Jason Momoa's Chief of War pulls back the curtain on the 'real' Hawaii
If you want to get a taste of authentic island life away from the tourist hotspots, head this way…
As new Apple TV+ drama Chief of War was conceived by Jason Momoa to shed some light on the indigenous experience of Hawaiian tribes, and tells the little-known story of the bloody campaign to unite their warring kingdoms, I felt some sense of responsibility to echo this in my trip – albeit with some high-thread-count bedding. The first rule was to avoid Honolulu, surrounding island Oahu, and ‘The Big Island’ (Hawaii itself)… because thar be Taco Bells. The second rule was to try and glean some sense of an authentic experience whilst enjoying that comfort blanket of luxury. Tourism images often show a version of Hawaii filtered through social media, while Chief of War offers something different: a dramatic retelling of actual events through Native eyes, set against Hawaii’s own landscapes. A complete novice to Hawaii – which is quite common among Brits due to the length of the journey – I elect to spend some time in Lāna‘i, and Kauaʻi. The former, one of the least visited, is also the smallest: no traffic lights, one school for all ages, and just 30 miles of paved road. The latter is more a locals’ island: rainforest, strip malls, beach culture... and home to celebrities who no longer need to have LA on their doorstep. Request a brochure and get inspiration for your next holiday An 11-hour flight from New York under my belt (yes, we are talking about 20 hours total from the UK here), I lollop through Honolulu Airport to be met by a valet, who escorts me to my 12-person plane for the half-hour flight to Lāna‘i. Would it be this seamless if I weren’t staying at the Four Seasons (fourseasons.com) resort? Well, yes, this is a locals’ plane too – the choppy waves so loved by the global surfing community make inter-island boats quite the challenge. Four Seasons now makes up the majority of employment on Lāna‘i, which was once a pineapple plantation. In their two locations – the sprawling resort down at the beach, and adults-only Sensei located at an old lodge house in the ‘city’ – a genuine effort has been made to give you local flavour. That’s not only with the indigenous art and architectural touches in the resort, but classes which include lei-making, ukulele lessons and cultural tours. I take their 4x4 Holoholo Island trip, where I’m told by my guide that Lāna‘i is most likely named after Kauluāʻau, a Mauian prince banished here because of his wild pranks at his father’s court. Lāna‘i was said to be haunted by ghosts and goblins that Kauluāʻau chased away, bringing peace and order to the island – and it must have worked, as I spot neither. (There were plenty of stray cats, but the Lānaʻi Cat Sanctuary is working hard to rectify this. On visiting, you can sit amongst their furry residents as they crawl all over you.) Unlike the lush, drenched island to follow, Lānaʻi is sparse and alien, with its open plains and windswept rocky landscape. The scarcity of breadfruit trees, indigenous to all the other islands, is wrapped up in the Kauluāʻau legend – he ripped them all up, apparently. The Lānaʻi Cultural Centre, well worth a visit, tells the story of pre-Western contact, up to eras of ranching, plantation and tourism. It’s the lynchpin of authenticity on an island striving successfully to stay in touch with its roots (unless it’s the roots of breadfruit trees). View Green Video on the source website Over on Kauaʻi, known for its distinct dialect of the Hawaiian language, I pick up my rental, and immediately notice how much more tropical, and domestic, ‘The Garden Isle’ is. There are traffic lights, for one, but then supermarkets, restaurants, fuel stations... It’s lived-in. I arrive at beautiful The Cliffs at Princeville (cliffsatprinceville.com), overlooking Kauaʻi’s North Shore, wary that it doesn’t have air conditioning, but with the pleasant trade winds, this is never a problem. In fact, they pride themselves on their sustainability, committed to protecting the fragile local environment, including abundant cockerels who provide the entire island’s daily alarm clock. I’m a short drive outside Hanalei with its surf shacks, family-run restaurants such as Tahiti Nui and Bar Acuda, and from where you can catch a shuttle to the lush Hāʻena State Park. The town throngs with local life, right down to its picture-postcard beach, where I meet surf and shark photographer Mike Coots. He’s also a shark conservationist, with the twist in his backstory being Mike had his leg bitten off by a tiger shark. Two decades later, he found himself working on Discovery’s Shark Week, and, in a satisfying cyclical note, spending time with one of the hosts, Jason Momoa. Sign up to our mailing list to receive more content like this from Radio Times Travel, Shop and Money - click here Chief of War is an opportunity for visitors who want to better understand the islands, allowing them to engage differently. Of course, once it’s time for me brave the long flight home again, I suddenly want to see the ‘biggies’ I’ve missed: volcano park, Waikiki beach, Pearl Harbor... But the level of understanding of true island life gained on this trip is something that simply couldn’t be found on the main islands. You can fly to Hawaii with Virgin Atlantic and Delta, via Los Angeles. Chief of War starring Jason Momoa arrives on Apple TV+ on Friday 1 August – sign up to Apple TV+ now. Check out more of our Travel coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
From the outskirts of Sheffield to the Park stage at Glastonbury, Self Esteem is creating her own destiny – but still just feels like ‘Becky from Anston’
Add Glastonbury 2025 to your watchlist Rebecca Lucy Taylor, or Self Esteem as you may know her, is showing me a viral photo on her phone of a disapproving Rod Stewart, after I inform her that they’re going to be neighbours in Radio Times. “I’ve been using this image of Rod lately for memes… I’m a big Rod head”, she tells me, gleefully. “I’ve seen him live, but I always thought, if he gave me a ring and said, ‘put some high white stilettos on and be my backing singer’, I’d do it!” We meet at her record company offices in London on a glorious day, although, now at the tail end of the campaign for her latest album A Complicated Woman, she has been cooped up inside and merely able to look over the revellers in buzzy King Cross. Casually dressed in a vintage Levi’s jacket, her long blonde hair often played with for a touch of self-soothing, she’s gradually melting into the sofa, sustaining herself with energy drinks, clearly exhausted from a day – and many weeks before that – of talking to people like me. In fact, the only reason I’ve been able to shoehorn myself in is because she’s promoting the sustainability movement, “I Came by Train”, where she and other Glasto stars pledge to get themselves to Worthy Farm by rail instead of road. “They asked me to do a video for socials, and I went, ‘Choo, choo! It’s me! I’m going to Glastonbury by train because it’s 67 per cent less polluting for the environment!’” she shakes her head in mock despair. “So now everyone just comments ‘choo-choo!’” And yet, she has managed to get the message across, albeit in her own inimitable style… would I be writing about it if it wasn’t wrapped in typical Self Esteem self-effacement? Maybe it’s the Yorkshire sense of humour, maybe it’s the years upon years of struggling at the indie end of the music business as part of Sheffield band Slow Club, or maybe it’s just that awkward millennial blend of ambition, emotional armour, and existential dread, but somehow, we’ve arrived at a moment where 38- year-old Taylor and her on-stage moniker now find themselves hovering somewhere around success. “I definitely don’t see myself as famous at all,” she says. “But then if I said something offhand about a political issue, it might make some news and I might get a load of grief. So that’s a really weird place to be in because I’m just Becky from Anston.” She’s strutted many stages, from London’s West End to Glasto’s John Peel Stage (now Woodsies) – maybe even in Anston (a village just oustide Sheffield) – but for newcomers, how would she pitch herself? “Number one, I wouldn’t pitch. I can’t be bothered. I’d be like, ‘come or not, I don’t care.’” She leans thoughtfully back into the sofa, “But I call Self Esteem ‘salad and chips’, right? I’m obsessed with pop culture, pop music, pop stars, all the feminine tropes that you can think of – I love all that…” I’m assuming this is the chips, “…but then I’m also obsessed with reality and the truth and the horribleness of being alive and undercutting it all,” and this the less palatable salad. Self Esteem is an artist who channels the frustrations and ridiculousness of modern existence –particularly that of a woman –into music that’s designed to both provoke and be danced to. Her shows are performance pieces – silly, bombastic and affecting all at once. Please note the aforementioned Glasto performance where she wore a take on Madonna’s infamous conical bra, only in the form of the glass domes of Sheffield’s Meadowhall shopping centre. “That was more than just silly, because it’s territorial and it tells you where I’m from. It opened in 1990 and malls were American, exciting, and I’d never left the country… I’d barely left the village. It was a window into showbusiness, celebrity, shiny things and aspiration.” Talking of aspiration, there’s the small matter of recently starring as Sally Bowles in the 2023 London production of Cabaret, an experience that resonated with her in a few ways. “Sally wants to do whatever she wants. She’s partying, she’s crazy, she’s living outside of the norm. The idea of having a baby, a husband and a quiet life – peace and security – she has written that off, and so she’s doubling down on that other side of herself. I mean, if that ain’t me!” With Cabaret successfully under her garter, she doubled down on board-treading with a five-night theatrical presentation of her new album at London’s Duke of York’s Theatre, where there was a notable attendee. “I was told Madonna might be coming, but I didn’t want to know. So I got on with the show, and then halfway through, all the lights went down and I could see her, and I thought, ‘OK, great.’” Just ok, great? “The way I thrive under pressure is masochistic. Afterwards I thought, ‘F**k… she was there?!’” Such nonchalance, bolshiness and self-doubt can be heard in her 2021 breakthrough second album Prioritise Pleasure, particularly lead single I Do This All the Time: “All you need to do, darling, is fit in that little dress of yours; If you weren’t doing this, you’d be working in McDonald’s…” I put it to her that her compositions – which cover imposter syndrome, body issues and the patriarchy – are as much about a generational issue, specifically millennials, as they are feminist, switching between existential angst and trying to be the One in Charge. “Yeah, I don’t think they’re exclusively about being a woman. It’s sort of the curse of our generation, because we’re supposed to be the adults in the room now, and it just doesn’t feel like it. I feel like a big baby… I can’t believe I’m not 15!” And yet, this week, here she is leading a sizeable creative team to Somerset (by train). “It’s so wonderful to give opportunities to other people,” she says, “and to build up this family around yourself. It was lonely for a very long time, and now it’s quite joyful.” Her 2022 and 2025 Glastonbury slots will bookend the intervening years, which have seen a lot of creative and professional fulfilment. Is she planning anything special for her performance? “I don’t have an idea this year. I’m going to do my theatre show, and I’m going to be in those costumes, but I’m not going to subvert it. You’ll see another fun costume when I’ve got an idea. I’m not going to force it, you know?” It sounds as if the new thing she’s going to be bringing to the festival this year is a sense of agency. “I can create my own destiny now,” she agrees. “If the world is saying, ‘You shouldn’t look like that’, I [still] go through the emotions of embarrassment or shame… and then I’m like, oh, hang on a minute, I make the rules now. And so Self Esteem is mostly me just going through that circle, over and over.” With agency comes knowing your own worth. What if Rod Stewart did ask her to join him on stage this year? “Yeah – I mean – if there’s enough time to rehearse. And if I can source my own heels and mini skirt.” After years of uphill struggles it finally feels as if she’s on the right track. Choo-choo indeed – and full steam ahead for the Park Stage on Friday. A Complicated Woman is out now on Polydor Records. Self Esteem is touring the UK in September and October 2025, see selfesteem.love for ticket details
Self Esteem hints at Glastonbury team-up with Rod Stewart "if he gave me a ring"
The South Yorkshire star speaks to Radio Times magazine as the mega festival looms.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Rebecca Lucy Taylor, or Self Esteem, as you may know her, is showing me a viral photo on her phone of a disapproving Rod Stewart, after I inform her that they’re going to be neighbours in Radio Times. "I’ve been using this image of Rod lately for memes… I’m a big Rod head," she tells me, gleefully. "I’ve seen him live, but I always thought, if he gave me a ring and said, 'put some high white stilettos on and be my backing singer', I’d do it!" We meet at her record company offices in London on a glorious day, although, now at the tail end of the campaign for her latest album A Complicated Woman, she has been cooped up inside and merely able to look over the revellers in buzzy King Cross. Casually dressed in a vintage Levi’s jacket, her long blonde hair often played with for a touch of self-soothing, she’s gradually melting into the sofa, sustaining herself with energy drinks, clearly exhausted from a day – and many weeks before that – of talking to people like me. In fact, the only reason I’ve been able to shoehorn myself in is because she’s promoting the sustainability movement, “I Came by Train”, where she and other Glasto stars pledge to get themselves to Worthy Farm by rail instead of road. “They asked me to do a video for socials, and I went, ‘Choo, choo! It’s me! I’m going to Glastonbury by train because it’s 67 per cent less polluting for the environment!’” she shakes her head in mock despair. “So now everyone just comments ‘choo-choo!’” And yet, she has managed to get the message across, albeit in her own inimitable style… would I be writing about it if it wasn’t wrapped in typical Self Esteem self-effacement? Maybe it’s the Yorkshire sense of humour, maybe it’s the years upon years of struggling at the indie end of the music business as part of Sheffield band Slow Club, or maybe it’s just that awkward millennial blend of ambition, emotional armour, and existential dread, but somehow, we’ve arrived at a moment where 38- year-old Taylor and her on-stage moniker now find themselves hovering somewhere around success. “I definitely don’t see myself as famous at all,” she says. “But then if I said something offhand about a political issue, it might make some news and I might get a load of grief. So that’s a really weird place to be in because I’m just Becky from Anston.” She’s strutted many stages, from London’s West End to Glasto’s John Peel Stage (now Woodsies) – maybe even in Anston (a village just outside Sheffield) – but for newcomers, how would she pitch herself? “Number one, I wouldn’t pitch. I can’t be bothered. I’d be like, ‘come or not, I don’t care.’” She leans thoughtfully back into the sofa, “But I call Self Esteem ‘salad and chips’, right? I’m obsessed with pop culture, pop music, pop stars, all the feminine tropes that you can think of – I love all that…” I’m assuming this is the chips, “…but then I’m also obsessed with reality and the truth and the horribleness of being alive and undercutting it all,” and this the less palatable salad. Self Esteem is an artist who channels the frustrations and ridiculousness of modern existence –particularly that of a woman –into music that’s designed to both provoke and be danced to. Her shows are performance pieces – silly, bombastic and affecting all at once. Please note the aforementioned Glasto performance where she wore a take on Madonna’s infamous conical bra, only in the form of the glass domes of Sheffield’s Meadowhall shopping centre. “That was more than just silly, because it’s territorial and it tells you where I’m from. It opened in 1990 and malls were American, exciting, and I’d never left the country… I’d barely left the village. It was a window into show business, celebrity, shiny things and aspiration.” Talking of aspiration, there’s the small matter of recently starring as Sally Bowles in the 2023 London production of Cabaret, an experience that resonated with her in a few ways. “Sally wants to do whatever she wants. She’s partying, she’s crazy, she’s living outside of the norm. The idea of having a baby, a husband and a quiet life – peace and security – she has written that off, and so she’s doubling down on that other side of herself. I mean, if that ain’t me!” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/06/GettyImages-1823128718-8e5e2e7.jpg" width="5377" height="3585" alt="Rebecca Lucy Taylor aka Self Esteem attends the launch of CABARET: The Kit Kat Club at Selfridges in November 2023, standing in front of costumes from the stage production and wearing a black and white outfit" title="The Launch of CABARET: The Kit Kat Club at Selfridges" /> With Cabaret successfully under her garter, she doubled down on board-treading with a five-night theatrical presentation of her new album at London’s Duke of York’s Theatre, where there was a notable attendee. “I was told Madonna might be coming, but I didn’t want to know. So I got on with the show, and then halfway through, all the lights went down and I could see her, and I thought, ‘OK, great.’” Just ok, great? “The way I thrive under pressure is masochistic. Afterwards I thought, ‘F**k… she was there?!’” Such nonchalance, bolshiness and self-doubt can be heard in her 2021 breakthrough second album Prioritise Pleasure, particularly lead single I Do This All the Time: “All you need to do, darling, is fit in that little dress of yours; If you weren’t doing this, you’d be working in McDonald’s…” I put it to her that her compositions – which cover imposter syndrome, body issues and the patriarchy – are as much about a generational issue, specifically millennials, as they are feminist, switching between existential angst and trying to be the One in Charge. “Yeah, I don’t think they’re exclusively about being a woman. It’s sort of the curse of our generation, because we’re supposed to be the adults in the room now, and it just doesn’t feel like it. I feel like a big baby… I can’t believe I’m not 15!” And yet, this week, here she is leading a sizeable creative team to Somerset (by train). “It’s so wonderful to give opportunities to other people,” she says, “and to build up this family around yourself. It was lonely for a very long time, and now it’s quite joyful.” Her 2022 and 2025 Glastonbury slots will bookend the intervening years, which have seen a lot of creative and professional fulfilment. Is she planning anything special for her performance? “I don’t have an idea this year. I’m going to do my theatre show, and I’m going to be in those costumes, but I’m not going to subvert it. You’ll see another fun costume when I’ve got an idea. I’m not going to force it, you know?” It sounds as if the new thing she’s going to be bringing to the festival this year is a sense of agency. “I can create my own destiny now,” she agrees. “If the world is saying, ‘You shouldn’t look like that’, I [still] go through the emotions of embarrassment or shame… and then I’m like, oh, hang on a minute, I make the rules now. And so Self Esteem is mostly me just going through that circle, over and over.” With agency comes knowing your own worth. What if Rod Stewart did ask her to join him on stage this year? “Yeah – I mean – if there’s enough time to rehearse. And if I can source my own heels and mini skirt.” After years of uphill struggles it finally feels as if she’s on the right track. Choo-choo indeed – and full steam ahead for the Park Stage on Friday. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
As Ten Pound Poms returns, life for the intrepid Brits who were sold a dream Down Under remains challenging, says writer Danny Brocklehurst
Add Ten Pound Poms to your watchlist –In 2026, Qantas will launch the first non-stop flight from London to Sydney. Nicknamed ‘Project Sunrise’ (passengers will be on board for so long that they’ll see two sunrises) the plane will spend 22 continuous hours in the sky. As punishing as this journey may seem, it’s in stark contrast to the six weeks that it took the Ten-pound Poms – so-called because of the cost and the ruddy complexion akin to a pomegranate acquired on exposure to the Aussie sun – to reach Sydney’s shores in the 1950s. For £10 (about £350 in today’s money), Brits bought passage aboard a ship and the promise of sunshine and a new life, with their accommodation and employment waiting for them when they disembarked. The Ten-pound Poms – or Assisted Passage Migration Scheme – was part of Australia’s post-war ‘populate or perish’ policy, the aim of which was a much-needed boost for the country’s population and workforce. But of course, not everything went according to plan. The reality that confronted many British emigrants escaping the decimation, depression and rationing brought by the Second World War – is being brought to life once again in series two of the BBC drama of the same name, starring Michelle Keegan. My great aunt Ellen was one of the people who made this journey. In 1950, she and her husband John left the Isle of Dogs in London and boarded the MV Georgic. They arrived in Australia one and a half months later, expecting a running start into their new lives. “People saw an advert in a newspaper or at the cinema. Then they went to Australia House and were shown what can only be described as a propaganda movie,” writer of the drama, Danny Brocklehurst, explains. “Speed boats, water skiing, white-picket fences around big houses, and kids playing on the beach.” But until 2023, when the first series of Ten Pound Poms was broadcast, it seems the real story slipped through the cracks of history, particularly in the UK. It was brought to Brocklehurst’s attention by production company, Eleven Film. After a career writing contemporary series such as Ordinary Lies, Brassic and Accused, it also marked his first foray into period drama. What turned his head? “I don’t like a lot of period drama! But I think the reason for that, is I find that it doesn’t have much contemporary resonance. To me, it just looks like people dressed up in bonnets and silly costumes and I can never get past that. “Eleven Film sent me a link to an old documentary and said, ‘Do you think there might be a drama in this?’ I watched it and was fascinated by the themes that were potentially there – to do with escape, starting over and also prejudice – and it tempted me. And then I read a book on it and thought, ‘There’s a series in this for sure.’” The prejudice in this fresh start becomes apparent early on in the drama. The scheme was a ‘whites only’ initiative with Chinese immigrants turned away and for those granted entry, broken promises and harsh realities awaited. My great auntie and uncle were promised employment for John, an engineer. However, the job didn’t exist. “There were a lot of people around then ripping off immigrants,” my cousin David, their eldest son, tells me from Sydney. Contrary to the gleaming homes and gardens of the publicity material, immigrants were initially placed in migrant hostels. “They were Nissen huts in a camp in the middle of nowhere, with dunnies and flies and baking heat, which just made the tin huts even warmer,” says Brocklehurst. The fact that Villawood Migrant Hostel, where Ellen and John were placed, is now an immigration detention centre, speaks volumes. They were subsequently cheated out of their house deposit, and ended up living in the garage of a friend they had met on the boat; David had a chest of drawers for a crib. The uncomfortable similarities with the modern-day immigrant experience are hard to ignore – was this a deliberate decision? “It’s clearly not the same – it’s a bunch of white Brits going to Australia,” says Brocklehurst. “But I think there are some interesting parallels to do with, ‘You are the outsider; you are not wanted somewhere’. It was very much a sense of, ‘They’re coming over here, they’re taking our work, they’re not like us, they moan, they don’t integrate…’ so it doesn’t take a massive leap.” They were also stranded; immigrants had to surrender their passports for two years “unless you could afford to pay your own way back,” he adds. “Even then it was quite complicated with all sorts of rules, like women weren’t allowed to return unless their husband allowed it.” All the more shocking is the account of the Aboriginal experience, also a storyline in the show. Though this is primarily the tale of Poms, for Brocklehurst there was no possibility of ignoring the plight of the indigenous people. “It’s an important story and it’s important to touch on it,” the writer says. “In series one, there was this great big racist rant by one of the characters, and there was a bit of discomfort about that being allowed in the show, but I fought hard to keep that in, because its representative of what was going on in 1956 Australia.” Aboriginals were only classed as people by the Australian government in 1967. Overarching themes, modern parallels and lessons from history are just the building blocks for what is essentially a character-driven show. It depicts perseverance, resilience, frailties and survival of the fittest against an incredibly harsh environment. By the time the migration scheme ended in 1982, 1.5 million Brits had chanced their arm at a new life. Only a handful returned, with some then going back to Australia, giving birth to the term ‘Boomerang Poms’. After a difficult start, the majority of emigrants flourished; Ellen and John only ever returned to the UK for holidays in 1968 and 1979. On a recent trip to Australia I visited Ellen, now aged 100 and living in a care home in Sydney. I showed her photos of the boat she arrived on. She remarked, “It wasn’t easy, but we made a good life for ourselves.” It seems like a good dream to me.
'Their children got taken' – what Michelle Keegan learnt about the Ten-pound Poms
The star on her character’s bid to get her son back
Add Ten Pound Poms to your watchlist Michelle Keegan is having technical issues. She is at her home in Essex but her laptop is in Manchester. Instead, she’s having to use her husband’s — TV personality Mark Wright — and it’s not going well. “I’m the worst when it comes to tech and Mark’s out and I don’t have his password,” says Keegan. Eventually, we give up on a video call and resort to a phone call so that I can record our chat about her return to Australia in the guise of Kate, her character in Ten Pound Poms. However, her memory of the show is a little hazy at first. “You know what it is?” she says. “I wrapped on this a year ago, so it’s really hard to rack my brain about what happened. I don’t even know what I did yesterday. It’s the same every single day — once I finish the day, it’s like a new day and I can’t remember the day before.” So basically, she’s the ghost of Christmas present? “Exactly!” In the first series, it was revealed that Keegan’s character Kate was in fact in Australia to retrieve her son, Michael, who had been shipped halfway around the world to be adopted by a childless Australian couple, while she was suffering from postnatal depression. At the end of the series, she took Michael and went on the run. “That did actually happen with children in orphanages — even with mothers and fathers who didn’t give them up, who were trying to get their life sorted, or going through postnatal depression at the time. The children got taken off them,” Keegan explains. Signing up to the show not having heard of the original Ten-pound Poms, this was another layer of the onion she had to peel. But back to modern day; did she get to see much of Australia while she was there filming? “We did. Mark was with me the whole time and we really enjoyed it,” says the 37-year-old actor who is now expecting her first child. “I soaked up as much as I could; we went to Palm Beach where they film Home and Away, Hunter Valley, which is the wine country and to the Sydney Opera House.” A self-confessed “homebird”, can she ever see herself moving to sunnier climes? After all, her recent Netflix hit Fool Me Once — one of the streamer’s most viewed shows of 2024 — must have got her some Hollywood attention? “I would love to live in the sun one day, I’m such a baby in the cold. Mark was out there for two and a half years and I did go over for a few months at a time. I love the way of life.” But for now Keegan is taking it one day at a time. With exciting new adventures ahead she still appears grounded, despite the showbiz whirlwind… laptop issues tend to keep a person humble, after all.
Michelle Keegan on Ten Pound Poms season 2 and whether she'd pursue Hollywood
The Ten Pound Poms star spoke to Radio Times magazine about returning for season 2.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Michelle Keegan is having technical issues. She is at her home in Essex but her laptop is in Manchester. Instead, she’s having to use her husband’s — TV personality Mark Wright — and it’s not going well. “I’m the worst when it comes to tech and Mark’s out and I don’t have his password,” says Keegan. Eventually, we give up on a video call and resort to a phone call so that I can record our chat about her return to Australia in the guise of Kate, her character in Ten Pound Poms. However, her memory of the show is a little hazy at first. “You know what it is?” she says. “I wrapped on this a year ago, so it’s really hard to rack my brain about what happened. I don’t even know what I did yesterday. It’s the same every single day — once I finish the day, it’s like a new day and I can’t remember the day before.” So basically, she’s the ghost of Christmas present? “Exactly!” In the first season, it was revealed that Keegan’s character Kate was in fact in Australia to retrieve her son, Michael, who had been shipped halfway around the world to be adopted by a childless Australian couple, while she was suffering from postnatal depression. At the end of the series, she took Michael and went on the run. “That did actually happen with children in orphanages — even with mothers and fathers who didn’t give them up, who were trying to get their life sorted, or going through postnatal depression at the time. The children got taken off them,” Keegan explains. Signing up to the show not having heard of the original Ten-pound Poms, this was another layer of the onion she had to peel. But back to modern day; did she get to see much of Australia while she was there filming? “We did. Mark was with me the whole time and we really enjoyed it,” says the 37-year-old actor who is now expecting her first child. “I soaked up as much as I could; we went to Palm Beach where they film Home and Away, Hunter Valley, which is the wine country and to the Sydney Opera House.” A self-confessed “homebird”, can she ever see herself moving to sunnier climes? After all, her recent Netflix hit Fool Me Once — one of the streamer’s most viewed shows of 2024 — must have got her some Hollywood attention? “I would love to live in the sun one day, I’m such a baby in the cold. Mark was out there for two and a half years and I did go over for a few months at a time. I love the way of life.” But for now Keegan is taking it one day at a time. With exciting new adventures ahead she still appears grounded, despite the showbiz whirlwind… laptop issues tend to keep a person humble, after all. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Ten Pound Poms season 2 will air on Sunday 9th March at 8pm on BBC One and iPlayer. Episodes will continue weekly Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Vienna as seen in The Empress: tradition, elegance, and modern flair
The elegance of The Empress’s Austria is everywhere today.
Once at the centre of Europe, both culturally and politically, Vienna has never strayed from its reputation as a sophisticated, traditional city of neoclassical or baroque buildings, heavy food and old-school class on every gilded corner. Indeed, ostensibly, that’s why I’m here: to experience the Vienna of Empress Sisi – the Austrian Princess Diana, the tragic Queen of Hearts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and of course the subject of hit Netflix drama The Empress, back with a much-anticipated second season. Season one of the German-language series would have pulled you in with the cake-decoration aesthetic of the city, the finery of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at its peak, with the frivolities that went along with it… and it’s all still there in the modern metropolis, albeit with more hot-dog stands, less international clout, and a clean and efficient metro system. The museums, galleries and grand hotels scream out for a nosey. The famous finery, craftsmanship and price tags can be located at such long-established nooks as footwear manufacturer Scheer, silversmiths Jarosinski & Vaugoin and piano-maker Bösendorfer. But you already know this version of the city – in fact, so many people know this side of it that the queue to visit the Sisi Museum in the Imperial Palace can be up to an hour long. Request a holiday brochure from one of our partners Fortunately, among the schnitzel, strudel, concertos, whirls and wieners, there is an incredibly buzzy, modern, sophisticated, citizen-friendly metropolis out there. This modern luxury is summed up in my accommodation, Hotel Amauris (theamauris.com). Opposite the State Opera – built in the neoclassical as opposed to baroque style – it houses forward-looking Restaurant Glasswing, which uses ingredients from local producers. The hotel decor nods to the sumptuous past while being airy and contemporary. Another excellent example of the modern lying just beneath the surface is Pramerl and the Wolf. Appearing as a traditional Viennese gasthaus (pub) from the outside, the façade belies a contemporary, small-cover Michelin-star restaurant, with imaginative twists on classics, sensational flavours and equally impressive wine pairings. If you’re of a more literal mind, then just below the city surface is the Krypt Bar (krypt.bar), where a narrow stairway opens out onto a vaulted cellar – allegedly with a history as a “semi-legal” jazz club (semi-legal jazz being my favourite genre) – that now houses a stylish-but-lively bar. The Empress does a good job of reminding us of the geopolitical clout the Austro-Hungarian Empire had until the First World War; and a stroll through Prater park, once the exclusive hunting ground of the royals, tells a similar story. It was given over to the public in 1766, accommodating one of the world’s oldest amusement parks, with its famous Ferris wheel. This manicured, old Europe gives way to Campus WU, not just part of Vienna University but an extension of the public space for the 21st century. It’s popular with visitors, but has also received accolades from the juries of international architecture competitions, thanks to its kooky, uplifting modern designs and environmental qualities – well worth a saunter on a sunny Sunday morning. It is, of course, important to embrace the traditional as well as the modern… by which I mean I was looking for an excuse to have some cake. The Café Landtmann (landtmann.at), which opened the same year as the World’s Fair happened, is a popular meeting place for actors, politicians, officials and journalists. I order a sliver of Vienna’s famous Sachertorte – a heavy chocolate cake – and coffee, assuring myself that I am the modern element in this wholly traditional establishment. I settle in to watch the comings and goings from the national theatre, immaculate public park and town hall over the road. Request a holiday brochure from one of our partners It’s a view that frames the Viennese mindset: well-presented, melding old and new, and embracing of its people. Yes, it’s a city fit for royalty, but its inclusivity and modernity mean that everyone can come to the ball. For more details visit vienna.info
Beatles '64 unseen footage captures "specific moment in time", says director
A snapshot of a Beatles moment like we have never seen before.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. American filmmaker David Tedeschi is the director of Beatles '64, a collage-like film that captures the excitement of the Beatles’ first visit to the USA, featuring never-before-seen footage of the band, and the legions of young fans who helped fuel their ascendancy. But hasn’t this admittedly era-defining moment been covered already? And how is it that unseen material is continually unearthed of the most documented and pored-over musical act in history? What is there left to say? Even this moment in their career has been covered before, in The Beatles: the First US Visit in 1991, and the 2016 Ron Howard documentary The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – the Touring Years. “Both Marty and I were very aware of Eight Days a Week,” admits Tedeschi, joining me online from his home town of Brooklyn. “The feeling was, ‘What can we do now?’ But Beatles ’64 is so specific, and so much of what was shot was here in New York. We knew that the Maysles brothers had been interested in the fans, but they had never been the focus in any of the other iterations, so in that sense it came together pretty quickly. It's such a specific moment in time.” This, then, is the story of Beatlemania from a fan’s-eye view, gazing up from the frosty New York streets – a snapshot of a Beatles moment like we have never seen before. But first, clarifications. The aforementioned “Marty” is legendary film director Martin Scorsese, who produced the film, having worked with Tedeschi on documentaries like No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, Shine a Light with the Rolling Stones and George Harrison: Living in the Material World. In other words, this isn’t their first rodeo when it comes to making documentaries about world-famous musicians – or even Beatles. The Maysles, meanwhile, were Albert and David Maysles, documentarian siblings who were “embedded” with the Beatles from the moment they landed at JFK, and whose footage makes up most of the film – a film that opens at a particular time of darkness in the US. “The Kennedy assassination was clearly a part of the moment,” Tedeschi says. Kennedy had been shot less than three months before the Beatles touched down, and the story goes that the Fab Four provided a well-timed injection of joy into a nation that had lost its optimism. “What you see in these audiences is like they’re being lifted out of sorrow,” a present-day Paul McCartney tells Tedeschi in the film. In the footage, the first confirmed cases of the US strain of Beatlemania appear more visceral than anything previously seen in Europe. “We’re kind of extreme here in New York, that’s part of it,” laughs Tedeschi. “Ringo draws parallels between Liverpool and NY – the directness. The New York newspaper guys loved that because that’s what they were like. There was a lot of scepticism when they arrived, and it wasn’t one person, it wasn’t Elvis… it was these four guys, and each one was significantly different from the other.” Does America, even now, experience the Beatles differently from the UK? The Beatles’ US label, Capitol, modified their albums, altering track listings and artwork. The fact that the label had initially resisted the Beatles also meant that, in 1964 and 1965, nine Beatles albums were released in the US at once… talk about delayed gratification (The Beatles: 1964 US Albums box set was released last week). “Part of it is how the music was released, but a bigger difference had to do with the radio,” muses Tedeschi. “I think I read that in ’62, the Beatles covered a Motown song (Please Mr Postman on the BBC’s Teenagers Turn), and that was the first time a Motown song had been played on British radio. In the US you had all these radio stations playing different kinds of music.” The Beatles’ connection with Black American music and the civil rights movement is also touched upon. In the film, McCartney recalls, “To us, it was the land of freedom, but once we got here we learnt it wasn’t quite the story.” Tedeschi says, “Eight Days a Week dealt with the tour in Florida when they wouldn’t play for segregated audiences, and we didn’t want to go down the same path. On the other hand, it’s about this important moment in New York history, too. It was a key moment for civil rights.” This is backed up by a mixture of old and new interviews from Smokey Robinson, the Isley Brothers, Ronnie Spector and Little Richard. “It’s not in the film, but we have a clip of Sam Cooke on the radio. The DJ is putting them down and Sam says, ‘Oh no, these guys are here to stay. What they’re doing is very special.’ There was this back and forth that created a lot of beautiful music.” All this tumult, all this societal change, and it all took place across one visit over just two weeks… a hard day’s (fort)night indeed. “They were pioneers, and the world was playing catch-up with them,” says Tedeschi. Both surviving Beatles appear, alongside unseen Beatles Anthology footage of George – but how difficult was it to push beyond the well-rehearsed anecdotes and get something fresh? Tedeschi denies that was an issue.“I didn’t think that Paul was rehearsed,” he says. “In my experience interviewing both of them, both Paul and Ringo are very in the moment, focused and insightful. With Ringo especially, I’m pretty sure it’s the first time he ever said those words.” He refers to a moment in the movie where Ringo dryly recounts: “When things go wrong, everybody looks at the drummer.” In any case, no matter how many times the stories have been heard by some fans, every generation needs its own introduction – so how does he think the casual Beatles fan, or even the casual music fan, will engage with this? “We always focus on how the younger audience connects with the material,” he says. “Of course there are a lot of young Beatles fans.” They’re still relevant, after all – 2023’s “last” single Now and Then was the Beatles’ first UK number one in 54 years. “Music fans who are in their 20s who have seen the film say, ‘I had no idea the Beatles were like this,’” says Tedeschi. “They’re so young, they love it so much and you can see each one of them is having such a good time.” Since there is clearly an appetite, what of more “unseen footage”? Has he snooped around the fabled Apple archives? He smiles, “No – I have no idea what else there is. People ask me all the time, ‘Are there more films coming?’ and I have no idea,” he insists. But of course, there are already more films coming, albeit of a different sort. In 2027, a separate biopic for each Beatle will be released, directed by Sam Mendes. One more shot at an exclusive: what has Tedeschi heard? “It’s a great idea – to me a bit reminiscent of Todd Haynes [director of 2007 Bob Dylan film I’m Not There]. Like, how do you capture Dylan? And I think this is similar… How do you capture that Beatles experience? And Sam Mendes is a wonderful director, I’m really curious what he’s going to be up to. I’m a fan – that’s where the enthusiasm comes.” A lot of enthusiasm was born on the day the Beatles’ Pan Am flight 101 touched down on American soil. And it has only spread over the following six decades, ensuring any frames of “unseen footage” will be lapped up by hungry fans old and new alike – whenever the Fab estate sees fit to release it. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Beatles '64 is available to stream on Disney Plus now. Sign up to Disney Plus now for £4.99 per month or £79.90 for a full year. Check out more of our Documentaries coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Their era-defining US tour is captured in a new documentary, but what more is there to say and see of the Fab Four? Plenty, says director David Tedeschi…
Add Beatles '64 to your watchlist American film-maker David Tedeschi is the director of Beatles ’64, a collage-like film that captures the excitement of the Beatles’ first visit to the USA, featuring never-before-seen footage of the band, and the legions of young fans who helped fuel their ascendancy. But hasn’t this admittedly era-defining moment been covered already? And how is it that unseen material is continually unearthed of the most documented and pored-over musical act in history? What is there left to say? Even this moment in their career has been covered before, in The Beatles: the First US Visit in 1991, and the 2016 Ron Howard documentary The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – the Touring Years. View oEmbed on the source website “Both Marty and I were very aware of Eight Days a Week,” admits Tedeschi, joining me online from his home town of Brooklyn. “The feeling was, ‘What can we do now?’ But Beatles ’64 is so specific, and so much of what was shot was here in New York. We knew that the Maysles brothers had been interested in the fans, but they had never been the focus in any of the other iterations, so in that sense it came together pretty quickly. It’s such a specific moment in time.” This, then, is the story of Beatlemania from a fan’s-eye view, gazing up from the frosty New York streets – a snapshot of a Beatles moment like we have never seen before. But first, clarifications. The aforementioned “Marty” is legendary film director Martin Scorsese, who produced the film, having worked with Tedeschi on documentaries like No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, Shine a Light with the Rolling Stones and George Harrison: Living in the Material World. In other words, this isn’t their first rodeo when it comes to making documentaries about world-famous musicians – or even Beatles. The Maysles, meanwhile, were Albert and David Maysles, documentarian siblings who were “embedded” with the Beatles from the moment they landed at JFK, and whose footage makes up most of the film – a film that opens at a particular time of darkness in the US. “The Kennedy assassination was clearly a part of the moment,” Tedeschi says. Kennedy had been shot less than three months before the Beatles touched down, and the story goes that the Fab Four provided a well-timed injection of joy into a nation that had lost its optimism. “What you see in these audiences is like they’re being lifted out of sorrow,” a present-day Paul McCartney tells Tedeschi in the film. In the footage, the first confirmed cases of the US strain of Beatlemania appear more visceral than anything previously seen in Europe. “We’re kind of extreme here in New York, that’s part of it”, laughs Tedeschi. “Ringo draws parallels between Liverpool and NY – the directness. The New York newspaper guys loved that because that’s what they were like. There was a lot of scepticism when they arrived, and it wasn’t one person, it wasn’t Elvis… it was these four guys, and each one was significantly different from the other.” Does America, even now, experience the Beatles differently from the UK? The Beatles’ US label, Capitol, modified their albums, altering track listings and artwork. The fact that the label had initially resisted the Beatles also meant that, in 1964 and 1965, nine Beatles albums were released in the US at once… talk about delayed gratification (The Beatles: 1964 US Albums box set was released last week). “Part of it is how the music was released, but a bigger difference had to do with the radio,” muses Tedeschi. “I think I read that in ’62, the Beatles covered a Motown song (Please Mr Postman on the BBC’s Teenagers Turn), and that was the first time a Motown song had been played on British radio. In the US you had all these radio stations playing different kinds of music.” The Beatles’ connection with black American music and the civil rights movement is also touched upon. In the film, McCartney recalls, “To us, it was the land of freedom, but once we got here we learnt it wasn’t quite the story.” Tedeschi says, “Eight Days a Week dealt with the tour in Florida when they wouldn’t play for segregated audiences, and we didn’t want to go down the same path. On the other hand, it’s about this important moment in New York history, too. It was a key moment for civil rights.” This is backed up by a mixture of old and new interviews from Smokey Robinson, the Isley Brothers, Ronnie Spector and Little Richard. “It’s not in the film, but we have a clip of Sam Cooke on the radio. The DJ is putting them down and Sam says, ‘Oh no, these guys are here to stay. What they’re doing is very special.’ There was this back and forth that created a lot of beautiful music.” All this tumult, all this societal change, and it all took place across one visit over just two weeks… a hard day’s (fort)night indeed. “They were pioneers, and the world was playing catch-up with them,” says Tedeschi. Both surviving Beatles appear, alongside unseen Beatles Anthology footage of George – but how difficult was it to push beyond the well- rehearsed anecdotes and get something fresh? Tedeschi denies that was an issue. “I didn’t think that Paul was rehearsed,” he says. “In my experience interviewing both of them, both Paul and Ringo are very in the moment, focused and insightful. With Ringo especially, I’m pretty sure it’s the first time he ever said those words.” He refers to a moment in the movie where Ringo dryly recounts: “When things go wrong, everybody looks at the drummer.” In any case, no matter how many times the stories have been heard by some fans, every generation needs its own introduction – so how does he think the casual Beatles fan, or even the casual music fan, will engage with this? “We always focus on how the younger audience connects with the material,” he says. “Of course there are a lot of young Beatles fans.” They’re still relevant, after all – 2023’s “last” single Now and Then was the Beatles’ first UK number one in 54 years. “Music fans who are in their 20s who have seen the film say, ‘I had no idea the Beatles were like this,’” says Tedeschi. “They’re so young, they love it so much and you can see each one of them is having such a good time.” Since there is clearly an appetite, what of more “unseen footage”? Has he snooped around the fabled Apple archives? He smiles, “No – I have no idea what else there is. People ask me all the time, ‘Are there more films coming?’ and I have no idea,” he insists. But of course, there are already more films coming, albeit of a different sort. In 2027, a separate biopic for each Beatle will be released, directed by Sam Mendes. One more shot at an exclusive: what has Tedeschi heard? “It’s a great idea – to me a bit reminiscent of Todd Haynes [director of 2007 Bob Dylan film I’m Not There]. Like, how do you capture Dylan? And I think this is similar… How do you capture that Beatles experience? And Sam Mendes is a wonderful director, I’m really curious what he’s going to be up to. I’m a fan – that’s where the enthusiasm comes.” A lot of enthusiasm was born on the day the Beatles’ Pan Am flight 101 touched down on American soil. And it has only spread over the following six decades, ensuring any frames of “unseen footage” will be lapped up by hungry fans old and new alike – whenever the Fab estate sees fit to release it.
Croatian delights - The Day of the Jackal
Croatia is no stranger to the emerging trend of “set-jetting”. (See what they did there?) Both Dubrovnik and Split, in the south of the country, are inundated with Game of Thrones fans, all trekking down those steps looking to re-create their favourite scene. The north, however – its regions sitting roughly on the same latitudes as Venice or Bologna, across the Adriatic – has remained relatively unexplored… Until now. But Eddie Redmayne and his cast-mates descended on those northern provinces last autumn in order to film the big-budget TV version of The Day of the Jackal. The original novel, though mainly based in London and Paris, galloped across Europe, following the exploits of an assassin for hire. As it’s brought up to date for Sky Atlantic, we’ll see most of the Croatian scenes in the later episodes. But it’s immediately obvious why this country is so appealing to location scouts: sure, there are the tax incentives, which means productions as diverse as Doctor Who, James Bond, Succession and the aforementioned Game of Thrones have been drawn here – but it’s the stunning, unusual and diverse landscapes that keep them returning. I start with a couple of nights in the capital, Zagreb, its architecturally striking airport posing as an Andalusian terminal in The Day of the Jackal. Zagreb feels like a quieter Berlin – northern European architecture, riddled with history on every corner – still on the long road of healing from a war of independence that only ended in 1995. I base myself in the Sheraton (marriott.com), a hotel that serves as a useful metaphor for the city: grand architecture, incredibly welcoming and still undergoing renovations. The place has a real bar and café culture, with the Michelin-recommended Pod Zidom Bistro (podzidom.hr) signalling its trajectory: local, seasonal, innovative and friendly. The unlikely cultural highlight is the Museum of Broken Relationships (brokenships.com) – dedicated to failed love. Its exhibits include personal objects left over from former lovers, accompanied by brief descriptions, and at first it’s amusing, then altogether more moving I purchase a souvenir rubber that reads “Bad Memories Eraser”. Into the rest of the northern country, it’s a two-hour drive to the Adriatic coast, and Opatija. It was in a picturesque caravan park (rivijera-opatija.hr) where many scenes for the new drama were filmed, and it overlooks a turquoise sea, craggy tumbledown cliffs, and clusters of pastel-coloured buildings with a hint of the Wes Anderson about them. The town itself dates back to the Austro-Hungarian Empire; the elites summered and swam in the crystal-clear waters here. To view all holidays to Croatia Today, institutions such as the Hotel Imperial (liburnia.hr) retain this grandeur, and the pretty town remains geared around tourists, with several excellent seafood offerings. Try the restaurant Plavi Podrum, with its harbour views, in neighbouring Volosko; the seaside fine dining of Tavern Zijavica; or the elevated, dramatic sea views of Restoran Bevanda. It’s in Bevanda that I’m first introduced to Croatian wine. It’s not that widely available – because they selfishly drink it all before it leaves the country – but a wine region tour around this beguiling country would be worth a trip on its own. (“I tasted it while I was there,” Redmayne told Radio Times, “and it was exquisite.”) Down the road in the city of Rijeka – another filming location – I spend time in a city that was awarded the title of European Capital of Culture in the fateful year of 2020. Still, this buzzy metropolis has a flourishing arts scene and a patchwork, charming quirkiness derived from its port-town roots and variety of rulers: the Austro-Hungarians, the kingdom of Yugoslavia, the communists of Tito’s rule… an ideal balance of glamour and grit. Split, Zadar and Secrets of the North Yacht Cruise for 7 nights Along clear highways and twisting coastal roads, revealing painting-worthy vistas at almost every turn, I drive towards the port of Lika Senj to catch a car ferry over to Pag, a key location in the series. Out on the Dalmatian Archipelago, I dock on a moon-like landscape, the setting sun turning the bleached rock shades of mauve. “The beauty of Pag… it was like you’re on the moon, it was otherworldly,” says Redmayne. The island has a reputation for excellent roast lamb; for Paski sir, a salty sheep’s cheese; and for open-air clubbing (don’t do all three at once). But it was for the sweeping, rocky hills, secluded blue-sea coves and dramatic plains that Jackal elected to film here. It’s also one of the sunniest places on the Adriatic, with 2,500 hours a year – quite useful if you need to keep warm while on the run from MI6. If you’re able to hand over your real passport, however, the Hotel Pagus (hotel-pagus.hr), with its sunset views of the Adriatic, will do very nicely. In writing about northern Croatia (and Croatian wine), it feels like I’m spilling a closely guarded secret, but over-tourism in the southern cities means that it’s high time to shine a spotlight (or searchlight?) on this epic, charming, friendly and beautiful region. It’s just ironic that it’s taken a show so centred around the clandestine to do it. For more information, go to croatia.hr Request a holiday brochure from one of our partners
The sitcom star on 40 years of Frasier Crane, keeping politics out of comedy and his friendship with “Rodney Trotter”
Add Frasier to your watchlist For four decades — from a bar, via a radio station and into academia — 69-year-old Kelsey Grammer has been playing the pompous, quick-witted but thin-skinned Dr Frasier Crane. In the latest iteration of Frasier, he has returned to his home town of Boston to be closer to his two loves: his son and Harvard University. As the Frasier reboot concludes its second series, RT caught up with Grammer to talk new beginnings, the US political climate and whether he’d ever go for a beer at a bar called Cheers. Frasier finished in 2004 but came back in 2023. What were you looking to do differently this time? Just a new canvas of relationships for Frasier. He could become something he’s never been before, which is a present dad – more like his dad. The major idea was to always get him and [his son] Freddy back together, and to have them discover the relationship Frasier discovered with his father. The other ideas were just to be current, and also to get Frasier a friend. He had his brother Niles in the old series [played by David Hyde Pierce], but that wasn’t a friend exactly. View oEmbed on the source website You recruited British sitcom legend Nicholas Lyndhurst for that role — why him? His brain is always working. You can see the wheels turning and you think, “What’s he going to do next?” He’s amazing – one of the great actors in the world. My wife is English, so I knew Only Fools and Horses – I heard her cackling looking at old reruns, and thought “What is going on?” So I got to know “dipstick” and “Rodney”. I never thought I’d hear Kelsey Grammer say the word dipstick… Well, for us it’s just part of a car, but in the UK, it means several other things, I think! How did you two meet? We met on Man of La Mancha [a 2019 production at the London Coliseum] and we basically fell in love, as two men can sometimes – y’know, “Hail fellow, well met”. We had spent years being fans of one another, and the chief joy of going to do that production was working with Nicholas, and apparently the feeling was mutual, so since then we have blossomed into real comrades. You have seven children who range in age from eight to 40. Did you draw on your own experiences of being a father for the series? It comes along for the ride. Frasier’s life and his family history is somewhat different from my own. But if there’s a scene which resonates with me, that tends to rise up. It gives it a kind of genuine, authoritative quality that makes it seem real. But it’s not necessarily plotted out, so I’m not trying to draw any exact parallels. In this reboot, was there ever the temptation to have Frasier find love? Or go somewhere other than Boston? Originally, we had him moving to a whole other city – that’s when we were going to try and do the whole legacy cast and introduce some other characters as well – but that started to be too cumbersome, and David didn’t really fancy being part of it any more. So we took him at his word and we thought, “Well, wait a minute, Frasier has unfinished Boston business.” Will Frasier ever clash with modern times and become a victim of cancel culture? We might cover that. He may be accused of something that didn’t happen, and he’d figure out a way for that person to get their comeuppance. That would probably be a righteous expression of something that could have happened at any time. Things are obviously tumultuous in the USA right now — are you planning on reflecting that? We do our best to stay away from that stuff, because that is so locked in a present struggle, which is based upon no truth on either side. So, that’s not a road you want to go down, because everything will change in a few weeks. The whole tone of the country will be different: it might be erupting – it could be volcanic – but it’s not going to be the same… so why try to stick with that? It’s a dead end. What’s next for Frasier? We’re going to try to get more shows in a season – ten is a little silly. I would say 16 to 18 episodes per season would be really perfect. I’ve got about 100 stories in my head… there’s a whole bunch of things I have in mind that would be really fun to do, but it’s mostly to keep discovering this character and who he is today. And will he be going to a certain bar where everybody knows his name? Apparently, that’s been closed. We’re pretty dedicated to the idea that we’re not going [back to Cheers]. We hope to find a character or two that might come visit from that era, though…
Eddie Redmayne 'didn't want to mess with something brilliant' in new Day of the Jackal
The actor steps into the iconic assassin role for Sky's contemporary remake – and tells Radio Times all about it.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. "I’m on a lot of ibuprofen and a lot of codeine, so I bear no responsibility for anything I say," explains Eddie Redmayne on Zoom, while keeping pressure on his trigger finger, lest "the blood starts pouring out again". As I promise that I’ll place this disclaimer at the start of the interview, I rub my hands with a little bit of glee… It turns out he’d just returned to his south London home from New York and was beset with jetlag when he decided to go and procure some sharp knives. "I haven’t cooked for ages. I went from making The Day of the Jackal, which was a rigorous eight months in Hungary and Croatia, over to Cabaret in Broadway for eight months. "Anyway, there’s this brilliant knife shop down the road – I’m weirdly obsessed with kitchen knives, I stand in front of knife shops and gaze through the windows. So last night, I was so excited to use my new knives, was cutting some vegetables and just sliced right through. A little chunk of the tip of my finger came off. "Funnily enough, my script for the first episode of Jackal was on my desk. I’d written on the top of it, 'A knife through butter.' That was my first description of the Jackal and how he should hold himself in the world – and when I saw that I thought, 'It’s some kind of hideous full circle that’s come around here.'" This is a lot to take in during the first three minutes of an interview, yet despite his injury and the painkillers, Redmayne communicates it all with a chaotic poise, sheltered under a baseball cap and a casually slung-on Alex Eagle red cricket jumper (a snip at £545). An Eton and Cambridge scholar, and a relentless high-achiever, Redmayne hasn’t stopped acting since training at the Jackie Palmer Stage School, performing with the National Youth Music Theatre, and appearing in a production of Oliver! in 1994, directed by Sam Mendes. The Day of The Jackal might be Redmayne’s first TV series since 2012’s Birdsong, but he’s been quite busy in between. From lauded performances in The Good Nurse and The Danish Girl, via a lead role in JK Rowling’s global franchise Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, to the small matter of a turn as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything (for which he became the first millennial to win an Academy Award for acting), this restless soul definitely hasn’t had a quiet 12 years. Then came Cabaret, a modern reimagining of the Bob Fosse classic, which he also produced. Redmayne sandwiched the shooting of Jackal between the two transatlantic versions of the musical, in which he played the "Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome!" singing Emcee of the Weimar-era Kit Kat Club. It was the West End version of the show that Redmayne was juggling when he first signed up to Jackal. Did he enjoy being part of such a raucous, racy production? "It was a pretty thrilling experience but absolutely physically exhausting." Instead of resting afterwards, however, he signed up – as the lead and as an executive producer – to this updated version of Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 novel, which was adapted for the big screen in 1973 starring Edward Fox. The new version sees a slightly creepy Elon Musk-style tech/philanthropist billionaire as the hired assassin’s target, a far cry from the essentially "good" Charles de Gaulle in the original story, where it was the police versus the bad guys who were trying to kill him. In this new retelling, there are far more shades of grey. "What’s intriguing about this moment in time is that the second you think you’ve got a grip on what someone’s morality is, it shifts," says Redmayne. "We all have that blurry territory within us in some ways – that idea of the binary of good and evil doesn’t exist so much." The Jackal’s adversary, Bianca (played by the formidable Lashana Lynch) is a relentless MI6 operative in hot pursuit, another change from the original’s male French inspector, Lebel. "I grew up watching Jackal. I had a battered old VHS of it. It’s a bit weird, but it was one of those movies that my family would sit and watch together," says the 42 year-old, creating a warm picture of the Redmayne childhood home in central London, a young Eddie resting head-on-hands in front of the TV, while his mother and father – both successful business people – looked on from the sofa, cosily watching a movie about espionage and death. "When I saw this in my inbox, I was pretty… You don’t want to mess with something as brilliant as this, so I was a bit tentative. The thing I love about the original structure, which Ronan [Bennett, the writer of this new series] has managed to retain, is the odd idea that you have these two protagonists who are deeply morally compromised, making vicious choices, and yet you kind of warm to both of them." I point out that, in many ways, Redmayne’s job isn’t too different from the Jackal’s – apart from all the murder-y business, of course. He meticulously studies his subjects, he disappears into roles… "One of the odd things about taking on this part was I’m quite used to playing people that are quite far from me. And I’m not saying I’m an international assassin – I’m not not saying that – but ultimately, he’s a fairly proficient actor, because he can do all these disguises and dialects, and lives a sort of bipolar life. And how one marries that is complex." View Affiliate Playlist on the source website There are even, he admits, elements of the character he covets: "I wish I was as refined, impeccably groomed and meticulous. I have none of the grace of the Jackal. I’m s****y in a crisis. He gets cooler in a crisis; I get sweatier." One famous chapter in the book, and scene in the movie, is devoted entirely to the construction of a specially commissioned sniper’s rifle, which the Jackal has smuggled across international borders. This moment defines both the character and tone of the story, which wasn’t lost on Redmayne. "I was determined that [assembling the rifle] should be glorious in its grace, but I’m a really shoddy props actor." So, he decided to take the prop back to his hotel to perfect it. "I would spend days constructing and deconstructing this gun. One evening, I constructed it in my hotel and went down to get some supper. Then, halfway through, I suddenly ran upstairs, having realised that there was a turndown service, and there would be a fully fledged sniper’s rifle on my desk!" Considering this intense preparation and immersion in a role, once filming finishes, can he leave his alter egos at his front door? "That’s a question for my wife!" laughs Redmayne, who married his childhood sweetheart Hannah Bagshawe in 2014. They have two children, Iris and Luke, both under 10. "With Jackal, I was doing Cabaret in New York afterwards and also taking Zoom calls on edits and stuff all morning then going to do the show. My family were there for the holidays, but I became quite obsessive." Family is, in fact, a new addition to this iteration of Jackal. Whereas the original followed both police and assassin at "work", this time personal risk is raised, with the Jackal and Bianca attempting to juggle family with their high-stakes occupations. "Edward Fox is so relentless in the movie, and for two hours is this vessel of ruthless charisma, but you know nothing about him. With this version, you’re doing 10 hours, and you can’t sustain that, so this idea of family life and seeing the other side of him felt new and interesting and a challenge. How do you marry those two sides?" Since his last TV role in Birdsong, the landscape has altered, television series almost having replaced movies as the prestige platform for actors to showcase their talents. Has he noticed this change? "Massively. I used to take West Wing DVDs to work with me. I remember it ending and sitting there in a mess going, 'Where are all these characters that have come into my life?' Then I remember a couple of years ago meeting Allison Janney, and it was CJ standing right there!" He pauses for a moment, becoming more animated as he elaborates. "I love how in TV you can spend years alongside these characters. The faith in the intelligence of an audience has shifted over the past decade – being able to drop things in a series that don’t get resolved till much later – the weaving of that, the novelisation of it." Since we’ve now decided that Redmayne – who, remember, hasn’t ruled out being an international assassin – and his character are so similar, how does he qualify the nomadic life of an actor with having a young family? "With Cabaret in New York, we were going to take the family out for the full run, but my daughter has just started at a new school, and taking her out of it… how do you manage with those sorts of things? What the specificity of the job is, and what your family’s needs are, shift each year, but what we’re trying to do is lean into the extraordinary experiences it gives." Extraordinary experiences, yes, but would he ever consider signing up for something West Wing-length long-term, or would one of his conditions be that the filming would have to be London-based? "Fifteen years ago, John Logan – the writer of Gladiator – had written this brilliant pilot called The Miraculous Year, and you do that thing of signing up for what could be 10 days or seven years. It was an amazing experience, but it didn’t go to series, so I look back on it now and go, 'Wow – if that had happened, then so many other things in my career or life would be different.' It would have meant living in New York, for one. "I suppose I do have a fear of [he laughs] long-term commitment! I love the unpredictability of what I do – I have a love/hate relationship with it – but I’d never want to be tied down." It sounds as if the unpredictable has worked for him thus far, seeing him skip across the globe, assuming numerous identities, then shedding them to return home to his family. Is he sure he isn’t an international assassin? "I went to Bisley, which is this gigantic rifle range, and I did shoot sniper rifles across 2km. I was surprisingly more adept at that than I thought I would be. But I’m someone in that sort of scenario – and I struggle with this in work generally – where nerves have a physical manifestation. I would not be as calm as you have to be, so no, mate, I wouldn’t be a good sniper." He’d better stick to the prop rifles, then. And, while he’s at it, stay away from sharp knives. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. The Day of the Jackal premieres on Sky Atlantic and NOW on Thursday 7th November 2024. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
"You don’t want to mess with something as brilliant as this"
Eddie Redmayne grew up watching the Jackal, so accepting the lead in a remake for TV was a risky move…
Add The Day of the Jackal to your watchlist "I’m on a lot of ibuprofen and a lot of codeine, so I bear no responsibility for anything I say,” explains Eddie Redmayne on Zoom, while keeping pressure on his trigger finger, lest “the blood starts pouring out again.” As I promise that I’ll place this disclaimer at the start of the interview, I rub my hands with a little bit of glee… It turns out he’d just returned to his south London home from New York and was beset with jetlag when he decided to go and procure some sharp knives. “I haven’t cooked for ages. I went from making The Day of the Jackal, which was a rigorous eight months in Hungary and Croatia, over to Cabaret in Broadway for eight months. Anyway, there’s this brilliant knife shop down the road – I’m weirdly obsessed with kitchen knives, I stand in front of knife shops and gaze through the windows. So last night, I was so excited to use my new knives, was cutting some vegetables and just sliced right through. A little chunk of the tip of my finger came off. View oEmbed on the source website “Funnily enough, my script for the first episode of Jackal was on my desk. I’d written on the top of it, ‘A knife through butter.’ That was my first description of the Jackal and how he should hold himself in the world – and when I saw that I thought, ‘It’s some kind of hideous full circle that’s come around here.’” This is a lot to take in during the first three minutes of an interview, yet despite his injury and the painkillers, Redmayne communicates it all with a chaotic poise, sheltered under a baseball cap and a casually slung-on Alex Eagle red cricket jumper (a snip at £545). An Eton and Cambridge scholar, and a relentless high-achiever, Redmayne hasn’t stopped acting since training at the Jackie Palmer Stage School, performing with the National Youth Music Theatre, and appearing in a production of Oliver! in 1994, directed by Sam Mendes. The Day of The Jackal might be Redmayne’s first TV series since 2012’s Birdsong, but he’s been quite busy in between. From lauded performances in The Good Nurse and The Danish Girl, via a lead role in JK Rowling’s global franchise Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, to the small matter of a turn as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything (for which he became the first millennial to win an Academy Award for acting), this restless soul definitely hasn’t had a quiet 12 years. Then came Cabaret, a modern reimagining of the Bob Fosse classic, which he also produced. Redmayne sandwiched the shooting of Jackal between the two transatlantic versions of the musical, in which he played the “Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome!” singing Emcee of the Weimar-era Kit Kat Club. It was the West End version of the show that Redmayne was juggling when he first signed up to Jackal. Did he enjoy being part of such a raucous, racy production? “It was a pretty thrilling experience but absolutely physically exhausting.” Instead of resting afterwards however, he signed up – as the lead and as an executive producer – to this updated version of Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 novel, which was adapted for the big screen in 1973 starring Edward Fox. The new version sees a slightly creepy Elon Musk-style tech/philanthropist billionaire as the hired assassin’s target, a far cry from the essentially “good” Charles de Gaulle in the original story, where it was the police versus the bad guys who were trying to kill him. In this new retelling, there are far more shades of grey. “What’s intriguing about this moment in time is that the second you think you’ve got a grip on what someone’s morality is, it shifts,” says Redmayne. “We all have that blurry territory within us in some ways – that idea of the binary of good and evil doesn’t exist so much.” The Jackal’s adversary, Bianca (played by the formidable Lashana Lynch, see right) is a relentless MI6 operative in hot pursuit, another change from the original’s male French inspector, Lebel. “I grew up watching Jackal. I had a battered old VHS of it. It’s a bit weird, but it was one of those movies that my family would sit and watch together,” says the 42 year-old, creating a warm picture of the Redmayne childhood home in central London, a young Eddie resting head-on-hands in front of the TV, while his mother and father – both successful business people – looked on from the sofa, cosily watching a movie about espionage and death. “When I saw this in my inbox, I was pretty… You don’t want to mess with something as brilliant as this, so I was a bit tentative. The thing I love about the original structure, which Ronan [Bennett, the writer of this new series] has managed to retain, is the odd idea that you have these two protagonists who are deeply morally compromised, making vicious choices and yet you kind of warm to both of them.” I point out that, in many ways, Redmayne’s job isn’t too different from the Jackal’s – apart from all the murder-y business, of course. He meticulously studies his subjects, he disappears into roles… “One of the odd things about taking on this part was I’m quite used to playing people that are quite far from me. And I’m not saying I’m an international assassin – I’m not not saying that – but ultimately, he’s a fairly proficient actor, because he can do all these disguises and dialects, and lives a sort of bipolar life. And how one marries that is complex.” There are even, he admits, elements of the character he covets: “I wish I was as refined, impeccably groomed and meticulous. I have none of the grace of the Jackal. I’m shitty in a crisis. He gets cooler in a crisis; I get sweatier.” One famous chapter in the book, and scene in the movie, is devoted entirely to the construction of a specially commissioned sniper’s rifle, which the Jackal has smuggled across international borders. This moment defines both the character and tone of the story, which wasn’t lost on Redmayne. “I was determined that [assembling the rifle] should be glorious in its grace, but I’m a really shoddy props actor.” So, he decided to take the prop back to his hotel to perfect it. “I would spend days constructing and deconstructing this gun. One evening, I constructed it in my hotel and went down to get some supper. Then, halfway through, I suddenly ran upstairs, having realised that there was a turndown service, and there would be a fully fledged sniper’s rifle on my desk!” Considering this intense preparation and immersion in a role, once filming finishes, can he leave his alter egos at his front door? “That’s a question for my wife!” laughs Redmayne, who married his childhood sweetheart Hannah Bagshawe in 2014. They have two children, Iris and Luke, both under ten. “With Jackal, I was doing Cabaret in New York afterwards and also taking zoom calls on edits and stuff all morning then going to do the show. My family were there for the holidays, but I became quite obsessive.” Family is in fact, a new addition to this iteration of Jackal. Whereas the original followed both police and assassin at “work”, this time personal risk is raised, with the Jackal and Bianca attempting to juggle family with their high-stakes occupations. “Edward Fox is so relentless in the movie, and for two hours is this vessel of ruthless charisma, but you know nothing about him. With this version, you’re doing ten hours, and you can’t sustain that, so this idea of family life and seeing the other side of him felt new and interesting and a challenge. How do you marry those two sides?” Since his last TV role in Birdsong, the landscape has altered, television series almost having replaced movies as the prestige platform for actors to showcase their talents. Has he noticed this change? “Massively. I used to take West Wing DVDs to work with me. I remember it ending and sitting there in a mess going, ‘Where are all these characters that have come into my life?’ Then I remember a couple of years ago meeting Alison Janney, and it was CJ standing right there!” He pauses for a moment, becoming more animated as he elaborates. “I love how in TV you can spend years alongside these characters. The faith in the intelligence of an audience has shifted over the past decade – being able to drop things in a series that don’t get resolved till much later – the weaving of that, the novelisation of it.” Since we’ve now decided that Redmayne – who, remember, hasn’t ruled out being an international assassin – and his character are so similar, how does he qualify the nomadic life of an actor with having a young family? “With Cabaret in New York, we were going to take the family out for the full run, but my daughter has just started at a new school, and taking her out of it… how do you manage with those sorts of things? What the specificity of the job is, and what your family’s needs are, shift each year, but what we’re trying to do is lean into the extraordinary experiences it gives.” Extraordinary experiences, yes, but would he ever consider signing up for something West Wing-length long-term, or would one of his conditions be that the filming would have to be London-based? “Fifteen years ago, John Logan – the writer of Gladiator – had written this brilliant pilot called The Miraculous Year and you do that thing of signing up for what could be ten days or seven years. It was an amazing experience, but it didn’t go to series, so I look back on it now and go, ‘Wow – if that had happened, then so many other things in my career or life would be different.’ It would have meant living in New York for one. “I suppose I do have a fear of [he laughs] long-term commitment! I love the unpredictability of what I do – I have a love/hate relationship with it – but I’d never want to be tied down.” It sounds as if the unpredictable has worked for him thus far, seeing him skip across the globe, assuming numerous identities, then shedding them to return home to his family. Is he sure he isn’t an international assassin? “I went to Bisley, which is this gigantic rifle range, and I did shoot sniper rifles across 2km. I was surprisingly more adept at that than I thought I would be. But I’m someone in that sort of scenario – and I struggle with this in work generally – where nerves have a physical manifestation. I would not be as calm as you have to be, so no, mate, I wouldn’t be a good sniper.” He’d better stick to the prop rifles, then. And, while he’s at it, stay away from sharp knives.
Lashana Lynch was the first female 007 and now stars as the Jackal’s adversary in MI6 – what’s her secret?
Add The Day of the Jackal to your watchlist Having started her career with early turns on TV in The Bill and Silent Witness, followed by big-hitting cinematic credits in The Woman King and Captain Marvel, via the high-octane glamour of being the first woman to take on the 007 assignation in No Time to Die, and now the field agent role in The Day of the Jackal, has Lashana Lynch’s whole career just been a really, really long job interview for MI6? “With the way that my brain works, the way that I’ve been called a Ninja over the years, and how well I’m able to keep a secret, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some energetic grooming happening, unbeknown to me…” View oEmbed on the source website I proffer that she would say “unbeknown” if she were a MI6 agent… She looks mysteriously from side to side. “Hmmm. Would I?” Joining me on Zoom from New York, the 36-year-old is in the final stages of a very long The Day of the Jackal process, a series on which she is also an co-executive producer. “When they approached me about the role, I said I’d like to be part of the project, but I also wanted to get on board the production team to oversee and protect the things that I knew I really wanted to discuss within the piece.” Lynch plays Bianca, a dogged MI6 officer and weapons expert, who’s uncompromising in the pursuit of her quarry. “She’s in a male-dominated space, albeit with a female boss and a black man by her side, but none of those things are there to protect her.” There’s a personal, family element to this adaptation, which didn’t exist in the original, adding an extra level of humanity and jeopardy. “Bianca doesn’t know how to be the best, ask for the most, but also bring back the goods at the end of the day. It’s the feeling that she might do that drives her. That level of destruction is what carries her through.” I suggest that because of her character’s race and gender, Bianca may feel she has something more to prove. “That’s another reason why I wanted to co-exec on the show — to be able to tell that story, not shy away from it, but also protect it enough so that we’re not singing from the rooftops about how hard that is. It’s literally just a part of the experience of people who look like me, and it’s in the fabric of the workplace, constantly.” Lynch always appears to be thinking on two levels — about the moment of creation itself, then how that message is controlled afterwards. In the case of Jackal, that included: “black women in the workplace, balancing career and motherhood, black hair — which I love to celebrate in this show…”; as well as “being able to oversee every single edit, every single grade, and every single conversation about music, and VFX.” It was during this process she bonded with co-star and co-producer Redmayne, since the majority of their screen time is spent apart in a cat-and-mouse chase. “Our friendship was more developed in post-production than on set, which is backwards for me!” Her story is markedly different from Redmayne’s. While he attended Eton and then Cambridge, she is from a working-class background in Shepherd’s Bush, where she joined as many drama classes as she could, eventually spending a few years at Sylvia Young Theatre School. “We had no money, but my mum believed in me, and was able to find the means to support that.” Lynch still lives locally with actor husband Zackary Momoh, with whom she is expecting her first child. It feels as if she staked her claim at an early age but isn’t pulling up the ladder behind her — despite the opportunities afforded to her no longer being available to the next generation. For one thing, ongoing series like The Bill, which served as a breeding ground for young actors, were cancelled. “It really is exposing how, in comparison to the 90s, where there were some [ways in], nowadays it feels as if we need to bring all the creatives of the industry into one space to really talk about setting up organisations for young people, especially young working-class people like myself. It’s about getting to the core reasons as to why the infrastructure was built this way in the first place.” Forthright and considered, she clearly has plans to use her position at least to attempt to enact change. “The industry would be best served when the plasters are taken off, and we let the cuts sit for a second so we can discuss what they look like, how they got there, what we’d do about it, and really reshape the landscape and structure.” It sounds as if she wants to be involved in campaigning or activism to a greater extent further down the line? “President?” she jokes. I gently suggest that perhaps she should sit out the next two terms — in the meantime, she could finish her MI6 training. “I’ll do that then!” Lynch 2032 it is. I propose that, when the Official Secrets Act releases the papers in 50 years’ time, we can have another interview. “No comment,” she says with a wry smile and fixed gaze. Classic spy move.
Lashana Lynch on The Day of the Jackal and how the spy thriller breaks new ground
Lynch stars as Bianca in the new Sky series, on which she is also a co-executive producer.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Having started her career with early turns on TV in The Bill and Silent Witness, followed by big-hitting cinematic credits in The Woman King and Captain Marvel, via the high-octane glamour of being the first woman to take on the 007 assignation in No Time to Die, and now the field agent role in The Day of the Jackal, has Lashana Lynch’s whole career just been a really, really long job interview for MI6? "With the way that my brain works, the way that I’ve been called a Ninja over the years, and how well I’m able to keep a secret, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some energetic grooming happening, unbeknown to me…" I proffer that she would say "unbeknown" if she were a MI6 agent… She looks mysteriously from side to side. "Hmmm. Would I?" Joining me on zoom from New York, the 36-year-old is in the final stages of a very long The Day of the Jackal process, a series on which she is also an co-executive producer. "When they approached me about the role, I said I’d like to be part of the project, but I also wanted to get on board the production team to oversee and protect the things that I knew I really wanted to discuss within the piece." Lynch plays Bianca, a dogged MI6 officer and weapons expert, who’s uncompromising in the pursuit of her quarry. "She’s in a male-dominated space, albeit with a female boss and a black man by her side, but none of those things are there to protect her." There’s a personal, family element to this adaptation, which didn’t exist in the original, adding an extra level of humanity and jeopardy. "Bianca doesn’t know how to be the best, ask for the most, but also bring back the goods at the end of the day. It’s the feeling that she might do that drives her. That level of destruction is what carries her through." I suggest that because of her character’s race and gender, Bianca may feel she has something more to prove. "That’s another reason why I wanted to co-exec on the show — to be able to tell that story, not shy away from it, but also protect it enough so that we’re not singing from the rooftops about how hard that is. It’s literally just a part of the experience of people who look like me, and it’s in the fabric of the workplace, constantly." Lynch always appears to be thinking on two levels — about the moment of creation itself, then how that message is controlled afterwards. In the case of Jackal, that included: "black women in the workplace, balancing career and motherhood, black hair — which I love to celebrate in this show…"; as well as "being able to oversee every single edit, every single grade, and every single conversation about music, and VFX." It was during this process she bonded with co-star and co-producer Eddie Redmayne, since the majority of their screen time is spent apart in a cat-and-mouse chase. "Our friendship was more developed in post-production than on set, which is backwards for me!" Her story is markedly different from Redmayne’s. While he attended Eton and then Cambridge, she is from a working-class background in Shepherd’s Bush, where she joined as many drama classes as she could, eventually spending a few years at Sylvia Young Theatre School. "We had no money, but my mum believed in me, and was able to find the means to support that." Lynch still lives locally with actor husband Zackary Momoh, with whom she is expecting her first child. It feels as if she staked her claim at an early age but isn’t pulling up the ladder behind her — despite the opportunities afforded to her no longer being available to the next generation. For one thing, ongoing series like The Bill, which served as a breeding ground for young actors, were cancelled. "It really is exposing how, in comparison to the 90s, where there were some [ways in], nowadays it feels as if we need to bring all the creatives of the industry into one space to really talk about setting up organisations for young people, especially young working-class people like myself. It’s about getting to the core reasons as to why the infrastructure was built this way in the first place." Forthright and considered, she clearly has plans to use her position at least to attempt to enact change. "The industry would be best served when the plasters are taken off, and we let the cuts sit for a second so we can discuss what they look like, how they got there, what we’d do about it, and really reshape the landscape and structure." It sounds as if she wants to be involved in campaigning or activism to a greater extent further down the line? "President?" she jokes. I gently suggest that perhaps she should sit out the next two terms — in the meantime, she could finish her MI6 training. "I’ll do that then!" Lynch 2032 it is. I propose that, when the Official Secrets Act releases the papers in 50 years’ time, we can have another interview. "No comment," she says with a wry smile and fixed gaze. Classic spy move. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. The Day of the Jackal is coming to Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW on 7th November. Sign up for NOW from £6.99 a month or sign up for Sky Stream from £29 a month. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
When I tell the concierge at my Lima hotel that I’m heading to Iquitos in a few days, she replies, “I’ve never been. Too much green.” I’ve never heard the Amazon rainforest described so succinctly before, but she’s right: there is a lot of green. I’m here to get to know the homeland of a certain polite bear – our hero returns to his home country for his latest movie, Paddington in Peru. But before I get to “Darkest” Peru (supposedly so called because, in some spots of the rainforest, only two per cent of sunlight makes it to the ground), there’s the country’s capital, Lima. Request a FREE travel brochure here from Radio Times Travel I’m bookending the actual jungle with the concrete one – a sort of urban comfort blanket where I don’t have to worry as much about mosquitos. And since Lima is fast becoming a serious foodie centre – with several Michelin-recommended restaurants, not to mention the street food and coffee – I take a tour. Friendly cafés run on local coffee beans, thriving local markets stock the bounty of the rainforest and the ocean, and we finish at a street food vendor who helps us prepare our own causa – a sort of sandwich made with potato instead of bread, filled with chicken and avocado. The cuisine here goes way beyond marmalade sandwiches. Next day, it’s back to the airport en route to Iquitos, one of the most remote cities on the planet – and all that green. River tributaries snake through the forest on their way to join the mighty Amazon. In this new, third Paddington film, the Brown family charter a riverboat to navigate the jungle, and it’s an idea I’ve run with. Our coach trundles for two hours through dense forest, down one of the only roads in this region, finally arriving at our boarding jetty. At its end is the Marañón river, an Amazon tributary, where our riverboat, the Zafiro, awaits. This is the Amazon Riverboat Adventure (gadventures.com) – six nights drifting down the river basin back to Iquitos. Skiffs will take us into the depths of the jungle to those sunshine-deprived forest floors, where blazing sun can turn to deluge in a matter of seconds. Our days are mapped out according to the weather gods. Plans are delayed, abandoned or adapted according to whether the heavens are open or closed. While on the boat, we learn about local wildlife, see the national dish, ceviche, being made by the on-board chef, or sit on the deck with a beer and watch the rainforest slip by on mirror-like waters. Request a FREE travel brochure here from Radio Times Travel The majority of our time is spent away from the Zafiro, however, either on a skiff or getting in and among nature. Often, the motors cut out as we glide towards dense greenery, our guides having spotted a creature. In one instance, our bow bumps into a nondescript bank, a vague silhouette of a woolly monkey in the mid-distance. Suddenly, the troop is upon us, a mother with a baby clinging to her back boldly making her way down from the rubber tree, and onto our skiff. Further into the forest, we spot a nest of surprisingly cute baby tarantulas and our eyes quickly flick up to a sloth hanging nonchalantly above us. We swim in the lagoons , and tuktuk around the bumpy rainforest town of Nauta. We release baby yellow-spotted turtles – their eggs rescued from poachers – into the wild. We row canoes past freshwater pink dolphins, all the time shepherded by our knowledgeable and enthusiastic guides – indigenous to the rainforest – who are first up and last to bed. With all the life happening around me, the tranquillity is astounding. In fact, I have never slept better, though this may have something to do with the antihistamines for mosquito bites, and the absence of wi-fi. Regardless, this place never stops being a revelation. Returning to Lima, I give myself a few days before the 13-hour flight home (latamairlines.com) to inform my inner-balance that I’m no longer on a boat. From Hilton Miraflores (hilton.com) – its rooftop infinity pool pointed directly at Lima’s spectacular sunset – I see crowds milling around an open-air mall on the seafront. Heading there for a sundowner, I encounter a statue just by the entrance, of a duffle-coated-bear on a plinth, raising his floppy hat as a greeting. Maybe it wasn’t in the rainforest, but I have finally found my Peruvian bear. The inscription reads, “Please look after this bear”, and it seems only fair. After all, Peru has looked after me very well indeed.
Why Vermont called Beetlejuice back for more
The Green Mountain State is famously friendly, so what drew Tim Burton to film his comedy horror sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in the land of Ben & Jerry?
As one travels up the east of the USA, it’s safe to say that things become more liberal as you go. From the humid conservatism of Florida, via the political swamp of Washington DC, through the anything-goes (as long as you can afford it) of New York, and the liberal academia of leafy Massachusetts… until you reach Vermont, where both conformity, and the country itself, are almost on their way out. Perhaps that’s why Tim Burton – hardly a name synonymous with fitting in – chose to return here instead of opting for a sound stage in order to film the exterior scenes of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the long-awaited sequel to, well, Beetlejuice. It was in Vermont, just outside the small town of East Corinth, that the original was filmed, too – including the cartoon-like gothic house erected on a hill especially for the movie. The original film has such a cult following that during shooting for the sequel, Vermont police were investigating two thefts: one of a large lamppost topped with a distinctive pumpkin decoration, and the other an abstract art piece taken from the vicinity of a cemetery. I have come here to understand what attracted the director to the state, and why it gives its visitors a wholly alternative take on Americana. Request a FREE travel brochure here from Radio Times Travel After a five-hour drive from Boston, through increasingly green, hilly vistas, I arrive at the state's largest city, Burlington. This isn’t the American city of your imagination, all skyscrapers, steaming manholes and traffic chaos. Instead, especially in the heat of a lazy summer day, it has the air of somewhere like Stratford-upon-Avon or York. Perched on the edge of Lake Champlain, it’s a township built for quality of life, with the outdoors, gastronomy, and culture all given a serious crack of the whip. Most importantly though, this is a state known for its breweries. I happen to be in town on the weekend of the Vermont Brewers Festival. I savour an appropriately sensible number of samples as a spectacular sunset embraces the lakeside location. A wander down the historic Church Street Marketplace the following morning sees me stumble across a long queue – my first clue to the Burlington Bagel Bakery, whose sesame seed and cream cheese bagels become a fixture of the next few mornings. In an attempt to blow away the cobwebs, I join Captain Tom Peterson for a scenic lake cruise (cruiselakechamplain.com), as we take in flora, fauna, flotsam and jetsam of the idyllic lake from the deck of his 36-foot cabin cruiser. I finish my day in the Pizzeria Verita Italian restaurant, (pizzeriaverita.com) followed by a nightcap at The Wallflower Collective – a buzzy NYC-esque hipster bar with prices to match. On to Montpelier. Still recovering from flash floods, this is anytown America with a twist. It appears to be inhabited by those who have sought the alternative life – artists and free thinkers. The restaurants, cafes and an excellent record shop lend themselves to this clientele, where a high standard of fare comes garnished with a dash of hippiedom, and something almost equalling Canadian-level friendliness (we are, after all, an hour from the border). No visit to Vermont would be complete without two things: an outdoor sport and some very specific ice cream. After a 30-mile drive up some winding mountain roads – and back down the other side – I jump into a kayak. Four miles, a scenic river paddle, and 18 mosquito bites later, it’s time to replenish those calories at what is probably the closest real life can get you to Willy Wonka’s factory. Waterbury is where Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield decided to give the ice cream business a whirl, and a tour of their factory tells their story (benjerry.com). The company’s USP encapsulates the Vermont outlook: community-minded, idealistic but with a sense of fun and anti-establishment spirit. Did you know Radio Times has a shop? Explore great deals now, plus 10% off for RT Magazine subscribers!* I end my visit in East Corinth, the sky moody and the humidity all-consuming. Very Tim Burton. The town is a single road, but still, that eerie shade of American Gothic hangs over it. The general store offers the two staples – deli and ammunition – and the hill still gives off an ominous air. The atmosphere is so loaded that I’m almost scared to say Beetlejuice three times, lest he burst out of the ground and ruin this lush, green, and kooky world that’s often overlooked in favour of the neighbouring states. In fact, I could spend an eternity here…
Napoleon: the Director's Cut Available to stream now on Apple TV+
Paris can be a bit of a museum. Romantic, sure, but without the youthful energy, vibrancy and buzz of other world cities. Thankfully, history is the reason I’m here this time – on the trail of Napoleon, recently portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix in Ridley Scott’s epic biopic, the director’s cut of which is now available to stream on Apple TV+. It’s my intention to lean into the rich historical culture that the City of Light shows off so well, and discover the Paris of one of the most infamous military strategists and “short man syndrome” sufferers in history. The French emperor had quite a hand in the Paris we know today – many of its landmarks and boulevards have his finger-prints on them. And even if they don’t, the torrent of money brought into the French capital as a result of his campaigns still runs through the veins of the city. Request a FREE travel brochure here from Radio Times Travel Take Gare du Nord, for example, where my Eurostar (eurostar.com) arrives after a seamless submarinal trip. The famous terminus is a result of Napoleon III, Bonaparte’s nephew, campaigning for greater infrastructure, and the French railways themselves owe a debt to Boney, too. In 1814, engineer Pierre Michel Moisson-Desroches proposed building seven national railways from Paris in order to travel “short distances within the Empire”. The emperor assented, and France got a half-decent rail network. My accommodation, 25-hours Hotel Paris Terminus Nord (25hours-hotels.com), is just next door, and festooned with decorous touches and Parisian joie de vivre (or whatever the French version is). But now into the city… For a greater insight into Bonaparte’s influence on Paris, I take a two-hour walking tour (parisology.net/rise-of-napoleon-paris-walk). Our guide, Thierry – talking with his hands as much as his mouth, bien sûr – takes my small group to where Napoleon married the love of his life, Josephine, at 3 rue d’Antin, followed by his favourite dinner spot, and then where he saved the French Revolution and became a national hero. He later married his second wife, Marie Louise of Austria, in the Louvre (sadly no longer available as a wedding venue). Full of historical facts and anecdotes, Thierry also talks of Bonaparte’s vision as a head of state and his modernisation of France. Request a FREE travel brochure here from Radio Times Travel IMAGE: BELLES VUES From the top: the pyramid at the Louvre; Château de Fontainebleau; and dining at Le Grand Véfour Speaking of the Louvre, it was originally known as the Musée Central des Arts de la République, before a certain someone renamed it Musée Napoléon. A more concise name, for sure, and characteristically narcissistic, but Napoleon’s ambition to make the Louvre a universal museum borrows as much from the drive to enlighten his people, as from his ambition to make Paris the new Rome. When he conquered Italy in 1797, he raided its artwork to bring back to France, including Veronese’s Wedding Feast at Cana. In order to transport the massive painting home, he had it sliced in half. You can still see the line where it was put back together: philistinism maybe, but much easier on the baggage allowance. There are plenty of Napoleonic sights of the periphery of the city. There’s the Château de Fontainebleau, 45 minutes south of Paris, where there’s a perfectly preserved throne room and many Bonaparte artefacts. To the west, there’s Château de Malmaison, his former country home, and Château Rambouillet, where he stayed before being exiled to St Helena. And then of course there’s Versailles, which Napoleon adapted to his own grand tastes after divorcing Josephine (quite the bachelor pad). You could easily pass a beautiful couple of days among the refined culture and lush greenery of these country piles. Request a FREE travel brochure here from Radio Times Travel Back in central Paris though, and my crowning glory is when I indulge my stomach on Napoleon’s behalf. I give it my all at Café Procope (procope.com), where one can dine on classic French cuisine, with not only the ghost of Napoleon, but also those of Voltaire, Balzac and Victor Hugo (imagine the drinks bill). Then I do it all over again amid the opulent splendour of Le Grand Véfour (grand-vefour.com), in surroundings that really put a peasant like me in his place, though the food was anything but revolting. Paris’s Napoleonic sights are as plentiful as they are beautiful, from Les Invalides, which houses his tomb and a fascinating military museum, to the Arc de Triomphe. One could spend a good week here just on Napoleonic spots; so make sure, much like the man himself, that you have an excellent strategy for your manoeuvres – lest you, too, finally face your Waterloo.
Paloma Faith on diversity at Glastonbury: "I'll believe it when I see it"
"It’s almost like I’m a new artist again."
This interview first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Paloma Faith is not a woman who beats around the bush. Within minutes of our interview beginning, we’re already discussing her sex life and why men need to step up when it comes to parental and marital duties. Strictly speaking, we’re here to talk about her slot at Glastonbury Festival, but the conversation soon turns to the singer’s 2022 break-up with French artist Leyman Lahcine, her husband and the father of her two daughters. Faith has written frankly about the "devastating" split on her new album, The Glorification of Sadness, and its lead single How You Leave a Man, and says her appearance at Glastonbury represents a kind of rebirth. “Having gone through this break-up and learnt to be a single mum with two very young kids, I often feel unsure if I’m doing the right thing,” the 42-year-old admits. "When they said I had the Pyramid Stage on Sunday, just before the ‘Legend’ slot, I was like, ‘How in God’s name have I got that?' "Sometimes when you get a big knock to your self-esteem, like a big break-up, you feel a bit washed up. So when they told me [the news], it felt very special." Faith’s Glastonbury gig will come towards the end of her UK and European tour, and while she is excited to be performing again, she admits it hasn’t been easy to juggle it with caring for her children, aged eight and three. "I’ve got more energy than most but, frankly, I’m so tired," she says. "Touring as a single parent is something else. Back in the day, I’d get in at two in the morning and then I’d sleep in because my ex would look after the kids. But now I get in, get four hours sleep, then I’m up getting them ready for school." Even before the split, Faith says she struggled to balance being a mother with having a career. She is so passionate about the subject that she has written a book called MILF: Motherhood, Identity, Love and F**kery. "I don’t believe we can have it all," she says. "I feel a bit disgruntled about society’s expectation on women, because we were given this idea that you could work and have your own money and independence while raising children. What we’ve ended up with is far too much responsibility, and I think a lot of women are burning out. "Parenting is a full-time job. If you’re also CEO of your own business, like I am, then I’m meant to delegate to my partner, but that’s a full-time job because they’ve not got any initiative. It’s exhausting and you sacrifice something, always." Faith, whose biggest hits include Only Love Can Hurt like This and Stone Cold Sober, has been known for chatting to her audiences since she started performing some 16 years ago. But where her engagement with the crowd used to be all about having fun, she says it has changed this time around. She explains, "I keep saying on this tour, in between songs: men need to do more, they need to step up to the bar. And it’s not just about saying, 'Oh, you’re a great person, I’ll cook you dinner once a week.' It’s about having initiative and adopting what are assumed to be some feminine qualities in the household. If you see your partner do the same thing every single day for six years, why don’t you just do it and take it off her hands? I’ve had a lot of men walk out of my shows with their wives in tow. And I say, 'Goodbye – you’re obviously one of the ones I’m talking about.' "Up until now in my career, I don’t think I’ve ever really projected like a sexy, empowered woman. It’s always been quite tongue-in-cheek but I feel like this is a feminist angle. It’s almost like I’m a new artist again." It’s not just the music and the chance to play at Glastonbury that has given Faith an added oomph, however. It’s also, as the title of her book cheekily suggests, the fact she has rediscovered her sexuality through dating – often younger men. Has it given her a boost, I ask her, to discover she is hugely desirable after coming out of a long relationship? "100 per cent," she says. "Ages of feeling completely unattractive. And then you’re like, 'Oh!' There was a Chris Rock special on Netflix recently and he talks about how the best sex you’ll ever have is with a woman in her 40s." Again, though, the conversation comes back to juggling childcare with her dating life. Faith admits that’s also not easy. "You try and compress all of your own personal needs and wishes into the children’s sleeping time, which is roughly 11 hours a night," she says. "And that means if you want to do some work, write a book, have sex with someone, you’ve got to squish it all into those sleeping hours. I rarely get more than six hours now." Faith’s frankness is refreshing, funny, and extremely relatable to women of a certain age. I do wonder, though, how brave she felt she could be when talking about such intimate subjects so publicly. "I did have to carefully edit the book and the album, because I still have to maintain a relationship with my children’s dad and there’s a fragility to that," she says. "I had the pull between that, but also feeling that the culture needed an injection of the truth.We skirt around it: people know that it’s hard to be middle-aged, or a single mum, or go through a break-up – but there’s nothing that really talks about the real harsh truth of it and I think it’s important." This year, after much criticism about the lack of female headliners, there are more women than men leading the way at Glastonbury for the first time, with top billing for Dua Lipa and SZA, and Shania Twain taking the coveted "Legend" slot. For such a confirmed feminist, that must be pleasing to see? With typical candour, Faith says she fears the move could be a "knee-jerk reaction" to the criticism rather an indicator of lasting change. "What tends to happen is they’ll diversify," she explains, "and include non-white races and women again, and everyone says, ‘Isn’t it great? We’re progressing’ – and then it goes back to white men again for years. I’ll believe it when I see it." But she adds, "I’m there to watch as many women artists as I can. I really want to support other women. Everyone they’ve got is amazing. This industry tends to be a bit sexist and overlook women of my age. I felt that there was no way in hell that I would be acknowledged as a worthy person because I’m 42, so I am moved by it. "It feels life-affirming that they think I’m a safe pair of hands to carry that moment for all those people who are there after days of hedonism! It’s very special." The latest issue of Radio Times magazine on sale now. Visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Dua Lipa: 'I had no plan B – singing was my only option'
The Radical Optimism superstar chats Glastonbury, politics and Taylor Swift.
This interview first appeared in Radio Times magazine. The first time I see Dua Lipa "in person" is at the BRIT Awards in March, albeit from a couple of hundred metres away. Having opened the show, she’s up on stage for the second time, accepting the award for Best Pop Act (she was also nominated for Song of the Year and British Artist). From the circle seats of London’s huge O2 arena, I watch a tiny figure on a big screen – and an even bigger stage – commanding the room, giving her unsuspecting fans a few more clues to her upcoming album, one of the most anticipated releases of 2024. "You guys give me this radical sense of confidence that I can do anything… and all the love and the support and the optimism is what inspires me." A couple of months later, Radical Optimism – Lipa’s third album – is sitting pretty in the upper echelons of the UK and US charts. When I finally see Lipa a touch closer, she’s comfortably curled up in the corner of a cavernous function room of an east London hotel – the kind that could double as a dance studio for rehearsing one of her blockbuster routines. "Tracksuit bottoms on, and hair pulled back from a face that adorns ad campaigns from Versace to Puma, she’s relaxed, collected, confident and snacking on some almonds – while wearing her own merch – a football top emblazoned with Radical Optimism. What else? Everything about the campaign around Lipa’s latest album shows that, some 10 years after setting out on the road to superstardom, she’s very much at the top of her game when it comes to handling Brand Dua Lipa. This is, after all, a 28-year-old with more than 40 billion (not a typo) streams under her belt, a song (Dance the Night) and an acting credit in Barbie (one of the most successful movies of all time), 37 weeks at the top of the UK AirPlay chart… Oh, and this weekend, she’s headlining the biggest festival in the world. "It’s gone all right," she smiles. View oEmbed on the source website On the day I meet her, it’s announced that her company, Radical22, has signed a publishing deal with Warner Music. This comes at what feels like a turning point for solo female acts: Beyoncé in a creative purple patch, Ariana Grande reclaiming her narrative, Billie Eilish calling the shots and making the best album of her career and, above all, Taylor Swift reigning supreme with her music and business savvy. Is Lipa attempting to out-Taylor, Taylor? "Nooooo! But it’s so important for artists to take ownership and control of our own music." She talks about learning the hard lessons of pop music’s past, from the Beatles to Britney. "We’re in a world of artists being airy fairy and wanting to be creative and not thinking about the business side – because we only really want to focus on making the art, not the background thing. But we have to be knowledgeable about that side of things as well." This savvy is reflected in how she released her latest singles – Houdini, Training Season and Illusion – in the build-up to Radical Optimism, all with huge gaps between them, with a very long lead time ahead of the album. Was this, I speculate, anything to do with giving her fans time to learn the new lyrics ahead of a certain festival? She leans in, wearing a conspiratorial smile. "Exactly." Ah, yes – a certain festival. In what was one of the most open secrets ahead of the official announcement, it was finally confirmed in March that Lipa would be one of Glastonbury 2024’s Pyramid Stage headliners. It’s not her first time at Worthy Farm – she has performed on the John Peel Stage (now called Woodsies) on a couple of occasions – but it’s easy to glean from our conversation that her career has been building to this point. "That’s always been my barometer for any music I’ve ever made that has gone on any album – 'What is this going to sound like at Glastonbury?' Because that is the pinnacle for me." The headline news is a (sort of) secret she managed to sit on for a long while, however. "I got asked to headline in November 2022. I’m very good at keeping secrets, and it’s also been the best secret, so I’ve kept it very happily. I just got the email, 'You’ve been offered to headline Glasto on Friday night.'" And when did she come off the ceiling? "For ages I was just a complete puddle… like, jet lag delusion in the moment. That was at the end of my Future Nostalgia tour, and then I was still writing my new record, so I had in the back of my mind, 'Oh my God, I’m going to be performing some of these songs at Glastonbury!'" Radical Optimism leans into everything that has made Lipa a success so far – glamorous, ethereal, bass-driven, dancefloor sparkle, throaty – but with very few clues to her personal life. It’s in contrast to the kind of intimate, subtext breadcrumb lyrics laid by the likes of Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, and Lipa largely refuses to trade on her private life in exchange for streaming numbers. But that’s not to say that she doesn’t have a hell of a story. Lipa was born in London to her Kosovo Albanian parents who had fled the civil war in former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. After failing to make it into her primary school choir, she began attending the Sylvia Young Theatre School at weekends. "I had a teacher there called Ray, who I just absolutely loved – but he was the scariest teacher and he would make me get up in front of the class and sing," she recalls with a smile. "I remember singing in front of a class my age – I was about nine – and he said, 'Right, I’m changing your class,' and put me in the 9am class with the 14- and 15-year-olds. That really boosted my confidence. When I moved to Kosovo, I really missed those classes." The family’s return to a newly independent Kosovo came when Lipa was 11. She loved the country of her roots, but felt the pull of showbiz London, convincing her parents at 15 that she should go back and live in a flatshare. What drove her to believe she could succeed at such a young age? "I just loved it… I didn’t know how I was going to do it, I definitely didn’t know things would get as crazy as they did, but my love of it was my driving force. "I just had this fire in my belly, this determination that it was the only route I could take. No fallback. No plan B. For me, it was my only option. "I was working nights at La Bodega Negra [a buzzy Mexican bar in London’s Soho], going to the studio in the mornings – that, on a loop, until I got signed," she says casually. "When that happened, I took everyone for my signing drinks, and then I think I did one more shift." Something that strikes me throughout my time with Lipa is her self-assurance – constant eye contact, knowing her own mind and taking a beat to consider her answers. She’s very aware of the weight that her words hold – her views and politics have often landed her at the sharp end of the internet. Just recently, she was referenced in a Israeli drill rap song that called for violence against public figures who have expressed pro-Palestinian views. She also added her voice to the widespread condemnation of the Israeli bombing of Rafah refugee camp. Does she find the more well-known she gets, the more she has to check what she puts out there – for her own safety and sanity, more than anything? "When I speak about things that are political, I double-, triple-check myself to be, 'OK, this is about something that is way bigger than me, and it’s necessary – and that’s the only reason I’m posting it.' That is my only solace in doing that. "It’s always going to be met with a backlash and other people’s opinions, so it’s a big decision. I balance it out, because ultimately I feel it’s for the greater good, so I’m willing to [take that hit]." Surely she was only ever in this to be a musician and performer, though? "[Speaking up is] a natural inclination for me, given my background and heritage, and that my very existence is somewhat political – it’s not something that is out of the ordinary for me to be feeling close to." Glastonbury is taking place the weekend before the general election, and it wouldn’t be out of character for Lipa to weigh in on proceedings, especially when most other people her age are being vocal on social media about the current government. Will she express her views publicly? The biggest pause yet. "Um… for me, over the past three or four years, I’ve kind of decided that standing behind a certain political party leader is probably not the route I want to take. "I’ve always supported Labour, so that’s where I’ll always stand, but I don’t think I’ll be publicly going for or against anyone… because politicians overall just have a way of letting you down." We move on to musical politics. For the first time, Glastonbury has two female headliners: Lipa and US singer/songwriter SZA. "It’s so great to be part of the wave of women artists, and we’ve got to keep applying the pressure. "There’s something to be said about different albums and different cycles, but right now it seems like the heaviest influx of albums by female artists – Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift. We’ve just got to keep going." Can she tell me anything about her plans for Friday night, beyond turning the Pyramid field into a 150,000-strong nightclub? "The one thing I can tell you is that this will be a one-off – it will only ever happen at Glastonbury and that will be it. I think that’s what makes shows at Glastonbury so special." She’s collaborated with one fellow headliner before: Coldplay’s Chris Martin featured on Homesick, from her debut album. Might we see him playing piano at some point during her show? For the first time she doesn’t hold my gaze, as a wry smile spreads across her face. "Err… there are no plans for… that!" she says, looking away. I expect Friday night at Glastonbury might turn Yellow… In person and in her music, Lipa strikes a fine balance of giving just enough of herself away to keep the world interested, but holding sufficiently back to keep her sanity. In many ways, she’s an old-school kind of pop star – glamorous, just out of reach, polished and with a touch of mystique. But my word, she can get people dancing. No matter who she brings on to join her, come Friday night it will be Lipa who is holding the crowds at the Pyramid Stage in the palm of a steady, assured hand, as Worthy Farm dances the night away. Check out our TV Guide to see what's on tonight. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.