Radio Times
type: channel
link: https://www.radiotimes.com
date: 2025-12-19T17:23:13.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
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"
items: Jo Hamilton on fighting for justice after the Post Office scandal: ‘I’m not scared of anything or anyone’
items: “As long as they keep it on air, I’ll do it”
items: Eccentric British Heroes
items: The Reckoning creators on controversy and responsibility of Savile drama
items: Nicola Walker on BBC One's Marriage, Unforgotten exit and future roles
items: Marriage creator "incredibly lucky" to get Nicola Walker and Sean Bean

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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Jo Hamilton on fighting for justice after the Post Office scandal: ‘I’m not scared of anything or anyone’
type: item
date: 2024-09-02T23:01:24.000Z
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Magazine
subject: News
description: "When all the original 555 people we represented have been paid, I'll feel I've done my job and can stop and will shut up and go away."
encoded: This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. When Sir Keir Starmer entered 10 Downing Street on 5th 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 suc…

“As long as they keep it on air, I’ll do it”
type: item
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: App
subject: App features
subject: App archive 100
description: Hollywood star Gary Oldman says Slow Horses is a career highlight – and he’s in it for the long haul
encoded: This article was first published in Radio Times magazine in September 2024. Add Slow Horses to your watchlist. When stars of a returning TV series start a new shoot, they expect fresh costumes, or at least the old clothes laundered. But for Gary Oldman – as shabby, malodorous disgraced spymaster Jackson Lamb in Apple TV+’s Slow Horses – the wardrobe department works hard to make everything look worse. “Each time we come back,” he says, “there’s a new greasy stain or cigarette burn on Jackson’s rain mac. This year, they really worked on the shoes to make them scruffier. But, essentially, it’s the same shoes with the same holey socks and I just go, ‘Hello, boys!’ ” The fourth season of Slow Horses (adapted from Mick Herron’s chart-topping novels about MI6 spooks sent into clerical-duty exile after mission failures) is a casting landmark for Oldman. After three appearances as James Gordon in Christopher Nolan’s Batman films and also a cameo trio in the Harry Potter movies, he has now played Lamb more times than any other character. A fifth Slow Horses has already been shot and Herron has written five more novels that, so far, have yet to be adapted. View oEmbed on the source website “I’m incredibly committed to Slow Horses and it keeps me busy,” Oldman says. “As long as they keep it on air, I’ll do it, although I won’t do it as long as Peter Falk did Columbo, however long that was.” Thirty-five years? “Right! I don’t have 35 years in me, but I do love the show and Lamb. I just come in and put the mac on and step right back into it. I really enjoy Lamb and being with this group of people we have.” Those regular co-stars include Jack Lowden, Kristin Scott Thomas, Rosalind Eleazar, Jonathan Pryce, Saskia Reeves and Christopher Chung. “It’s been a real highlight of my career. It’s up there with anything else. We’re like a theatre company so it’s no hardship picking it up again. And the return of this cast every time.” The returning cast... Ah. If not plot-spoiler, then plo…

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Eccentric British Heroes
type: item
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Guy Ritchie’s latest WWII romp is great entertainment. But what’s the darker truth behind the real mission the film is based on, asks historian Damien Lewis
encoded: Add The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare to your watchlist There are many reasons why Rishi Sunak lost the recent general election, but one was almost certainly the public’s fury at his early departure from the 80th anniversary D-Day commemorations in Normandy in June. Is it an example, I suggest to bestselling Second World War historian Damien Lewis (not to be confused with the actor Damian Lewis, of whom more later), of how Britain is still shaped by the conflict? “Absolutely. I was at some of the D-Day celebrations, which were very moving,” Lewis says. “And what struck me was how real it all was. There are still a few veterans with us, which helps. But I think it was actually made more real by the war in Ukraine, which I believe is a struggle for all our democratic freedoms. “The other thing is the electoral advance of the far right in France, which is chilling. We were on the Normandy beaches as a significant proportion of the French population were preparing to vote that way. Something I try to underline in my books is that freedom and democracy – those things we take for granted – actually have to be fought for every day. The lessons of the Second World War are paramount.” Lewis set out some of those lessons in his 2014 book The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, which covered secret operations during the war. One story from the book – about Operation Postmaster, a 1942 mission to capture German and Italian boats from a Spanish colony off the coast of west Africa – has now been turned into a film of the same name by Guy Ritchie, starring Henry Cavill as secret service pioneer Gus March-Phillipps and Alex Pettyfer as his second in command, Geoffrey Appleyard. The film swells a sub-genre of recent dramatisations of special wartime operations: most notably the movie and West End musical Operation Mincemeat, in which a stolen corpse is used to deceive Hitler, and the BBC1 series SAS: Rogue Heroes, where misfits and killers go behind enemy lines in north Africa. S…

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The Reckoning creators on controversy and responsibility of Savile drama
type: item
date: 2023-10-08T07:00:18.000Z
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Interview
description: Writer Neil McKay and producer Jeff Pope open up on the weight of responsibility when it came to tackling the story and crimes of Jimmy Savile.
encoded: My Zoom link opens to reveal the screenwriter Neil McKay wearing dark glasses and a baseball cap in a room with lights down and curtains drawn. His four-part drama The Reckoning, with Steve Coogan as Jimmy Savile, has been controversial – with objections that the story of the prolific sex offender should not be dramatised, especially not by the BBC, which employed him for more than 40 years. Does the writer not want to be seen? "Apologies," he says. "I’m not in disguise. A migraine just descended. I’ve got lights in my eyes and a pain at the back of my head, so I’m trying to simulate a darkened room." The fact that McKay declines an offer to defer the interview ­­– or leave it to Jeff Pope, producer of The Reckoning, who now joins us, fully lit, in another digital window – testifies to his desire to talk about a series that, in the three years since it was announced, has been subject to regular negative coverage led by The Sun newspaper. "Clearly, we realise how controversial the project is," says Pope. "When I asked Steve to do it, he didn’t immediately say yes, but talked to his family and friends. And they divided into two camps – you absolutely must do this, and you absolutely must not. There was no one in the middle. And it was that polarity that made him want to take it on." McKay acknowledges that he and Pope are used to a "degree of hostility". Titans of true-crime TV drama, their previous collaborations include This Is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper and dramas about the serial killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley (See No Evil: the Moors Murders) and Fred and Rose West (Appropriate Adult). As a result, they have had a long time to consider the common complaint that horrific crimes shouldn’t be turned into peak-time fiction. "I’ve faced that throughout my career," says Pope. "My view is that the quickest way to invite something like this to happen again is to ignore it. "I passionately believe we have to explore stories like Savile. The same is tru…

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Nicola Walker on BBC One's Marriage, Unforgotten exit and future roles
type: item
date: 2022-08-14T08:00:30.000Z
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: Drama
subject: TV
description: Speaking to Mark Lawson in the latest issue of Radio Times magazine, Nicola Walker says playing Sean Bean’s wife in an intimate new drama from the makers of Mum was harder than it looks.
encoded: This article was originally published in Radio Times magazine. Eight years ago, something happened that changed Nicola Walker’s attitude to acting. She was rehearsing A View from the Bridge, a revival of Arthur Miller’s classic of betrayal in an Italian-American family, which would become one of her career highs, transferring from the Young Vic to the West End and then Broadway. During an early run-through of one scene, the play’s director, Ivo van Hove, stopped her and suggested, gently, that she was overacting. “I was sobbing, saying, ‘You don’t want me to act. You want me to do what I would do in my kitchen!’ And Ivo said, ‘Yeah, do what you do in your kitchen with your partner’. It was a great wake- up call for me: ‘Just shut up and say the words. Don’t get in the way with your stupid acting.’ I’ve never forgotten that.” It’s possibly no coincidence that, the following year, 2015, Walker made her debut as DCI Cassie Stuart in ITV’s Unforgotten, creating one of television’s most understated but overwhelming characters. Further evidence of her low-key but high-impact style can be seen in BBC One’s Last Tango in Halifax, River and The Split. But it’s in Marriage, a new four-part drama written and directed by Stefan Golaszewski, that van Hove’s note about naturalistic acting proves most useful. For, as Emma, wife of Sean Bean’s Ian, Walker has long scenes actually in a kitchen. “Stefan had to really calm me down early on, because he said he did a lot of takes and suspected I wasn’t used to that. In all the telly I’ve done, if you’re not hitting the scene within three takes, you know you’re doing it wrong and wasting time. With Stefan, 12, 13, 14, 16 takes is not unusual. So, I spent the first week getting used to that. I was caught in that thing of gotta get it right, whereas Stefan is into you’ve gotta get it real, which takes longer.” A consequence of so frequently repeating action was revealed to Walker in a scene where Emma chews a chocolate bar. To reduce nause…

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Marriage creator "incredibly lucky" to get Nicola Walker and Sean Bean
type: item
date: 2022-08-13T07:00:24.000Z
creator: Mark Lawson
subject: Drama
subject: TV
description: How do you follow a huge hit like Mum? Speaking to Mark Lawson in the latest issue of Radio Times Magazine, Stefan Golaszewski has the answer...
encoded: This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. It might seem rude to say of a writer/director that his work looks neither written nor directed. But in the BBC Two comedy drama Mum, Stefan Golaszewski achieved an extraordinary low-key realism – more like being than acting – as Lesley Manville’s 59-year-old widow Kathy was tentatively courted by old friend Michael, played by Peter Mullan. In Golaszewski’s latest project, Marriage, both husband and wife, Ian (Sean Bean) and Emma (Nicola Walker), are still alive, but their relationship may not be. And as in Mum, everyday actions – shopping, watching TV, cleaning teeth before bed, etc – reveal complex doubts and desires through short sentences and long silences. “My aim is to get the actor to behave as people would in real life rather than in a way that would be most useful to the audience to make clear what is going on,” Golaszewski explains. “In so many shows the actor is encouraged to do the storytelling, to put a sort of highlighter pen over the character’s intentions or emotions. My note to actors is just do what the person is doing in that moment.” Landing Walker and Bean, fresh from their triumphs in Unforgotten and Jimmy McGovern’s prison drama Time respectively, is, he says, a showrunner’s dream come true. “I was incredibly lucky to get those two actors. People like Sean and Nicola – also Lesley and Peter in Mum – you don’t audition them, you just offer the part. So you don’t quite know what they will bring into the room and, in all cases, it was better than I could possibly have imagined.” The theme of Marriage is the micro-aggressions and micro-affections that mark a long marriage. Ian and Emma have been together for 30 years, but the show’s title alludes to other marriages, too: one mourned by Emma’s widowed father (James Bolam in a moving cameo), another that might be made by the couple’s daughter to a man they detest. “It’s supposed to be a network of reflections about relationships. Marri…

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