The choirmaster will be celebrating his 50th on stage — followed by hot yoga
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 schedule and not have too many late nights, because touring is a weird night-time existence where you start feeling like a vampire. With the show, I know what people are looking for now, but it’s my 50th birthday and 50 years of Bohemian Rhapsody, so we’ll do a big version of that. Why is communal singing important? I was really struck by what one of the singers told me when I ran a community choir for the London Symphony Orchestra. After our first concert, they said, “I lost my father at the beginning of this term and this has really helped me.” That was the first time I realised there was something to explore, and it sustained me through all those series of The Choir. My belief in its spiritual benefits is pretty unshakeable now. You’ll be spending your 50th (9 November) on stage at the Warwick Arts Centre — dream birthday? For me, the party is always on stage. I might have to wind down a bit afterwards, but it’s not like I’m getting through the gig to hit the town. I’m at a different point in my life and a lot more appreciative of what I have. To still be working and in good shape is a privilege. The fluff and noise aren’t important. It’s about connections with people and feeling good about yourself. Singing makes me happy… along with hot yoga. Anything else you’d like to accomplish? Right now, I’m enjoying still having a career! I’m not busting a gut to do Strictly. The Masked Dancer was fun, but I got to the end of it thinking, “I’m really looking forward to waking up tomorrow and being a musician again.”
Gareth Malone: "I'm not busting a gut to do Strictly"
The choirmaster will be celebrating his 50th on stage — followed by hot yoga.
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 schedule and not have too many late nights, because touring is a weird night-time existence where you start feeling like a vampire. With the show, I know what people are looking for now, but it’s my 50th birthday and 50 years of Bohemian Rhapsody, so we’ll do a big version of that. Why is communal singing important? I was really struck by what one of the singers told me when I ran a community choir for the London Symphony Orchestra. After our first concert, they said, “I lost my father at the beginning of this term and this has really helped me.” That was the first time I realised there was something to explore, and it sustained me through all those series of The Choir. My belief in its spiritual benefits is pretty unshakeable now. Buy Gareth Malone tickets at Ticketmaster You’ll be spending your 50th (9 November) on stage at the Warwick Arts Centre – dream birthday? For me, the party is always on stage. I might have to wind down a bit afterwards, but it’s not like I’m getting through the gig to hit the town. I’m at a different point in my life and a lot more appreciative of what I have. To still be working and in good shape is a privilege. The fluff and noise aren’t important. It’s about connections with people and feeling good about yourself. Singing makes me happy… along with hot yoga. Anything else you’d like to accomplish? Right now, I’m enjoying still having a career! I’m not busting a gut to do Strictly. The Masked Dancer was fun, but I got to the end of it thinking, “I’m really looking forward to waking up tomorrow and being a musician again.” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Sing-along-a-Gareth 4: 50 Years of Song tours the UK from 2 November – tickets are on sale now. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what else is on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
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
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 way.’ Or certainly on the same wavelength.” That rapport is born from a shared sense of humour and affectionate mutual teasing, which surfaces frequently. But perhaps it also comes from the shared experience of starting out in the industry at such a young age. Hawes signed up for the Sylvia Young Theatre School at nine and worked as a model before getting her big break at 19 in Dennis Potter’s Karaoke, while Highmore – the son of an actor and a talent agent – was ten when he was acting opposite Johnny Depp, first in Finding Neverland and then in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. “We’ve never spoken about that,” marvels Hawes. “Isn’t that weird? Freddie looks young, but he’s wiser than his years. Maybe an element of that comes from being treated as an adult from so young, because that’s what happens on the set. But I certainly didn’t feel like I missed out on anything. I had the time of my life, but it’s a very different thing now – I imagine I’d have a tutor and so on, but the rules were more relaxed then, with all the pros and cons of that. It didn’t feel like working, just really exciting. And it still is, most of the time.” “I always had a great time filming when I was young,” agrees Highmore, who took time out to study languages at Cambridge and work as an intern at banks and law firms. “But it’s not play – you’re aware there’s a seriousness, which for me was part of the enjoyment. Acting felt like an addition to my childhood. My parents helped me maintain a degree of separation and normality. Going to university and not acting for a bit was really important because I never wanted acting to become a continuation of my childhood rather than the choice of an adult.” Greece has been an annual holiday destination for Hawes and her family since The Durrells finished in 2019. “It’s been lovely to be back and working with a lot of the same crew,” she says. “You feel immediately relaxed. It’s the sort of location where people want to come to visit you – my kids are old enough that they’ve all come over under their own steam.” For Highmore, it represents a welcome change after more than a decade leading two long-running series. “There’s a part of me that misses the family you build over shows like that. At the same time, it’s really exciting to do something else, especially something British after so long in North America. Even though it’s Athens, it feels familiar.” He looks apologetic. “I’m afraid I can’t give you a pithy reason why British television is different from American, but there is an inherent difference.” “The catering is better over there,” suggests Hawes, and Highmore chuckles heartily. The laughter will continue through the night: soon they’ll be clambering into a 4x4 to brave the mountainous hairpin bends up to a derelict military outpost. The ensuing gunfight, thrillingly staged and enthusiastically performed, isn’t a novel experience for Hawes, who has form with action scenes in BBC1’s Crossfire. “I had a scene where Julie puts a rifle together, which I learnt to do in my trailer 20 minutes beforehand,” says Hawes. “I’m not bad at Lego so I didn’t find it too difficult. In fact, I had a note afterwards to look more inept! This is the most stunt-y show I’ve done, and we’ve been allowed to do a fair bit ourselves – I did throw a man over a car – but I feel no pressure because Julie’s meant to be rusty. Julie’s out of practice because she’s been on the hill, drinking a lot. A lot of the fights are improvised, they’re not meant to look slick, so when I screw up, I can blame it on the character.” Even though the physicality was enjoyable for both actors, it was the emotion and nuance of the family dynamics that appealed most. “I find their relationship really relatable,” says Hawes. “I have that back-and-forth with my children, so that part feels very real to me. Quite often you do clash with the people you’re most like, probably because you recognise things in them that you don’t like in yourself. Julie does have that vulnerability beneath the surface, but she also doesn’t care about being likeable – I admire people like that.” “There’s a tragedy at the heart of their relationship,” adds Highmore. “In some ways they know each other better than anyone else, despite the secrets they’ve been keeping from each other. They want to be closer and know they should be, but they just keep getting it wrong. They’re both alone in a way, feeling a little separate within the family structure, seeking that connection and trying to find a place in the world.” “That’s brilliant,” says Hawes. “Can I use that when you’re not around?” “Of course!” beams Highmore, leaning forward to whisper conspiratorially: “We haven’t spent ten years as friends before the show, but it feels like we have.” Hawes goes still further, with a glint of mischief. “Freddie basically is my son!”
Keeley Hawes formed a mother-son bond with Freddie Highmore, her co-star in thriller The Assassin
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.
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 the same wavelength.” That rapport is born from a shared sense of humour and affectionate mutual teasing, which surfaces frequently. But perhaps it also comes from the shared experience of starting out in the industry at such a young age. Hawes signed up for the Sylvia Young Theatre School at nine and worked as a model before getting her big break at 19 in Dennis Potter’s Karaoke, while Highmore – the son of an actor and a talent agent – was ten when he was acting opposite Johnny Depp, first in Finding Neverland and then in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. “We’ve never spoken about that,” marvels Hawes. “Isn’t that weird? Freddie looks young, but he’s wiser than his years. Maybe an element of that comes from being treated as an adult from so young, because that’s what happens on the set. But I certainly didn’t feel like I missed out on anything. I had the time of my life, but it’s a very different thing now – I imagine I’d have a tutor and so on, but the rules were more relaxed then, with all the pros and cons of that. It didn’t feel like working, just really exciting. And it still is, most of the time.” “I always had a great time filming when I was young,” agrees Highmore, who took time out to study languages at Cambridge and work as an intern at banks and law firms. “But it’s not play – you’re aware there’s a seriousness, which for me was part of the enjoyment. Acting felt like an addition to my childhood. My parents helped me maintain a degree of separation and normality. Going to university and not acting for a bit was really important because I never wanted acting to become a continuation of my childhood rather than the choice of an adult.” Greece has been an annual holiday destination for Hawes and her family since The Durrells finished in 2019. “It’s been lovely to be back and working with a lot of the same crew,” she says. “You feel immediately relaxed. It’s the sort of location where people want to come to visit you – my kids are old enough that they’ve all come over under their own steam.” For Highmore, it represents a welcome change after more than a decade leading two long-running series. “There’s a part of me that misses the family you build over shows like that. At the same time, it’s really exciting to do something else, especially something British after so long in North America. Even though it’s Athens, it feels familiar.” He looks apologetic. “I’m afraid I can’t give you a pithy reason why British television is different from American, but there is an inherent difference.” “The catering is better over there,” suggests Hawes, and Highmore chuckles heartily. The laughter will continue through the night: soon they’ll be clambering into a 4x4 to brave the mountainous hairpin bends up to a derelict military outpost. The ensuing gunfight, thrillingly staged and enthusiastically performed, isn’t a novel experience for Hawes, who has form with action scenes in BBC1’s Crossfire. “I had a scene where Julie puts a rifle together, which I learnt to do in my trailer 20 minutes beforehand,” says Hawes. “I’m not bad at Lego so I didn’t find it too difficult. In fact, I had a note afterwards to look more inept! This is the most stunt-y show I’ve done, and we’ve been allowed to do a fair bit ourselves – I did throw a man over a car – but I feel no pressure because Julie’s meant to be rusty. Julie’s out of practice because she’s been on the hill, drinking a lot. A lot of the fights are improvised, they’re not meant to look slick, so when I screw up, I can blame it on the character.” Even though the physicality was enjoyable for both actors, it was the emotion and nuance of the family dynamics that appealed most. “I find their relationship really relatable,” says Hawes. “I have that back-and-forth with my children, so that part feels very real to me. Quite often you do clash with the people you’re most like, probably because you recognise things in them that you don’t like in yourself. Julie does have that vulnerability beneath the surface, but she also doesn’t care about being likeable – I admire people like that.” “There’s a tragedy at the heart of their relationship,” adds Highmore. “In some ways they know each other better than anyone else, despite the secrets they’ve been keeping from each other. They want to be closer and know they should be, but they just keep getting it wrong. They’re both alone in a way, feeling a little separate within the family structure, seeking that connection and trying to find a place in the world.” “That’s brilliant,” says Hawes. “Can I use that when you’re not around?” “Of course!” beams Highmore, leaning forward to whisper conspiratorially: “We haven’t spent ten years as friends before the show, but it feels like we have.” Hawes goes still further, with a glint of mischief. “Freddie basically is my son!” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what else is on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Johnny Vegas on his passion for antiques and art, his ADHD diagnosis – and why his heart is no longer in comedy
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 like a municipal dump. Vegas erupts in that familiar wheezing laugh. “It’s beautiful chaos! My biggest fear is getting hit by a bus and my children selling things for a quid at a car-boot sale. I’ve got a lot of stuff, possibly too much, but everything has a resale value or is something, like the bricks and scrap metal in the garden that I’ll use for my art. I’m not holding on to stacks of newspapers.” Nonetheless, he acknowledges, there is also a psychological reasoning behind his acquisitions. “Alzheimer’s has been rife in my family, so having constant memories is something I find important. I know the story behind every object. My house is a visual diary of my life.” That life changed significantly in 2023 when, at the age of 52, he was diagnosed with ADHD – an impact he explores in the forthcoming Channel 4 documentary Johnny Vegas: Art, ADHD and Me. “Personally, it made sense of a lot of things,” he explains. “Talking to other people about it, as well. There are behavioural traits I now understand around timekeeping, tidiness, hitting deadlines, not getting overwhelmed at the start of the day and being motivated in the direction you need to be. ADHD is like having a head full of butterflies, and sometimes you’ll catch one. It’s good to share and not beat myself up about not doing something, but I don’t want to trade off it or use it to make excuses.” It also means that, when I suggest he could be the latest self-made mogul to join Dragons’ Den, he’s spluttering into his tea. “I am the least entrepreneurial person! With ADHD, you’re always moving on to the next idea. I’m not very practical but I don’t fear failure, I fear not giving something a go – I just need people around me like Bev to bring these ideas to fruition.” One such idea is the stage revival of Ideal, Graham Duff’s cult 2005–11 BBC3 sitcom, in which he’ll reprise the role of Mancunian weed dealer Moz two decades after its launch. “This one’s for the fans,” he says. “So many people were coming up to us, going: ‘Love that show, why can’t I see it?’ So we finally got it back on iPlayer and thought, after seeing the success of Early Doors on stage, we could investigate it more. We never got to finish the story on the telly.” Vegas’s own story began in St Helens, but a happy childhood was scarred by a difficult time at secondary school and then a violent attack in his late teens. “For a while, I became quite agoraphobic,” he recalls. “It really sent me into myself. Getting to college and working behind the bar gave me a new confidence in myself. I knew I could entertain people, singing and messing about, then I saw Dominic Holland doing a gig in St Helens and comedy made sense to me, that whole notion of: how can somebody be so consistently funny for so long? I understood it, became obsessed with it, realised I’d been absorbing it for years – all my VHS tapes were comedy shows recorded off the telly. Johnny awakened at college and I started sneaking out to do stand-up – you only find out you’re funny when you start gigging.” Does comedy still make sense to him? “I remember Bob Monkhouse interviewing me years ago, and it was astounding how up to date he was, talking about all of us new comics with such exuberance rather than going: it was better in my day. I don’t keep on top of it like I should because I’ve got other things going on, but I’ll never resent comedy for evolving.” The occasional compering gig aside, it has been three years since Johnny went on tour – he’s in no great hurry to return. “Has Johnny had his time? I don’t know. I’d have to wake up and really want to do it, because if I planned it, I’d be anxious about it. You only ever want to do stand-up when your heart is completely in it.” Vegas’s act often involved retreating to a potter’s wheel to throw some clay on stage. Far from a gimmick, it was instead an opportunity to pursue a passion hidden in plain sight: he has a degree in art and ceramics from Middlesex University, his work has been acquired by the V&A and, over lockdown, he started on a display for Liverpool’s Walker Gallery. “Art is a part of my life again, thank God. Like stand-up, it’s not done by committee, it’s you and your idea, and I don’t mind standing or falling by those. There’s also a permanence, that this will outlive me, this will be in somebody’s home. The feedback from the Walker has been incredible, people saying it affected them, sharing details about their mental health. I take real pride in that.” Still, it wasn’t the art, the sitcoms or even the stand-up that brought the sort of fame where people do double-takes in the street. “It’s bizarre what can make you a household name,” he says of his pairing with Monkey, a knitted puppet voiced by Ben Miller. Their adverts for ITV Digital and then PG Tips eventually even made him a household name in his own household: son Tom was thrilled to find one advert online in which they made a cup of tea using a digger. The campaign has recently been revived with Emily Atack, but Vegas – or the more reflective and contented Michael Pennington, at least – bears no malice to the Rivals star. “Good luck to her! Not to Monkey, though. We’ve had words. I’ve sat upstairs with my Monkey, just shouting at him: how could you do this to me?”
‘It made sense of a lot of things’: Johnny Vegas on ADHD, stand-up burnout and Ideal's comeback
Johnny Vegas on his passion for antiques and art, his ADHD diagnosis – and why his heart is no longer in comedy.
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 municipal dump. Vegas erupts in that familiar wheezing laugh. “It’s beautiful chaos! My biggest fear is getting hit by a bus and my children selling things for a quid at a car-boot sale. I’ve got a lot of stuff, possibly too much, but everything has a resale value or is something, like the bricks and scrap metal in the garden that I’ll use for my art. I’m not holding on to stacks of newspapers.” Nonetheless, he acknowledges, there is also a psychological reasoning behind his acquisitions. “Alzheimer’s has been rife in my family, so having constant memories is something I find important. I know the story behind every object. My house is a visual diary of my life.” That life changed significantly in 2023 when, at the age of 52, he was diagnosed with ADHD – an impact he explores in the forthcoming Channel 4 documentary Johnny Vegas: Art, ADHD and Me. “Personally, it made sense of a lot of things,” he explains. “Talking to other people about it, as well. There are behavioural traits I now understand around timekeeping, tidiness, hitting deadlines, not getting overwhelmed at the start of the day and being motivated in the direction you need to be. ADHD is like having a head full of butterflies, and sometimes you’ll catch one. It’s good to share and not beat myself up about not doing something, but I don’t want to trade off it or use it to make excuses.” It also means that, when I suggest he could be the latest self-made mogul to join Dragons’ Den, he’s spluttering into his tea. “I am the least entrepreneurial person! With ADHD, you’re always moving on to the next idea. I’m not very practical but I don’t fear failure, I fear not giving something a go – I just need people around me like Bev to bring these ideas to fruition.” One such idea is the stage revival of Ideal, Graham Duff’s cult 2005–11 BBC3 sitcom, in which he’ll reprise the role of Mancunian weed dealer Moz two decades after its launch. “This one’s for the fans,” he says. “So many people were coming up to us, going: ‘Love that show, why can’t I see it?’ So we finally got it back on iPlayer and thought, after seeing the success of Early Doors on stage, we could investigate it more. We never got to finish the story on the telly.” Vegas’s own story began in St Helens, but a happy childhood was scarred by a difficult time at secondary school and then a violent attack in his late teens. “For a while, I became quite agoraphobic,” he recalls. “It really sent me into myself. Getting to college and working behind the bar gave me a new confidence in myself. I knew I could entertain people, singing and messing about, then I saw Dominic Holland doing a gig in St Helens and comedy made sense to me, that whole notion of: how can somebody be so consistently funny for so long? I understood it, became obsessed with it, realised I’d been absorbing it for years – all my VHS tapes were comedy shows recorded off the telly. Johnny awakened at college and I started sneaking out to do stand-up – you only find out you’re funny when you start gigging.” Does comedy still make sense to him? “I remember Bob Monkhouse interviewing me years ago, and it was astounding how up to date he was, talking about all of us new comics with such exuberance rather than going: it was better in my day. I don’t keep on top of it like I should because I’ve got other things going on, but I’ll never resent comedy for evolving.” The occasional compering gig aside, it has been three years since Johnny went on tour – he’s in no great hurry to return. “Has Johnny had his time? I don’t know. I’d have to wake up and really want to do it, because if I planned it, I’d be anxious about it. You only ever want to do stand-up when your heart is completely in it.” Vegas’s act often involved retreating to a potter’s wheel to throw some clay on stage. Far from a gimmick, it was instead an opportunity to pursue a passion hidden in plain sight: he has a degree in art and ceramics from Middlesex University, his work has been acquired by the V&A and, over lockdown, he started on a display for Liverpool’s Walker Gallery. “Art is a part of my life again, thank God. Like stand-up, it’s not done by committee, it’s you and your idea, and I don’t mind standing or falling by those. There’s also a permanence, that this will outlive me, this will be in somebody’s home. The feedback from the Walker has been incredible, people saying it affected them, sharing details about their mental health. I take real pride in that.” Still, it wasn’t the art, the sitcoms or even the stand-up that brought the sort of fame where people do double-takes in the street. “It’s bizarre what can make you a household name,” he says of his pairing with Monkey, a knitted puppet voiced by Ben Miller. Their adverts for ITV Digital and then PG Tips eventually even made him a household name in his own household: son Tom was thrilled to find one advert online in which they made a cup of tea using a digger. The campaign has recently been revived with Emily Atack, but Vegas – or the more reflective and contented Michael Pennington, at least – bears no malice to the Rivals star. “Good luck to her! Not to Monkey, though. We’ve had words. I’ve sat upstairs with my Monkey, just shouting at him: how could you do this to me?” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what else is on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
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?
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 dramatically compelling. “Sometimes people use the phrase ‘creative licence’ in a pejorative way, which is kind of insane,” he says. “Creative licence is vital to writing drama, otherwise why not make a documentary? For The Gold, a lot of it is simplifying a very murky, complicated story. There’s no aspect of it where more than one opinion was not available, so it’s about trying to make the right decision: is it a very sensitive area where you have to be particularly careful, or a purely dramatic turn of events where you’re well within your rights to pick the most interesting path? It’s about understanding characters and motivations, then putting that into an entertaining dramatisation. You’re not doing it to be flippant or fudge a lack of knowledge. And frankly, real life is messy and complicated and weirdly unrealistic.” Indeed, if ever a story demonstrated truth as stranger than fiction, it’s The Gold – one villain’s girlfriend did name her dogs Brinks and Mat and another associate did drop £10,000 in the street en route to the bank. At the outset of the second series, a significant portion of the bullion is buried in Cornish tin mines – a story drawn from a couple of paragraphs in the London Evening Standard in the mid-80s. “We found it in the archives,” says Forsyth, grinning. “It’s not online and has never been reported anywhere else: one of the criminals had links to the South West, and Cornish police – off the back of credible reports – conducted extensive searches of the mines. A lot of the research was piecing things together because connections weren’t made at the time. I’ve even told Brian [Boyce, who consulted on the series] things he didn’t know, which was very gratifying.” As this was a stretch of the Brink’s-Mat trail with fewer news stories, trials and with many criminal protagonists either never convicted or in witness protection, grounding the story in one-to-one interviews was as important as painstaking archival trawls. Boyce and his long-retired peers were once again essential, says Forsyth: “They give you the colour of the investigation beyond the black-and-white facts in public records.” And what about those people on the other side of the law? “Some of the stories we heard…” Forsyth marvels. “I wish they’d been caught so I could write about it.” The most prominent villain Forsyth admits to consulting is the ostensible leader of the heist, the late Micky McAvoy (played by Adam Nagatis), whose theory Forsyth credits with underpinning both series: the idea that the robbers themselves, way out of their depth, made vanishingly little compared to the white-collar figures who, capitalising on an era of financial deregulation, took over and made millions. In fact, Forsyth’s focus on class and social mobility saw the first series accused of treating some of the criminals too kindly; unsurprisingly, he mounts a stout defence. “I’ve got a very clear conscience because I know more about the characters and events than anyone making passing commentary,” he reasons. “A lot of these guys were charming, which is how they managed to corrupt the police. Look at the character arc of any of our major criminal characters and where they end up – I don’t think you can conclude they’ve been treated in a glamorous or sympathetic way.” Forsyth’s next series is Legends, a six-part drama for Netflix with Steve Coogan and Tom Burke. He’s off to the set at “another north London warehouse” after our conversation and concedes that, as a true story about customs investigators going under cover in the international drugs trade, it operates on adjacent turf to The Gold. But true crime is a broad church, ranging from Ryan Murphy’s lurid serial-killer fantasias to Jeff Pope’s angular, diligently researched treatments. The genre, argues Forsyth, appeals because, “viewers don’t want to watch people living within the natural confines of life and making safe decisions”. It can also be unexpectedly relatable: during filming of The Gold in Hastings, Forsyth was approached by McAvoy’s former prison guard who happened to be walking his dog nearby – proof, he says, that if “hundreds were involved in the Brink’s-Mat crime, thousands must have known someone connected to it”. Most rewardingly for the writer, true crime also acts as a Trojan horse. “Other People’s Money [his 2007 book about a credit-card fraudster] was about a young guy in search of identity. Guilt was about siblings. The Gold is about greed at a particular point of British history. Legends is about people dissatisfied with their careers and seeing opportunities to do something different.” In one sense, there’s no mystery around The Gold at all. It’s not called Detective Boyce, or Jennings and Brightwell. The star of the show is in the title. Does Forsyth understand its allure? “Definitely. We had some very convincing gold-plated bars on set and I think every single crew member sneaked over for a photo. I had a lively, hedonistic youth, but I have become more and more responsible, because my writing has come to show the appalling consequences of recklessness.”
Who's who in the second series of The Gold
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 Dumbledore! The Robbers Charlie Miller (Sam Spruell) and Douglas Baxter (Sam McGuire) Miller’s been waiting it out in Spain before coming back to claim his prize, but the heat hasn’t died down and Boyce’s team come after him. He’s got a strategy, which I don’t think they’ve bargained for, and it becomes a chase around the world as he tries to use the gold to go legit and become a financial player. He doesn’t really have the capacity to realise his aspirations, so he joins Baxter in a horrible ‘Frankenstein’s monster’ of a duo. Baxter is a lawyer who lost his licence after being discovered taking drugs in a toilet. His sideline in money laundering is to make ends meet, which is how Miller finds him. Baxter thinks he’s the finest legal mind of his generation, but he’s not really cut out for the criminal life — that gap between the reality and what he thinks is where the comedy lies with him. He’s a far less cool character than everyone else in the series! Logan Campbell (Tom Hughes) Campbell is an expat laundering money for a Caribbean drug cartel. He’s a man who appears on the outside to have everything in balance, but it’s a veneer. He’s terrified of opening up to anyone because that would mean opening up to himself, where underneath is a well of complexity and self-loathing and pain. He’s running away from himself and that makes him dangerous — he’s a lost man in a world of aspiration. John Palmer (Tom Cullen) In series one, John was apprehensive and uneasy but, having started his life with nothing, he’s now at the top: calling himself the King of Tenerife, building a timeshare scheme and flying around in a ridiculous private jet. Then other factions start to move in, he develops a cocaine addiction and things are not at all good with his wife. He’s allowed the gold to infect him. It’s starting to erode his core.
The Gold season 2 will reveal details of Brink’s-Mat heist aftermath that have "never been reported"
The second season of the hit BBC drama lands this weekend.
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’ in a pejorative way, which is kind of insane,” he says. “Creative licence is vital to writing drama, otherwise why not make a documentary? For The Gold, a lot of it is simplifying a very murky, complicated story. "There’s no aspect of it where more than one opinion was not available, so it’s about trying to make the right decision: is it a very sensitive area where you have to be particularly careful, or a purely dramatic turn of events where you’re well within your rights to pick the most interesting path? It’s about understanding characters and motivations, then putting that into an entertaining dramatisation. You’re not doing it to be flippant or fudge a lack of knowledge. And frankly, real life is messy and complicated and weirdly unrealistic.” Indeed, if ever a story demonstrated truth as stranger than fiction, it’s The Gold – one villain’s girlfriend did name her dogs Brinks and Mat and another associate did drop £10,000 in the street en route to the bank. At the outset of the second series, a significant portion of the bullion is buried in Cornish tin mines – a story drawn from a couple of paragraphs in the London Evening Standard in the mid-'80s. “We found it in the archives,” says Forsyth, grinning. “It’s not online and has never been reported anywhere else: one of the criminals had links to the South West, and Cornish police – off the back of credible reports – conducted extensive searches of the mines. A lot of the research was piecing things together because connections weren’t made at the time. I’ve even told Brian [Boyce, who consulted on the series] things he didn’t know, which was very gratifying.” As this was a stretch of the Brink’s-Mat trail with fewer news stories, trials and with many criminal protagonists either never convicted or in witness protection, grounding the story in one-to-one interviews was as important as painstaking archival trawls. Boyce and his long-retired peers were once again essential, says Forsyth: “They give you the colour of the investigation beyond the black-and-white facts in public records.” And what about those people on the other side of the law? “Some of the stories we heard…” Forsyth marvels. “I wish they’d been caught so I could write about it.” The most prominent villain Forsyth admits to consulting is the ostensible leader of the heist, the late Micky McAvoy (played by Adam Nagaitis), whose theory Forsyth credits with underpinning both series: the idea that the robbers themselves, way out of their depth, made vanishingly little compared to the white-collar figures who, capitalising on an era of financial deregulation, took over and made millions. In fact, Forsyth’s focus on class and social mobility saw the first series accused of treating some of the criminals too kindly; unsurprisingly, he mounts a stout defence. “I’ve got a very clear conscience because I know more about the characters and events than anyone making passing commentary,” he reasons. “A lot of these guys were charming, which is how they managed to corrupt the police. Look at the character arc of any of our major criminal characters and where they end up – I don’t think you can conclude they’ve been treated in a glamorous or sympathetic way.” Forsyth’s next series is Legends, a six-part drama for Netflix with Steve Coogan and Tom Burke. He’s off to the set at “another north London warehouse” after our conversation and concedes that, as a true story about customs investigators going under cover in the international drugs trade, it operates on adjacent turf to The Gold. But true crime is a broad church, ranging from Ryan Murphy’s lurid serial-killer fantasias to Jeff Pope’s angular, diligently researched treatments. The genre, argues Forsyth, appeals because, “viewers don’t want to watch people living within the natural confines of life and making safe decisions”. It can also be unexpectedly relatable: during filming of The Gold in Hastings, Forsyth was approached by McAvoy’s former prison guard who happened to be walking his dog nearby – proof, he says, that if “hundreds were involved in the Brink’s-Mat crime, thousands must have known someone connected to it”. Most rewardingly for the writer, true crime also acts as a Trojan horse. “Other People’s Money [his 2007 book about a credit-card fraudster] was about a young guy in search of identity. Guilt was about siblings. The Gold is about greed at a particular point of British history. Legends is about people dissatisfied with their careers and seeing opportunities to do something different.” In one sense, there’s no mystery around The Gold at all. It’s not called Detective Boyce, or Jennings and Brightwell. The star of the show is in the title. Does Forsyth understand its allure? “Definitely. We had some very convincing gold-plated bars on set and I think every single crew member sneaked over for a photo. I had a lively, hedonistic youth, but I have become more and more responsible, because my writing has come to show the appalling consequences of recklessness.” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. The Gold season 2 will arrive on BBC iPlayer at 6am on Sunday 8th June, before airing on BBC One at 9pm. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
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'…
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 horrible stuff that they see.” The seventh season of Black Mirror has its fair share of “horrible stuff” to go with the contemplative, openly affecting moments, all of them testament to a big, boiling brain that seemingly cannot stop dreaming up new narrative hooks. “One of the things that makes old photos even more evocative is that they’re candid because you don’t get a chance to polish them,” Brooker concludes. “You can now use an AI tool to make it so everyone’s smiling – you’re constructing a false memory in the moment.” He goes quiet, filing another entry for that Rolodex. “That’s a good idea for a story!”
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?
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 my own past here. Regrettable relationships, things that were left open-ended in uncomfortable ways...” A long-time fan of Black Mirror and dedicated reader of Philip K Dick, Isaac Asimov and Ted Chiang, Giamatti appreciates the show’s measured view of technology while being no tech trailblazer himself. “I am on Instagram, although only my friends know it’s me,” he says, explaining that he uses a pseudonym he declines to share with me. “My girlfriend [Billions co-star Clara Wong] is heavily into TikTok but I don’t want to engage in that. That endless scroll and loop is terrifying. The second that you’re confronted with algorithms and nudges, you feel coerced. It’s strange and troubling.” Despite that, the actor adds, he isn’t one to retreat into the past for comfort. “I’m not a big nostalgia guy and I don’t have a ton of photos. I regret that now. I wish I had kept a lot of things – photographs, but also letters, school papers, tests, reports. I never kept anything. I was always just thinking, ‘What’s next?’” As he is called back to set, we end our conversation, appropriately if morbidly, with the subject of funerals. “I think about death a lot as I get older,” he says. “Do I believe anything is going to happen to me after I die? I used to think not, but now I’m not so sure. I go back and forth between burial and cremation, but I have this funny thing of wanting to know that my body is still around, just in case. “Maybe I should be cryogenically frozen. Or maybe I have been watching too much Black Mirror!” Patsy Ferran: 'I'm a luddite!' Your character guides Philip into photos from his past. How did you find your AI voice? I went for an Alexa-type voice initially as it’s a client-service provider relationship, but we realised that loses dramatic tension quite quickly. The Guide has to make Philip feel relaxed and safe. It evolved into something similar to my own voice, making her seem more human vocally. It made my job a lot easier. If there was an old photo you could step into, what would it be? I’d be curious to see my parents when they were really young and dating. We have some amazing photos of them in 1970s garb. How do you feel about the technology in Eulogy? There’s always some fallout with seemingly benevolent technology, although less so with Eulogy, which is more a human story of potential regret and sadness. You could trigger something you didn’t want to remember with this. But as technology goes, it’s probably the least harmful. I might use it. Are you an early tech adopter? I was up to date until about ten years ago. The fact there are no actual buttons on smartphones now drives me mad. I’m regularly shouting at my printer because it doesn’t want to connect. Actually, I think I’m a full-on Luddite. GT
Charlie Brooker: 'I'm not anti-tech – I fear people being radicalised by what they see online'
The Black Mirror creator spoke to Radio Times magazine about the new season.
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 future is disinformation, people getting radicalised or misled by the horrible stuff that they see.” The seventh season of Black Mirror has its fair share of “horrible stuff” to go with the contemplative, openly affecting moments, all of them testament to a big, boiling brain that seemingly cannot stop dreaming up new narrative hooks. “One of the things that makes old photos even more evocative is that they’re candid because you don’t get a chance to polish them,” Brooker concludes. “You can now use an AI tool to make it so everyone’s smiling – you’re constructing a false memory in the moment.” He goes quiet, filing another entry for that Rolodex. “That’s a good idea for a story!” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Black Mirror season 7 will stream on Netflix from 10th April 2025. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream. Check out more of our Sci-Fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Black Mirror season 7 director reveals filming secrets behind emotional new episode
New episodes of Black Mirror are landing on Netflix this April.
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: click!" The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Black Mirror season 7 will stream on Netflix from 10th April 2025. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream. Check out more of our Sci-Fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
From a White Lotus resort in Thailand to a gritty real-life story in Toxic Town Corby, the actor is finding her voice
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 American but she now has your accent. Why was it changed? Why can’t Chelsea be from Manchester? She’s already an outsider and a misfit in this world, so it made sense to me and to [showrunner] Mike White. With Chelsea, I was craving not having separation from her, including speaking in my own voice. All my favourite actors reveal some of themselves. I was having a proper Meg Ryan weekend recently, and she conveys so much of herself through her parts. Have you ever been anywhere like that Thai resort before? No, I’m not an adventurer, but I want to work on that part of myself because, otherwise, I would happily stay in my bit of south-east London. I’d never been to Thailand and there’s nothing like seven months living in a hotel you’re filming in. You become like a White Lotus guest – it was the most immersive experience I’ve ever had, blurring fiction and reality. You’re also currently in Toxic Town playing real-life Corby mum Tracey Taylor — why is it an important story to tell? I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard about it – it never really got into the national news, so it’s important to the real Tracey on a practical level. Anything that exposes an uncomfortable truth feels important to be a part of. I was in awe of her resilience. She doesn’t see herself as a hero at all, but all the other mums do. And it was liberating because, although I care how it’s received, once I knew Tracey was happy, it was “job done”. Between Toxic Town and BBC3 comedy Daddy Issues, you spent a lot of last year either playing pregnant or a mum. What was that like? It made me definitely want kids. I did start to interact with my bump on BBC3’s Daddy Issues as if it was real. On Toxic Town, I had a week-old baby on my shoulder and it felt very real and intense when she was taken away. But you’re playing a teenager one minute, then you’re pregnant and then a mum. It happened pretty much overnight. Goodbye, youth! My next phase will be grandmas… Did turning 30 last year feel like a meaningful landmark? Something definitely shifted in me. Then a few days later I went to Thailand for the biggest experience of my life, which was odd because I’d got a flat and was so ready to be 30-year-old Aimee, whoever that was! I found 29 harder than 30 – there was a relief in escaping the pressure of my 20s. The first TV series you’ve written, Film Club, is soon set for BBC3. How did that come about? It started off as a fun way to pass time during lockdown when I was watching a lot of films, and the idea came to me and Ralph [Davis], my co-writer, that every episode could be based around a film these two friends are watching. I don’t want to be in the next thing I write because you don’t really get to switch off, but I love writing. It’s what I wanted to do when I was younger. I didn’t want to be an actor. So what happened? I knew I could do funny voices and funny characters, so it was a self-protective thing at school. Then I did Guys and Dolls when I was 16 and my English teacher encouraged me to pursue acting because I could still keep up the writing. So, it was a defence mechanism that got way out of control! The White Lotus is on Monday Sky Atlantic/Now; all four episodes of Toxic Town are available to stream on Netflix
'I became aware of race at drama school'
Tamara Lawrance hopes that her role as a Jamaican detective will be a game-changer – for her career and primetime TV
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’s unglamorous storm-water gullies. When a teenage girl goes missing and a Met detective, Luke Holborn (Joe Dempsie), arrives to pursue his own overlapping case, she tugs at threads that unravel Jamaica’s criminal underworld and old-money elite, all ingeniously tangled with post-colonial legacies of violence and the slave trade. In case it isn’t already obvious, this isn’t Death in Paradise – although Lawrance laughs that “filming in Guadeloupe does sound like a nice gig”. She did film on location in Jamaica, which lent authenticity to the portrayal of Caribbean lives in the drama – a more nuanced one than the juxtaposed clichés of sun-kissed beaches, tropical cocktails and Bob Marley v guns, gangs and ganja. It was also something of a homecoming for Lawrance, whose mother, a hospital clinical technician, arrived in the UK from Jamaica at 17. Lawrance, born and raised in Wembley, hasn’t been back since she was three. “I was raised culturally Jamaican, so filming there contextualised so much for me,” she says. “It helped me to understand my mum and myself, as a Londoner who sometimes feels at odds with her British heritage. “Being raised in a country where the majority of people look like you in the media affirms your identity – that doesn’t happen when you grow up here. I’ve always felt very proud of Jamaica, fascinated to understand this land and people that created a culture touching all four corners of the Earth. I’d love to spend significant time in Jamaica in my future, but not as a tourist in the areas where only expats live. It’s on my mind, how you engage in the community and give back.” Lawrance doesn’t do victims. July, the enslaved woman she played in 2018’s Andrea Levy adaptation The Long Song, eventually transcends her status; Mr Loverman’s Maxine defies expectations to pursue a career in fashion; Time’s Abi will not be cowed by her fellow inmates’ hostility or a life behind bars. But Millie’s agency and drive are striking, even in such company. “A lot of what drives Millie subconsciously is trauma and guilt for all the abuse that Hibiscus suffered [from their conservative, religious mother],” says Lawrance. “There is a thread of caring for those failed by their parents, and joining the Met was her way of trying to make things right while bringing some structure to her behaviour, not always that successfully. “It’s so inspiring to see a woman who, in the face of all of her trauma, has not assimilated and doesn’t go out of her way to ingratiate herself or make other people feel comfortable. In fact, she does the opposite because she knows herself. Our director would tell me off for being too nice, because my instincts are to include people. But for those reasons, she’s a very empowering character. I could use a bit more of Millie’s directness in my own life.” Not that she is a shrinking violet. Lawrance took control of her destiny at a young age, acting in school plays at six, and at 11 persuading her secondary school to open up a drama club for younger students. “There was no back-up plan, it was all or nothing,” she says. In reality, this has meant sacrifices, whether it was messing about outside with friends, playing school netball or attending her best friend’s wedding. “But being sure of what I wanted was a privilege,” she says. “I put a lot of energy into making sure things worked out.” With the support of her sixth-form drama teacher, she got into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 2012. Did she enjoy her time there, considering in 2020 the school labelled itself “institutionally racist”? “I wasn’t so aware of race and class until I got to drama school,” she acknowledges. “My primary and secondary schools were fairly diverse and my friends were from around the world. Then at drama school people started talking about casting brackets… in my third year I played a maid, an enslaved person, a campaigner for Barack Obama. I started to understand how the industry might see me. “Class plays a massive part as well, especially through nepotism. It’s really frustrating when you get a part you’ve worked really hard for, only for people to say, ‘Oh, you only got it because of wokeism or diversity policies.’ It is hard navigating different perceptions and presumptions, but I’ve got to validate myself, and Millie’s really helped with that.” That validation also applies to the series’ Jamaican queer and trans characters, who live in a nation where same-sex intercourse means ten years in prison: Hibiscus is clear that she needs to be accepted, not saved. Lawrance was surprised and heartened by the degree of allyship and safe spaces she found for the trans community in Kingston. And she is no less proud of the show’s spiritual cousin, Mr Loverman, which posed a parallel challenge to those in both her homelands who might dismiss queerness as either fad or aberration. These are worlds seldom, if ever, depicted with such complexity on primetime British television. For all that, Lawrance cautions against complacency. “There are too many shows with black female leads, like Champion or Riches, getting cancelled. I’m over the moon to be a part of these projects, but I’m interested to see where they go. Get Millie Black has the potential to do more, but will it? “Variety makes the world beautiful and some of our popular channels like to have the appearance of variety, but we see these waves of diverse shows a lot and the real support for the long-standing careers of black writers, showrunners, producers, isn’t there. Even in the past 18 months, I’ve been on jobs with one Asian person and one black person in a crew of 200. There’s a long way to go.”
Tamara Lawrance on Get Millie Black and the challenges faced by Black female-led shows
The Get Millie Black star chatted to Radio Times magazine about the exciting new detective drama.
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 Ladies” in Kingston’s unglamorous storm-water gullies. When a teenage girl goes missing and a Met detective, Luke Holborn (Joe Dempsie), arrives to pursue his own overlapping case, she tugs at threads that unravel Jamaica’s criminal underworld and old-money elite, all ingeniously tangled with post-colonial legacies of violence and the slave trade. In case it isn’t already obvious, this isn’t Death in Paradise – although Lawrance laughs that “filming in Guadeloupe does sound like a nice gig”. She did film on location in Jamaica, which lent authenticity to the portrayal of Caribbean lives in the drama – a more nuanced one than the juxtaposed clichés of sun-kissed beaches, tropical cocktails and Bob Marley v guns, gangs and ganja. It was also something of a homecoming for Lawrance, whose mother, a hospital clinical technician, arrived in the UK from Jamaica at 17. Lawrance, born and raised in Wembley, hasn’t been back since she was three. “I was raised culturally Jamaican, so filming there contextualised so much for me,” she says. “It helped me to understand my mum and myself, as a Londoner who sometimes feels at odds with her British heritage. “Being raised in a country where the majority of people look like you in the media affirms your identity – that doesn’t happen when you grow up here. I’ve always felt very proud of Jamaica, fascinated to understand this land and people that created a culture touching all four corners of the Earth. I’d love to spend significant time in Jamaica in my future, but not as a tourist in the areas where only expats live. It’s on my mind, how you engage in the community and give back.” Lawrance doesn’t do victims. July, the enslaved woman she played in 2018’s Andrea Levy adaptation The Long Song, eventually transcends her status; Mr Loverman’s Maxine defies expectations to pursue a career in fashion; Time’s Abi will not be cowed by her fellow inmates’ hostility or a life behind bars. But Millie’s agency and drive are striking, even in such company. “A lot of what drives Millie subconsciously is trauma and guilt for all the abuse that Hibiscus suffered [from their conservative, religious mother],” says Lawrance. “There is a thread of caring for those failed by their parents, and joining the Met was her way of trying to make things right while bringing some structure to her behaviour, not always that successfully. “It’s so inspiring to see a woman who, in the face of all of her trauma, has not assimilated and doesn’t go out of her way to ingratiate herself or make other people feel comfortable. In fact, she does the opposite because she knows herself. Our director would tell me off for being too nice, because my instincts are to include people. But for those reasons, she’s a very empowering character. I could use a bit more of Millie’s directness in my own life.” View oEmbed on the source website Not that she is a shrinking violet. Lawrance took control of her destiny at a young age, acting in school plays at six, and at 11 persuading her secondary school to open up a drama club for younger students. “There was no back-up plan, it was all or nothing,” she says. In reality, this has meant sacrifices, whether it was messing about outside with friends, playing school netball or attending her best friend’s wedding. “But being sure of what I wanted was a privilege,” she says. “I put a lot of energy into making sure things worked out.” With the support of her sixth-form drama teacher, she got into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 2012. Did she enjoy her time there, considering in 2020 the school labelled itself “institutionally racist”? “I wasn’t so aware of race and class until I got to drama school,” she acknowledges. “My primary and secondary schools were fairly diverse and my friends were from around the world. Then at drama school people started talking about casting brackets… in my third year I played a maid, an enslaved person, a campaigner for Barack Obama. I started to understand how the industry might see me. “Class plays a massive part as well, especially through nepotism. It’s really frustrating when you get a part you’ve worked really hard for, only for people to say, ‘Oh, you only got it because of wokeism or diversity policies.’ It is hard navigating different perceptions and presumptions, but I’ve got to validate myself, and Millie’s really helped with that.” That validation also applies to the series’ Jamaican queer and trans characters, who live in a nation where same-sex intercourse means ten years in prison: Hibiscus is clear that she needs to be accepted, not saved. Lawrance was surprised and heartened by the degree of allyship and safe spaces she found for the trans community in Kingston. And she is no less proud of the show’s spiritual cousin, Mr Loverman, which posed a parallel challenge to those in both her homelands who might dismiss queerness as either fad or aberration. These are worlds seldom, if ever, depicted with such complexity on primetime British television. For all that, Lawrance cautions against complacency. “There are too many shows with black female leads, like Champion or Riches, getting cancelled. I’m over the moon to be a part of these projects, but I’m interested to see where they go. Get Millie Black has the potential to do more, but will it? “Variety makes the world beautiful and some of our popular channels like to have the appearance of variety, but we see these waves of diverse shows a lot and the real support for the long-standing careers of black writers, showrunners, producers, isn’t there. Even in the past 18 months, I’ve been on jobs with one Asian person and one black person in a crew of 200. There’s a long way to go.” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Get Millie Black will begin airing on Channel 4 at 9pm on Wednesday 5th March. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what else is on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Aimee Lou Wood says Netflix's Toxic Town reveals an uncomfortable truth
The Toxic Town star chatted to Radio Times magazine about the new Netflix series.
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 can’t Chelsea be from Manchester? She’s already an outsider and a misfit in this world, so it made sense to me and to [showrunner] Mike White. With Chelsea, I was craving not having separation from her, including speaking in my own voice. All my favourite actors reveal some of themselves. I was having a proper Meg Ryan weekend recently, and she conveys so much of herself through her parts. Have you ever been anywhere like that Thai resort before? No, I’m not an adventurer, but I want to work on that part of myself because, otherwise, I would happily stay in my bit of south-east London. I’d never been to Thailand and there’s nothing like seven months living in a hotel you’re filming in. You become like a White Lotus guest – it was the most immersive experience I’ve ever had, blurring fiction and reality. You're also currently in Toxic Town playing real-life Corby mum Tracey Taylor — why is it an important story to tell? I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard about it – it never really got into the national news, so it’s important to the real Tracey on a practical level. Anything that exposes an uncomfortable truth feels important to be a part of. I was in awe of her resilience. She doesn’t see herself as a hero at all, but all the other mums do. And it was liberating because, although I care how it’s received, once I knew Tracey was happy, it was “job done”. Between Toxic Town and BBC Three comedy Daddy Issues, you spent a lot of last year either playing pregnant or a mum. What was that like? It made me definitely want kids. I did start to interact with my bump on BBC Three’s Daddy Issues as if it was real. On Toxic Town, I had a week-old baby on my shoulder and it felt very real and intense when she was taken away. But you’re playing a teenager one minute, then you’re pregnant and then a mum. It happened pretty much overnight. Goodbye, youth! My next phase will be grandmas… Did turning 30 last year feel like a meaningful landmark? Something definitely shifted in me. Then a few days later I went to Thailand for the biggest experience of my life, which was odd because I’d got a flat and was so ready to be 30-year-old Aimee, whoever that was! I found 29 harder than 30 – there was a relief in escaping the pressure of my 20s. The first TV series you've written, Film Club, is soon set for BBC Three. How did that come about? It started off as a fun way to pass time during lockdown when I was watching a lot of films, and the idea came to me and Ralph [Davis], my co-writer, that every episode could be based around a film these two friends are watching. I don’t want to be in the next thing I write because you don’t really get to switch off, but I love writing. It’s what I wanted to do when I was younger. I didn’t want to be an actor. So, what happened? I knew I could do funny voices and funny characters, so it was a self-protective thing at school. Then I did Guys and Dolls when I was 16 and my English teacher encouraged me to pursue acting because I could still keep up the writing. So, it was a defence mechanism that got way out of control! The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Toxic Town premieres on Netflix on Thursday 27th February 2025. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
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
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 put out a lot of propaganda against these women in terms of cost to taxpayers, quite a few families didn’t want that scrutiny again. We focused on who we thought would show the tapestry of the town, because the fact the toxic waste was airborne meant it was democratic and affected everyone.” “Susan was the natural leader,” says Thorne, who was instantly intrigued by a story of mostly working-class women taking control of the narrative. “I loved everything I read about her, then I met her and loved her even more – she’s a complicated, wonderful person, joyous to write.” Despite the pain and trauma of their experiences, Thorne says Susan and her fellow plaintiffs were remarkably generous with their time and insights. “The trouble you can get into is when people say, ‘There’s a version of me I want to tell’. But they didn’t. They told us everything, even stuff they found deeply moving and very difficult to talk about. The responsibility as a writer is huge, but I love shows that are prepared to do the hard yards and find the drama within complication.” Toxic Town is full of complication, embodied by council leader Roy Thomas. A composite character out of necessity, as no one was convicted in the case, he’s played by Corby-born Brendan Coyle. “My cousins and brother knew some of the people involved,” says Coyle. “They tell me this drama is the talk of the town. British Steel provided a sense of identity, and when the works closed in 1980, about 11,000 people in a town of 50,000 lost their jobs. It was a desperately bleak place through the 1980s, but the council didn’t want Corby to become a sink town like some that were left to rot after the coal mines closed. Growth was all important, and for me the crucial moment comes when Roy is asked: ‘What’s more important – the progress or the mess?’” Aside from a few establishing shots, the fact that little was filmed in Corby itself speaks volumes about the superficial success of the council’s stated mission to regenerate the town. Such matters are right in Thorne’s wheelhouse. “I’ve always been obsessed with community politics,” he laughs. “I grew up in Newbury during the bypass protests and in the shadow of Aldermaston. I became the Young Labour officer for the Newbury constituency at 16, so I learnt to love getting inside civic responsibility and talking about these vital things. “But waste is also an obsession, and as a country we need to have a conversation about it. They [the Government] are talking about building modular power stations to fuel an AI revolution, and cutting back on planning laws to fuel growth. Are we considering the true cost of that?” Thorne also hopes that a little of the impact made by Mr Bates vs the Post Office will rub off on Toxic Town. “I think every writer in the social realism realm took a breath when that came out, particularly when everyone said: ‘This is what TV drama can do!’ We’ve been trying to do that for years… B*****ds! But it was amazing seeing how far it reached and that’s the dream, because there’s a lingering sense that no one paid attention. “I don’t think it’s about the mothers going after more people, and they certainly weren’t in it for the money. They’re worried for where our country is at, worried that what they and others went through has been forgotten and, when the Government is talking about slashing regulations and red tape, concerned about how we protect ourselves and our children.”
Jodie Whittaker plays Susan McIntyre, who fought in the Corby toxic waste case
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 people in her life know what she went through. I think this will shine a light on the fight, and her grace and integrity.
Jodie Whittaker hopes Netflix's Toxic Town shines a light on true story of a mass poisoning
Jodie Whittaker chats to Radio Times magazine about leading new Netflix drama Toxic Town.
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 whether she feels the people in her life know what she went through. I think this will shine a light on the fight, and her grace and integrity. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Toxic Town will stream on Netflix from Thursday 27th February. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
David Tennant on There She Goes, Staged and his Doctor Who return
The Good Omens star spoke with Radio Times magazine about his prolific work-life, the "family business" and returning to Doctor Who.
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 the drinking but still erects a shield of dark humour (describing Rosie as "the girl who never grew up, like an annoying Peter Pan") against the raw terror of an uncertain future. In a time of echo chambers and talking over listening, There She Goes has been aptly described as a parable about communication. "That’s a lovely way of putting it," agrees Tennant. "Part of what makes Shaun and Sarah so extraordinary is their willingness to examine their own shortcomings. [The show] would become homogenised and sentimental if they were more objective. Jess and I are always thrilled to return to it, because it’s so honest – you can recognise that portrait of parenting and cast yourself within that family." Did it lead him to reassess aspects of his own parenting? "It’s hard to know," he demurs. "You’re influenced by things you’re not necessarily aware of, but parenting defines who you are to such an extent that this job feels accessible in a way other days at work don’t. The bit you get paid for is making up the difference between your own experience and the experience of the character." If so, his salary for Staged must be vanishingly small. In this third series, yet another version of "David Tennant" once again trades with "Michael Sheen" barbs that only close friends would dare hurl. Alongside some gloriously executed farce and with their partners Georgia Tennant and Anna Lundberg on sparkling form, it’s a silly, cerebral treat. "We needed an idea clever, creative and silly enough to be able to spin some new stuff," Tennant admits. "[Writers] Phin Glynn and Simon Evans came up with something, slightly inspired by the Beatles’ Get Back documentary, that gave us reason to come back. We love doing it – that first series was such a huge tonic in the heat of lockdown, when we had a very young baby and were reaching the nadir of our day-to-day experience with home-schooling." Staged has also seen the previously reticent Tennants open up their domestic lives with unexpected glee. "I don’t think it’s something we would have done, had circumstances not enforced it," he concedes. "We’ve always been – and I don’t apologise for this – quite overprotective of our family bubble, which comes from having our relationship scrutinised very early on and wanting to keep all that to ourselves. But we’ve been together for a long time and maybe we’re more confident about that now. We recently did our first photoshoot as a couple, which was very peculiar." Next stop Hello!? He roars with laughter. "We’re not there yet, but give us time! Every time we’ve done anything together, we’ve liked it more, so Staged allowing us to do it may have helped us loosen up a bit." One of the surprise cameos in Staged comes from their 21-year-old son Ty, previously seen in House of the Dragon and Channel 4 drama Consent; with their 12-year-old daughter Olive also appearing on screen for Kenneth Branagh’s Oscar and BAFTA-winning Belfast, how does Tennant square his concerns over the industry with the need to support his children’s acting? "Well, it is undeniably the family businesses," he shrugs. "Georgia’s parents [Sandra Dickinson and Peter Davison] were both in it and my kids have grown up surrounded by it. You can’t deny them if they’re desperate to do it, but while we help them where we can, we certainly don’t encourage it – we would love them to be doctors and lawyers! "Your heart’s in your mouth when you think, ‘What if they can’t do it? What if they turn up and it’s all a bit embarrassing?’ It’s a great relief when you realise they’re good, because, while having parents in the industry might initially get you in a door, if you can’t do it after that, it ain’t going to happen. That’s as it should be. This is an oversubscribed industry and you’ve got to earn your place." Most would agree Tennant did that decades ago. And yet, despite the cult immortality, mainstream smashes and Radio Times covers ("the only accolade I search for"), a BAFTA eludes him. A gloriously pointed exchange with Catherine Tate at this year’s awards saw Tate lament her six nominations and zero awards, only for Tennant to point out he has none, either. A good punchline – but does it genuinely rankle? "It can’t! When you start out, everyone tells you actors don’t make a living, but you always think you’ll be all right and that it’ll be everyone else that won’t work. Then, when I left drama school, I didn’t get a job for about six weeks. I was abjectly skint, no prospects at all, staring into the abyss. Then I got lucky, got a job and began picking up all kinds of ludicrous gigs to pay the bills. "I remember filming adverts for [early on-demand service] HomeChoice in 2000, shouting in a beret like Citizen Smith in a tank on Leamington Spa High Street. Then I’d do Romeo and Juliet at the RSC in the evenings! I am incredibly fortunate to be working consistently, so it would be really churlish to get worked up about the rest of it." Still, his banter with Tate did also serve as a tantalising taster of their imminent reunion with Russell T Davies for Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary – another time we’ll see Tennant on our screens this year. "The specifics of coming back to Doctor Who took a bit of wrangling," he says. "But we were always receptive to the notion. Initially, it was a casual conversation going, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to do a one-off?’ Then Russell was back running the show and suddenly it could be something bigger. But there’s really no pressure. It’s a victory lap, in a way – you get to enjoy something that had meant so much to you, one last shot before you get too old to do it again." Has he seen incoming Doctor Ncuti Gatwa at work? "I have!" he grins with the excitement of a lifelong fan. "It makes me feel like I’m just holding the coat till he arrives, because he’s very exciting." While it’s too early to say whether his ubiquity will stretch into a 2024 already affected by ongoing writers’ strikes in America, Tennant’s other three forthcoming projects present yet more sides to the man. He will be back on our screens in July as the demon to Sheen’s angel in Good Omens, and his stage debut as Macbeth will be one of four major productions of the Scottish play this year (another starring Ralph Fiennes). His will be at London’s Donmar Warehouse in December, opposite Deadwater Fell co-star Cush Jumbo and directed by Max Webster, the man behind the Olivier-winning Life of Pi. Tennant has a healthy trepidation about it. "It’s possibly the play I’ve seen most – I’ve seen some absolutely brilliant ones and some terrible ones. When it works, it flies but, oh man, it can go wrong – I saw it set on a spaceship once! Cush as Lady Macbeth is as good casting as we could have hoped for and Max is fantastically exciting – fortunately it’s a play that can take reinvention." Finally, there’s Jilly Cooper’s Rivals (Disney Plus), from which he is currently enjoying a week’s break. His obvious relish in playing unreconstructed cad Lord Tony Baddingham has been only slightly diluted by the revelation that Rishi Sunak is a Cooper fan. "It was a bit of a blow," laughs the lifelong Labour voter. "But I’ve enjoyed it, not least because it’s my first period piece that I have direct experience of having lived through. It’s been interesting to look back on that period, with Thatcherism… well, is it in the rear-view mirror? We’ll see. "There’s something both awful and liberating about playing characters who live by a different moral compass. The world has progressed in the right direction, but it’s fun to visit a sort of consequence-free version of that world. He was a man of his day!" So says the man of the moment. View Green Video on the source website There She Goes returns to BBC Two at 9pm on Wednesday 21st June 2023. Catch up on BBC iPlayer. Check out more of our Comedy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. Take part in the Screen Test, a project from Radio Times and the Universities of Sussex and Brighton, to explore the role of television and audio in our lives. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 12 issues for only £1 with delivery to your home – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Windsors Coronation Special: "It's good to tell jokes about the royals"
The show forms part of Channel 4's alternative coronation viewing.
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 wants to see something that seems grotesquely indulgent at this time.” Read more: Channel 4 and Channel 5 announce "alternative" coronation schedule Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa to perform at Coronation Concert Written, shot and edited on a painfully tight schedule, The Windsors always walks a tightrope of real life and parallel universe, with newsy lines being crammed in at the very last minute. “The closer it gets to filming, the more fraught it becomes,” says Tyler-Moore. “What have they done now? Same for the politics – the only real trouble we got into a few years ago was with Theresa May, who we initially wrote as this all-powerful woman because she had this huge majority. We just about had time to fix it. Fortunately, I didn’t even have time to start on Liz Truss. “All that is both the beauty of it and what makes it harder work than a regular sitcom: the material is great, but it's constantly evolving so you have to reflect that.” The biggest royal ruction in recent times was, it seems, the easiest to resolve. Previously characterised in the show as a Terry-Thomas-style rogue, Prince Andrew is now entirely absent. “It wasn’t a hard decision,” explains Tyler-Moore. “He’s not funny anymore. But his shadow looms over Beatrice (Ellie White) and Eugenie (Celeste Dring) in a way that gives you something different to play around with, that delusional denial. How do they walk into a room, knowing that everyone thinks their dad did that awful stuff?” And then there are Harry (Richard Goulding), Meghan (Kathryn Drysdale) and Spare, with its onslaught of revelations that prompted Tyler-Moore to consider anew how to satirise something apparently beyond parody. “Oddly our Harry was always quite sweet, dim and lovable. After Spare came out, we saw a side that was more petulant and chippy, maybe not such a nice character. It's weird to think that we might have been a bit nicer to him than we should have been.” Certainly, the publication of Harry’s memoir caused a stir on set: “I was wondering whether Prince Harry had been watching too much of The Windsors,” laughs Gwynne, while Skinner found it “fascinating and gripping”. But Prince Harry himself, AKA Richard Goulding, says he hasn’t read it. “You don't need to research beneath the surface too much [for this series]. Also, I'm quite busy. There's Tolstoy to read!” After being recast in The Windsors’ third season owing to commitments elsewhere, including playing Charles’s private secretary on The Crown (“it was an unavoidable situation from my point of view, alas – I couldn’t do the series”), Goulding returns for this special to play Harry. And oddly, it’s not the first time he’s play-acted the coronation – he also played Harry in Mike Bartlett’s acclaimed 2014 play King Charles III, later adapted for the BBC with the same cast. Still, he insists the two versions are different. “Harry in King Charles III was a kind of tortured prince, a Hamlet/Romeo type,” Goulding says. “I felt duty-bound to play something more truthful and sensitive there, although the two have elements of the party boy, and of course in both fictions he ends up with a girlfriend who is in some way contentious. “But they're very different overall, and Harry’s life has clearly changed a lot since I first played him. The Windsors is very loosely based on something almost approaching a tiny kernel of truth, but it’s so over the top that it's difficult to know if I have any relationship with the real Harry at all.” And what of the real royals’ relationship with the show? “We think Beatrice and Eugenie have seen it,” says producer Camilla Campbell. “Someone said they’d come over with footage of it on their phones, saying ‘Look what they've got us doing’. And whether or not Wills has watched it, he definitely knows about it, because he made a very sweet, gracious joke at a Channel 4 event a few years ago saying, ‘I shouldn't talk to you because you made The Windsors.’” Generally, speaking, most of the cast are shy of expressing firm views on the real-world implications of royal scandals, Megxit, the accession et al, although Goulding reckons “there’s probably still a weird trauma about the Queen not being there anymore”, while Ford concedes to being Team Wills and Kate in any dispute: “If you portray somebody then you always have a connection to them.” View Green Video on the source website For her part, Drysdale is understandably stout in her defence of Meghan. “Before I came in the show, Meghan was getting a lot of stick from the press and I didn't really like that,” she says. “What's been brilliant about our portrayal is that we don't make her mean or nasty or feed any of that noise.” “Underneath it all, our characters all kind of love each other,” says Tyler-Moore. “On Spitting Image [on which he has written], you can be pretty mean because they’re sketches and gone in a minute. This Coronation Special is a whole hour so there's got to be some warmth about them, or it'd be a turn-off.” And he cheerfully counters concerns he might be sent to the tower with a defiant “bring it on!” Could his iconoclasm be more widely shared with a new, rather less mysterious monarch on the throne? “I think this probably is landing in a slightly different environment to previous series,” he says. “Maybe after the coronation, there'll be a bit more of a reckoning: why do we have this weird system? King Charles was opening a community centre in my street. This bloke asked what was going on and I told him, but it felt strange. "If it had been the Queen, it would have felt quite exciting, but ‘King Charles’ felt like an odd thing to say. Maybe we'll all get used to it, but I think it has shone a spotlight on the whole thing – which is good for our show!” “It's good to tell jokes about the royals,” he concludes, having already started work on a fourth season. “Better that than a revolution.” The Windsors Coronation Special airs on Channel 4 on Sunday 30th April at 9pm. All previous episodes are available to stream now on All4. Check out more of our Comedy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what else is on. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 12 issues for only £1 with delivery to your home – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Andrew Buchan on Better, embodying a ruthless kingpin and playing men in crisis
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.
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 alien to Buchan, whose father was a customs officer at Manchester Airport. "He always said to look for the shoes – if someone was coming through in a gorgeous three-piece suit but their shoes were £20 off the rack, he’d be wanting a quick word." Buchan also had a serendipitous encounter a couple of weeks before auditioning that, he thinks, bagged him the role of Col. "I was in a tiny pub with a friend and this guy sat down at our table, at ease and exuding confidence. He got the drinks in and chatted with us for a couple hours, then another guy sat down. "We were getting on famously then the first guy left and we were like, ‘That was class, wasn’t it?’ The other guy’s face drained of colour: ‘You know that man was the head of the such-and-such crime organisation?’ We couldn’t believe it. "I went into the audition and said, ‘I can’t play Col as a gangster, but I could play the bloke I met in that pub’ – which was exactly what they were after." Buchan spent the early part of his career hiding in plain sight, somehow flying below the radar despite prominent television roles in dramas both period (Cranford, Garrow’s Law) and contemporary (Party Animals, The Fixer). It took Broadchurch to make him a star. "I was away when the first episode came out. Somebody phoned me and said, 'You might want to come back – it’s gone down quite well…' I remember being in a house at New Year after the first series and 20 people came over asking, ‘Come on, what’s happening next?'" Did he ever spill the beans? "Never! I never told a soul." The role also sent him down a career cul de sac of everymen in crisis. "I asked my agent to press pause on those roles – maybe a bit of lightness instead? Not long after that, I had an audition as someone in a car where a bomb was about to go off. "Hard to mine the lightness in that situation." While he awaits that elusive comedy, Buchan has taken matters into his own hands and written his own, a horror-comedy series that starts filming this month. “I was always that guy on buses and in coffee shops, scribbling on the back of receipts and napkins, so this is nerve-racking and exciting. "I won’t be the actor who comes in and goes, 'I don’t think I’d say that.' Well, you would say that, because I’ve carefully crafted that line for two-and-a-half years. "Believe me, you would." View Green Video on the source website Better premieres on Monday 13th February on BBC One, with episodes airing weekly on Mondays at 9pm. The series will also be available to stream as a boxset on BBC iPlayer. If you’re looking for something else to watch in the meantime, check out our TV Guide or Streaming Guide visit our dedicated Drama hub. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 12 issues for only £1 with delivery to your home – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times View From My Sofa podcast.
Call the Midwife stars talk Christmas gifts, hidden talents and karaoke
What would Helen George and Megan Cusack get their Call the Midwife characters for Christmas? Read on to find out.
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, perfect and plush. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2022/11/call-the-midwife-christmas-2022-514cab0.jpg" width="4284" height="2856" alt="Nurse Trixie Franklin (Helen George), Collette Corrigan (Francesca Fullilove), Nurse Nancy Corrigan (Megan Cusack) and Nurse Lucille Anderson (Leonie Elliott) in Call the Midwife Christmas special 2022" title="Call the Midwife Christmas special 2022" /> Megan Cusack GT: What’s your hidden talent? Megan Cusack: The only thing that I can think of is doing a very, very good kookaburra noise. That is literally all I’ve got for you. I don’t know where it began, I’ve just always been able to do it. GT: When does that come in handy? MC: At parties! One year a friend of a friend was over for a New Year’s party and he mentioned that his family had a kookaburra in their garden. He recorded me doing the bird sound, sent it to his mum, she played it and the kookaburra responded! GT: Can you sing? MC: Absolutely not. I cry when I have to sing. I remember having to sing in a play once and someone said it was my natural Celtic emotion getting the better of me. Actually, I was just terrified. GT: What are the Midwife cast’s hidden talents? MC: Cliff Parisi flies planes, Zephryn Taitte [Cyril Robinson] is an amazing martial artist, Linda Bassett [Nurse Crane] does all sorts of crafts, Laura Main and Helen George are incredible singers. Max Macmillan [Timothy Turner] is a musician with perfect pitch. GT: What would you buy for Nancy? MC: A muzzle to stop her saying things without thinking? Other than that, a year’s supply of cinema tickets for her and Colette. GT: What would she get you? MC: Probably some jewellery. I’d be really touched but I would never wear it unless I was seeing her. I’d put it on before going into the café, have our coffee then take it off as soon as I left. This interview originally appeared in Radio Times magazine. Read more: Call the Midwife shares behind-the-scenes Christmas special teaser Call the Midwife set for emotional Christmas as 2 characters leave Call the Midwife stars reveal what they love about Christmas special Call the Midwife Christmas 2022 special airs today at 7:55pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. Call the Midwife season 12 airs on New Year's Day at 8pm, with previous series available to stream on BBC iPlayer. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to see what's on tonight. The Christmas double issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times View From My Sofa podcast.
Peter Capaldi and Jessica Raine on Amazon thriller The Devil's Hour
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.
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 the bottom of what is wrong." Did being a mother help to access those feelings? "Yeah, definitely. Because you just don’t know until you know, do you? This all-encompassing love and fatigue and relentlessness. If I was raising a child and getting nothing back for eight years, I would really struggle with that. So for me it’s a love letter to motherhood as much as anything. I’ve found it really moving to play." Capaldi makes his first appearance at the end of the opening episode, gaunt, imposing and enigmatic opposite Lucy in a police interrogation room. While gentle charm personified in person, Capaldi has played his fair share of monsters, most famously The Thick of It’s splenetic spin doctor Malcolm Tucker, with his "attack eyebrows". "Gideon is a murderer and a danger to society," says Capaldi with a wolfish grin. "A cross between a crusty and a survivalist who exists on the fringes of society, always on the run. He seeks Lucy out because he believes he has some degree of clairvoyance and that she may be of significance in some wider plan." So does Gideon have supernatural powers? Capaldi ponders. "I think supernatural is the wrong word, because it’s not about ghosts or spirits. If you didn’t know about photography, you’d think that this chemical and mechanical process was magical. In essence, Gideon is that – there is a scientific way to explain him, but just not yet. Does that make sense?" Well, sort of. He sighs. It has been a fiendishly difficult round of press, even for a man used to keeping secrets after years at the controls of the TARDIS ("It was ridiculous – who cares if the Cybermen will be here next week?"). "I’ve never been quite in this position where you can really say nothing without giving everything away. It’s more difficult to explain than it will be to see." He brightens. "But it’s fun! I get to do lots of nasty things and wreak havoc through the whole thing." But how relatable is Gideon? "He’s driven by a slightly fractured good-heartedness, at least from his point of view. But I never understand when people say you have to find something relatable in a character. I think that’s nonsense. If something’s well written, it gives you space because all you have to worry about is telling that story. Do you have to find something relatable about playing a pharaoh? That he likes a half-hour nap?" Capaldi has always been a consummate napper himself ("You got an hour for lunch in the old days"), but Raine found her sleep disturbed. "I have lost the ability to sleep on this job – there was a point where I was waking up at 3:29am! It got under my skin, but Lucy has to be really tired so it was quite useful. I just loved that she was absolutely on her knees with tiredness, which I related to, with a two-and-a-half-year-old and a full-time job." The Devil’s Hour prods at some deep philosophical considerations: the line between the rational and irrational, paths taken and rejected, fate and destiny. Is fate something Capaldi or Raine believe in? "I believe in luck," says Capaldi. "I always think it’s a bit dumb when people say you make your own luck. I might not have been available to do The Thick of It, I could have been doing Midsomer Murders! I was lucky to grow up at a time where you could come from a very humble background and you weren’t penalised, you were supported to go into further education. It's all going backwards now, which is terrible." Raine concurs. "There’s an old quote I love: 'Luck is where opportunity meets preparation.' That’s a good one, isn’t it? Some people just get really lucky, but I feel like I’ve worked really hard. There was zero nepotism, no one to give me a hand. Of course, there’s luck in terms of what is fashionable at the time, but it’s about making sure you’re ready for when the luck comes along." With season 1 wrapped, Raine is hoping fortune calls once more, explaining she's in "that weird holding pattern" and awaiting news on whether the series will return (she has signed up for a further two). Capaldi will be returning to the director’s chair (he won an Oscar in 1995 for his short film Franz Kafka's It’s a Wonderful Life) – but once again, that’s as much as he’s giving away. He’s also playing a policeman on Criminal Record, a new police thriller for Apple TV+. "You don’t realise how delicious it is to lift one of those 'Police: Do Not Cross' tapes until you've done it. That was genuinely fulfilling." He looks aghast. "But I’ve already said too much…" The Devil's Hour launches exclusively on Prime Video on 28th October – try Amazon Prime Video for free for 30 days. Check out more of our Fantasy coverage or visit our TV Guide to see what's on tonight. The latest issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now – subscribe now and get the next 12 issues for only £1. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times View From My Sofa podcast.
Behind the scenes on set of the ninth-century drama
“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 the site’s man-made lake. A few hundred metres away, meanwhile, is a seemingly redundant bog that was repurposed as a marshland village in the first series at a cost of £30,000 (John estimates the equivalent in the UK would have cost five times as much). E4’s The Aliens, Sky’s upcoming Roman invasion epic Britannia and the BBC’s Robin Hood are just a few to have joined The Last Kingdom in filming there. Part of the reason is budgetary, as construction costs are much cheaper, but there are aesthetic benefits, too. “For The Last Kingdom,” says one of the series directors, Jon East, who also filmed ITV’s Maigret revival in Budapest, “Hungary offers many unspoilt acres of un-farmed and un-bordered grassland and forest. These are hard to find in the UK, where walls and fences fragment the landscape, clearly announcing that it is not a ninth-century world. It’s cheaper to shoot abroad in a ‘virgin’ landscape than it is to digitally remove all the trappings of the 21st-century in post-production. The same goes for Maigret: Budapest is easier to transform into 1950s Paris than either Paris itself or any other major UK city, because there are fewer and smaller unspoilt architectural areas.” This article was originally published on 4 May 2017 View oEmbed on the source website
Manson: the Lost Tapes – new footage reveals how Charles Manson brainwashed his followers
As unused footage emerges of Charles Manson’s 'Family', will it shed new light on how the notorious cult leader brainwashed killers?
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 can be brainwashed into committing murder, there are contemporary echoes. Andreae says, “We’re asking an eternal question about human nature: to what extent can we make hearts dark?” The earlier film, Manson, showed bright-eyed but dark-hearted youngsters spouting cod philosophy – and much worse. It was duly banned in 1975 when Family member Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, charged with attempting to murder then-President Gerald Ford, protested it could prejudice potential juries. She was convicted anyway. Her concern was unsurprising, given the film showed her declaring “anybody that has ever gone against us, or would ever step in front of us, will be taken care of ”. Fellow Family member Sandra Good opines that “when somebody needs to be killed, there’s no wrong, you do it, then you move on”, as both cradle rifles. Paul Watkins brandishes a flute. Deciding to make a less sensational update, Andreae was convinced Hendrickson must have hours of unused material. He hired an investigator to search for the man and his work, both of which had apparently disappeared. “Nothing happened for several weeks then, in autumn 2016, I got a text saying, ‘I think I’ve found what you’re looking for’: 100-plus hours of 16mm film and dozens of hours of audio tape, most never seen or heard before. It was an extraordinary cache,” he says. Hendrickson had died just two weeks earlier, leaving his family at a loss regarding his archive. “All this footage had been hidden away because part of his family worried the remaining members of the Family might come after them if they knew it existed,” Andreae says. “But they didn’t want to destroy it because it was unique culturally and forensically, and financially valuable.” Given permission to catalogue the materials, Andreae compiled his documentary using extracts from the original film, together with unseen footage and contemporary interviews. The latter took time to secure. While the likes of FBI criminal profiler John Douglas (inspiration for Netflix’s thriller Mindhunter) were happy to talk, former Manson acolytes required more persuasion. “They could see we’d made responsible films, and were intrigued, if somewhat trepidatious, to see the tapes,” says Andreae. He secured new interviews with the Family’s youngest member, Dianne Lake (aka Snake); Catherine Share, the matriarch also known as Gypsy who, when asked what she felt about Manson in the original film, replied “all the love I have”; and Bobby Beausoleil, who is still incarcerated for the murder of Gary Hinman, which preceded the others. All three are repentant, says Andreae. “Beausoleil says it destroyed his soul and wishes he’d taken his victim to hospital. With Gypsy and Dianne, it’s very clear to them now that Manson was hoodwinking them and selling them a dream. They have led relatively regular lives since then. Everyone knew Dianne in her community as the church lady with the fun hats, and when she came out as Snake, it just didn’t compute.” In the documentary, watching footage of her teenage self, Lake whispers, “Anybody watching this now would think I was a monster.” Share, meanwhile, is shocked by film of Manson interviewed in prison while he awaited trial (Hendrickson had sneaked in a microphone and camera). “Oh, my God,” she gasps as he rambles, seemingly incoherent. “He’s asking us to break him out.” Andreae adds, “All you normally see of Manson is him looking dishevelled and humiliated during his trial, or acting up to his reputation afterwards. [Here] we have footage of Manson the cult leader – and you feel some of the charisma and potency that the Family found so seductive.” An interview with Manson himself, who died in late 2017, was never seriously considered. “The last time he was interviewed for television in 1984, he had become this weird caricature,” says Andreae, who is aware of Manson’s penchant for self-mythology and media manipulation. “I’m not sure how much he would have added to the story.” The new documentary contains troubling revelations about Manson, however. His mounting physical and sexual abuse of Family members in the run-up to the murders has been well reported in the past, but here the extent of his forward planning is also revealed as Watson says: “Charlie told me that one day in the mountains above Beverly Hills, there would be a terrible murder, bodies all over the place, blood on the walls.” Asked how long this was before the murders, he replies: “About three months.” Andreae says this shows “the tension between the peace and love [Manson] was preaching to his followers and the death and murder he was planning”. He admits that his documentary can be nightmarishly intense. “You feel you’re being taken down the rabbit hole. The challenge is: if I had been one of these people, could this have happened to me?” Manson: the Lost Tapes airs Thursday 27th September at 9.00pm on ITV
"You don’t see this job portrayed on TV" – Nicola Walker explains how new BBC divorce drama The Split is breaking new ground
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"
"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 grounds, where their co-star Neil Morrissey is presently wandering. The drama attracts a high-profile supporting cast. As well as Morrissey, Trevor Eve, Bernard Hill, Gemma Jones, Wendy Craig, Douglas Hodge and Mark Bonnar have all appeared, and Bhaskar and Walker speak with awe of Tom Courtenay’s Bafta-winning performance as Eric Slater in series one. “It’s the only time I’ve seen the crew all break into a spontaneous round of applause,” says Walker. Actors like Courtenay come, in part, for the quality of Unforgotten creator Chris Lang’s writing; scripts that slip beyond the confines of procedural to address the psychological state of the nation. “The first season asked if a crime is any less a crime because it happened a long time ago,” says Walker. “And Cassie felt absolutely not. The second ruminated on the concept of justice. When you go back and look at how the people who committed a crime got to that point, when you see that they suffered horrific abuse, then justice gets a bit more complicated.” She has a theory that, thanks in part to the Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris revelations, we live in a time when the past, and television’s past especially, is untrustworthy. The British were ready for a show that seemed to redeem the sins of the 70s and 80s. “We grew up with Jimmy Savile on our televisions,” she says. “Chris was fascinated by what it was like for the people who knew someone like that – people who loved him and believed the lies that he told. What was it like when they found out there was this whole other person?” View oEmbed on the source website Walker had been wondering the same things herself. “It felt like all the people we grew up seeing on TV and were told we should respect were falling like dominoes,” she says. “It was a strange period; every time I read the newspaper there was someone else. I’d been told as a kid they were talented, important people, but they were living a lie. A lot of those men from the 70s had this completely different life.” Now the USA is also being obliged to face the misdemeanours of its entertainment industry and audiences are picking up on Unforgotten. “The first two series are going out in America,” says Bhaskar. “People there are tweeting me about it, and they’re caught up in these stories. I think it has a dramatic weight that other whodunnits may not carry to the same degree. It’s because our characters aren’t heroic… we don’t save the day.” Much of the drama’s appeal rests in the interactions between the two leads. Stuart is Khan’s senior, but there is more going on than the usual detective and sidekick relationship. Morse’s private life was a mystery to Lewis, and vice versa, but Stuart and Khan know each other. “I haven’t really seen it before in a cop show where you’ve got a man and a woman who really, really care about each other, respect each other and look out for each other. They provide a level of intimacy for each other they don’t have at home…” Walker, 48, who is married to the actor Barnaby Kay with whom she has a son, says she has always been lucky with her co-stars. “Just think of Last Tango in Halifax. You walk on and it’s Derek Jacobi and Annie Reid and Sarah Lancashire. You’re in a really good place.” Born in east London and a graduate of Cambridge University’s Footlights, Walker is an acclaimed stage actor, with an Olivier Award in 2013 for her performance as the mother, Judy, in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Bhaskar is 54 and married to Meera Syal, with whom he has a son, and is from west London. After starting life above a launderette, he went on to work for IBM before giving it up for comedy and, latterly, making documentaries for the BBC. Walker says their pairing worked from the beginning. “I was a fan of his work, and as soon as I sat down next to him at the first readthrough, which was when we met, I knew. They had written our names on little cardboard tags and they were next to each other, in this huge room with the executive producer, writer, director, all the other actors. And as soon as I sat down next to him, I thought, ‘This is going to be absolutely fine.’” “I didn’t think it would work at all!” says Bhaskar, deadpan. “I’m still waiting for it to click in in any sort of shape, way or fashion.” Walker, who has known Bhaskar too long to be taken in, laughs. “OK,” he says. “Nicola is one of the most amazing people I’ve worked with.” In fact, Bhaskar admits, when they are not acting together he takes a proprietorial pride in her work. “I watched the series of Last Tango she did after Unforgotten and there’s a bit of me that goes, ‘That’s my friend, being fantastic.’” Last Tango in Halifax, The Split… Walker has a standout drama CV. Bhaskar has made his name in broad comedy. “Comedy is seen on the outside as being easier,” says Bhaskar, “because there’s a very definitive reaction you need from comedy, and that’s laughter. From a drama, you don’t have people kind of waving audibly in order to know that you’ve got it right. It’s a physical, tangible thing.” Many of Bhaskar’s shows, comedies such as Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No 42, have emphasised his Asian background. “I was kind of surprised and impressed that Chris Lang had thought, ‘Yes, why can’t it be an Asian cop who is the partner?’” says Bhaskar. “And then they didn’t feel the need to load it up with references to justify there being an Asian bloke there. That ‘the corner shop didn’t work out so well’ thing. Khan is a real copper who applied for a job once and got it. And he happens to be part of this story. “I feel just as strongly about the way that women have been portrayed in the past, and the older generation as well. In the end, it comes down to good storytelling. You can tick every kind of politically correct box and still end up with a box of crap.” It’s a trope of even the most right-on modern crime series that a woman, often young and attractive, must be murdered, and it bugs Walker. “There have been jobs that I haven’t gone to the audition for because you think, ‘I don’t want to play someone who is violently murdered in episode two.’ Or ‘I don’t want to be in something that’s all about young women being murdered.’ There are some amazing dramas being made that use it as the dramatic hook, and say interesting things about us culturally and have really good stories, but not everything we make tells the story well.” In the glass-fronted central London offices of law firm Noble & Hale, a woman sweeps past the banks of paralegal desks with bowls of branded boiled sweets and trainers hidden carefully in the footwells. It takes a few moments to register that this imposing, glamorous figure, tailored jacket, blonde highlights and all, is Nicola Walker, last seen playing a downtrodden cop in Unforgotten, a careworn farmer in Last Tango in Halifax and a lovelorn ghost in River. New six-part BBC1 drama The Split, created by River’s writer, the Bafta-winning Abi Morgan, is a departure for Walker: the role of divorce lawyer Hannah Stern offers a welcome lead for someone who has been steadily moving up the credits since her career-making debut as Ruth Evershed in Spooks in 2003. View oEmbed on the source website When does The Split start on BBC1? Meet the cast of divorce drama The Split “Dressing up was the thing I was really terrified of,” admits Walker, who was reduced to tears by Hannah’s vertiginous heels. “It’s not a world I understand, even in my own life. I’m used to being given no makeup, a pair of wellies and pushed on, but the clothes are a suit of armour for these lawyers. It does give you a sense of power, and you have to look reassuringly expensive for your clients.” The Split is a rich soup of family trauma: Hannah, smarting over her mother’s refusal to hand over control of family firm Defoe’s, has jumped ship for the bigger, brasher Noble & Hale. Hannah is at a crossroads, and Walker conveys the lawyer’s cares with all her customary warmth and melancholy. The latter isn’t much in evidence with the actor in person, who is wry, cheerful company, both on set and when we meet some months later. She is, I note, wearing heels. “Hannah has three kids, a lovely husband [played by Stephen Mangan] and a successful career,” says the 47-year-old actor. “It should be good, but it’s not. She spends all this time dealing with other people’s problem marriages, but her own personal life is becoming very complicated. There’s all kinds of chaos underneath the surface of this seemingly successful, driven, independent woman.” Spending time with a real-life divorce lawyer was crucial to cracking the character. “It was helpful to see the combination of absolute professionalism and compassion, but a controlled form of compassion,” Walker explains. “You don’t see this job portrayed on television or film, and I realised that as actors we’re often doing impressions of other actors doing impressions of real people. This time, there was no research [on screen] you could do. You had to meet the real people.” She herself is married, having met fellow actor Barnaby Kay in 1994, during a Royal Court production of The Libertine. Perhaps it was just as well that their wedding in 2013 came well before a series about divorce lawyers. “The Split is actually really hopeful,” she protests with a grin. “Although it’s left me reeling slightly, thinking about what we do to each other in the name of love, within the contract of marriage.” So why sign that contract, after almost 20 years together? She cringes. “I don’t know if I should tell the truth – it doesn’t sound very romantic,” she laughs, before explaining it was to give their son, Harry, 11, a sense of security. “I find the whole ceremony of marriage a bit like going to work,” she says. “Putting on a lovely dress and make-up, learning lines, someone doing your hair… I can see that would be really appealing if you don’t do it for a living. It’s a public performance. Though we had a really lovely day because we didn’t do that. We had a tiny family thing.” Family is as central to Walker’s life as it is to The Split. Born in east London and the daughter of a scrap-metal dealer and an interior designer, she was encouraged to pursue acting by her mother, however unlikely her chances of success then seemed. “There wasn’t really anything I wanted to do other than acting,” she says. “Which is ridiculous because there were no actors in my family and we didn’t know anything about acting. It was so beyond my understanding – I should have been making other plans. It all came from going to my local youth theatre in Essex. Then I got my agent when she came to see some fringe shows I was doing with Cambridge Footlights.” Heading to London after graduating in English, Walker moved into a flat that sounds elike a sitcom waiting to be written. Her flatmates were writers Emma Kennedy (of The Kennedys and also 2012 Celebrity MasterChef champion); Sarah Phelps (writer of Ordeal by Innocence and other recent BBC Agatha Christie adaptations); and Sue Perkins, whose comic stooge Walker played in Footlights. They have remained close, and Walker has appeared in both Perkins’s 2013 comedy Heading Out and Phelps’s 2007 Oliver Twist. For the latest news and expert tips on getting the best deals this year, take a look at our Black Friday 2021 and Cyber Monday 2021 “I found two sisters,” she smiles. “With Sarah and Sue, it felt very much like the Defoe household [in The Split], except we didn’t have any money and got a lot more drunk. It’s easy to access, that delight in the company of brilliant, funny women.” This marks out The Split as particularly unusual for a primetime British drama. Alongside its female-led ensemble, 80 per cent of the heads of department, from composer to location manager, are women. Over recent years, Walker has worked extensively both with Jane Featherstone (executive producer of both The Split and Spooks) and Nicola Shindler (on Last Tango in Halifax and Scott & Bailey), so the experience is not as unusual for her as it might be for others. “For a long time, it was, ‘Until women get into positions of power, nothing’s going to change’,” she says. “It was really unusual that the crews on Spooks were a real mix of men and women, and you’d struggle to see many women with parts that weren’t clichéd back in the late 90s. Now we’ve got female commissioners and executives like Jane and Nicola choosing the stories they want to tell, and actors like Sarah Lancashire putting in performances like in Happy Valley. I don’t feel we’ve ever seen that woman on TV before, and I hope people feel the same about Hannah.”
The Split star Stephen Mangan on his past life studying law – and why he's much better suited to being an actor
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
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 to be the person lying in bed while someone’s climbing in through your window with a knife? I made the right decision. The legal world hasn’t lost anything!
Robert Rinder reveals how he found hope from his devastating WDYTYA finds
The TV judge’s grandparents hardly spoke of the Holocaust but it dominated their lives – as he found out in the BBC genealogy series
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 to get a deeper sense of how he became this extraordinary character. He was completely permeated with a sense of judging people by what they do, not what they look like. “There’s something profoundly affecting about having been close to someone who has experienced the true impact of tyranny.” Morris survived the war, latterly in Theresienstadt concentration camp, albeit irrevocably changed. “In his bedroom, in hospital, in cupboards and drawers there were little handkerchiefs with food dotted around everywhere,” says Rinder. “That relationship to food of a survivor who was so hungry for so long… I found that very moving.” Morris was one of 300 Jewish orphans who were sent from Theresienstadt to Windermere in the Lake District after the war ended. And the contemporary parallels of Morris finding refuge in a foreign land are not lost on Rinder. “These boys and young men arrived at Windermere and had enormously productive families infused with this brimming love of England. It’s not surprising – imagine the Lake District being your first view of England, and to be welcomed so warmly by this rural community. We all came to benefit from that.” Rinder hopes the impact of the episode will be threefold: prompting discussion and consideration of the Holocaust, the treatment of mental health and how we respond to refugees in the 21st century. Despite depressing recent headlines regarding all three, his optimism doesn’t, on reflection, sound so peculiar after all. “I’m intrigued and a little bit tentative about the response [to the show],” he says. “For me, it’s about working at how to be a better advocate, using these stories to destigmatise mental illness and counter the creeping shadows of hate and prejudice. I feel really strongly about democracy under the rule of law, but also how fragile that is, how we have to nurture, protect and love it. “So much of that is informed by my grandfather.” Who Do You Think You Are? is on Monday 9.00pm, BBC1 Sign up for the free RadioTimes.com newsletter