Radio Times
type: channel
link: https://www.radiotimes.com
date: 2025-12-19T17:14:32.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: 'It's so unlike our real relationship!'
items: The Archers stars David and William Troughton talk being father and son in iconic radio soap and in real-life
items: 'I'm just completely in awe of her'
items: I Fought the Law’s Sheridan Smith “couldn’t stop hugging” real-life subject Ann Ming: “I am completely in awe”
items: The life of Brian
items: The Archers icon: 'Wendy Richard and Angela Rippon thought I was the sexiest man in showbusiness'
items: A radio legend
items: George in the dock
items: The Archers' Angus Stobie on George's fate: 'Prison might make him worse'
items: "Most women have a lot of rage"
items: Vanessa Redgrave reflects on 10 years of Call the Midwife: "It's passionately human"
items: Michael Palin looks back over his famous travels ahead of Himalayan adventure
items: Cleaning Up star Sheridan Smith: 'My skin is paper thin'
items: BBC radio is no longer top dog in the digital age
items: Too white for comedy? There must be a place at the BBC for future Monty Pythons
items: A toast to the Today programme at 60 years
items: Former Radio 4 host Libby Purves: "vain and greedy" men are to blame for BBC gender pay gap
items: Meet the stars playing Barbara Windsor in Babs – Jaime Winston and Samantha Spiro talk working with the screen legend
items: Acting legend Glenda Jackson on playing King Lear and her fight against ageism
items: Lenny Henry on Shakespeare, his knighthood and the need for more diversity on screen

'It's so unlike our real relationship!'
type: item
creator: Libby Purves
subject: App
subject: App features
description: The real-life father-and-son duo William and David Troughton on The Archers, dream storylines and giving each other acting advice
encoded: The Archers is on Sunday to Friday 7pm Radio 4 and The Archers: Truth and Lies is on New Year’s Day Radio 4. David Troughton and his real-life son William have played father and son Tony and Tom in The Archers since 2014. They are the son and grandson of the second Doctor Who, Patrick Troughton. As father and son, is it easier to play that relationship? David At the beginning it felt odd, because Tom and Tony don’t get on! Tony is still hankering after his dead son, John. Tom’s never lived up to John. William Tom’s constantly chasing his father’s praise, wanting him to be proud of him... David And that is so unlike our real relationship. William It really is. It’s great that I get to spend this time with my dad. And because it’s outside the rest of the family, it’s special. Does that make other family members feel a bit jealous? David They’re probably thankful not to be part of Tony and Tom! William There’s no competition. My brother Sam is also an actor and the other one, Jim, is a cricketer. David That’s performing, too. It has to be in the genes. Have any of your storylines made you gasp? David Not yet… But remember your audition, Will? You came to see me [as Tony] in hospital when I seemed to be dying because I’d been hit by the bull. After the audition, Sean O’Connor, the editor, rang me up and said, “David, how would you feel if a member of your family joined The Archers?” William Growing up watching him onstage, there were quite a few of those moments. I remember watching you get poisoned and die in one production… David And before that, in 1989 when I played Bottom at the RSC, I stabbed myself fairly dramatically, and all I could hear from the front row was, “Bye bye, Mr Dad.” Isn’t that sweet? William Growing up watching you die – not the most usual of childhoods. David, have you ever given William any acting advice? David When we started, I gave him a bit of advice about the microphone. On stage you look at each other but in radio you use it as the person.…

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The Archers stars David and William Troughton talk being father and son in iconic radio soap and in real-life
type: item
date: 2025-12-09T17:01:44.000Z
creator: Libby Purves
subject: Soaps
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: David and William Troughton on life as father and son – on The Archers and at home.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. David Troughton and his real-life son William have played father and son Tony and Tom in The Archers since 2014. They are the son and grandson of the second Doctor Who, Patrick Troughton. As father and son, is it easier to play that relationship? DAVID: At the beginning it felt odd, because Tom and Tony don’t get on! Tony is still hankering after his dead son, John. Tom’s never lived up to John. WILLIAM: Tom’s constantly chasing his father’s praise, wanting him to be proud of him... DAVID: And that is so unlike our real relationship. WILLIAM: It really is. It’s great that I get to spend this time with my dad. And because it’s outside the rest of the family, it’s special. Does that make other family members feel a bit jealous? DAVID: They’re probably thankful not to be part of Tony and Tom! WILLIAM: There’s no competition. My brother Sam is also an actor and the other one, Jim, is a cricketer. DAVID: That’s performing, too. It has to be in the genes. Have any of your storylines made you gasp? DAVID: Not yet… But remember your audition, Will? You came to see me [as Tony] in hospital when I seemed to be dying because I’d been hit by the bull. After the audition, Sean O’Connor, the editor, rang me up and said, “David, how would you feel if a member of your family joined The Archers?” WILLIAM: Growing up watching him onstage, there were quite a few of those moments. I remember watching you get poisoned and die in one production… DAVID: And before that, in 1989 when I played Bottom at the RSC, I stabbed myself fairly dramatically, and all I could hear from the front row was, “Bye bye, Mr Dad.” Isn’t that sweet? WILLIAM: Growing up watching you die – not the most usual of childhoods. David, have you ever given William any acting advice? DAVID: When we started, I gave him a bit of advice about the microphone. On stage you look at each other but in radio you use it as the person. Although I’m always being told [does huge v…

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'I'm just completely in awe of her'
type: item
creator: Libby Purves
subject: App
subject: App features
description: For her latest role, Sheridan Smith is playing Ann Ming, the indefatigable woman who, after her daughter’s murder, fought to get an 800-year-old law overturned – and won
encoded: Add I Fought the Law to your watchlist Sheridan Smith throws herself into parts with almost reckless emotional openness: cabaret divas, community campaigners, women fabulous or flawed. But the true story portrayed in ITV1’s new four-part series I Fought the Law, about a mother’s 15-year battle to overturn the ancient double jeopardy rule, created a particular bond with the woman she plays. Sheridan and Ann Ming are nearly 40 years apart in age, but there’s visible kinship between the star and the octogenarian from Billingham on Teesside. At the press screening they hugged and held hands, and it wasn’t the West End queen but the retired nurse from the industrial North East who eased the mood to laughter. In a dryly mocking aside towards the screen she observed: “When southerners come up to make programmes they always have lots of shots of cooling towers. They’ve been redundant for years!” Talking to me afterwards, both women tumble out their thoughts and experiences of the story, blinking tears, laughing, close and easy together. Following Ann’s book, For the Love of Julie, and a BBC documentary, Sheridan was keen to take the role, “but nervous. I didn’t want to let Ann down, I wanted to make her proud.” Ann remembers their first meeting: “I thought she’d be right posh, designer clothes and handbag. And there she was with a Tesco plastic carrier… She’s dead ordinary!” “We couldn’t stop hugging,” adds Sheridan. The drama is more than a crime story: indeed, the scriptwriter Jamie Crichton has quietly said that he dislikes “harrowing” true-crime drama and was drawn to it because he likes superheroes. Certainly the name of Ann Ming MBE will stand in British legal history – a citizen who used grief and anger to reform the 800-year-old law of double jeopardy, which prevented prosecuting someone twice for the same offence. She fought police, the Crown Prosecution Service and contemptuous lawyers; enlisted a Home Secretary and the Law Commission; and addressed the House of L…

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I Fought the Law’s Sheridan Smith “couldn’t stop hugging” real-life subject Ann Ming: “I am completely in awe”
type: item
date: 2025-08-25T23:01:51.000Z
creator: Libby Purves
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: ITV
subject: Magazine
description: For her latest role, Sheridan Smith is playing Ann Ming, the indefatigable woman who, after her daughter’s murder, fought to get an 800-year-old law overturned – and won.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Sheridan Smith throws herself into parts with almost reckless emotional openness: cabaret divas, community campaigners, women fabulous or flawed. But the true story portrayed in ITV1’s new four-part series I Fought the Law, about a mother’s 15-year battle to overturn the ancient double jeopardy rule, created a particular bond with the woman she plays. Sheridan and Ann Ming are nearly 40 years apart in age, but there’s visible kinship between the star and the octogenarian from Billingham on Teesside. At the press screening they hugged and held hands, and it wasn’t the West End queen but the retired nurse from the industrial North East who eased the mood to laughter. In a dryly mocking aside towards the screen she observed: “When southerners come up to make programmes they always have lots of shots of cooling towers. They’ve been redundant for years!” Talking to me afterwards, both women tumble out their thoughts and experiences of the story, blinking tears, laughing, close and easy together. Following Ann’s book, For the Love of Julie, and a BBC documentary, Sheridan was keen to take the role, “but nervous. I didn’t want to let Ann down, I wanted to make her proud.” Ann remembers their first meeting: “I thought she’d be right posh, designer clothes and handbag. And there she was with a Tesco plastic carrier… She’s dead ordinary!” “We couldn’t stop hugging,” adds Sheridan. The drama is more than a crime story: indeed, the scriptwriter Jamie Crichton has quietly said that he dislikes “harrowing” true-crime drama and was drawn to it because he likes superheroes. Certainly the name of Ann Ming MBE will stand in British legal history – a citizen who used grief and anger to reform the 800-year-old law of double jeopardy, which prevented prosecuting someone twice for the same offence. She fought police, the Crown Prosecution Service and contemptuous lawyers; enlisted a Home Secretary and the Law Commission; and addressed …

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The life of Brian
type: item
creator: Libby Purves
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Libby Purves celebrates Charles Collingwood’s half-century not out as Ambridge’s rogue with a heart, Brian Aldridge
encoded: The Archers is on Sunday-Friday at 7pm on Radio 4. Add it to your collection now The summons to Ambridge – actually a studio up a concrete tower in Birmingham – set me happily gossiping with Charles Collingwood. He’s celebrating 50 years since his first broadcast as Brian Aldridge, farmer and charmer, straying husband and tolerant patriarch, on 25 March 1975. He actually goes back a year earlier: “I was a crooked decorator, Dave Escott, who had a flirtation with Peggy. Producer Tony Shryane said, ‘We’ll get you back!’ and three weeks later my wife [Judy Bennett, who played Shula] came home and said, ‘You’re in!’ “I was overjoyed. Got the first episode, went for lunch, ran into Jack Holloway who played Ralph Bellamy. He was in a bad mood, saying, ‘I’ve just been written out of the bloody programme!’ Then back in the studio the others said, ‘Oh yes. You’ve bought his farm.’ No wonder he wasn’t pleased to see my ugly face!” In 1976, Brian married Jennifer, and took on her children by two fathers (she was the serial’s first scandal, a gesture to the free-love 1960s). “It was interesting, because in real life, I had proudly taken on Judy’s two little boys, Toby and Barney. Her real first husband was a Brian, and my first wife a Jennifer. How about that?” Collingwood is the jolliest company, and relishes his character’s adventures, which go beyond the tweed-capped practicality of farming. After a couple of years, the new editor, William Smethurst, told him he’d decided to turn Brian into a womaniser. “I suppose because it was me, he spotted a little bit of – er – Leslie Phillips naughtiness” (cue a stagey twinkle). “He wanted a bit of daring humour. Well, it kept me in the show for 50 years.” Hence Brian’s fling with posh Caroline Bone and flirtation with the flame-haired Pony Club temptress Mandy Beesborough. Another new editor, Vanessa Whitburn, told him, “Women of a certain age always ask me, ‘When will Brian have an affair?’” That became his explosive love affair with…

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The Archers icon: 'Wendy Richard and Angela Rippon thought I was the sexiest man in showbusiness'
type: item
date: 2025-03-18T13:21:01.000Z
creator: Libby Purves
subject: audio
subject: Radio
subject: BBC Radio 4
subject: BBC Sounds
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Libby Purves celebrates Charles Collingwood's half-century not out as Ambridge's rogue with a heart, Brian Aldridge.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. The summons to Ambridge – actually a studio up a concrete tower in Birmingham – set me happily gossiping with Charles Collingwood. He's celebrating 50 years since his first broadcast as Brian Aldridge, farmer and charmer, straying husband and tolerant patriarch, on 25 March 1975. He actually goes back a year earlier: "I was a crooked decorator, Dave Escott, who had a flirtation with Peggy. Producer Tony Shryane said, 'We'll get you back!' and three weeks later my wife [Judy Bennett, who played Shula] came home and said, 'You're in!' "I was overjoyed. Got the first episode, went for lunch, ran into Jack Holloway who played Ralph Bellamy. He was in a bad mood, saying, 'I've just been written out of the bloody programme!' Then back in the studio the others said, 'Oh yes. You’ve bought his farm.' No wonder he wasn’t pleased to see my ugly face!" In 1976, Brian married Jennifer, and took on her children by two fathers (she was the serial's first scandal, a gesture to the free-love 1960s). "It was interesting, because in real life, I had proudly taken on Judy’s two little boys, Toby and Barney. Her real first husband was a Brian, and my first wife a Jennifer. How about that?" Collingwood is the jolliest company, and relishes his character's adventures, which go beyond the tweed-capped practicality of farming. After a couple of years, the new editor, William Smethurst, told him he’d decided to turn Brian into a womaniser. "I suppose because it was me, he spotted a little bit of – er – Leslie Phillips naughtiness" (cue a stagey twinkle). "He wanted a bit of daring humour. Well, it kept me in the show for 50 years." Hence Brian’s fling with posh Caroline Bone and flirtation with the flame-haired Pony Club temptress Mandy Beesborough. Another new editor, Vanessa Whitburn, told him, "Women of a certain age always ask me, 'When will Brian have an affair?'" That became his explosive love affair with Siobhan Donovan, who died y…

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A radio legend
type: item
creator: Libby Purves
subject: App
subject: App features
description: The late June Spencer was the matriarch of Ambridge, but she liked to have fun too…
encoded: Add The Archers to your collection Martha Kearney, interviewing June Spencer on her 100th birthday five years ago, observed that the actress was “much warmer” than her Archers character, the formidable Peggy, mainstay of the soap through 70 years. Peggy nursed her second husband through Alzheimer’s, just as Spencer had her own husband in real life. Indeed at that time her steady human warmth was publicly deployed, as she talked courageously about the experience, enabled the writers to depict it with realism, and supported the Alzheimer’s Society as patron. Over the decades the Archer matriarch presided with an iron moral compass over her troublesome family (sexually wayward Lilian, Jennifer and comparatively blameless son Tony, on whom she was oddly hard) and their gradually modernising ways. Grandchildren and great-grandchildren flourished; at the centre of the web Peggy remained powerful – and in widowhood independently wealthy – deploying as strong a will as her savage cat Hilda Ogden (wittily named in honour of Coronation Street). She was pivotal in a recent plot, offering a grant for a rewilding project, that set family and village in competition. The prize was very on-message for the 2020s. Peggy’s morality twice saw her at odds with the clergy, boycotting a vicar for baptising the villainous Rob and demanding to fund a new stained-glass window honouring no actual saints but her own great-grandchildren. Great entertainment, and an elegant illustration of changing times. Jeremy Howe, taking over as editor in 2018, wondered how he could direct a legendary woman approaching her centenary, but her professionalism made it “a cup of tea! Flawless in technique, precision and delivery, always well prepared, scripts all marked up, and took notes like a dream.” She was also a living repository of the soap’s history. “If you went against the history of Peggy, she’d let you know. It’s a mark of good continuing-drama acting that the keeper of the keys is the actor.” Loyalt…

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George in the dock
type: item
creator: Libby Purves
subject: App
subject: App features
description: The Archers’ George Grundy made a terrible mistake and is now paying the price. Actor Angus Stobie reflects on being Ambridge’s bad boy
encoded: The Archers is on Radio 4 from Sunday to Friday at 7pm. Add it to your collection. Sign up for a soap and you never know what to expect. Two years ago, Angus Stobie, a quiet, thoughtful 24-year-old from Edinburgh, took a modest radio part as young George Grundy in The Archers and found himself in a melodrama of heroism, panic, lies, betrayals and a court appearance with five million listeners glued to the radio and social media aflame with anxious tweets. When he auditioned for the mud-stained jewel in Radio 4’s crown, he was fresh out of Manchester drama school – a year of that spent over Zoom during Covid, “doing animal impressions alone in my living room”. The Archers editor needed to introduce two rarely heard figures into the Ambridge landscape. “I had a commendation from the Carleton Hobbs radio bursary,” remembers Scobie. “I suppose that’s how I got an audition. Lots of boys my age were there, and it was actually for the part of Brad Horrobin. I only read one short bit of George at the end but then Taylor [Uttley] got Brad, and I got George! I was surprised, but excited.” Not a lifelong listener, he was briefed: “The editor Jeremy Howe filled me in on all the different storylines George was involved in, and how they might have shaped him. You have a duty to get it right in a show with such a rich history. You have to be grounded and truthful because it’s belonged to a lot of people, for years.” After a sedate urban upbringing – “I’m a city boy” – how did he set about evoking earthy rural life? “You don’t have to know a great detail, but you do ask questions whenever you’re vocalising your actions. For instance, this particular sheep, how heavy is it? How fast will it move?” Was there ever any ferret-training for the traditional Grundy hobby? “No. Never handled one at all, they’re all imaginary.” But, he adds wistfully, “I’d love to have some ferrets in the studio.” He worked carefully on the accent, far from his elegant Scottish tones. “I suppose it’s a sort …

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The Archers' Angus Stobie on George's fate: 'Prison might make him worse'
type: item
date: 2024-10-15T10:02:45.000Z
subject: audio
subject: Radio
subject: TV
subject: BBC Radio 4
description: George Grundy made a terrible mistake and is now paying the price. Actor Angus Stobie reflects on being Ambridge's bad boy.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Sign up for a soap and you never know what to expect. Two years ago, Angus Stobie, a quiet, thoughtful 24-year-old from Edinburgh, took a modest radio part as young George Grundy in The Archers and found himself in a melodrama of heroism, panic, lies, betrayals and a court appearance with five million listeners glued to the radio and social media aflame with anxious tweets. When he auditioned for the mud-stained jewel in Radio 4’s crown, he was fresh out of Manchester drama school – a year of that spent over Zoom during Covid, "doing animal impressions alone in my living room". The Archers editor needed to introduce two rarely heard figures into the Ambridge landscape. "I had a commendation from the Carleton Hobbs radio bursary," remembers Stobie. "I suppose that’s how I got an audition. Lots of boys my age were there, and it was actually for the part of Brad Horrobin. I only read one short bit of George at the end but then Taylor [Uttley] got Brad, and I got George! I was surprised, but excited." Not a lifelong listener, he was briefed: "The editor Jeremy Howe filled me in on all the different storylines George was involved in, and how they might have shaped him. You have a duty to get it right in a show with such a rich history. You have to be grounded and truthful because it’s belonged to a lot of people, for years. After a sedate urban upbringing – "I’m a city boy" – how did he set about evoking earthy rural life? "You don’t have to know a great detail, but you do ask questions whenever you’re vocalising your actions. For instance, this particular sheep, how heavy is it? How fast will it move?" Was there ever any ferret-training for the traditional Grundy hobby? "No. Never handled one at all, they’re all imaginary." But, he adds wistfully, "I’d love to have some ferrets in the studio." He worked carefully on the accent, far from his elegant Scottish tones. "I suppose it’s a sort of West Country/Midlands blend,…

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"Most women have a lot of rage"
type: item
creator: Libby Purves
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Nearly 20 years since she left EastEnders, Tracy-Ann Oberman jumped at the chance to revive the notorious Chrissie Watts
encoded: Add EastEnders to your watchlist Stand by at the Queen Vic: Chrissie Watts is back. “I can’t give anything away about what happens,” says Tracy-Ann Oberman demurely, “but she has fabulous hair. Less curly than it used to be.” It’s 19 years since the celebrated EastEnders scene when Chrissie killed her husband “Dirty” Den and Oberman hints that the character had a long time in prison to think about things and become “even more of a survivor”. “When Chris [Clenshaw, EastEnders’ executive producer] rang and asked me to come back and described an explosive storyline, I said: ‘Oh yes, I’m coming back for that!’” Following her debut in 2004, Oberman’s 218 episodes of the soap fixed Chrissie firmly in the national consciousness: hacking off her rival’s hair, hurling a chair through a window, finishing off Den with Pauline Fowler’s iron doorstop, then being pushed into his open grave by Barbara Windsor as Peggy. “That was fun. Something very old-Hollywood about it all. I got a big gay following.” She also had another accolade: “I made it into Vogue, [for getting] a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress into Albert Square.” Not that great hair and outfits are the point: “I loved Chrissie because she’s complicated, victim or villain. Soaps are brilliant for these big women’s roles. They were revolutionary back in the day – Coronation Street and EastEnders, working-class characters in recognisable worlds with strong matriarchs. Chrissie, Bet Lynch, Hilda Ogden, Dot Cotton – nothing was based on their looks or high glam, just real, proper, breathing, strong women keeping family and community together.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2024/08/3717-LI362401Eastenders-copy-dcfd1aa-e1725028254383.jpg" width="1229" height="820" alt="Tracy-Ann Oberman Wk. 37" title="Picture Shows: LESLIE GRANTHAM as Den Watts and TRACY-ANN OBERMAN as Chrissy Watts. Generic. WARNING: Use of this copyright image is subject to Terms of Use of BBC Digital Picture Service. …

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Vanessa Redgrave reflects on 10 years of Call the Midwife: "It's passionately human"
type: item
date: 2021-05-30T08:00:45.000Z
creator: Libby Purves
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: The Big RT Interview
description: Vanessa Redgrave is the quiet voice of humanity on Call the Midwife, but at 84 the theatrical legend remains as fiery as ever about politics, God and women. Just don’t call her a feminist…
encoded: Vanessa Redgrave does not waste words on idle chat. I dive in with the inescapable first question about lockdown – was she good at coping with it? “Yes.” Was it frustrating? “No, I’ve been writing a lot.” A memoir? “No. Won’t tell you more. But it’s not a play, and it’s not a TV series.” By the time our Zoom conversation ends, I form a private suspicion that it will be political. Or even religious. We’re here to discuss 10 years of Call the Midwife, in which she plays a small but vital part. Each week, after the title frames evoke 1950s London docklands, a soft, wise, elderly voice talks of change and love, humility and endurance. TV screens more accustomed to cop-show violence and vapid celebrity gently ease us into the deep simplicities of birth and death; as each story ends, the voice speaks again of humane values. It could be sentimental, but its sincerity holds you: it represents Jennifer Worth, a retired lay midwife working in the old, poverty-stricken East End alongside Anglican nuns. When the series started in January 2012, it was a slight shock to recognise the voice. This was not the sort of gentle veteran you’d think of casting as an aged nurse, this was Vanessa Redgrave: scion of an acting dynasty, whose birth 84 years ago was announced onstage at the Old Vic by Laurence Olivier, as Hamlet, declaring: “Laertes has a daughter!” He was, of course, referring to his co-star, Michael Redgrave. View oEmbed on the source website More than a star, she is a lifelong firebrand: CND, Workers’ Revolutionary Party, anti-war protestor, supporting a Guantanamo captive, demonstrating outside HMP Pentonville about a prison book ban. She isn’t cosy, yet that voiceover brings a tear every time. As Jane Fonda, her co-star in the 1977 film Julia, said: “Her voice seems to come from some deep place that knows all suffering and all secrets.” When Redgrave talks, you do feel that her furious activism is fuelled by compassion. She liked Worth’s memoir: “I really love narratives …

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Michael Palin looks back over his famous travels ahead of Himalayan adventure
type: item
date: 2020-12-20T09:00:38.000Z
creator: Libby Purves
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: The Big RT Interview
description: Michael Palin talks to Libby Purves about how a year without travel has affected the globetrotter.
encoded: What happens when you stop a traveller from travelling – for a whole year? Would I find Sir Michael Palin snappy, resentful? Nope. Turns out he’s quite enjoyed lockdown. He refers to the restrictions of 2020 with the same boyish optimism with which we watched him encounter many a slippery ice floe or heaving deck. Comfortable in his grandfatherly chair by the bookshelf of diaries and maps – a pose now familiar from his Travels of a Lifetime that cheered us through October and returns for Christmas – he explains his benign mood. “The great surprise is that I’ve been extremely content to be in the same place for some time. "I had heart surgery last September and was told to have rest and recuperation – then lockdown came along. I accepted it rather happily, it’s been like a huge doctor’s note. Anyway, coming home has always been the best part of the process. We live near Hampstead Heath in London and near friends.” He even had some work. “I did an extract of Waiting for Godot with Robert Lindsay for Lockdown Theatre [in aid of the Royal Theatrical Fund] and now there’s a series of theatre readings. It’s as if the entertainment world became a cottage industry this year: no studios, no cars waiting outside, everyone at home.” Then came the recent BBC series looking back at over 30 years of his TV travels. “The BBC were desperate for any archive material that didn’t involve coming into studios. It’s turned out better than we expected.” It has: he sits with old diaries and tapes, while fans like Sir David Attenborough commend him for his warmth and originality. It’s oddly comforting, even as we all chafe for a chance to travel again. Is he, though, a natural looker-back? “No! I thought I was no good at it. All my life everything was about moving on to the next thing. But it’s been a rewarding process. Remembering it made me see that we covered an enormous amount of ground, saw wonderful landscapes, were let into people’s lives in a way few people could do even before the …

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Cleaning Up star Sheridan Smith: 'My skin is paper thin'
type: item
date: 2019-03-22T09:07:00.000Z
creator: Libby Purves
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The Care actress talks tattoos, mental health, and her starring role in ITV's new drama about insider trading
encoded: In the first episode of Cleaning Up, Sheridan Smith – as Samantha, an office cleaner – sneakily tries to cover up the stubborn stain of someone’s careless al-desko lunch. From that moment you’re on her side all the way, as she necks the leftovers in wine glasses on a conference table, begs for extra shifts and heads home through the glass jungle of Canary Wharf, worrying about her kids and her debts and playing roulette on her phone. Not perfect, not a squeaky-clean role model; a problem gambler, but crackling with intelligence and mischief. The writer Mark Marlow’s heroine is one of the invisible: a humble cleaner in a tabard, the woman swanky bankers don’t notice, but who might beat them at their game. Meet the cast of Cleaning Up Sheridan Smith on her return to the limelight: “I’m trying to be a bit more grown up nowadays” RadioTimes.com newsletter: get the latest TV and entertainment news direct to your inbox Sheridan enthuses, “She’s someone you immediately fall in love with: massively flawed, but you’re on her side. Morally there’s a lot she does wrong,” says the 37 year-old, “but it’s for her family – she doesn’t want to lose her girls and her house. She’s got a gambling head on her, so might get that big win. And there are these big rich companies cheating – why should they get away with it, and not some poor cleaner?” She wins your heart quickly, Sheridan Smith. I met her first in 2011, when her star suddenly rose. She moved from her Lincolnshire village at 16, had a well-noticed debut appearance at the Donmar Warehouse and then a run of sitcoms like Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps and Gavin & Stacey. “Chavs and slappers a speciality!” she cries. View oEmbed on the source website The leap to West End stardom was a hilarious performance in Legally Blonde, in which a chihuahua jumped into her pink handbag with flawless timing, seven shows a week: “I had bits of meat tucked down my bra. I smelled!” Trevor Nunn spotted her for a stunningly moving part…

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BBC radio is no longer top dog in the digital age
type: item
date: 2018-09-17T10:17:13.000Z
creator: Libby Purves
subject: News
subject: Radio
subject: audio
subject: Comment
description: Eddie Mair and Chris Evans could be the first of many to wave goodbye to the broadcaster, warns Libby Purves
encoded: When we heard that Eddie Mair was leaving for LBC, I pursed my lips. Rumour said it was for money, and I got judgemental. Wrong: turns out he was truly pixilated by a fresh start. Sorry, Eddie. But no sooner had we digested this worrying idea that life could be more fun outside Broadcasting House than Chris Evans was heading off to Virgin. Chris Evans to join Virgin Radio in 2019 after announcing BBC departure Eddie Mair: why my accidental exit at the BBC was the perfect ending RadioTimes.com newsletter: get the latest TV and entertainment news direct to your inbox Who next? Now that commercial radio offers both good money and nationwide reach online, is it no longer axiomatic that the best, proudest place to be in radio is the BBC? Commercial bosses like James Rea of LBC speak bullishly of “breaking the BBC’s stranglehold”, which is a bit unfair since the “stranglehold” was due to the pre-digital need for huge transmitters funded by a licence fee, and to a Charter underpinning the public service seriousness of Radios 3 and 4. View oEmbed on the source website It was streaming that changed the landscape, not heroism. But now the commercial stations’ tanks are on the lawn, with a move towards talk and “Leading Britain’s Conversation”. Rea says, “We are closing the gap… we’re in the business of expansion.” His audience is led by ABC1s, like Radio 4’s: but is younger. Expansion is always exciting. More than retrenchment and fiscal shrinking, from which BBC radio suffers. Only its few superstars and top managers operate in the mad-money area that sparked the gender pay row. Its skilled, faithful core of programme-makers and freelancers are little rewarded or respected. The BBC is always embattled: criticised for its anxious over management and recent stupidities, its TV limb wincing from a losing arm wrestle with Netflix and Sky. Morale is fragile. Dismayingly, it could be that Mair and Evans are the first flakes of gilded plaster falling off the grand old structure. Ha…

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Too white for comedy? There must be a place at the BBC for future Monty Pythons
type: item
date: 2018-07-21T08:00:00.000Z
creator: Libby Purves
subject: Comedy
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: Comment
description: "Every one of us fights some battle, not all visible. And there are areas where the pious, reverse discrimination becomes plain potty," writes Libby Purves
encoded: Insulting people for being white, educated, straight, affluent and male is increasingly fashionable now, especially with powerful white blokes on £200k a year. You can argue that this particular bigotry is quite useful when it reminds appointments committees to vary the sex, background and shade of FTSE executives, pay women properly and shake out remnants of racism, sexism, xenophobia, disablism etc in society. But it’s hard on those who do get insulted for things they can’t help, and ignores the less visible diversities of family security, personal griefs and troubles. Every one of us fights some battle, not all visible. And there are areas where the pious, reverse discrimination becomes plain potty. So my heart sank when I saw that BBC comedy boss Shane Allen said that the Monty Python team wouldn’t be commissioned today because “six Oxbridge white blokes” were insufficiently “diverse”. Michael Palin explores North Korea in new travel series Monty Python’s John Cleese is so fed up with Brexit and the British press he is moving to the Caribbean Michael Palin on David Attenborough, travelling the world and his Python pals View oEmbed on the source website Is there any spectacle more depressing, more Dad-dance and David Brent, than an artfully stubbled BBC commissioner smugly bigging up his “diversity” cred? Worse still when he is the controller through whom all new comedy must pass. For him the “metropolitan, educated experience” is out, also the “male middle-aged life crisis” (hard luck Hancock and Reggie Perrin). Instead he promised “an authentic Muslim experience”, mental health issues and the all-black Famalam. John Cleese did remind him that the Pythons included “three grammar-school boys and a poof ” and that the targets of their jokes were mostly men. Indeed, if you want a good takedown of the much-maligned “stale pale male” establishment, look back 50 years at the Pythons’ businessmen, generals, bosses, doctors, sillywalkers and nudge-nudge lechers. But we …

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A toast to the Today programme at 60 years
type: item
date: 2018-02-15T05:00:49.000Z
creator: Libby Purves
subject: News
subject: Radio
subject: audio
description: Libby Purves lifts the lid on BBC Radio 4's real office celebrations: "a boozy lunch, rife with memories, catch-ups and amiable disrespect"
encoded: As you read this, we’ll be doing it again. In a Turkish restaurant somewhere in London, a couple of dozen of us will be celebrating the Today programme’s anniversary. Not like the formal 60th birthday event in October in the Wigmore Hall, under the smiling eye of senior management: more of a boozy lunch, rife with memories, catch-ups and amiable disrespect. It happens every few years and the spirit of that late-1970s cussed and spectacularly messy 24-hour office, with its whisky bottles in the filing cabinet, revives as we remember the high spots and the low, Gloria the cleaner, the canteen in the small hours and the unfortunate bookings. “I wasn’t to know he was just a wallpaper manufacturer... same name... I thought he was Montgomery’s aide.” Today presenters talk Brexit, diversity and Thought for the Day Kirsty Young on swotting for Desert Island Discs and how she winds down from “intense” interviews Some have long retired, some moved on in radio or TV, perennial freelances for hire like me. Some producers and editors rose into management. One happy memory is of Jenny Abramsky, one of us in the 80s but by then the godlike Director of Audio and Music, crawling out under the table during pudding because it was the only way to escape the merriment for a meeting with the D-G. Some who rose look back and shake their heads in envy at us freelance underlings, regretting the distance they travelled away from the front line. One much-promoted chap observed, when I asked what had become of him between our outside-broadcast adventures and his retirement, “Basically, I talked b******s for five years and fired people.” I was lucky to be there as a trainee producer, reporter and finally presenter, because those were good times. That messy office was home; indeed, it founded our home: Paul [Heiney] and I met in a spell as “forward-planning reporters”, fought over editing machines, bonded at the editor’s party and married in secret because he was on That’s Life by then and we dr…

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Former Radio 4 host Libby Purves: "vain and greedy" men are to blame for BBC gender pay gap
type: item
date: 2018-01-16T09:30:54.000Z
creator: Libby Purves
subject: News
subject: Radio
subject: audio
description: "It’s men who drive pay to insane levels," says Purves
encoded: The Carrie Gracie affair is awful. The BBC loses a top China expert, gets barracked by the equality watchdog and is exposed for “Byzantine” grievance procedures – and trying to buy Gracie’s principles for £45k. Even within the general row about equal pay it is a low point. None of it had to happen. Some complain that the pay gap exists because women don’t negotiate. I would say that it’s more about men being vain and greedy. With few exceptions (mainly in the shiny-floor-and-spangles world, inhabited by, for example, Claudia Winkleman) it’s men who drive pay to insane levels. It’s men, not women, who flick their carefully tended hair and purr, like a L’Oréal ad, “Because I’m worth it!” Today host John Humphrys slammed for "base, smug and condescending" off-air jokes over gender pay gap Former BBC China editor Carrie Gracie presents Today programme amid BBC unequal pay row BBC News said they couldn't get anyone from the BBC to comment on the Carrie Gracie row I told one 400k colleague that he was overpaid. He said, “It’s because I came from newspapers when they paid a lot, so the BBC had to match it.” “Why?” I asked, and he sidled away to talk to someone richer. But really, why? He can’t act, sing or dance, isn’t pretty and – until briefed – knows no more than hundreds of other journalists. The BBC has a problem with inherited contracts. I accept that. One would like the director-general of the BBC to spend a week reading the BBC’s payroll and noting the gender inequality. The DG could then weigh the importance of the top earners and tell their agents that their next contract will shrink, because the BBC must budget carefully and equably. If they threatened to go, the DG could gently say, “If you must. But remember how much of your ratings depends on our Rolls-Royce production values and international reach. We’ll build another you.” To news stars the DG could add that BBC News itself is the real star, respected for the rigorous work of hundreds of others who are les…

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Meet the stars playing Barbara Windsor in Babs – Jaime Winston and Samantha Spiro talk working with the screen legend
type: item
date: 2017-09-22T09:27:00.000Z
creator: Libby Purves
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: Carry On (franchise)
description: The two actors mined the EastEnders and Carry on star for information when she was on set for the BBC One biopic – and were utterly charmed by her
encoded: The two actors who play a young Barbara Windsor in the BBC's biopic Babs tell Libby Purves what it was like to tell the life story of the screen legend. Jaime Winstone: "Barbara Windsor was a sex symbol, but did it with innocence and grace" I knew the Carry On films and EastEnders but didn’t know Barbara had a really good theatre background! It was tempting to read her story, but I was playing her in a time where she was naive about the industry. So I sat down with her and started to fill in those gaps, and she really opened up. I found it really heart-breaking, that little girl being sent away… Finding theatre and dance and building her confidence. And she’s still so quick… She’s 80 in August and she’s got a razor-sharp sense of humour. It’s easy to play into this iconic character as a sort of pin-up, Carry On Barbara. But she’s a real, amazing woman: so strong. Women in showbiz in that period were looked at as though you couldn’t be the lead; you had to be the sexy little blonde and show a bit of leg, “Oh, right, a nurse’s outfit”. She was a sex symbol but did it with innocence and grace, and she’s so brave. View oEmbed on the source website I loved doing the Carry On scene! And there’s one moment where I’m sitting in the café with her and [first husband] Ronnie Knight and I look across to my older self — real Barbara! — that was very emotional. You don’t often get moments when you’re playing a real person and act in a scene with her. I could call her at any time, and she would guide me through things and make me laugh, so I felt safe. To be honest, the singing was hard, when I had to rehearse with her and work on songs… I’ve never done much singing before in front of people, so to belt it out on stage for the scene of her first audition! She really guided me through that and unlocked something. I overcame a thing I’d been scared of for quite a while. She’s just amazing, completely amazing. Samantha Spiro: "She's every woman's best friend" I’d played her before in…

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Acting legend Glenda Jackson on playing King Lear and her fight against ageism
type: item
date: 2017-04-09T07:25:00.000Z
creator: Libby Purves
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The former MP wowed the West End playing Lear at 80, now Glenda Jackson wants older people to stand up and be noticed
encoded: Glenda Jackson does not do things by halves. After 35 years on stage and screen, she stepped away in 1992 to become a Labour MP. Then last year, at 80, she came back to the stage: not cautiously dipping a toe in the water, but as King Lear – not only one of Shakespeare’s great male characters, but one of theatre’s most immense, strenuous, emotionally and physically draining parts. She filled the Old Vic with emotional power and blew the critics away. Now she’s a hot tip for the best actress Olivier Award – it will go down in history as one of the great unlikely comebacks, as if Ronald Reagan at 80 had suddenly returned to the screen and triumphed as Annie Oakley. Jackson’s vigour in Parliament was legendary, first as a passionate anti-Thatcher activist, then calling for Tony Blair’s resignation over Iraq, accusing him in Shakespearian language of “the insolence of office”, and savaging Iain Duncan Smith over welfare. Add her storming Lear and you expect to meet an aura of power and anger: thrilling but unnerving. It doesn’t happen. Glenda Jackson is no diva: arriving by bus, submitting to “hair-and-makeup” for the photoshoot without bothering to look in a mirror, then settling down in a spare dressing room, emanating relaxed friendliness. The ferocity was for Parliament, the high emotion for the stage. And self-importance is rarer in actors than you’d think: “The egos you meet in the corridors of power would not be tolerated for 30 seconds in professional theatre,” she reflects. “They simply wouldn’t.” View oEmbed on the source website Perhaps her sunny mood is pure pleasure in being back in her old tribe, the theatre community she renounced in 1992. When the Critics’ Circle gave her the best Shakespearean performance award in January many of us expected her acceptance speech to be a bit political. Not a bit of it: graceful and witty, she seemed more like someone coming home. “One of the amazing things about theatre people,” she says now, “is that you might not see …

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Lenny Henry on Shakespeare, his knighthood and the need for more diversity on screen
type: item
date: 2015-08-31T12:21:08.000Z
creator: Libby Purves
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: As Danny and the Human Zoo airs on BBC1, Lenny Henry reflects on his early days in Dudley – and his nights with the Black and White Minstrels
encoded: A tall, lean, imposingly bearded figure strides through the hotel lobby exuding an air of gravitas. He’s a knight now: Sir Lenworth George Henry, ennobled for services to charity and comedy. But within a moment he’s just our Lenny from Dudley, off on a cheerful fantasy riff. “No, I haven’t received the knighthood, yet. Do they give you cake, and a special hat? And a castle?” He’s delighted on a lot of levels: not least for his late mum. “She sat on the same balcony as the Queen at the Royal Variety Performance and kept waving at her. She’d have come [to the investiture] and worn a very, very big hat and hardly have believed it of the boy who couldn’t tidy his room and was difficult at school.” Another delight is that it’s awarded partly for his Comic Relief work. “I feel as if it’s for the whole country. I keep expecting everyone in Britain to turn up demanding some of the cake, and a turn with the special hat.” So, altogether thrilled. “I feel as if they’d filled me up with lemonade and shook me,” says the performer who will turn 57 this week. That irrepressible cheerfulness has been his trademark and in some ways, a limitation. “For instance, the character Delbert, at the Brixton riots, could articulate something. But then he’d better do silly jokes. Audiences don’t want a 20-minute rant from me.” But Henry’s a serious man, thoughtful and acutely aware – not least as co-founder of Comic Relief – of how popular celebrity and an aura of good humour can be used for good causes and understanding. Danny and the Human Zoo [below], the first TV drama he’s written, is a story drawn from his childhood in a Jamaican household in Dudley in the 60s. Danny is a little boy who loves doing impressions and makes it into showbiz. Kascion Franklin, who plays Danny (a character loosely based on Henry) has to impersonate figures from a bygone era, such as the PM Harold Wilson and Tommy Cooper, and, in a glorious opening sequence, he sings My Boy Lollipop by Millie Small, a breakthrou…

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