It would be thoughtful,…

411108-00b83b8.jpg
width: 4284
height: 2856

Peter Capaldi and Jessica Raine on Amazon thriller The Devil's Hour
type: item
date: 2022-10-28T06:00:31.000Z
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: Fantasy
subject: TV
subject: Amazon Prime Video
subject: On demand
description: Speaking to Gabriel Tate in the latest issue of Radio Times magazine, Peter Capaldi and Jessica Raine discuss fate and the supernatural in their new thriller series The Devil's Hour.
encoded: This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. "The things I’m going to tell you tonight are going to sound unlikely," says Peter Capaldi’s serial-killing vigilante at the start of the second episode of Amazon’s The Devil’s Hour. He’s not wrong. Even in these days of sky-high concepts and spoiler warnings, The Devil’s Hour is a tricky show to write about, let alone promote. Written by newcomer Tom Moran, it’s an unsettling psychological thriller with shades of whodunnit, domestic drama and horror. Lucy Chambers (Jessica Raine), a child protection officer, has a fraught relationship with her son Isaac (Benjamin Chivers). Withdrawn and emotionally blank, the eight-year-old’s condition defies diagnosis and Lucy’s estranged husband has all but given up on him. Equally distressing are Lucy’s daytime visions and the nightmares that wake her regularly at 3:33am, in the middle of the so-called 'Devil’s Hour', when the space between the living and the dead is supposedly most porous. These visions draw Lucy into the orbit of both Capaldi’s nomadic loner Gideon, the prime suspect in a series of murders, and an odd-couple pair of coppers, played by Nikesh Patel and Alex Ferns. Sitting down to talk at the drama’s production base outside Farnborough, Raine and Capaldi are both dressed in character – she neat and groomed in a trouser suit, he wild-haired and a little dishevelled. Raine describes Lucy as "a gift – partly because she’s a well-written character, but there’s also a Sliding Doors element where you see a different path taken. She’s not this perfect human being, but you love watching her make those decisions and mistakes. Her visions are getting so bad that she’s questioning her own sanity, but aside from that, she’s the most relatable character I’ve ever played. She’s a warm person and doesn’t take herself too seriously, but she’s absolutely shattered and on the edge of coping. We all know that feeling. I really admire her tireless energy in getting to…

TheDevilsHourLookCloser3000-975d9fa.jpg
width: 1920
height: 1280

Where is The Last Kingdom filmed?
type: item
date: 2019-06-19T03:04:00.000Z
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Behind the scenes on set of the ninth-century drama
encoded: “I’m sick of building Saxon barns, I’m sick of mud, I’m sick of killing the grass.” Martyn John, The Last Kingdom’s production designer, is joking, but his laughter has a mildly maniacal edge. Small wonder, after a gruelling seven-month shoot. But at least the efforts of John (whose previous work ranges from Foyle’s War to The White Queen) and his team look like they’re paying off. As we squelch our way through the mud, dung and straw, it’s hard to deny that the set looks, feels and even smells pretty authentic. No one watching would be under any illusions that life in ninth-century England was tough. The main set of The Last Kingdom spans about eight acres just outside Budapest in Hungary, owned by Korda Studios and used to film period and fantasy dramas including Sky’s costume romp The Borgias, the Ken Follett adaptation World without End and Emerald City, the recent reimagining of The Wizard of Oz. Meet the cast of The Last Kingdom series two The Last Kingdom series 3 confirmed – historical drama to air exclusively on Netflix The Last Kingdom season 3 trailer spells doom for King Alfred Recycling, it becomes clear, is essential. Not just of general items (although I see little 21st-century litter during my tour), but of entire sets, with Winchester doubling as York, Leeds, Northampton and assorted other conurbations in Wessex and East Anglia. With a few tweaks, some canny camera angles and the many ginnels and alleyways around the walled city, it’s hard to see the joins. John is even the sort of heathen who will happily re-dress a cathedral as a pagan meeting hall if it services the series. View oEmbed on the source website The story also once again takes to the seas, when Uhtred is enslaved on a Viking longship: a conundrum for a production at the heart of a landlocked country. While authenticity is the watchword for John and his team, green screen was deployed for some seabound sequences that were, in fact, shot in the studio car park. For the rest, John used t…

https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2017/05/132540.33c56d1c-adf4-4a25-9dd8-25b92002902a.jpg
width: 4007
height: 3054

Manson: the Lost Tapes – new footage reveals how Charles Manson brainwashed his followers
type: item
date: 2018-09-27T10:25:49.000Z
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: As unused footage emerges of Charles Manson’s 'Family', will it shed new light on how the notorious cult leader brainwashed killers?
encoded: For some it was the riot at the Rolling Stones’ Altamont concert, for others the election of Richard Nixon as US president. But the death of the freelove dream undoubtedly came closer when one of its most aberrant advocates, Charles Manson, acquired the notoriety he so desperately sought. In the summer of 1969, the career criminal, Beatles obsessive and one-time associate of the Beach Boys instructed members of his “Family”, a group of young dropouts and runaways, to commit nine murders including that of pregnant actress Sharon Tate. “He confided in me about how groovy it was killing people,” says Paul Watkins, Manson’s lieutenant, in the new two-part documentary Manson: the Lost Tapes. But what fresh light can be cast on this ofttold story? It was a conundrum producer Simon Andreae wrestled with for years, until the looming 50th anniversary of the killings forced his hand. As Quentin Tarantino and Mary Harron prepared fictional versions of the story (the latter starring Matt Smith as Manson), Andreae happened on a long-forgotten 1973 documentary by Robert Hendrickson. View oEmbed on the source website The Crown star Matt Smith confirmed to play cult killer Charles Manson First look at Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt in Quentin Tarantino’s Sharon Tate movie New on Netflix: the best movies and TV shows released every day Initially intending to make a drama about the crucifixion of Christ, Hendrickson had been put in touch with the Family by an apostate member, Mark Ross. Manson, awaiting trial and wanting a record of his grim actions, gave Hendrickson permission to film on the Family’s Californian compound. The result, Manson, was Oscar-nominated but drew scathing reviews. Sensationalist and drowning in psychedelic effects, it could generously be said to be of its time. The footage, shot between 1969 and 1973, was however both eerily intimate and insightful about the radicalisation of two dozen whitebread, middle-class kids. As we ponder today how regular citizens ca…

GettyImages-515288632-150b6b3.jpg
width: 1000
height: 666

"You don’t see this job portrayed on TV" – Nicola Walker explains how new BBC divorce drama The Split is breaking new ground
type: item
date: 2018-08-31T12:27:42.000Z
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The Last Tango in Halifax actress teases her latest BBC1 series: "There’s all kinds of chaos underneath the surface of this seemingly successful, driven, independent woman"
encoded: "What can you tell me about the remains?” There’s a skeleton on a gurney and Nicola Walker, as DCI Cassie Stuart, is doing her serious frown, the same one she uses in Last Tango in Halifax when Gillian meets adversity and in The Split when Hannah considers Nathan’s infidelity. Today she’s in the pathology lab, attempting to put right another murderous wrong of the past in the new series of Unforgotten. Beside her, Sanjeev Bhaskar’s DS “Sunny” Khan is looking puzzled, as he has since they encountered their first skeleton in 2015, disinterred from the concrete floor of the basement in a hostel in The Case of Jimmy Sullivan. Just as the director says cut, Bhaskar leans over and says something in Walker’s ear. The famously troubled face splits into a wide smile, followed by a guffaw. Whatever Bhaskar said, it was funny, and quite possibly wildly inappropriate. But as Walker reveals afterwards, it was just what she needed after another grim day down the Unforgotten misery mine. Neil Morrissey and Alex Jennings join Unforgotten as plot of series three is revealed ITV confirms Unforgotten will return for a third series Stay up to date with the RadioTimes.com newsletter View oEmbed on the source website “There is a deep, deep sadness running through these stories,” Walker says. “And when you’re doing stuff that’s really dark, you can stay in that place. So, I’d be really serious all the time if it wasn’t for Sanjeev. It’s his fault if I’m not always serious.” Bhaskar feigns offence. “My fault? I’d say it’s my credit,” he says. “There are scenes in Unforgotten that are so intense, horrible and tragic that you have to find a way to relate to each other as human beings again.” We are in a high-ceilinged drawing room in a dilapidated former country house in Buckinghamshire, where they’re shooting series three. As well as the pathology lab, the building houses the cluttered incident room where the cold case team consider pictures of disinterred bodies. Exteriors are shot in the …

The-Split-Nicola-Walker-plays-Hannah-6fcfc3f.jpg
width: 620
height: 413

The Split star Stephen Mangan on his past life studying law – and why he's much better suited to being an actor
type: item
date: 2018-08-31T12:27:34.000Z
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The star of Episodes and new BBC1 divorce drama The Split says he "made the right decision" to become an actor rather than a lawyer
encoded: For Stephen Mangan, the star of Episodes, Green Wing and Adrian Mole, his beginnings as a Cambridge law graduate may have come in useful for his new role in BBC1's divorce drama The Split, in which he plays the husband of hotshot lawyer Hannah Stern (played by Nicola Walker). But as he tells Radio Times, his law career seems like another life entirely compared to his work as an actor... View oEmbed on the source website Meet the cast on BBC1's new drama The Split The Split review: sharp, smart, and entertaining You play Hannah’s husband Nathan. How is their relationship? Our marriage gets put through the wringer. It’s gone a bit stale, work has taken over family life and everything’s so busy, but like a lot of marriages we’ve taken it for granted. Abi Morgan’s script allows very little black and white – you could argue almost anyone’s corner on this show. Hopefully you’ll want to slap each character at various points, and give each of us a hug as well. Does it cause you to re-examine your own relationship? You start to think, what if my wife [actor Louise Delamere] or I put a bomb under our marriage? How would we cope? We’ve got three kids and the thought of it not working out is horrifying. Having said that, the truer dramas are, the more uncomfortable they should make you feel. If you watch a show about someone whose dragon is dying, it’s very easy to distance yourself from what they’re going through, but when you’re watching professionals with families, trying to cope with busy work and family lives… It can be very close to home. We want to cause people emotional pain! Was being a law graduate useful for your role in The Split? The only thing I can remember about law is how to spell it. It feels like another life. Would you have made a good lawyer? No, no. Law takes the mess of human life, tries to codify it and makes it very dry. I remember all these criminal law cases about what constitutes burglary. It’s much more interesting to think, what does it feel like t…

The-Split-Stephen-Mangan-as-Hannahs-husband-Nathan-c251e85.jpg
width: 620
height: 413

Robert Rinder reveals how he found hope from his devastating WDYTYA finds
type: item
date: 2018-08-13T09:25:06.000Z
creator: Gabriel Tate
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The TV judge’s grandparents hardly spoke of the Holocaust but it dominated their lives – as he found out in the BBC genealogy series
encoded: Discovering that your grandfather Morris lost all his family in the Holocaust, but also that your great-grandfather Israel died in a British asylum as a consequence of childhood trauma, would be enough to leave many people feeling a little hopeless. Not, however, Robert Rinder, he of the daytime courtroom TV series, the shiny floor of Strictly and now Who Do You Think You Are?. At the conclusion of his episode of the genealogy series, he describes himself as “peculiarly optimistic”. “I recently watched the episode for the first time and thought, what an odd thing to say,” he admits. “But it was an honest response. Despite these appalling narratives, I’m surrounded by a family that have come through it all.” Judge Rinder to re-launch Crown Court as it returns to TV after 30 years Judge Rinder: Dramatising criminal behaviour is good for us RadioTimes.com newsletter: get the latest TV and entertainment news direct to your inbox View oEmbed on the source website At the heart of this family is 94-year-old Lottie, Robert’s maternal grandmother, the widow of Morris (who died in 2001 and whose five siblings and parents died in the Treblinka death camp) and daughter of Israel, who died in 1946 having fled what is now Latvia 30 years earlier because of the pogroms. Lottie now has advanced Parkinson’s but is still, by all accounts, an extraordinary woman. “Even among my friends, she’s an adjective for benign sweetness,” says Rinder. “She’s a walking smile, Prozac in woman form. Morris’s early life was unspeakably hard, but my grandmother decided to meet the world generously and with joy. She has succeeded.” Neither Lottie nor Morris spoke at any length about the latter’s grim experiences in the Polish city of Piotrkow, the first ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe, or the factories where he was set to work and half-starved. Nor did Rinder ever really ask, despite having visited Piotrkow with Morris in 1988, aged 20. “I was too young to take it in,” he says now. “This time I wanted …

15925235-high res-who-do-you-think-you-are-f381cbf.jpg
width: 2856
height: 4284