Radio Times
type: channel
link: https://www.radiotimes.com
date: 2026-02-26T14:17:46.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Strangers no more
items: Why Lord of the Flies author William Golding didn't put girls on his classic novel's island
items: Holding the conch
items: Adolescence writer Jack Thorne reveals why BBC's new Lord of the Flies sticks to an all-male cast – and explains his "sensitive" adaptation of classic
items: His own Eden
items: Death in Paradise legend Don Warrington talks "outcry" to Selwyn's departure – and whether he'll leave the show
items: Night vision
items: The Night Manager season 2 writer reveals why new episodes are perfect for this Trump era – and talks plans for a trilogy
items: If Donald Trump destroys the BBC, there would be a horrible historical logic – so here's who I would pick as Tim Davie's replacement
items: Is this the end of British TV as we know it?
items: Love across the divide
items: Trespasses author reveals hopes for Northern Ireland’s future as Channel 4 drama arrives on screens
items: Slow Horses gallops ahead
items: 'It's very hard to let go'
items: 'You want to add things that aren’t in the books'
items: Slow Horses showrunner on "emotional" exit and how Nigel Farage inspired season 5 story
items: Slow Horses star reveals his new season 5 spotlight - and how he’d rather be James Bond than Q
items: 'The case is ongoing'
items: The Bombing of Pan Am 103 will tell Lockerbie story "more accurately", says FBI investigator
items: When sorry seems to be the hardest word
items: Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes 'finally reveals police lies', says victim's mother
items: 'It's light, dark... complicated'
items: Virdee is a love story wrapped around a crime thriller, says author Amit Dhand
items: 'I forgot all the twists'
items: Harlan Coben on Missing You and his next series: "A little more of a ghost story"
items: 'The SAS has struggled with the tension between celebrity and secrecy'
items: SAS Rogue Heroes 'is not a history lesson – that would be unwatchable' says author
items: Can Strictly Come Dancing get its groove back?
items: Can Strictly get its groove back?
items: "Only when everyone's paid will I shut up"

Strangers no more
type: item
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: App
subject: App features
description: William Golding’s daughter Judy Carver recalls the seismic effect Lord of the Flies had on her father’s life and work
encoded: Add Lord of the Flies to your watchlist When Judy Carver was a child, her schoolmaster father regularly sent off a parcel to London that always, to his dejection, came back. She eventually understood that it was a story called Strangers from Within. One day, there was elation in the house. The story was going to become a book. Judy heard the words “Faber and Faber” so often she thought that was now the book’s title rather than the name of the publisher, but Lord of the Flies, written by her father William Golding, was published in September 1954, when Judy was nine. The book is now 72 years old and flourishing again as a four-part BBC One drama that concludes this week. Judy – Carver is her married name – remembers that much-travelled and long-unwanted manuscript: “It was dog-eared. That was one of the things that [editor] Charles Monteith at Faber spotted: other publishers had been reading it, but it was well read only up to a certain point, when people gave up. So he pushed on further, and transformed my father’s life.” Judy agrees that Faber’s choice to call the book Lord of the Flies – a traditional name for the Devil, that also alludes to a buzzily scary scene in the novel – was an improvement on her father’s original. It reflects ominous, mystical qualities in the story of a group of schoolboys stranded on a tropical island following the crash of a government plane evacuating them during a nuclear crisis, who descend into violently competing cliques. Does Strangers from Within, though, address more directly the book’s theme of how people can transform when in extremis? “Well, indeed,” says Judy. “That word ‘strangers’. Another phrase, in an essay my father wrote, is that we are suffering from ‘the terrible disease of being human’. And you could say what he is talking about is an internal intrusion or a malignant growth or something like that.” In one way, the famous title became an irritation to Golding. His daughter’s 2012 memoir, The Children of Lovers, incl…

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Why Lord of the Flies author William Golding didn't put girls on his classic novel's island
type: item
date: 2026-02-23T17:00:20.000Z
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: Books
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
subject: RT Book Club
description: William Golding’s daughter Judy Carver recalls the seismic effect Lord of the Flies had on her father’s life and work.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. When Judy Carver was a child, her schoolmaster father regularly sent off a parcel to London that always, to his dejection, came back. She eventually understood that it was a story called Strangers from Within. One day, there was elation in the house. The story was going to become a book. Judy heard the words “Faber and Faber” so often she thought that was now the book’s title rather than the name of the publisher, but Lord of the Flies, written by her father William Golding, was published in September 1954, when Judy was nine. The book is now 72 years old and flourishing again as a four-part BBC One drama that concludes this week. Judy – Carver is her married name – remembers that much-travelled and long-unwanted manuscript: “It was dog-eared. That was one of the things that [editor] Charles Monteith at Faber spotted: other publishers had been reading it, but it was well read only up to a certain point, when people gave up. So he pushed on further, and transformed my father’s life.” Judy agrees that Faber’s choice to call the book Lord of the Flies – a traditional name for the Devil, that also alludes to a buzzily scary scene in the novel – was an improvement on her father’s original. It reflects ominous, mystical qualities in the story of a group of schoolboys stranded on a tropical island following the crash of a government plane evacuating them during a nuclear crisis, who descend into violently competing cliques. Does Strangers from Within, though, address more directly the book’s theme of how people can transform when in extremis? “Well, indeed,” says Judy. “That word ‘strangers’. Another phrase, in an essay my father wrote, is that we are suffering from ‘the terrible disease of being human’. And you could say what he is talking about is an internal intrusion or a malignant growth or something like that.” In one way, the famous title became an irritation to Golding. His daughter’s 2012 memoir, The Children of…

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Holding the conch
type: item
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: App
subject: App features
description: From Skins to Adolescence, Jack Thorne is a master of telling gritty teenage stories. Now he’s tackling the big one – Lord of the Flies
encoded: Add Lord of the Flies to your watchlist During the summer of 2024, Jack Thorne was commuting between the sets of two drama series he had written – one on a tropical island off Malaysia and one in Yorkshire. At the risk of upsetting one tourist board, which location did he prefer? “Glamour on both sides,” laughs Thorne. “I love both my children equally.” The locations seem distinct, but the subject matter overlapped: the potential psychopathy of prepubescent boys. The English project was Adolescence, the Netflix drama that won eight Emmy awards, while the series that was filmed in South East Asia was Lord of the Flies, a new four-part BBC adaptation of the 1954 novel – instrumental in winning William Golding the 1983 Nobel Prize in Literature. “Toxic masculinity” – a term widely applied to the 13-year-old murderer Jamie Miller played by Owen Cooper in Adolescence – might also be applied retrospectively to intellectual Piggy, arrogant Ralph, charismatic Jack, shy Simon and ominous Roger who, in Lord of the Flies, contest control of a group of schoolboys marooned on an island after the crash of a plane evacuating them from a threatened nuclear attack on Britain. “It’s a funny old term, toxic masculinity,” Thorne reflects. “I think just masculinity is better. And Golding writes about that so acutely.” Thorne first read the novel while still at school: “The edition was orange and on the inside cover it had a stamp saying Portway English Department because my mum was a substitute teacher and she kept the copy. So, I first read Lord of the Flies in a stolen edition! I’ve reread it many times as an adult and felt totally different about the characters. “When I was a kid, I felt like a Simon. But, as an adult, you realise that the way you dismissed Jack as totally unfeeling is unfair. You realise Golding cares for all these kids. Lord of the Flies is used as shorthand for all sorts of things – the source of evil, society’s division – but it’s actually more subtle than that. …

Adolescence writer Jack Thorne reveals why BBC's new Lord of the Flies sticks to an all-male cast – and explains his "sensitive" adaptation of classic
type: item
date: 2026-02-02T17:00:29.000Z
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: From Skins to Adolescence, Jack Thorne is a master of telling gritty teenage stories. Now he’s tackling the big one – Lord of the Flies.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. During the summer of 2024, Jack Thorne was commuting between the sets of two drama series he had written – one on a tropical island off Malaysia and one in Yorkshire. At the risk of upsetting one tourist board, which location did he prefer? “Glamour on both sides,” laughs Thorne. “I love both my children equally.” The locations seem distinct, but the subject matter overlapped: the potential psychopathy of prepubescent boys. The English project was Adolescence, the Netflix drama that won eight Emmy awards, while the series that was filmed in South East Asia was Lord of the Flies, a new four-part BBC adaptation of the 1954 novel – instrumental in winning William Golding the 1983 Nobel Prize in Literature. “Toxic masculinity” – a term widely applied to the 13-year-old murderer Jamie Miller played by Owen Cooper in Adolescence – might also be applied retrospectively to intellectual Piggy, arrogant Ralph, charismatic Jack, shy Simon and ominous Roger who, in Lord of the Flies, contest control of a group of schoolboys marooned on an island after the crash of a plane evacuating them from a threatened nuclear attack on Britain. “It’s a funny old term, toxic masculinity,” Thorne reflects. “I think just masculinity is better. And Golding writes about that so acutely.” Thorne first read the novel while still at school: “The edition was orange and on the inside cover it had a stamp saying Portway English Department because my mum was a substitute teacher and she kept the copy. So, I first read Lord of the Flies in a stolen edition! I’ve reread it many times as an adult and felt totally different about the characters. “When I was a kid, I felt like a Simon. But, as an adult, you realise that the way you dismissed Jack as totally unfeeling is unfair. You realise Golding cares for all these kids. Lord of the Flies is used as shorthand for all sorts of things – the source of evil, society’s division – but it’s actually more subtl…

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His own Eden
type: item
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: App
subject: App features
description: After much speculation, Commissioner Selwyn Patterson is back on Saint Marie – but Don Warrington is making no promises on his Death in Paradise future
encoded: Add Death in Paradise to your watchlist Having starred in 14 seasons of the BBC One peak-time drama Death in Paradise, Don Warrington is often recognised in streets or shops by fans of his character, Commissioner Selwyn Patterson. But since March last year – when the latest series ended with Patterson moving to London for “family reasons” – viewers have had one question: had Warrington left the series? “What I’d say to them was, ‘Wait and see’,” says Warrington, who is 74. “That was all I was allowed to say because ‘Has he?/Hasn’t he?’ was part of the story.” Having waited, viewers were rewarded with Patterson making cameos in last month’s Christmas specials of both Death in Paradise and its spin-off Beyond Paradise. And now, any concerns are laid to rest with the opening episode of the 15th series starting with Selwyn flying into the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie to resume his duties. Was that story arc always planned or does it reflect frantic background negotiations between actor and producers? Had Warrington ever at any point actually left the series? “No, I hadn’t,” he insists. “They came to me and told me the plan for the character and it seemed to me a good way to expand the series. Because Commissioner Patterson comes back with a different energy. But I love speculation. It’s such fun. Rumour is wonderful.” The reaction to his possible departure must have been flattering – especially from a series that has been written to accommodate cast rotation with Ben Miller, Kris Marshall, Ardal O’Hanlon, Ralf Little and Don Gilet having now played the lead role of a British cop seconded from London. “Well, it came as a shock to me, I have to say,” admits Warrington. “I thought it would just pass by under the radar and we’d carry on. But, apparently, there has been an outcry. It’s flattering and I would be dishonest if I said it wasn’t. But it came as a surprise to realise how deeply the characters had got into the consciousness of the public.” Anyone who c…

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Death in Paradise legend Don Warrington talks "outcry" to Selwyn's departure – and whether he'll leave the show
type: item
date: 2026-01-19T17:01:51.000Z
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: After much speculation, Commissioner Selwyn Patterson is back on Saint Marie – but Don Warrington is making no promises on his Death in Paradise future.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Having starred in 14 seasons of the BBC One peak-time drama Death in Paradise, Don Warrington is often recognised in streets or shops by fans of his character, Commissioner Selwyn Patterson. But since March last year – when the latest series ended with Patterson moving to London for “family reasons” – viewers have had one question: had Warrington left the series? “What I’d say to them was, ‘Wait and see’,” says Warrington, who is 74. “That was all I was allowed to say because ‘Has he?/Hasn’t he?’ was part of the story.” Having waited, viewers were rewarded with Patterson making cameos in last month’s Christmas specials of both Death in Paradise and its spin-off Beyond Paradise. And now, any concerns are laid to rest with the opening episode of the 15th series starting with Selwyn flying into the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie to resume his duties. Was that story arc always planned or does it reflect frantic background negotiations between actor and producers? Had Warrington ever at any point actually left the series? “No, I hadn’t,” he insists. “They came to me and told me the plan for the character and it seemed to me a good way to expand the series. Because Commissioner Patterson comes back with a different energy. But I love speculation. It’s such fun. Rumour is wonderful.” The reaction to his possible departure must have been flattering – especially from a series that has been written to accommodate cast rotation with Ben Miller, Kris Marshall, Ardal O’Hanlon, Ralf Little and Don Gilet having now played the lead role of a British cop seconded from London. “Well, it came as a shock to me, I have to say,” admits Warrington. “I thought it would just pass by under the radar and we’d carry on. But, apparently, there has been an outcry. It’s flattering and I would be dishonest if I said it wasn’t. But it came as a surprise to realise how deeply the characters had got into the consciousness of the public.”…

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Night vision
type: item
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: App
subject: App features
description: How do you follow the success of The Night Manager without John le Carré? The answer came to writer David Farr in a dream…
encoded: The Night Manager starts on New Year's Day 9.00pm BBC One. Add it to your watchlist After its huge success, audiences and producers wanted a second series. But despite The Night Manager winning three Emmys, a pair of Baftas and Golden Globes and selling to 180 countries, it will have been almost a decade since the February 2016 UK premiere that the second series arrives on our screens this winter. The main reason for this is that the initial six episodes – featuring the pursuit of arms dealer Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie) by reluctant hotelier-turned-spy Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston) – were based on a novel by John le Carré, and no second book existed. “No one has ever taken le Carré beyond le Carré source material [on screen] before,” says David Farr, screenwriter of both series. “And so there’s a humility. We finished the first one and no one knew it would be such a big success.” Once it was, there were discussions about a sequel, though not involving Farr. “I was engaged in doing a TV version of Hanna, the film I wrote for Joe Wright. So there were chats about a Night Manager 2 and they came to me about it, but I wasn’t available,” Farr says. The 2022 book A Private Spy: the Letters of John le Carré include a letter in December 2018 to the playwright Sir Tom Stoppard reporting that: “The sequel to The Night Manager is suddenly happening… with the old gang minus Tom Hollander, whose part I so carelessly despatched.” Hollander played “Corky”, Roper’s quirkily vicious sidekick. The novelist killing off such a memorable character might be seen as a clue that he envisaged no continuation. But le Carré, who loved the TV version of The Night Manager, may have also become pernickety about television, telling Stoppard that he was “very disappointed” with the BBC’s 2018 adaptation of his novel The Little Drummer Girl. For whatever reason, the Night Manager sequel went to sleep. As, in late 2020, did Farr, waking early from a vivid dream: “I knew that le Carré and his wife, …

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The Night Manager season 2 writer reveals why new episodes are perfect for this Trump era – and talks plans for a trilogy
type: item
date: 2025-12-08T17:01:29.000Z
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Screenwriter David Farr tells us how a vivid dream and a decade of global upheaval brought The Night Manager back to life.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. After its huge success, audiences and producers wanted a second series. But despite The Night Manager winning three Emmys, a pair of Baftas and Golden Globes and selling to 180 countries, it will have been almost a decade since the February 2016 UK premiere that the second series arrives on our screens this winter. The main reason for this is that the initial six episodes – featuring the pursuit of arms dealer Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie) by reluctant hotelier-turned-spy Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston) – were based on a novel by John le Carré, and no second book existed. “No one has ever taken le Carré beyond le Carré source material [on screen] before,” says David Farr, screenwriter of both series. “And so there’s a humility. We finished the first one and no one knew it would be such a big success.” Once it was, there were discussions about a sequel, though not involving Farr. “I was engaged in doing a TV version of Hanna, the film I wrote for Joe Wright. So there were chats about a Night Manager 2 and they came to me about it, but I wasn’t available,” Farr says. The 2022 book A Private Spy: the Letters of John le Carré include a letter in December 2018 to the playwright Sir Tom Stoppard reporting that: “The sequel to The Night Manager is suddenly happening… with the old gang minus Tom Hollander, whose part I so carelessly despatched.” Hollander played “Corky”, Roper’s quirkily vicious sidekick. The novelist killing off such a memorable character might be seen as a clue that he envisaged no continuation. But le Carré, who loved the TV version of The Night Manager, may have also become pernickety about television, telling Stoppard that he was “very disappointed” with the BBC’s 2018 adaptation of his novel The Little Drummer Girl. For whatever reason, the Night Manager sequel went to sleep. As, in late 2020, did Farr, waking early from a vivid dream: “I knew that le Carré and his wife, Jane, were ill, so perhaps they…

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If Donald Trump destroys the BBC, there would be a horrible historical logic – so here's who I would pick as Tim Davie's replacement
type: item
date: 2025-11-18T14:00:32.000Z
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: Current Affairs
subject: TV
subject: Comment
subject: Magazine
description: With editorial failures and resignations at the top of the BBC, as well as the threat of an American takeover at ITV, broadcasting as we know it is facing the greatest challenge it has ever seen, writes Mark Lawson.
encoded: Historians may cite last week as the beginning of the end for British broadcasting. On Remembrance Sunday, 9 November, both the BBC and ITV faced threats to their existence as we know them. As the corporation lost its two most senior editorial figures at once – director-general Tim Davie and chief executive of news Deborah Turness resigned over the handling of complaints about an episode of Panorama that misleadingly edited a speech by President Trump – ITV was considering a reported bid of £1.6 billion from Comcast (the American owners of Sky) for all of its on-air networks and the ITVX streaming site. The ITV story is simply financial. Television advertising and sponsorship are collapsing and so ITV’s shareholders perhaps hope to release the value in the broadcast business before it falls further. The logic for Comcast is presumably the possibility of selling advertising and subscriptions across a super suite of digital and terrestrial channels. However, as ITV Studios, which provides most of ITV’s content, would now be separately owned, it’s unclear how the supply line of shows such as Coronation Street and I’m a Celebrity… might be affected in future. The BBC situation is also financial, though complicatedly and now doubly so. It is massively funded (and its pension scheme underwritten) by £3.66 billion of licence-fee income. But support for what some see as a legally enforced broadcasting tax has reduced during a series of scandals – and dissent will surely have been accelerated by recent events. Negotiation with the Government of a new BBC Charter (from 2027) – including funding methods – starts next month, though with the BBC currently lacking a team to attend and a Trump lawsuit still hanging over them. Having threatened to sue for $1 billion unless he received an apology and compensation he regarded as adequate, last week Trump got a qualified “sorry” (though the BBC still claims the speech tampering was accidental) and no money. Trump has not publicly acce…

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Is this the end of British TV as we know it?
type: item
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: App
subject: App features
description: With editorial failures and resignations at the top of the BBC, as well as the threat of an American takeover at ITV, broadcasting as we know it is facing the greatest challenge it has ever seen
encoded: Historians may cite last week as the beginning of the end for British broadcasting. On Remembrance Sunday, 9 November, both the BBC and ITV faced threats to their existence as we know them. As the corporation lost its two most senior editorial figures at once – director-general Tim Davie and chief executive of news Deborah Turness resigned over the handling of complaints about an episode of Panorama that misleadingly edited a speech by President Trump – ITV was considering a reported bid of £1.6 billion from Comcast (the American owners of Sky) for all of its on-air networks and the ITVX streaming site. The ITV story is simply financial. Television advertising and sponsorship are collapsing and so ITV’s shareholders perhaps hope to release the value in the broadcast business before it falls further. The logic for Comcast is presumably the possibility of selling advertising and subscriptions across a super suite of digital and terrestrial channels. However, as ITV Studios, which provides most of ITV’s content, would now be separately owned, it’s unclear how the supply line of shows such as Coronation Street and I’m a Celebrity… might be affected in future. The BBC situation is also financial, though complicatedly and now doubly so. It is massively funded (and its pension scheme underwritten) by £3.66 billion of licence-fee income. But support for what some see as a legally enforced broadcasting tax has reduced during a series of scandals – and dissent will surely have been accelerated by recent events. Negotiation with the Government of a new BBC Charter (from 2027) – including funding methods – starts next month, though with the BBC currently lacking a team to attend and a Trump lawsuit still hanging over them. Having threatened to sue for $1 billion unless he received an apology and compensation he regarded as adequate, last week Trump got a qualified “sorry” (though the BBC still claims the speech tampering was accidental) and no money. Trump has not publicly acce…

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Love across the divide
type: item
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Louise Kennedy’s novel Trespasses charts the dangers of inter-faith relationships during the Troubles – now it’s a Channel 4 drama
encoded: Add Trespasses to your watchlist For all the terribly consequential religious divisions in Northern Ireland, Catholic and Anglican services share an almost identical prayer. Known as the ‘Our Father’ (or the Lord’s Prayer), it contains the lines: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. “It’s certainly the first prayer I learnt in childhood,” remembers the novelist Louise Kennedy, who was born in Holywood, County Down and grew up in Dublin and Kildare. “And it’s a word that’s not really used in normal speech. I remember thinking – ‘trespasses, isn’t that a mad word?’ – it’s sort of a sin, but more than that.” Around five decades later, Kennedy repurposed the plea for divine forgiveness as the title of her 2022 debut novel; Trespasses was shortlisted for the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction and is now the source material for a four-part Channel 4 drama. The story is set in Northern Ireland in 1975 – during the Troubles of the Catholic-Protestant conflict – where single Catholic school teacher Cushla and married Protestant civil rights lawyer Michael begin an intense affair. “That’s a religious and moral trespass,” says Kennedy. “But there’s other trespassing going on in the book, along class lines and even geographical lines, because Cushla goes to parts of Belfast she wouldn’t normally.” So, in essence – and this may be hard for some younger viewers to believe – it’s the story of how loving the wrong person could be a death penalty? “Absolutely,” confirms the novelist. “There were tarrings and featherings and assassinations because of relationships. There was constant judgement and suspicion.” In the book, the violence suffered by one supporting character for having a so-called “mixed marriage” [Catholic-Protestant] is shocking but, on screen, we flinch at the camera’s clinical examination of swelling, bruises, scabs, stitches. Kennedy thinks the brutal detail is important: “When I was about 12, we were sent to go and find something in …

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Trespasses author reveals hopes for Northern Ireland’s future as Channel 4 drama arrives on screens
type: item
date: 2025-11-04T00:01:24.000Z
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Louise Kennedy’s novel Trespasses charts the dangers of inter-faith relationships during the Troubles – now it’s a Channel 4 drama.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. For all the terribly consequential religious divisions in Northern Ireland, Catholic and Anglican services share an almost identical prayer. Known as the ‘Our Father’ (or the Lord’s Prayer), it contains the lines: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. “It’s certainly the first prayer I learnt in childhood,” remembers the novelist Louise Kennedy (inset, below), who was born in Holywood, County Down and grew up in Dublin and Kildare. “And it’s a word that’s not really used in normal speech. I remember thinking – ‘trespasses, isn’t that a mad word?’ – it’s sort of a sin, but more than that.” Around five decades later, Kennedy repurposed the plea for divine forgiveness as the title of her 2022 debut novel; Trespasses was shortlisted for the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction and is now the source material for a four-part Channel 4 drama. The story is set in Northern Ireland in 1975 – during the Troubles of the Catholic-Protestant conflict – where single Catholic school teacher Cushla and married Protestant civil rights lawyer Michael begin an intense affair. “That’s a religious and moral trespass,” says Kennedy. “But there’s other trespassing going on in the book, along class lines and even geographical lines, because Cushla goes to parts of Belfast she wouldn’t normally.” View oEmbed on the source website So, in essence – and this may be hard for some younger viewers to believe – it’s the story of how loving the wrong person could be a death penalty? “Absolutely,” confirms the novelist. “There were tarrings and featherings and assassinations because of relationships. There was constant judgement and suspicion.” In the book, the violence suffered by one supporting character for having a so-called “mixed marriage” [Catholic-Protestant] is shocking but, on screen, we flinch at the camera’s clinical examination of swelling, bruises, scabs, stitches. Kennedy thinks the brutal detail is impor…

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height: 1200

Slow Horses gallops ahead
type: item
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Perhaps even Jackson Lamb’s slowest horses aren’t quite ready for the knacker’s yard? Christopher Chung, Aimee-Ffion Edwards and Tom Brooke are hot to trot
encoded: Season five of Slow Horses begins on Apple TV+ on Wednesday 24 September. Add it to your watchlist Actors in the Harry Potter movies famously used to rush to read each new book to find out what their characters would be doing next. It’s little surprise, then, to hear that the cast of Apple TV+’s acclaimed spy series Slow Horses, also plotted far ahead in the source material, turn to Mick Herron’s novels in a similar way. After all, at least one failed spy seems to meet their maker each series... “I’ve always read ahead to make sure I don’t die and can pay my mortgage,” says 37-year-old Australian actor Christopher Chung, who returns as eccentric tech genius Roddy Ho in the fifth season of the drama, which begins this week. “When I first got the role, I checked out the books that had come out at the time to see if Roddy had a prominent role in any of them – which he really did in the fifth one, London Rules. I always hoped we would get to play out its storyline.” So, in dramatic terms, is office menace Roddy the protagonist or antagonist this time around? “Oh, he’s always the antagonist!” laughs Chung. “But yes, he takes front and centre this season. He gets a girlfriend, which leads to much questioning from the other Slow Horses about how he’s pulled such a gorgeous woman.” Actors often want to play likeable people, but the abrasive, misogynistic Roddy can be spectacularly dislikeable. “You think so?” challenges Chung. “I would put him down to being misunderstood by everyone else. He lives in his own world. He’s a character people love to hate. The greatest compliment I get when people recognise me is: ‘You’re such an arsehole in that show. I absolutely love you.’ Which is wonderful, but an oxymoron.” In the first episode of season five, we get a glimpse of Roddy’s home life, with ornamental swords on the wall and Warhammer figures and protein shakes everywhere. “Yes, it’s over the top and man-child. It’s another example of the way that every season gives a little b…

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'It's very hard to let go'
type: item
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Will Smith on flatulence, Farage – and saying farewell
encoded: Add Slow Horses to your watchlist One of the biggest challenges for a returning TV series is maintaining freshness and avoiding repetition. And for Will Smith, serving as showrunner and lead writer for the fifth and final time on Slow Horses, this discussion even extended to how much the calorific and alcoholic diet of Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb – flatulent leader of a group of naughty-step spies exiled from MI5 – should repeat on him. “In this series, there were originally three farts,” says Smith. “One came from a story Gary told me – I hope he doesn’t mind me saying – about breaking wind in one of those cavernous restaurants where the sound bounces round the whole place, and there was another at the end. But in the course of the edit, we cut those two so there’s just the one now in episode three, which is a silent fart. So you never actually hear one in season five. It seems an odd thing to say, but we want the farts to be story-led.” Smith’s CV includes two of the best TV series about politics – the comedies The Thick of It and Veep, both with Armando Iannucci – making him a good fit with author Mick Herron, whose Slow Horses novels always reflect Westminster developments. While earlier series featured the shambolic Boris Johnson-like Peter Judd, season five has Dennis Gimball, a furious Eurosceptic modelled on Nigel Farage. “In the first book, which came out in 2010, there’s a line that actually predicts the UK leaving Europe,” says Smith. “So Mick’s always had a radar for these things. When the book London Rules came out, it was definitely about Brexit, but the TV version is more about right-wing populism and immigration, which suddenly feels even more topical than when we were making it. There’s not much doubt that Farage is the inspiration for Gimball, although Farage wasn’t even an MP when we made the series.” London Rules was also prescient in predicting the levels of public unrest and demonstrations that have been seen recently in Britain. “I don’t know h…

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'You want to add things that aren’t in the books'
type: item
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: App
subject: App features
description: As the crime drama returns for a fifth season, the actors tell us what we can expect from Shirley Dander and JK Coe this time round
encoded: Add Slow Horses to your watchlist Aimee-Ffion Edwards plays Shirley Dander Is it easier playing a returning character than a new role? There are new edges and spikes each time — and Shirley has a lot of edges and spikes. In a series based on books, there’s already a passionate following, so it makes the stakes higher as you have to meet people’s expectations. But also you want to add some things that aren’t in the books. What have you tried to add? I’ve tried to understand where her anger comes from. In the books, Shirley is very angry and ragey. We’ve tried to make her a bit more human. In London Rules, there’s a lot of detail about Shirley: 62 days clean of drugs, how many anger-management sessions she’s attended, the wrap of cocaine she carries in her pocket to celebrate the end of her treatment… As an actor, are they almost like stage directions for you? Yes. I remember reading all that in the book and thinking, “How do you show that?” You can’t have a camera in her pocket. But there’s a scene with River that lets us know it’s there and then you know why she often keeps a hand in that pocket. Her relationship with River becomes very important in this series. But it’s a platonic relationship — as are others between men and women in the show. This is still relatively rare in TV shows, isn’t it? Yes, it’s really refreshing. You don’t see many platonic male-female relationships on TV. There’s an expectation of sex and romance. But chemistry and sparks can be all sorts of things. Tom Brooke plays JK Coe Christopher Chung tells us he’s read all the books to find out what happens to his character. Have you done the same? I have now! I have to admit that initially I turned the role down. I said: “He doesn’t do anything.” And they said, “No, he does a lot later on,” to which I said, “I’ve heard that before!” Luckily, my wife had read the books. She said, “You idiot, you need to call them back immediately.” JK Coe does initially seem like a minor character. But as often h…

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Slow Horses showrunner on "emotional" exit and how Nigel Farage inspired season 5 story
type: item
date: 2025-09-15T23:01:44.000Z
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Apple TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Will Smith on flatulence, Farage – and saying farewell.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. One of the biggest challenges for a returning TV series is maintaining freshness and avoiding repetition. And for Will Smith, serving as showrunner and lead writer for the fifth and final time on Slow Horses, this discussion even extended to how much the calorific and alcoholic diet of Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb – flatulent leader of a group of naughty-step spies exiled from MI5 – should repeat on him. “In this series, there were originally three farts,” says Smith. “One came from a story Gary told me – I hope he doesn’t mind me saying – about breaking wind in one of those cavernous restaurants where the sound bounces round the whole place, and there was another at the end. But in the course of the edit, we cut those two so there’s just the one now in episode three, which is a silent fart. So you never actually hear one in season five. It seems an odd thing to say, but we want the farts to be story-led.” Smith’s CV includes two of the best TV series about politics – the comedies The Thick of It and Veep, both with Armando Iannucci – making him a good fit with author Mick Herron, whose Slow Horses novels always reflect Westminster developments. While earlier series featured the shambolic Boris Johnson-like Peter Judd, season five has Dennis Gimball, a furious Eurosceptic modelled on Nigel Farage. “In the first book, which came out in 2010, there’s a line that actually predicts the UK leaving Europe,” says Smith. “So Mick’s always had a radar for these things. When the book London Rules came out, it was definitely about Brexit, but the TV version is more about right-wing populism and immigration, which suddenly feels even more topical than when we were making it. There’s not much doubt that Farage is the inspiration for Gimball, although Farage wasn’t even an MP when we made the series.” London Rules was also prescient in predicting the levels of public unrest and demonstrations that have been seen recently in Brita…

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Slow Horses star reveals his new season 5 spotlight - and how he’d rather be James Bond than Q
type: item
date: 2025-09-15T23:01:22.000Z
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Apple TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Perhaps even Jackson Lamb’s slowest horses aren’t quite ready for the knacker’s yard? Christopher Chung is hot to trot.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Actors in the Harry Potter movies famously used to rush to read each new book to find out what their characters would be doing next. It’s little surprise, then, to hear that the cast of Apple TV+’s acclaimed spy series Slow Horses, also plotted far ahead in the source material, turn to Mick Herron’s novels in a similar way. After all, at least one failed spy seems to meet their maker each series... “I’ve always read ahead to make sure I don’t die and can pay my mortgage,” says 37-year-old Australian actor Christopher Chung, who returns as eccentric tech genius Roddy Ho in the fifth season of the drama, which begins this week. “When I first got the role, I checked out the books that had come out at the time to see if Roddy had a prominent role in any of them – which he really did in the fifth one, London Rules. I always hoped we would get to play out its storyline.” So, in dramatic terms, is office menace Roddy the protagonist or antagonist this time around? “Oh, he’s always the antagonist!” laughs Chung. “But yes, he takes front and centre this season. He gets a girlfriend, which leads to much questioning from the other Slow Horses about how he’s pulled such a gorgeous woman.” Actors often want to play likeable people, but the abrasive, misogynistic Roddy can be spectacularly dislikable. “You think so?” challenges Chung. “I would put him down to being misunderstood by everyone else. He lives in his own world. He’s a character people love to hate. The greatest compliment I get when people recognise me is: ‘You’re such an arsehole in that show. I absolutely love you.’ Which is wonderful, but an oxymoron.” In the first episode of season five, we get a glimpse of Roddy’s home life, with ornamental swords on the wall and Warhammer figures and protein shakes everywhere. “Yes, it’s over the top and man-child. It’s another example of the way that every season gives a little bit more detail about the characters. I worked w…

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'The case is ongoing'
type: item
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Richard Marquise was the first FBI agent on the scene of the Lockerbie disaster. Now he’s advising on a drama adaptation that promises to cast new light on the story
encoded: Add The Bombing of Pan Am 103 to your watchlist Until 21 December 1988, the Frankfurt-London-New York-Detroit transatlantic route with the US airline Pan Am, was designated Flight 103. But, as is standard practice after an aviation disaster, those numerals were retired when the plane was blown apart by a bomb over Lockerbie, south-west Scotland, killing 243 passengers, 16 crew and 11 people on the ground. The first FBI agent to arrive at the crime scene was Richard “Dick” Marquise, who is now long retired, although the case remains to some extent open. “Lockerbie has literally been almost half my life,” says Marquise on the phone from his Florida home. “I was 41 when it happened and I’m about to be 78, but it’s still a big part of my life.” As an adviser on a six-part BBC drama, The Bombing of Pan Am 103 – for which one of the sources is his 2006 book, Scotbom: Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation – Marquise recently spent more than a year working with producers and actors, and visited the filming in Scotland. (In an increasingly common practice due to the huge cost of making a drama, The Bombing of Pan Am 103 will be shown in a UK “first window” on 18 May ahead of a later global release on Netflix, a co-producer.) In the drama, there’s a striking scene in which, as Marquise (played by Suits actor Patrick J Adams) prepares to fly to the UK to start the investigation, his wife tells him to keep thinking that it could have been their own sons on that plane; the FBI officer replies that he has to be rational, not emotional. Is that scene true to his working personality? Marquise laughs: “No! Viewers may think I’m an – pardon my French – asshole, but I understand why they’ve done it. There’s a scene where someone says: ‘I hope Dick has a heart under that suit of his.’ They’re portraying my character not so much as heartless but as devoted to the mission. Is that 100 per cent me? No. But I accept it for dramatic reasons.” The Bombing of Pan Am 103 focuses on hostilit…

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The Bombing of Pan Am 103 will tell Lockerbie story "more accurately", says FBI investigator
type: item
date: 2025-05-12T23:01:31.000Z
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: BBC
subject: Magazine
description: The BBC drama comes just months after the release of Sky's Lockerbie: A Search for Truth.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Until 21st December 1988, the Frankfurt-London-New York-Detroit transatlantic route with the US airline Pan Am, was designated Flight 103. But, as is standard practice after an aviation disaster, those numerals were retired when the plane was blown apart by a bomb over Lockerbie, south-west Scotland, killing 243 passengers, 16 crew and 11 people on the ground. The first FBI agent to arrive at the crime scene was Richard 'Dick' Marquise, who is now long retired, although the case remains to some extent open. “Lockerbie has literally been almost half my life,” says Marquise on the phone from his Florida home. “I was 41 when it happened and I’m about to be 78, but it’s still a big part of my life.” As an adviser on a six-part BBC drama, The Bombing of Pan Am 103 – for which one of the sources is his 2006 book, Scotbom: Evidence and the Lockerbie Investigation – Marquise recently spent more than a year working with producers and actors, and visited the filming in Scotland. (In an increasingly common practice due to the huge cost of making a drama, The Bombing of Pan Am 103 will be shown in a UK “first window” on 18 May ahead of a later global release on Netflix, a co-producer.) In the drama, there’s a striking scene in which, as Marquise (played by Suits actor Patrick J Adams) prepares to fly to the UK to start the investigation, his wife tells him to keep thinking that it could have been their own sons on that plane; the FBI officer replies that he has to be rational, not emotional. Is that scene true to his working personality? Marquise laughs: “No! Viewers may think I’m an – pardon my French – asshole, but I understand why they’ve done it. There’s a scene where someone says: ‘I hope Dick has a heart under that suit of his.’ They’re portraying my character not so much as heartless but as devoted to the mission. Is that 100 per cent me? No. But I accept it for dramatic reasons.” The Bombing of Pan Am 103 focuses on h…

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When sorry seems to be the hardest word
type: item
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: App
subject: App features
description: For the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, it’s taken 20 years and a TV drama to do what the law could not: tell the true story of his death
encoded: Add Suspect: the Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes to your watchlist Some of what happened to a young Brazilian electrician in London 20 summers ago was just horrific bad luck. For example, if he’d not been living in an apartment at an address associated with a man suspected of a recent terrorist attack on London, he would never have been tracked by police surveillance. But what happened next to Jean Charles de Menezes on 22 July 2005 was not misfortune; it was, it seems, gross police incompetence. Despite no positive identification of the suspect, the blameless 27-year-old was pursued onto a London Underground carriage, where he was shot dead by armed officers. Then came the lies. Rumours spread that the police were suspicious because their target ran from cops, vaulted a Tube barrier, was wearing bulky clothing in summer and was known to be an illegal immigrant or suspect in another investigation. None of that turned out to be true. But the falsehoods were so efficiently rooted that many may still believe them today. And following de Menezes’s death, no individual police officer has ever been blamed or disciplined (although the office of Sir Ian Blair, the then Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, was fined for a breach of health and safety law). Two decades on, Suspect: the Shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes, a four-part Disney+ drama, aims to expose the police errors and correct the reputation of a completely innocent victim. “We hope the series will improve people’s knowledge of the story,” says Maria, de Menezes’s mother, speaking through a translator on a trip to London to support the series. “This drama is finally revealing all the lies by the police.” “It was hard for us to watch,” admits Giovanni, de Menezes’s brother. “There are parts of the film my mum has said she never wants to watch again. There are scenes that brought everything back; Mum started to cry.” For all this pain, there was some financial compensation from the British government – “I…

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Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes 'finally reveals police lies', says victim's mother
type: item
date: 2025-04-22T14:22:22.000Z
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Disney Plus
subject: Magazine
subject: On demand
description: For the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, it’s taken 20 years and a TV drama to do what the law could not: tell the true story of his death.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Some of what happened to a young Brazilian electrician in London 20 summers ago was just horrific bad luck. For example, if he’d not been living in an apartment at an address associated with a man suspected of a recent terrorist attack on London, he would never have been tracked by police surveillance. But what happened next to Jean Charles de Menezes on 22 July 2005 was not misfortune; it was, it seems, gross police incompetence. Despite no positive identification of the suspect, the blameless 27-year-old was pursued onto a London Underground carriage, where he was shot dead by armed officers. Then came the lies. Rumours spread that the police were suspicious because their target ran from cops, vaulted a Tube barrier, was wearing bulky clothing in summer and was known to be an illegal immigrant or suspect in another investigation. None of that turned out to be true. But the falsehoods were so efficiently rooted that many may still believe them today. And following de Menezes’s death, no individual police officer has ever been blamed or disciplined (although the office of Sir Ian Blair, the then Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, was fined for a breach of health and safety law). Two decades on, Suspect: the Shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes, a four-part Disney Plus drama, aims to expose the police errors and correct the reputation of a completely innocent victim. "We hope the series will improve people’s knowledge of the story," says Maria, de Menezes’s mother, speaking through a translator on a trip to London to support the series. "This drama is finally revealing all the lies by the police." “It was hard for us to watch,” admits Giovanni, de Menezes’s brother. “There are parts of the film my mum has said she never wants to watch again. There are scenes that brought everything back; Mum started to cry.” For all this pain, there was some financial compensation from the British government – “It helped with …

'It's light, dark... complicated'
type: item
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: App
subject: App features
subject: App archive 100
description: The creator and stars of BBC detective drama Virdee on breaking the mould, making Bradford sexy and bringing the shocking new series to our screens…
encoded: This article was first published in Radio Times magazine in February 2025. Add Virdee to your watchlist Viewers may think that by now every possible type of fictional and television detective has appeared. But Amit Dhand, growing up in Bradford as a voracious reader of crime fiction, was conscious of a gap. “I felt there wasn’t a South Asian character in an on-screen drama in the western world,” the 45-year-old author explains. “I grew up at a time when Goodness Gracious Me was viral. There were some really amazing global comics who were killing it. But no one had really done drama. So, I started writing Harry Virdee because I wanted to see him represented in the way I see myself. And I wanted his character to mirror the city of Bradford – light, dark, complicated.” Virdee, a detective of Indian heritage, has so far featured in four novels, starting with Streets of Darkness, which was published in 2016. The fifth in the series, The Chemist, is due in May, when its sales will surely be boosted by the upcoming six-part BBC1 series, adapted by the author from his first book. View oEmbed on the source website As well as introducing a South Asian detective and promoting Bradford, Virdee is also relatively unusual in that the lead character is happily married. This again, says Dhand, was a deliberate correction of a trend: “I was aware that detectives tended to be divorcees or womanisers. Virdee is a love story wrapped around a crime thriller. I wanted a detective whose family life was the strongest thing in his world.” The twist – and part of the powerful originality of Virdee – is that Harry and Saima’s happy marriage makes others very unhappy. Both have Indian backgrounds but he is a Sikh, she a Gujarati Muslim, a union that some in their families find unacceptable due to tensions going back to the 1947 Partition of India by the departing British colonial overlords, which created two nations, India and Pakistan, along largely religious lines. “It’s an inter-faith marri…

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Virdee is a love story wrapped around a crime thriller, says author Amit Dhand
type: item
date: 2025-02-04T00:01:21.000Z
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: BBC
subject: BBC iPlayer
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Dhand, Staz Nair and Aysha Kala spoke with Radio Times magazine about their new BBC crime drama.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Viewers may think that by now every possible type of fictional and television detective has appeared. But Amit Dhand, growing up in Bradford as a voracious reader of crime fiction, was conscious of a gap. “I felt there wasn’t a South Asian character in an on-screen drama in the western world,” the 45-year-old author explains. “I grew up at a time when Goodness Gracious Me was viral. There were some really amazing global comics who were killing it. But no one had really done drama. So, I started writing Harry Virdee because I wanted to see him represented in the way I see myself. And I wanted his character to mirror the city of Bradford – light, dark, complicated.” Virdee, a detective of Indian heritage, has so far featured in four novels, starting with Streets of Darkness, which was published in 2016. The fifth in the series, The Chemist, is due in May, when its sales will surely be boosted by the upcoming six-part BBC One series, adapted by the author from his first book. As well as introducing a South Asian detective and promoting Bradford, Virdee is also relatively unusual in that the lead character is happily married. This again, says Dhand, was a deliberate correction of a trend: “I was aware that detectives tended to be divorcees or womanisers. Virdee is a love story wrapped around a crime thriller. I wanted a detective whose family life was the strongest thing in his world.” The twist – and part of the powerful originality of Virdee – is that Harry and Saima’s happy marriage makes others very unhappy. Both have Indian backgrounds but he is a Sikh, she a Gujarati Muslim, a union that some in their families find unacceptable due to tensions going back to the 1947 Partition of India by the departing British colonial overlords, which created two nations, India and Pakistan, along largely religious lines. “It’s an inter-faith marriage,” says Dhand. “We’ve seen a lot of Catholic-Protestant, Catholic-Jewish couple…

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'I forgot all the twists'
type: item
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: App
subject: App features
description: The danger of adapting suspense novels is that viewers know the ending – but even author Harlan Coben can’t remember what happens…
encoded: Add Missing You to your watchlist The books of Harlan Coben are published, at the last count he was given, in 54 regions and numerous languages, including Korean, Japanese and Persian. With delays for translation and export, though, they can take years to reach foreign audiences. “But with Missing You on TV,” he enthuses, “on 1 January, someone at Netflix presses a button and this show will be on in 190 countries. I love the international aspect of it.” Geographical spread is significant in another way when it comes to Coben’s TV work. Missing You, adapted from his 2014 novel of the same name, moves the story of a cop mourning her dead father and vanished lover from New York to England, a consequence of the author’s collaboration with Manchester-based producer Nicola Shindler, who previously relocated his novels Stay Close and Fool Me Once, which is one of Netflix’s top-rated series globally and has been watched by over 98 million viewers. “I’ve done a number of books with Nicola and the same team,” Coben, 63, says. “We talk to the writer [adapting it for the screen] about making the book their own and that may mean moving the story to England. But I’ve got shows coming up set in Poland and Argentina. A lot of effort goes into deciding which book goes where.” Some novelists take the TV cash and an executive producer credit and stay at home writing the next book, but Coben is keen to be part of the screen team. “In the British shows, such as Missing You, I’m very involved,” he says. “With a foreign-language one, I’m more at a distance.” The linguistic promiscuity of Coben adaptations has been there from the start. His first screen work was Ne le dis à personne, taken from his book Tell No One, followed onto French TV by Une chance de trop (No Second Chance) and Juste un regard (Just One Look). Why such a strong French connection? “I’m one of the few American writers who sells more outside the US than in it, so I’ve always had a big relationship with European audience…

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Harlan Coben on Missing You and his next series: "A little more of a ghost story"
type: item
date: 2025-01-07T00:01:53.000Z
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
subject: Netflix
subject: On demand
description: The popular novelist sat down with Radio Times to discuss his streaming projects.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. The books of Harlan Coben are published, at the last count he was given, in 54 regions and numerous languages, including Korean, Japanese and Persian. With delays for translation and export, though, they can take years to reach foreign audiences. "But with Missing You on TV," he enthuses, "on 1st January, someone at Netflix presses a button and this show will be on in 190 countries. I love the international aspect of it." Geographical spread is significant in another way when it comes to Coben’s TV work. Missing You, adapted from his 2014 novel of the same name, moves the story of a cop mourning her dead father and vanished lover from New York to England, a consequence of the author’s collaboration with Manchester-based producer Nicola Shindler, who previously relocated his novels Stay Close and Fool Me Once, which is one of Netflix’s top-rated series globally and has been watched by over 98 million viewers. "I’ve done a number of books with Nicola and the same team," Coben, 63, says. "We talk to the writer [adapting it for the screen] about making the book their own and that may mean moving the story to England. But I’ve got shows coming up set in Poland and Argentina. A lot of effort goes into deciding which book goes where." Some novelists take the TV cash and an executive producer credit and stay at home writing the next book, but Coben is keen to be part of the screen team. "In the British shows, such as Missing You, I’m very involved," he says. "With a foreign-language one, I’m more at a distance." The linguistic promiscuity of Coben adaptations has been there from the start. His first screen work was Ne le dis à personne, taken from his book Tell No One, followed onto French TV by Une chance de trop (No Second Chance) and Juste un regard (Just One Look). Why such a strong French connection? "I’m one of the few American writers who sells more outside the US than in it, so I’ve always had a big relationship w…

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'The SAS has struggled with the tension between celebrity and secrecy'
type: item
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: App
subject: App features
description: The SAS don’t get enough credit for the brains behind their balaclavas, says Ben Macintyre
encoded: Add SAS Rogue Heroes to your watchlist One of the strangest stories of the last 50 years is how a top secret organisation became a global entertainment franchise. A second series of SAS Rogue Heroes, based on Ben Macintyre’s book about British special operations during the Second World War, swells an already popular genre. This includes 14 civilian or celebrity runs of Channel 4’s reality show SAS: Who Dares Wins; the movie Operation Mincemeat (based on another Macintyre book) and its West End musical spin-off; several TV documentaries; and Guy Ritchie’s film The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, based on a book by historian Damien Lewis. “It is extraordinary,” says Macintyre. “I actually think it’s wonderful that the SAS has all these different entertainment iterations.” But, as the regiment’s regular historian, does he have a sense of what the not-so-secret soldiers make of now being in the running for Baftas and Oliviers rather than a Victoria Cross? “I would hesitate to give a collective view from the SAS. Certainly, the Regimental Association thinks SAS Rogue Heroes is brilliant. And I think they are grateful for the way it presents the past. “I get the impression, though this is speculative, that they are less happy with the Who Dares Wins how-butch-are-you stuff, because that’s a bit more simplistic. But look, the SAS, ever since 1980, has struggled with the tension between the celebrity of the organisation and the need for secrecy. There is a conflict between the clear public hunger for stories about the SAS and the need not to share what they do. And I think that balance has become more and more fascinating.” The dating of this contradiction to 1980 is precise. On 5 May that year, regular UK TV schedules were suspended to show SAS soldiers swinging on ropes into the Iranian embassy in west London in attempt to free 25 hostages (one had been killed the previous day), who had been held there by gunmen for six days. The paradox of Operation Nimrod – a covert …

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SAS Rogue Heroes 'is not a history lesson – that would be unwatchable' says author
type: item
date: 2024-12-10T10:45:17.000Z
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: BBC iPlayer
subject: BBC One
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Author Ben Macintyre spoke with the Radio Times for the Christmas double issue.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. One of the strangest stories of the last 50 years is how a top secret organisation became a global entertainment franchise. A second series of SAS Rogue Heroes, based on Ben Macintyre’s book about British special operations during the Second World War, swells an already popular genre. This includes 14 civilian or celebrity runs of Channel 4’s reality show SAS: Who Dares Wins; the movie Operation Mincemeat (based on another Macintyre book) and its West End musical spin-off; several TV documentaries; and Guy Ritchie’s film The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, based on a book by historian Damien Lewis. “It is extraordinary,” says Macintyre. “I actually think it’s wonderful that the SAS has all these different entertainment iterations.” But, as the regiment’s regular historian, does he have a sense of what the not-so-secret soldiers make of now being in the running for Baftas and Oliviers rather than a Victoria Cross? “I would hesitate to give a collective view from the SAS. Certainly, the Regimental Association thinks SAS Rogue Heroes is brilliant. And I think they are grateful for the way it presents the past. “I get the impression, though this is speculative, that they are less happy with the Who Dares Wins how-butch-are-you stuff, because that’s a bit more simplistic. But look, the SAS, ever since 1980, has struggled with the tension between the celebrity of the organisation and the need for secrecy. There is a conflict between the clear public hunger for stories about the SAS and the need not to share what they do. And I think that balance has become more and more fascinating.” The dating of this contradiction to 1980 is precise. On 5th May that year, regular UK TV schedules were suspended to show SAS soldiers swinging on ropes into the Iranian embassy in west London in attempt to free 25 hostages (one had been killed the previous day), who had been held there by gunmen for six days. The paradox of Operation Ni…

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Can Strictly Come Dancing get its groove back?
type: item
date: 2024-09-13T14:00:34.000Z
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: Entertainment
subject: TV
subject: Comment
description: As the BBC's flagship show returns to our screens after a summer of controversy, Mark Lawson wonders what it will take for Strictly to waltz into our hearts again.
encoded: Imagine if the 8.8 million viewers who watched last December’s final of Strictly Come Dancing were asked to score out of ten the show’s media coverage ahead of this week’s launch of series 22. It’s likely that the numbers on the ping-pong bats would make judge Craig Revel Horwood, even at his most boo-provokingly severe, seem relatively kind. Earlier this year, actor Amanda Abbington, who withdrew from the 2023 series in week five, accused her professional dance partner, Giovanni Pernice, of using unfairly demanding training methods. Although Pernice strenuously denied her accusations, in June the BBC announced he had left the series. Another professional dancer, Graziano Di Prima, will also be absent from the new run following reports in July that he kicked his partner, reality TV star Zara McDermott, during rehearsals last year. (He does not deny contact but has suggested it was accidental or clumsy.) By the time Paralympian Will Bayley alleged, later in July, that the BBC had shown “no duty of care” when he was injured during training in 2019, even the kindest, most constructive members of the fanbase – a sort of audience equivalent of soft-cop judge Motsi Mabuse – would have struggled not to wave a zero. Such was the public and media interest that when, a short time later, the BBC director-general Tim Davie launched the corporation’s annual report – containing a prominent photo of 2023 Strictly champions Ellie Leach and Vito Coppola and a shout-out in Davie’s list of the best BBC shows – he felt forced to address the loudly stamping feet on the dancefloor. “Alongside the fun and entertainment there will be a degree of competitiveness, hard work and a will to do well,” Davie said in a section added to his introductory speech. “That’s part of what makes this show. But there are limits and the line should never be crossed.” Taking questions from journalists, Davie stressed the BBC’s responsibilities to contestants and suggested that “safeguarding” would be increase…

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Can Strictly get its groove back?
type: item
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: App
subject: App features
description: As the BBC’s flagship entertainment show returns to our screens after a summer of controversy, Mark Lawson wonders what it will take for Strictly to waltz into our hearts again…
encoded: Add Strictly Come Dancing Launch Show to your watchlist Imagine if the 8.8 million viewers who watched last December’s final of Strictly Come Dancing were asked to score out of ten the show’s media coverage ahead of this week’s launch of series 22. It’s likely that the numbers on the ping-pong bats would make judge Craig Revel Horwood, even at his most boo-provokingly severe, seem relatively kind. Earlier this year, actor Amanda Abbington, who withdrew from the 2023 series in week five, accused her professional dance partner, Giovanni Pernice, of using unfairly demanding training methods. Although Pernice strenuously denied her accusations, in June the BBC announced he had left the series. Another professionl dancer, Graziano Di Prima, will also be absent from the new run following reports in July that he kicked his partner, reality TV star Zara McDermott, during rehearsals last year. (He does not deny contact but has suggested it was accidental or clumsy.) By the time Paralympian Will Bayley alleged, later in July, that the BBC had shown “no duty of care” when he was injured during training in 2019, even the kindest, most constructive members of the fanbase – a sort of audience equivalent of soft-cop judge Motsi Mabuse – would have struggled not to wave a zero. Such was the public and media interest that when, a short time later, the BBC director general Tim Davie launched the corporation’s annual report – containing a prominent photo of 2023 Strictly champions Ellie Leach and Vito Coppola and a shout-out in Davie’s list of the best BBC shows – he felt forced to address the loudly stamping feet on the dancefloor. “Alongside the fun and entertainment there will be a degree of competitiveness, hard work and a will to do well,” Davie said in a section added to his introductory speech. “That’s part of what makes this show. But there are limits and the line should never be crossed.” Taking questions from journalists, Davie stressed the BBC’s responsibilities to contesta…

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"Only when everyone's paid will I shut up"
type: item
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: App
subject: App features
description: The Post Office scandal made a hero of campaigner Jo Hamilton, but she’s still fighting for justice, discovers Mark Lawson
encoded: Add Mr Bates vs the Post Office: the Impact to your watchlist. When Sir Keir Starmer entered 10 Downing Street on 5 July, an email already awaited him from a Mrs Jo Hamilton of Hampshire. The wrongly convicted former subpostmistress (played by Monica Dolan in ITV1 drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office) urged him to do more than previous governments to settle the compensation claims of the still many hundreds of Post Office contractors who suffered combinations of imprisonment, disgrace, bankruptcy or mental destruction because of a faulty IT system that suggested they were pilfering from their tills. Hamilton says she hasn’t received a reply from the Prime Minister: “But, to be fair, he’s been very busy.” There was, though, a rapid invitation to meet Gareth Thomas, the junior minister in the Business and Trade department with Post Office responsibility. “So I met him, but then got sent the usual bollocks from civil servants. ‘It’s not our fault. It’s your lawyers and so on…’ How dare they? It was a carbon copy of a letter from a civil servant I’ve been shouting at for years. So I sent him a blaster back.” Emphasising her tenacity as a campaigner – which continues in Mr Bates vs the Post Office: the Impact, an ITV1 follow-up documentary – Hamilton also contacted the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, whom she met when he was a Labour member of the select committee investigating the scandal. “We got on OK at the select committee back in the day. And he sent me an email from his private account, which I guess doesn’t go through his stupid civil servants. So I have access to him directly. He assured me the business minister is on it. So we just hope.” Hamilton, who was wrongly convicted of stealing £36,000, is also a demanding constituent in North East Hampshire. She acclaims as a “superhero”, Lord (James) Arbuthnot, played by Alex Jennings in the drama, who helped to expose the cover-up and clear her name. But, when Arbuthnot retired, she found his Tory success…

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