Anna Haugh and Grace Dent are taking over TV’s biggest cooking contest. And they’re unfazed by the challenge
Add MasterChef to your watchlist Here they all are, trooping into Day One of this year’s contest with shining, enthusiastic faces. There’s the woman who wants to show her expertise at cooking steak and chips; the man who only ate an egg for the first time in his 20s; the chap who has spent years dreaming of wearing a MasterChef apron. Watching at home, we’ll come to know and root for the new tranche of amateur chefs being put through their paces on the legendary cooking show. But they’re not the only fresh faces this time – there are new judges, too. Restaurant critic Grace Dent and chef Anna Haugh have both had stints as judges on the celebrity and professional MasterChef variants, but the cut and thrust of the OG version is where Dent and Haugh now reign. And they like it that way. “To anyone who can get through those first few rounds, I think, wow,” says Dent. “Everyone says, ‘I will make, say, beef bourguignon and some fuffy rice as my signature dish.’ And they practise at home and make it nine times, until all their friends are sick of it. And then they walk into the MasterChef kitchen, and right away they think, ‘Oh, that’s not the beef I wanted!’ And you don’t know where anything is, and you’re not quite sure how the hob works. It’s like going to a holiday cottage and trying to make a simple omelette.” “And there’s a film crew and two scary judges interviewing you,” chimes in Haugh. “I like spotting that glimmer of raw talent, it really excites me,” adds Dent. “People who from the moment we say, ‘Let’s cook!’ begin to move like a chef. It’s exciting, because I know we’re going to take them on a journey. And each time we throw something at them, they get a bit better, and that’s what I’m looking for.” Well, not the only thing. She beadily surveys a bowl of chips that has been placed in the middle of the table. This is after a three-hour RT photo shoot, and both women are ravenous. They each take handfuls – and then the judging begins. “These aren’t great chips,” says Haugh. “You’d have thought that delivering them to a food critic and a chef would make them up their game slightly,” agrees Dent acerbically. It doesn’t stop them tucking in, however. So how do they manage to not fill up eating all those (admittedly far nicer) courses on the show? “Simple,” says Haugh. “I don’t eat during the day, so when we do the tastings, I’m very hungry. It allows you taste more flavour, pick up on more detail. But you have to hold yourself back on the first few dishes. I’m always thinking of the last person to be judged, particularly early on.” “I wake up at 5am, read everybody’s recipes before I get a taxi to get into make-up and get my wardrobe together,” says Dent, “and by then, I haven’t had a lot of time to take on any calories. And then we are waiting; waiting to eat. And then you are eating – sometimes, six contestants’ meals, each with three courses, but you eat tiny bits of food from each. Morsels!” “I don’t know about that,” snorts Haugh. “I’ve seen you polish off an entire dessert like it’s a challenge. I’ve seen you licking the bowl.” That sounds like a particular perk of the job. I wonder, as foodies, when the cameras are off, what are their guilty pleasures? There is a pause. “Well, I could literally live on trifle,” admits Dent. She looks at Haugh. “Mine is cheese,” responds the chef. “And I love those specific crisps from Spain. Torres. Freshly made. So, potatoes and cheese. The way Grace feels about desserts, I feel about cheese. You shouldn’t really eat the amount of cheese that I do.” There's a warmth and camaraderie between the two women, who are already clearly good team-mates. “We take care of each other,” says Haugh. “So, if there’s a hair out of place, or lipstick needs topping up, we’ll point it out. We want each other to be lifted up.” Visually, they make a distinct twosome; the vibe is sequins and up-dos (Dent) alongside neat bun and crisp white linen (Haugh). Their contrasting styles reflect complementary worlds. Haugh, the Dubliner, chef and owner of Myrtle, an upmarket Irish/Modern British restaurant in London’s Chelsea, brings in the spirit of the working kitchen. Carlisle-raised Dent, journalist and broadcaster, is the glamorous Guardian food critic who causes seasoned restaurant staff to, well, drop the seasoning when she sails in. “I may book under a separate name,” she admits, “but the restaurant will know me as soon as I walk in. The moment that I was a guest on MasterChef in 2012, I stopped being anonymous.” Their experiences in male-dominated industries have united both judges in another way. You don’t have to go very far beneath the smiles to find the colossal drive, merrily unapologetic and breezily triumphant, needed to drill down into previously ring-fenced preserves; the cheffy world of Michel Roux and the critics’ circle of Michael Winner. “I always wanted to be a food critic,” says Dent. “I grew up in Carlisle, and I had no help whatsoever from my family. I used to enter tons of journalism competitions when I was at university. Eventually I won a prize at Cosmopolitan. I came straight to London, as a kind of intern at Marie Claire, wheedled my way in and worked for everyone. I loved the whole scene, and the buzz of London’s infinite choice of restaurants.” Her role models? Dent lists several Fleet Street legends. “I remember seeing Eve Pollard [legendary tabloid editor and, inter alia, mother of Claudia Winkleman] sitting on the breakfast TV couch and thinking, ‘Who is this woman?’. Anne Robinson and Janet Street-Porter. Jean Rook and Julie Burchill. “Suddenly there were all these women, holding their own against the men, and they wrote columns and books and did telly and radio, and I suddenly realised that there was a job out there for women to be able to do exciting things. Although,” she laughs, eating another (substandard) chip, “you have to be able to cope with the rejection. That never stops. You just become more immune to it. Now if someone tells me I can’t do something, I just go home and work out who else I can ask.” Haugh is equally driven and determined. “When I was about 17, my friend’s mother said, ‘Anna, have you ever thought about being a chef? Because something comes over you when you are in the kitchen.’ It took me a couple of years, but when I first walked into an empty kitchen I thought, ‘I belong here.’ I always say it chose me, not the other way round. “For about 10 years, my dad used to chip away at me, as he thought it wasn’t a good choice. And then one day he said, ‘I’m sorry for giving you such a hard time. Look how successful you are, and how you have never given up.’” Dent and Haugh have, of course, taken over from the two men who, for decades, were MasterChef. Until they blew it. Did the women quail at the idea of picking up the show after Gregg Wallace and John Torode? “Well, it’s bigger than any one person,” begins Haugh tactfully, “and the contestants are brilliant. The show is a reflection of them.” Dent is a bit more direct. “I don’t feel I am ‘picking up’ after anybody,” she says. “I’ve been going to work every day at the helm of the most important food show, probably in British television history. I think I’m doing well. Am I doing well?” she laughs, looking to Haugh. “You’re doing well,” confirms Haugh. “There is no way I’d show up a year ago on that set and begin to work in the manner that I did, while looking backwards,” says Dent, in a tone that makes me feel like I’ve just suggested she eat a collapsed soufflé. Might MasterChef rise with these two in charge? I think it’s highly likely. Bon appétit!
MasterChef fans, welcome to the new era with judges Grace Dent and Anna Haugh: "We take care of each other"
Anna Haugh and Grace Dent are taking over TV’s biggest cooking contest. And they’re unfazed by the challenge.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Here they all are, trooping into Day One of this year’s contest with shining, enthusiastic faces. There’s the woman who wants to show her expertise at cooking steak and chips; the man who only ate an egg for the first time in his 20s; the chap who has spent years dreaming of wearing a MasterChef apron. Watching at home, we’ll come to know and root for the new tranche of amateur chefs being put through their paces on the legendary cooking show. But they’re not the only fresh faces this time – there are new judges, too. Restaurant critic Grace Dent and chef Anna Haugh have both had stints as judges on the celebrity and professional MasterChef variants, but the cut and thrust of the OG version is where Dent and Haugh now reign. And they like it that way. “To anyone who can get through those first few rounds, I think, wow,” says Dent. “Everyone says, ‘I will make, say, beef bourguignon and some fluffy rice as my signature dish.’ And they practise at home and make it nine times, until all their friends are sick of it. And then they walk into the MasterChef kitchen, and right away they think, ‘Oh, that’s not the beef I wanted!’ And you don’t know where anything is, and you’re not quite sure how the hob works. It’s like going to a holiday cottage and trying to make a simple omelette.” “And there’s a film crew and two scary judges interviewing you,” chimes in Haugh. “I like spotting that glimmer of raw talent, it really excites me,” adds Dent. “People who from the moment we say, ‘Let’s cook!’ begin to move like a chef. It’s exciting, because I know we’re going to take them on a journey. And each time we throw something at them, they get a bit better, and that’s what I’m looking for.” Well, not the only thing. She beadily surveys a bowl of chips that has been placed in the middle of the table. This is after a three-hour RT photo shoot, and both women are ravenous. They each take handfuls – and then the judging begins. “These aren’t great chips,” says Haugh. “You’d have thought that delivering them to a food critic and a chef would make them up their game slightly,” agrees Dent acerbically. It doesn’t stop them tucking in, however. So how do they manage to not fill up eating all those (admittedly far nicer) courses on the show? “Simple,” says Haugh. “I don’t eat during the day, so when we do the tastings, I’m very hungry. It allows you to taste more flavour, pick up on more detail. But you have to hold yourself back on the first few dishes. I’m always thinking of the last person to be judged, particularly early on.” “I wake up at 5am, read everybody’s recipes before I get a taxi to get into make-up and get my wardrobe together,” says Dent, “and by then, I haven’t had a lot of time to take on any calories. And then we are waiting; waiting to eat. And then you are eating – sometimes, six contestants’ meals, each with three courses, but you eat tiny bits of food from each. Morsels!” “I don’t know about that,” snorts Haugh. “I’ve seen you polish off an entire dessert like it’s a challenge. I’ve seen you licking the bowl.” That sounds like a particular perk of the job. I wonder, as foodies, when the cameras are off, what are their guilty pleasures? There is a pause. “Well, I could literally live on trifle,” admits Dent. She looks at Haugh. “Mine is cheese,” responds the chef. “And I love those specific crisps from Spain. Torres. Freshly made. So, potatoes and cheese. The way Grace feels about desserts, I feel about cheese. You shouldn’t really eat the amount of cheese that I do.” There’s a warmth and camaraderie between the two women, who are already clearly good team-mates. “We take care of each other,” says Haugh. “So, if there’s a hair out of place, or lipstick needs topping up, we’ll point it out. We want each other to be lifted up.” Visually, they make a distinct twosome; the vibe is sequins and up-dos (Dent) alongside neat bun and crisp white linen (Haugh). Their contrasting styles reflect complementary worlds. Haugh, the Dubliner, chef and owner of Myrtle, an upmarket Irish/Modern British restaurant in London’s Chelsea, brings in the spirit of the working kitchen. Carlisle-raised Dent, journalist and broadcaster, is the glamorous Guardian food critic who causes seasoned restaurant staff to, well, drop the seasoning when she sails in. “I may book under a separate name,” she admits, “but the restaurant will know me as soon as I walk in. The moment that I was a guest on MasterChef in 2012, I stopped being anonymous.” Their experiences in male-dominated industries have united both judges in another way. You don’t have to go very far beneath the smiles to find the colossal drive, merrily unapologetic and breezily triumphant, needed to drill down into previously ring-fenced preserves; the cheffy world of Michel Roux and the critics’ circle of Michael Winner. “I always wanted to be a food critic,” says Dent. “I grew up in Carlisle, and I had no help whatsoever from my family. I used to enter tons of journalism competitions when I was at university. Eventually I won a prize at Cosmopolitan. I came straight to London, as a kind of intern at Marie Claire, wheedled my way in and worked for everyone. I loved the whole scene, and the buzz of London’s infinite choice of restaurants.” Her role models? Dent lists several Fleet Street legends. “I remember seeing Eve Pollard [legendary tabloid editor and, inter alia, mother of Claudia Winkleman] sitting on the breakfast TV couch and thinking, ‘Who is this woman?’. Anne Robinson and Janet Street-Porter. Jean Rook and Julie Burchill. “Suddenly there were all these women, holding their own against the men, and they wrote columns and books and did telly and radio, and I suddenly realised that there was a job out there for women to be able to do exciting things. Although,” she laughs, eating another (substandard) chip, “you have to be able to cope with the rejection. That never stops. You just become more immune to it. Now if someone tells me I can’t do something, I just go home and work out who else I can ask.” Haugh is equally driven and determined. “When I was about 17, my friend’s mother said, ‘Anna, have you ever thought about being a chef? Because something comes over you when you are in the kitchen.’ It took me a couple of years, but when I first walked into an empty kitchen I thought, ‘I belong here.’ I always say it chose me, not the other way round. “For about 10 years, my dad used to chip away at me, as he thought it wasn’t a good choice. And then one day he said, ‘I’m sorry for giving you such a hard time. Look how successful you are, and how you have never given up.’” Dent and Haugh have, of course, taken over from the two men who, for decades, were MasterChef. Until they blew it. Did the women quail at the idea of picking up the show after Gregg Wallace and John Torode? “Well, it’s bigger than any one person,” begins Haugh tactfully, “and the contestants are brilliant. The show is a reflection of them.” Dent is a bit more direct. “I don’t feel I am ‘picking up’ after anybody,” she says. “I’ve been going to work every day at the helm of the most important food show, probably in British television history. I think I’m doing well. Am I doing well?” she laughs, looking to Haugh. “You’re doing well,” confirms Haugh. “There is no way I’d show up a year ago on that set and begin to work in the manner that I did, while looking backwards,” says Dent, in a tone that makes me feel like I’ve just suggested she eat a collapsed soufflé. Might MasterChef rise with these two in charge? I think it’s highly likely. Bon appétit! The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. MasterChef returns on Tuesday 21 April at 9pm on BBC One and iPlayer. Check out more of our Entertainment 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.
James Barnes-Miller on swapping loft conversions for snowboarding – and how a broken back isn’t going to spoil his final Winter Paralympics
Add the Winter Paralympics 2026 to your watchlist He’s one of our strongest hopes for a medal: at this, his third and final Paralympics, 36-year-old snowboarder James Barnes-Miller is focused on a podium place. Could this be the year? He will compete in banked slalom and snowboard cross. The first does what it says on the tin, but the second? “It’s a race track with different obstacles, and big rollers in the snow,” he explains. “Four of you go off at a time. You are hemmed in, racing against other people, and the first two get through to the next round.” Sounds horrendous, frankly. “Nah,” says Barnes-Miller, who became a father for the first time just three months ago. “The worst moment is when you look down the mountain at your practice run. That’s what gets the heart going.” It’s fair to say that snowboarding is associated with an air of privilege but, while Barnes-Miller now lives in Morzine in the French Alps, he grew up in Ramsgate. “My stepdad teaches cooking and my mother teaches hair and beauty. I’m definitely not posh,” he says. Born without a right hand, he first started riding on a board with wheels. “I’ve never skied. Me and my brothers would go skateboarding, but it wasn’t until I was 20 that I went on a snowboarding holiday. My mates just took me to the top of a red run and laughed all the way as I was falling down it. After which I got a couple of lessons and just picked it up. “For my first couple of seasons I was scraping by, working as much as I could, trying to find sponsorship and grants.” He’d like to see more boarders like him on the journey. “I think there are definitely more opportunities for young people now, with snowdomes being built in the UK, and cheaper holidays. But more could be done. It’s not a cheap sport, and if opened up you would find more talent.” Before he took snowboarding seriously, Barnes-Miller was a builder, doing loft conversions and house extensions. “I told my boss I was going to try and make it in sport. He was great, and said he’d keep my job open for the first couple of years, just in case.” He never went back. “After my second season I won a couple of medals and then got UK Sport funding with the National Lottery, which meant I could train as much as possible.” He competes at the Paralympics in the Upper Limbs category. Does the lack of a hand present a significant disadvantage? “I learnt to snowboard without a right hand, so I don’t miss it. The biggest issue is that there is a lot of standing around, when you are waiting to go, and my stump gets really cold. I have to use a lot of hand warmers to keep it warm. Some people use prosthetics but I don’t like them. I’m quite lucky; a lot of the boys I race against have all sorts of disabilities higher up the arm, which can be an issue. But I have most of my arm, it’s just my hand that’s missing at the wrist.” He’s been to the Paralympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in 2018 and Beijing, China, in 2022. What makes them so special? “The racing is similar to the World Cup, only the courses are a bit bigger, which makes it more exciting.” Does he get frightened? “Nah. I’ll be stoked!” When I look down on a ski-run, I admit, I always think I’m going to fall. “Well, if you have that voice in your head, then you will fall,” he responds, sensibly. Has he ever fallen? Not half. He broke his back a couple of years ago. “I’ve had worse crashes. It was quite a small one. I landed on my bum, and my physio said it wasn’t too bad. So, I went off to Finland to compete in the World Cup, but I knew something wasn’t right. I came back, had an X-ray, and discovered I had broken two vertebrae in my back.” Just six weeks after that, Barnes-Miller was back in action. “I flew out to the last World Cup season in Canada, upped the pace a bit and the pain came back. So I had to take more time off.” And now? “Well, I’ve been riding in pain, as I wanted to qualify, but I have really worked on my rehab. This is my last Games, and I really want to enjoy them. I’ve been competing for the past 10 years, but during the last two, I’ve been in pain, and every injury takes longer to recover from. It’s time to quit.” In the meantime, coverage of Barnes-Miller’s performance might be rather challenging for the TV crews, especially for the sound team. “I swear, all the way down. Out loud!” What? “Not in a horrible way. Actually, it depends on how well I’m doing.” OK, imagine a sliding scale from one to 10, where one is “Gosh” and 10 is That Really Bad Word. How would he rank? “If I’m going OK, I’d say 3–4. If badly, then 8–9. I can’t help it. It just comes out! Even being filmed and wearing a mic doesn’t stop me.” When he takes to the slopes, his wife Aoife and new baby Rhea will be watching. “They’ll both be there, cheering me on.” As will the nation. Just try to close your ears to what he’s saying as he comes down the course. When to watch James Barnes-Miller The snowboarder competes in both snowboard SB-UL events. 7 March 10.21am Men’s Snowboard Cross 14 March 9.22am Men’s Banked Slalom
James Barnes-Miller talks final Winter Paralympics: "I admit, I always think I'm going to fall"
James Barnes-Miller on swapping loft conversions for snowboarding – and how a broken back isn’t going to spoil his final Winter Paralympics.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. He’s one of our strongest hopes for a medal: at this, his third and final Paralympics, 36-year-old snowboarder James Barnes-Miller is focused on a podium place. Could this be the year? He will compete in banked slalom and snowboard cross. The first does what it says on the tin, but the second? “It’s a race track with different obstacles, and big rollers in the snow,” he explains. “Four of you go off at a time. You are hemmed in, racing against other people, and the first two get through to the next round.” Sounds horrendous, frankly. “Nah,” says Barnes-Miller, who became a father for the first time just three months ago. “The worst moment is when you look down the mountain at your practice run. That’s what gets the heart going.” It’s fair to say that snowboarding is associated with an air of privilege but, while Barnes-Miller now lives in Morzine in the French Alps, he grew up in Ramsgate. “My stepdad teaches cooking and my mother teaches hair and beauty. I’m definitely not posh,” he says. Born without a right hand, he first started riding on a board with wheels. “I’ve never skied. Me and my brothers would go skateboarding, but it wasn’t until I was 20 that I went on a snowboarding holiday. My mates just took me to the top of a red run and laughed all the way as I was falling down it. After which I got a couple of lessons and just picked it up. “For my first couple of seasons I was scraping by, working as much as I could, trying to find sponsorship and grants.” He’d like to see more boarders like him on the journey. “I think there are definitely more opportunities for young people now, with snowdomes being built in the UK, and cheaper holidays. But more could be done. It’s not a cheap sport, and if opened up you would find more talent.” Before he took snowboarding seriously, Barnes-Miller was a builder, doing loft conversions and house extensions. “I told my boss I was going to try and make it in sport. He was great, and said he’d keep my job open for the first couple of years, just in case.” He never went back. “After my second season I won a couple of medals and then got UK Sport funding with the National Lottery, which meant I could train as much as possible.” He competes at the Paralympics in the Upper Limbs category. Does the lack of a hand present a significant disadvantage? “I learnt to snowboard without a right hand, so I don’t miss it. The biggest issue is that there is a lot of standing around, when you are waiting to go, and my stump gets really cold. I have to use a lot of hand warmers to keep it warm. Some people use prosthetics but I don’t like them. I’m quite lucky; a lot of the boys I race against have all sorts of disabilities higher up the arm, which can be an issue. But I have most of my arm, it’s just my hand that’s missing at the wrist.” He’s been to the Paralympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in 2018 and Beijing, China, in 2022. What makes them so special? “The racing is similar to the World Cup, only the courses are a bit bigger, which makes it more exciting.” Does he get frightened? “Nah. I’ll be stoked!” When I look down on a ski-run, I admit, I always think I’m going to fall. “Well, if you have that voice in your head, then you will fall,” he responds, sensibly. Has he ever fallen? Not half. He broke his back a couple of years ago. “I’ve had worse crashes. It was quite a small one. I landed on my bum, and my physio said it wasn’t too bad. So, I went off to Finland to compete in the World Cup, but I knew something wasn’t right. I came back, had an X-ray, and discovered I had broken two vertebrae in my back.” Just six weeks after that, Barnes-Miller was back in action. “I flew out to the last World Cup season in Canada, upped the pace a bit and the pain came back. So I had to take more time off.” And now? “Well, I’ve been riding in pain, as I wanted to qualify, but I have really worked on my rehab. This is my last Games, and I really want to enjoy them. I’ve been competing for the past 10 years, but during the last two, I’ve been in pain, and every injury takes longer to recover from. It’s time to quit.” In the meantime, coverage of Barnes-Miller’s performance might be rather challenging for the TV crews, especially for the sound team. “I swear, all the way down. Out loud!” What? “Not in a horrible way. Actually, it depends on how well I’m doing.” OK, imagine a sliding scale from one to 10, where one is “Gosh” and 10 is That Really Bad Word. How would he rank? “If I’m going OK, I’d say three–four. If badly, then eight–nine. I can’t help it. It just comes out! Even being filmed and wearing a mic doesn’t stop me.” When he takes to the slopes, his wife Aoife and new baby Rhea will be watching. “They’ll both be there, cheering me on.” As will the nation. Just try to close your ears to what he’s saying as he comes down the course. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Sport 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.
Gordon Buchanan’s difficult home life forced him outdoors – and he’s never looked back
Add Big Cats 24/7 to your watchlist A pride of lions – two lionesses and six or seven, almost-grown up, cubs – are gorging on a zebra carcass in the Okavango Delta. They have been without food for several days. Astonishing close-ups show the longed-for meat disappearing into the jaws of each lion. Drone shots capture the moment when the pride has had its fill. Tummies full, the big cats roll over, sated. If you want to see lions in a state of bliss, Big Cats 24/7 is for you. Wildlife film-maker Gordon Buchanan, who grew up on the Isle of Mull, is part of the BBC team following lion, leopard and cheetah across Botswana, day and night, as the title promises. The Scottish cameraman is at the top of his game, having shot more than 32 natural-history programmes, a number of which he’s also presented. In 2020 he was appointed MBE for his services to conservation. Is he as satisfied as those lions? “Coming from such a small community, I’m almost embarrassed by my achievements. I never set out to prove anything, bar to myself,” he says. Buchanan didn’t have an easy, or privileged start in life. Born just outside Glasgow, the third of four children, the family moved to Mull when Buchanan was a small child, after his mother separated from his father. They lived in a caravan and money was tight; his mother held down three weekly jobs. “She had no support. There were hugs and we were loved, but the rest… you had to make up for yourself. We had a sort of feral existence.” School was no help. “I think today I would be defined as dyslexic,” he says. “I struggled through school, not grasping things. I could skive my way through it and I wasn’t expected to pass anything, bar woodwork and art.” Buchanan acknowledges that being a natural-history presenter from a working-class background is unusual. “Historically, the only people who were naturalists were the clergy or monied classes,” he says. “There is an assumption that I’m middle-class because in the media, and in wildlife film-making in particular, there are a lot of middle-class people. About 90 per cent of people have been to private school, so I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder. There’s this assumption that I’m probably privately educated. Someone once asked me if it was true that my family owned half of Mull. Ha! The only bit of land we had was under my mum’s council flat.” Appearing in front of the camera was never meant to be part of the story. “It scared me so much to speak in public – it was the worst thing,” he says, but that changed when Buchanan shot a Natural World documentary called Leopard Hunters in Sri Lanka in 2001. “There was a big hole in the film and I was ordered to get in front of the camera, with my producer shouting, ‘Put some effort into it!’ But I didn’t want to be a wildlife presenter, so anything I did in front of the camera was minimum effort. But the BBC liked the laid-back approach…” Buchanan’s love of the outdoors began as a child, as a place of escape from a difficult home, which he shared with his then stepfather: “That’s why the outdoors held excitement and promise. I could run away, explore and be carefree. The house wasn’t really a safe place. “My mum said it didn’t happen that often, probably less than 10 times, but the threat of domestic violence was always there.” The violence escalated until Buch-anan returned home one day to find blood on the stairs. His mother – who would later throw out his stepfather – had been attacked in her sleep. Having left school at 17, Buchanan’s weekend job, washing up at a restaurant owned by the wildlife cameraman Nick Gordon and his wife Ann, turned into an escape route. The teenager was invited to join Gordon on his next trip, to Sierra Leone. “It was my one golden ticket. It was the chance for me to do something that was different and ticked so many boxes, whether building filming towers or setting up camp,” he says. After two days away he had contracted dysentery and seen a dead body. He was away for 18 months and it was another world compared to travel now. “I don’t want to go back to the days where it took two months to get news from family, but the internet has shrunk the world.” In a good way? Not really, he thinks. “At the age of 53, I’m addicted to my phone. You can pick up your phone and discover a whole day has passed.” A father of two grown-up children, aged 22 and 20, does he support the anxiety about young people on social media? “I’m all for banning phones for the under-16s. I’m dismayed when I walk through a school playground and you see these little clusters of kids around someone’s phone. They should be burning off some energy and running around.” Buchanan’s talent has taken him around the world. He has sat in a Plexiglas box and been pushed around by a polar bear; he has waited all day beneath a tree for a leopard; he has followed camels across the Gobi desert and accompanied huskies across the Yukon in Canada; and he has discovered a new species: the Bosavi woolly rat in Papua New Guinea. He is what is known as a super-recogniser, and not just for different types of lion. “I take in more details of the human face than other people. I have the ability to spot – before anyone else – who’s had Botox,” he says drily. Is he tempted? He laughs. “There is no substitute for healthy living, and a bit of style.” This man is as focused on the work (from the safety of a Land Rover) as a lion is on eating. “It’s roulette,” he laughs. “You can spend all night with them and nothing happens. The minute you get a stove out and start heating up some bolognese, that’s when things start to kick off.” He’s learnt how to wait. And he believes it’s a skill we all have. “People think I have an infinite amount of patience, but when you are sitting in a hide, you are observing everything that’s going on around you, whether it’s a noise from a baboon, a bird fluttering up, or a storm coming. “It’s within us all to find the frequency of nature. Every single human, whether you are from a tribe in the Amazon or Elon Musk, has ancestors who walked out of a cave and sniffed the air and saw a bird fluttering at the alarm of a lion. We haven’t changed in 10,000 years as human beings. That desire to connect with nature is still with us.” Only now we can do it from the safety of our sofa, watching this show.
Marian Keyes’s novels were seen as fluffy fiction, but a new drama about her Walsh sisters is fun and fearless
Add The Walsh Sisters to your watchlist The award-winning Irish author Marian Keyes has sold millions of books in an internationally acclaimed career, but still behaves as if she has everything to prove. A few years back she was invited to be on the BBC arts programme Imagine. Her reaction? “You’ve rung me by mistake, it’s Roddy Doyle you want.” And despite the fact that two of her novels have now been adapted into a six-part series, The Walsh Sisters – a cracking, tragicomic saga of five sisters living it large in Dublin – she still doesn’t think she deserves it. “Well, it’s 30 years since my first book was published, and things have been suggested all the time, and nothing ever gets made, and it’s the hope that kills you,” she says. “So I just never bothered expecting it, because I felt there was no point.” When I ask why she’s so down on herself, she widens her green eyes and looks directly at me. “Because I write popular fiction. People were so keen to tell me that that my voice was worthless and my books were worthless…” she shrugs. Not only does Keyes write popular fiction – albeit peppered with Shakespearean allusions and quotes from the King James Bible – but that fiction often comes with pink covers. “I have stayed the course and I have defended myself for a long time, especially with men. I mean, sexism was so rife. It was OK for men to mock books with pink covers.” The eyes get even wider. “The patriarchy was so confident. One great way of hanging on to the power and the money is to mock the things that women love. A woman might read a book and love it. And a man will say, ‘You’re not reading that pink fluff, are you?’ And immediately a woman feels foolish and embarrassed.” Keyes is charming, but there is anger just under the smiley surface. Take her first novel, Watermelon. It deals with a number of the most urgent of female issues (single parenting, the pay gap, body dysmorphia). Yet, when it was published in 1995, it was put into a pink dust jacket and filed under a new, fluffy genre, known for its pastel dust jackets and adorned with drawings of high heels and cocktail glasses. “Chick lit. It was degrading. It was meant to be degrading. What it did was ‘defang’ post-feminism,” says Keyes wearily. View Green Video on the source website “We were told, ‘The second wave of feminism has ended, you can be anything you want.’ But women knew that was absolutely not the case. Women could not expect to get paid the same as men, to get promoted with the same speed as men, to be welcomed back after maternity leave, to have sex with the same freedom that men do – and not get judged. And that is exactly what so-called ‘chick lit’ was about,” she says, with scorn. “It was about the hollowness of post feminism. Slap a title like chick lit on; instantly, it’s defanged.” Indeed, it blunted the weapon she wielded. Which was? “Writing about the lives of women who were confused by a world where men still had all the power. None of that was picked up. Because of the pinkness of chick lit.” Did the pink fluffiness of the covers make her change her subject? Did it hell. “I write about women. I’m 62 now, and as I age, the women I write about get older. My focus shifts. I wish younger women well, but I can’t really relate to their lives in the same way that I used to. Now, I love the thing you have in your late 50s, of being too exhausted to care about getting your legs waxed. Or just that feeling the world won’t end if your roots are on show.” She smiles beatifically at me. She explains she hasn’t helped with the scripting by Stefanie Preissner of The Walsh Sisters. “She didn’t ask me to, and I wouldn’t have wanted to. I like writing books. And forgive me, this sounds ungrateful, but when I finished the books, the books were done. And no matter what the series is like, the books are still the books that I wrote. Secondly, I knew Stefanie. I find her fascinating and admirable. So, I thought if anybody could do it, she could. I also felt that the producers had paid for the option. It was theirs for them to do with what they liked, and that’s the deal.” No worries then? “Well, it was a risk, but you can’t do it without risk. I moved house recently, I sold my house to somebody else, and what they do with it is up to them. They gave me the money. It’s now their house.” A woman who has coped with addiction and has defined herself as an “ordinary alcoholic”, Keyes clearly has enormous strength, as well as a no-nonsense approach to the vagaries of the media. “I have used humour in the books to deal with painful subjects, and that’s a personal survival mechanism, but it’s also immensely Irish. When people told me I was crap back then, I wondered if I was, if my books were… I always knew their worth, but it was exhausting to be told, constantly, that my books counted for nothing.” Now they count in their millions, and have presumably made Keyes an extremely wealthy woman. Not that this was the plan. “My first book was published only in Ireland, set in Ireland about Irish people. I honestly thought nobody outside of Ireland would have any interest. I still can’t believe how lucky I am.” 'I watched a lot of reality tv' Stefanie Preissner on updating the Walshes for the 2020s Not only has she scripted The Walsh Sisters, boiling down Marian Keyes’s novels Rachel’s Holiday and Anybody Out There to create a six-part series, but she plays one of the sisters herself. How did comic actress and writer Stefanie Preissner do it? “I had to compress time. I had to take a vertical approach to adapt the books, to get all the sisters to exist in the same moment, and have the events all happen together.” En route, she scooped the role of second-oldest sister, Maggie. “It came about when we were auditioning for the role of Claire, and the casting director said, ‘You are reading beautifully for Maggie, would you consider playing her?’ And I kind of thought, ‘Oh God, would I consider it?’ And then I got the role, and that kind of changed everything.” Not least because she had written all the scenes. “Well, I didn’t know when I was writing it, that I was going to be playing Maggie. And so, the writing version of me confidently sits down to write this hilarious intimacy scene that I thought was going to be so funny, and then all of a sudden, I’m the one performing the sex scene, and I’m like — how has it come to this?!” Had she always been a Marian Keyes fan? “Well, I’m fully of the Harry Potter generation, but I remember my mum reading them when we were on holiday. I was about eight and I remember lying by the pool and it was one of those hotels where all the women are on sun loungers reading Rachel’s Holiday. And I remember thinking, ‘We are all reading Busy at Maths at school so maybe when you are an adult you all read the same books, too.’ And then when I was about 20, I read Rachel’s Holiday and I thought ‘Oh my God this is so relatable, I feel so seen.’” The series has been updated with contemporary language and culture; Claire, Maggie, Rachel, Anna and Helen have group chats on WhatsApp, say, “It’s not all about you” and tell their mother to “dial down the fat phobia”. “I watched a lot of reality television,” Stefanie explains. “I didn’t want to make this a period piece. So, I watched The Traitors and Love Is Blind. I went on TikTok and Instagram, and watched what’s interesting people. I’m not competing just with other shows on TV, I’m competing with influencers who have six million followers and have just put up a story about unboxing their Sephora haul.” There is also a lot of oozing, snorting and smoking. That may have been the case 30 years ago but isn’t it a bit dated now? “In Ireland? No, it’s not dated at all.”
Gordon Buchanan: "Coming from such a small community, I'm almost embarrassed by my achievements"
Gordon Buchanan’s difficult home life forced him outdoors – and he’s never looked back.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. A pride of lions – two lionesses and six or seven, almost-grown up, cubs – are gorging on a zebra carcass in the Okavango Delta. They have been without food for several days. Astonishing close-ups show the longed-for meat disappearing into the jaws of each lion. Drone shots capture the moment when the pride has had its fill. Tummies full, the big cats roll over, sated. If you want to see lions in a state of bliss, Big Cats 24/7 is for you. Wildlife film-maker Gordon Buchanan, who grew up on the Isle of Mull, is part of the BBC team following lion, leopard and cheetah across Botswana, day and night, as the title promises. The Scottish cameraman is at the top of his game, having shot more than 32 natural-history programmes, a number of which he’s also presented. In 2020 he was appointed MBE for his services to conservation. Is he as satisfied as those lions? “Coming from such a small community, I’m almost embarrassed by my achievements. I never set out to prove anything, bar to myself,” he says. Buchanan didn’t have an easy, or privileged start in life. Born just outside Glasgow, the third of four children, the family moved to Mull when Buchanan was a small child, after his mother separated from his father. They lived in a caravan and money was tight; his mother held down three weekly jobs. “She had no support. There were hugs and we were loved, but the rest… you had to make up for yourself. We had a sort of feral existence.” School was no help. “I think today I would be defined as dyslexic,” he says. “I struggled through school, not grasping things. I could skive my way through it and I wasn’t expected to pass anything, bar woodwork and art.” Buchanan acknowledges that being a natural-history presenter from a working-class background is unusual. “Historically, the only people who were naturalists were the clergy or monied classes,” he says. “There is an assumption that I’m middle-class because in the media, and in wildlife film-making in particular, there are a lot of middle-class people. About 90 per cent of people have been to private school, so I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder. There’s this assumption that I’m probably privately educated. Someone once asked me if it was true that my family owned half of Mull. Ha! The only bit of land we had was under my mum’s council flat.” Appearing in front of the camera was never meant to be part of the story. “It scared me so much to speak in public – it was the worst thing,” he says, but that changed when Buchanan shot a Natural World documentary called Leopard Hunters in Sri Lanka in 2001. “There was a big hole in the film and I was ordered to get in front of the camera, with my producer shouting, ‘Put some effort into it!’ But I didn’t want to be a wildlife presenter, so anything I did in front of the camera was minimum effort. But the BBC liked the laid-back approach…” View Green Video on the source website Buchanan’s love of the outdoors began as a child, as a place of escape from a difficult home, which he shared with his then stepfather: “That’s why the outdoors held excitement and promise. I could run away, explore and be carefree. The house wasn’t really a safe place. “My mum said it didn’t happen that often, probably less than 10 times, but the threat of domestic violence was always there.” The violence escalated until Buchanan returned home one day to find blood on the stairs. His mother – who would later throw out his stepfather – had been attacked in her sleep. Having left school at 17, Buchanan’s weekend job, washing up at a restaurant owned by the wildlife cameraman Nick Gordon and his wife Ann, turned into an escape route. The teenager was invited to join Gordon on his next trip, to Sierra Leone. “It was my one golden ticket. It was the chance for me to do something that was different and ticked so many boxes, whether building filming towers or setting up camp,” he says. After two days away he had contracted dysentery and seen a dead body. He was away for 18 months and it was another world compared to travel now. “I don’t want to go back to the days where it took two months to get news from family, but the internet has shrunk the world.” In a good way? Not really, he thinks. “At the age of 53, I’m addicted to my phone. You can pick up your phone and discover a whole day has passed.” A father of two grown-up children, aged 22 and 20, does he support the anxiety about young people on social media? “I’m all for banning phones for the under-16s. I’m dismayed when I walk through a school playground and you see these little clusters of kids around someone’s phone. They should be burning off some energy and running around.” Buchanan’s talent has taken him around the world. He has sat in a Plexiglas box and been pushed around by a polar bear; he has waited all day beneath a tree for a leopard; he has followed camels across the Gobi desert and accompanied huskies across the Yukon in Canada; and he has discovered a new species: the Bosavi woolly rat in Papua New Guinea. He is what is known as a super-recogniser, and not just for different types of lion. “I take in more details of the human face than other people. I have the ability to spot – before anyone else – who’s had Botox,” he says drily. Is he tempted? He laughs. “There is no substitute for healthy living, and a bit of style.” This man is as focused on the work (from the safety of a Land Rover) as a lion is on eating. “It’s roulette,” he laughs. “You can spend all night with them and nothing happens. The minute you get a stove out and start heating up some bolognese, that’s when things start to kick off.” He’s learnt how to wait. And he believes it’s a skill we all have. “People think I have an infinite amount of patience, but when you are sitting in a hide, you are observing everything that’s going on around you, whether it’s a noise from a baboon, a bird fluttering up, or a storm coming. “It’s within us all to find the frequency of nature. Every single human, whether you are from a tribe in the Amazon or Elon Musk, has ancestors who walked out of a cave and sniffed the air and saw a bird fluttering at the alarm of a lion. We haven’t changed in 10,000 years as human beings. That desire to connect with nature is still with us.” Only now we can do it from the safety of our sofa, watching this show. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Big Cats 24/7 airs at 9pm on BBC Two and iPlayer on Friday 27 February. Check out more of our Documentaries 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.
Beloved author Marian Keyes reveals why 'chick lit' exposes the "hollowness" of post-feminism
Marian Keyes’s novels were seen as fluffy fiction, but a new drama about her Walsh sisters is fun and fearless.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. The award-winning Irish author Marian Keyes has sold millions of books in an internationally acclaimed career, but still behaves as if she has everything to prove. A few years back she was invited to be on the BBC arts programme Imagine. Her reaction? “You’ve rung me by mistake, it’s Roddy Doyle you want.” And despite the fact that two of her novels have now been adapted into a six-part series, The Walsh Sisters – a cracking, tragicomic saga of five sisters living it large in Dublin – she still doesn’t think she deserves it. “Well, it’s 30 years since my first book was published, and things have been suggested all the time, and nothing ever gets made, and it’s the hope that kills you,” she says. “So I just never bothered expecting it, because I felt there was no point.” When I ask why she’s so down on herself, she widens her green eyes and looks directly at me. “Because I write popular fiction. People were so keen to tell me that that my voice was worthless and my books were worthless…” she shrugs. Not only does Keyes write popular fiction – albeit peppered with Shakespearean allusions and quotes from the King James Bible – but that fiction often comes with pink covers. “I have stayed the course and I have defended myself for a long time, especially with men. I mean, sexism was so rife. It was OK for men to mock books with pink covers.” The eyes get even wider. “The patriarchy was so confident. One great way of hanging on to the power and the money is to mock the things that women love. A woman might read a book and love it. And a man will say, ‘You’re not reading that pink fluff, are you?’ And immediately a woman feels foolish and embarrassed.” Keyes is charming, but there is anger just under the smiley surface. Take her first novel, Watermelon. It deals with a number of the most urgent of female issues (single parenting, the pay gap, body dysmorphia). Yet, when it was published in 1995, it was put into a pink dust jacket and filed under a new, fluffy genre, known for its pastel dust jackets and adorned with drawings of high heels and cocktail glasses. “Chick lit. It was degrading. It was meant to be degrading. What it did was ‘defang’ post-feminism,” says Keyes wearily. “We were told, ‘The second wave of feminism has ended, you can be anything you want.’ But women knew that was absolutely not the case. Women could not expect to get paid the same as men, to get promoted with the same speed as men, to be welcomed back after maternity leave, to have sex with the same freedom that men do – and not get judged. And that is exactly what so-called ‘chick lit’ was about,” she says, with scorn. “It was about the hollowness of post feminism. Slap a title like chick lit on; instantly, it’s defanged.” Indeed, it blunted the weapon she wielded. Which was? “Writing about the lives of women who were confused by a world where men still had all the power. None of that was picked up. Because of the pinkness of chick lit.” Did the pink fluffiness of the covers make her change her subject? Did it hell. “I write about women. I’m 62 now, and as I age, the women I write about get older. My focus shifts. I wish younger women well, but I can’t really relate to their lives in the same way that I used to. Now, I love the thing you have in your late 50s, of being too exhausted to care about getting your legs waxed. Or just that feeling the world won’t end if your roots are on show.” She smiles beatifically at me. She explains she hasn’t helped with the scripting by Stefanie Preissner of The Walsh Sisters. “She didn’t ask me to, and I wouldn’t have wanted to. I like writing books. And forgive me, this sounds ungrateful, but when I finished the books, the books were done. And no matter what the series is like, the books are still the books that I wrote. Secondly, I knew Stefanie. I find her fascinating and admirable. So, I thought if anybody could do it, she could. I also felt that the producers had paid for the option. It was theirs for them to do with what they liked, and that’s the deal.” No worries then? “Well, it was a risk, but you can’t do it without risk. I moved house recently, I sold my house to somebody else, and what they do with it is up to them. They gave me the money. It’s now their house.” A woman who has coped with addiction and has defined herself as an “ordinary alcoholic”, Keyes clearly has enormous strength, as well as a no-nonsense approach to the vagaries of the media. “I have used humour in the books to deal with painful subjects, and that’s a personal survival mechanism, but it’s also immensely Irish. When people told me I was crap back then, I wondered if I was, if my books were… I always knew their worth, but it was exhausting to be told, constantly, that my books counted for nothing.” Now they count in their millions, and have presumably made Keyes an extremely wealthy woman. Not that this was the plan. “My first book was published only in Ireland, set in Ireland about Irish people. I honestly thought nobody outside of Ireland would have any interest. I still can’t believe how lucky I am.” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. The Walsh Sisters airs at 9:15pm on BBC One and iPlayer on Saturday 21 February. Check out more of our Books 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. Looking for more reading recommendations? Join the Radio Times Book Club here - we offer 3-month or 6-month memberships as well as monthly or quarterly subscriptions where you'll receive a new hardback chosen by the RT team delivered directly to your door!
Dame Mary Berry reveals her dos and don'ts for the perfect Christmas dinner
We asked Mary Berry how she spends Christmas and she shared her favourite festive traditions, family moments and turkey tips.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. How will you be spending Christmas Day this year? At my son Tom’s, with his wife Sarah and their family. I bring the turkey – I have it ready by 11am and then I wrap it in foil, old clean towels and a sleeping bag without a zip, and put it in the boot of the car for the drive to my son’s house. It stays piping hot and the meat is rested, even after four or five hours, because of the bulk of the thing. Sarah’s mother will bake the Christmas cake and her father will do a topical quiz with pictures, all about what has happened during the year. After the King’s Christmas message at 3pm we will all go for a walk, with torches for the way back because it will be dark by then. What do you remember about Christmas as a child? Stockings – they were full of lots of little things, like playing cards, pencils and notebooks and a tangerine in the toe. Each gift was wrapped up by our mother, as a surprise. I received the present I treasured most when I was about eight. Our house was very cold and I always wanted a pair of gloves with a fur trim. I was so excited to get them. Do you have any dos and don’ts for Christmas dinner? I always use fresh herbs for the stuffing. I don’t like packet stuffing because the dry herbs are too strong. I make an open dish of apricots and chestnuts for vegetarians, it’s delicious. To give Christmas cake a difference from the pudding, I make it on the lighter side and fill it with apricots soaked in brandy. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/12/A-Mary-Berry-Christmas-bd65af9.jpg" width="1802" height="1202" alt="TX DATE:17-11-2025,TX WEEK:46,EMBARGOED UNTIL:01-12-2025 00:01,DESCRIPTION:with her Fillet of Beef,COPYRIGHT:Banijay UK,CREDIT LINE:BBC/Sidney Street Productions for Darlow Smithson Productions/Banijay UK/Richard Hill" title="546588,TITLE:A Mary Berry Christmas" /> Do you approve of culinary shortcuts? Oh, yes. People don’t always grate their own cheese, do they? They might buy a packet of ready-grated mature cheddar, which is fine. Early on in my television career [in the 1970s], most women were not working. They were at home, looking after their children. Nowadays most work and still enjoy cooking, but don’t have much time. So, shortcuts are very handy. You have some celebrities helping you in the kitchen this Christmas? Yes, athlete Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, Alison Steadman and Zoe Ball. We explore festive dishes and traditions. With Zoe, I chose a lovely 20ft-high tree from the Windsor Estate to go outside St Paul’s Cathedral. An honour! Read our guide to the best Christmas TV for 2025 You’ve celebrated a milestone birthday this year, turning 90. What are the best aspects of getting older? You have more time to think. You can go at a slightly slower pace and people don’t mind. You can do the things you had no time to do in the past, like learning croquet or visiting a local museum. I have time to take my grandchildren to a pantomime or the Christmas markets – things I wouldn’t have had time to do before. What are your resolutions for the coming year? This year, I have a resolution to go through all my Christmas cards and if a friend has put in a special message, I’ll give them a call. What makes this time of year magical for you? Having the whole family together. Everyone is here, and we are complete. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. A Mary Berry Christmas is available to stream on BBC iPlayer. Check out more of our Documentaries 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.
The culinary queen’s crucial ingredient? Just add family
A Mary Berry Christmas is on Sunday 21 December at 12 noon on BBC One and iPlayer. Add it to your watchlist How will you be spending Christmas Day this year? At my son Tom’s, with his wife Sarah and their family. I bring the turkey – I have it ready by 11am and then I wrap it in foil, old clean towels and a sleeping bag without a zip, and put it in the boot of the car for the drive to my son’s house. It stays piping hot and the meat is rested, even after four or five hours, because of the bulk of the thing. Sarah’s mother will bake the Christmas cake and her father will do a topical quiz with pictures, all about what has happened during the year. After the King’s Christmas message at 3pm we will all go for a walk, with torches for the way back because it will be dark by then. What do you remember about Christmas as a child? Stockings – they were full of lots of little things, like playing cards, pencils and notebooks and a tangerine in the toe. Each gift was wrapped up by our mother, as a surprise. I received the present I treasured most when I was about eight. Our house was very cold and I always wanted a pair of gloves with a fur trim. I was so excited to get them. Do you have any dos and don’ts for Christmas dinner? I always use fresh herbs for the stuffing. I don’t like packet stuffing because the dry herbs are too strong. I make an open dish of apricots and chestnuts for vegetarians, it’s delicious. To give Christmas cake a difference from the pudding, I make it on the lighter side and fill it with apricots soaked in brandy. Do you approve of culinary shortcuts? Oh, yes. People don’t always grate their own cheese, do they? They might buy a packet of ready-grated mature cheddar, which is fine. Early on in my television career [in the 1970s], most women were not working. They were at home, looking after their children. Nowadays most work and still enjoy cooking, but don’t have much time. So, shortcuts are very handy. You have some celebrities helping you in the kitchen this Christmas? Yes, athlete Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, Alison Steadman and Zoe Ball. We explore festive dishes and traditions. With Zoe, I chose a lovely 20ft-high tree from the Windsor Estate to go outside St Paul’s Cathedral. An honour! You’ve celebrated a milestone birthday this year, turning 90. What are the best aspects of getting older? You have more time to think. You can go at a slightly slower pace and people don’t mind. You can do the things you had no time to do in the past, like learning croquet or visiting a local museum. I have time to take my grandchildren to a pantomime or the Christmas markets – things I wouldn’t have had time to do before. What are your resolutions for the coming year? This year, I have a resolution to go through all my Christmas cards and if a friend has put in a special message, I’ll give them a call. What makes this time of year magical for you? Having the whole family together. Everyone is here, and we are complete.
As The World at One turns 60, Sarah Montague reveals the secrets of its success — and the key to a good interview
The World At One is on Monday-Friday at 1pm on BBC Radio 4. Add it to your collection. A month after Radio 4’s The World at One turned 60, its host for the last seven years is bullish about the show known as WATO (pronounced “what-oh”). This is certainly no time for thoughts of pensioning off the lunchtime news analysis, says Sarah Montague. “People always talk about the challenge from news podcasts, but our figures are remarkably stable.” Which are? “They bounce around 3.4 million.” Montague, who also turns 60 in a few months’ time, came to the show after 18 years co-heading the big beast that is Today. A downscaling? Hardly. “When you’re the only presenter, you feel more responsible. It’s a liberation not to have immovable furniture, like Thought for the Day. Or the tyranny of set interviews having to run at a certain time. If it’s good, we run with it.” WATO is also more thoughtful, she says. “It’s on at a less angry time of day. People are having their lunch. Afterwards, you get emails, rather than social media from listeners. More light than heat, is what I always say.” I suggest that what makes her stand out amid a crowded field is that she keeps her questions short. “Really? I don’t think I think enough in advance about what I am going to ask. Oh, don’t be so self-deprecating,” she says, almost to herself. “The good thing is being able to listen.” Indeed, the mark of a classy interviewer. The show is probably the most dynamic of the four daily news sequences on Radio 4. If something is really good, Montague explains, the whole running order is ripped up. “It’s The World at One, not The World when We Had the 9am Meeting. You chuck things out of the window, lay the structure down, even as we’re on air. You’re trying to tell the story of the day.” Over the years, these have included some marvels, many of which have been replayed on WATO to mark the birthday: an interview with Cissie Charlton, mother of Bobby and Jack, the day before the 1966 World Cup final; Mick Jagger speaking before the Stones’ release of Let’s Spend the Night Together (in 1967, it was controversial); a teenage William Hague making his famous speech at the Conservative Party Listen conference in 1977; interviews with world leaders Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. More recently, in 2005 the show was extended to help keep the public informed after the 7/7 bombings in central London. And now? Montague says that with so many working from home, the programme has had something of a boost. “During Covid, listening figures went through the roof. I think people came to us and stayed because we make inaccessible subjects accessible. The longterm challenge is to reach younger people, so Evan Davis and I do a podcast [Figuring It Out, available on BBC Sounds].” Montague, who doesn’t relish a huge personal profile, made the news five years ago, after realising that she was paid a lot less than equivalent male colleagues. After a public row about fair pay for women at the BBC, she won a £400,000 settlement and an apology. Has the experience left her unscathed? “Are you unscathed after anything like that?” she asks. “It was formative. I was very uncomfortable, because I like my job. I was glad to get the whole thing behind me and carry on. Although I can still summon up the anger, let’s be honest.” How is the situation now? “Better. The next struggle within the BBC is class. Whether you went to Oxbridge or not is less of an issue, but class has still to be addressed.” How does she consider her own headline birthday? “I’ve never really cared about getting older. I was cited as an ‘older woman’ at the BBC when I was 41. Although radio has got more visual, so maybe I should care. Sometimes I think maybe I should have…” Some Botox? “No, not Botox! No, sometimes I think maybe I should put on a bit more make-up.”
Kevin Bazeley was thrown out of the RAF for being gay – now he’s helping the Armed Forces to embrace inclusion
Add Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance 2025 to your watchlist This year, an important anniversary is being acknowledged ahead of Remembrance Sunday. It’s been 25 years since the Government lifted the ban on gay people serving in the Armed Forces. For Kevin Bazeley, however, it was too late. The ban affected his entire life because when he was in the forces it was a criminal offence to be gay, punishable by court martial and even imprisonment. Bazeley’s story will be featured in the annual Festival of Remembrance event at London’s Royal Albert Hall. As well as the familiar poppy drop, commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, military music, the attendance of hundreds of members of the Armed Forces and performances by artists such as Sir Rod Stewart, the event will feature a film on how this most egregious of wrongs was put right a quarter of a century ago. “Joining the RAF was my childhood dream,” Bazeley tells RT, just before the unveiling in October of a memorial to LGBTQ+ members of the Armed Forces at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, which was attended by King Charles. Bazeley, too, was at the ceremony. “I was 18 when I joined in 1985, straight from school. I trained as a navigator and served in the first Gulf War. Then I went to RAF Kinloss in Scotland where I flew on Nimrod aircraft.” However, as the years went by and even though he was married with two daughters, he realised his true sexuality hadn’t been acknowledged, even by himself. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/11/483D19XAG-7cc04e2-e1762352558931.jpg" width="5600" height="3740" alt="Week 46 Remembrance" title="King Charles III (centre) during a visit to the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas, Staffordshire, for the dedication ceremony of the LGBT+ Armed Forces memorial, the UK's first national memorial commemorating LGBT+ people who have served and continue" /> “In 1993 I separated from my wife, but I couldn’t tell her why because it was illegal to be gay in the RAF.” A year later, while at RAF Kinloss, disaster struck. “I had joined the Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club and I lost my membership card somewhere on the base.” Several weeks of anxiety followed. “The military police were intense in their searches to root out gay people. The moment any suspicion fell on someone they were followed, their rooms were searched and they were interrogated with forced medical examinations.” And so Bazeley waited. “I lost my card in June. For the next seven weeks every morning I’d wake up and think, ‘Is today the day?’ On 4 August, we landed back from a training flight and the Squadron Wing Commander met the aircraft, which was unusual. He asked me to follow him and I knew it was the end of my career.” Bazeley was handed over to the Special Investigation Branch and taken to a dark and dingy interview room. “I knew I was done,” he says. He was subjected to “very personal” interrogations from his superior officers. “They would ask me the same questions over and over. My world was gone. Everything I worked towards had gone.” Put under house arrest, he never got to speak to his team again. The only person who spoke to him was a young flight lieutenant called Richard Knighton. “He’s now Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, Chief of the Defence Staff. His support has been amazing,” says Bazeley. “He’s the only person who has kept in touch.” Bazeley was discharged in September 1995 – five years before the law that made it illegal to be homosexual in the armed forces was overturned on 12 January 2000. After being forced out of the RAF, Bazeley retrained and spent the next 27 years working as an accountant for GE Aviation [now GE Aerospace]. Since 2022, he has campaigned for inclusion and diversity, working with the Armed Forces’ charity, Fighting with Pride. In 2023, the then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made an apology on behalf of the state to the LGBTQ+ Armed Forces community, many of whom will be present at the Royal Albert Hall. “We had our medals, ranks and berets restored, and were welcomed back into the military family,” says Bazeley. There was also financial recognition: “A £50,000 Dismissal Payment, and also an Impact Payment, judged by a panel, from £1,000 up to £20,000, which is open for claims until 12 December 2026.” What are his feelings on the 25th anniversary of the lifting of the ban? “I will forever be disappointed that it’s not the 30th anniversary because then I wouldn’t have been thrown out.” Bazeley did, however, play a part in the project to create the memorial to LGBTQ+ members of the Armed Forces. A folded sheet of bronze on a Yorkstone base, it represents a letter between loved ones, found and used in evidence to dismiss someone. “It’s an incredible piece of art,” says Bazeley. “It reflects the pain and sacrifice of the veterans but is full of hope for the future. Because in all conflicts there were gay people. And they fought and died alongside everyone else.” Remembrance Sunday: The Cenotaph is on Sunday 10.15am on BBC One
At 90, Mary Berry celebrates over 50 years on television with a new series – and is as passionate as ever about her mission to get the nation cooking
How to summarise Mary Berry? National treasure, inspirational cook. Yes, of course. But there’s more. Dame Mary is as strategically driven as any business tycoon. It’s just that we don’t consider white-haired ladies who love to cook in this sort of way, especially one who was paid a mere £4.75 for one of her very first TV appearances, demonstrating the principles of a freezer. We’re at a riverside club near her Oxfordshire home for our photoshoot and interview and it’s nice to be greeted by a woman with perfect manners, who looks as pleased to see you as she would when lifting a perfectly cooked chicken out of the oven. In her 91st year [her 90th birthday was on 24 March], she’s here with Freddie, one of her two working cocker spaniels, who, despite already having had an hour-long walk in the countryside, looks up at her imploringly. I know how you feel, Freddie. We all want to have a bit of attention from Dame Mary. I first met her 31 years ago when she was plain Mrs Berry and I attended an Aga cookery course at her home. Three decades on, she’s as beady as ever, inspecting what she’s about to wear and complimenting her assistant on her pink jumper. She’s filmed a new six-part series, Mary at 90: a Lifetime of Cooking, in which she looks back at her long career on television, as well as concocting modern twists to some of her own favourite recipes, with six famous faces, including Jamie Oliver, Gabby Logan and Tom Allen. ITV footage from the 70s shows Mary demure, round-faced, with perfect RP, in a chintzy blouse. But behind those periwinkle eyes and that fluting voice lies ferocious drive. “Life is competitive. And whether you’re going for a job, or playing a sport, it’s good to do everything well,” she says now. She is also a culinary time capsule, noting (and using) the advent of five spice, fennel, fresh ginger. She can pinpoint the arrival of tin foil. “I was working for Home and Freezer Digest, and I remember the editor coming in and saying, ‘Look what’s arrived from America!’ The first thing we said was, ‘Do we use the shiny side or the dull side? Does it matter?’” Today, she has written more than 70 books that have sold over five million copies. Despite her drive, it was Delia Smith who pointed out, years ago, visiting Mary and her husband Paul Hunnings at their home, that she was underpaid. “Oh, Delia was absolutely brilliant. She came to stay with her husband Michael and we chatted about all sorts of things. I mean, you should never discuss money, sex or religion. But we did discuss money. She said, ‘You’re not being paid enough for your writing. I know an agent, Felicity Bryan, and I’ll ring her tonight.’ And the next day I got a postcard from Felicity saying, ‘Can we meet?’ And I’m still with her agency for my books.” [Bryan died in 2020.] Looking back at the archive footage, it’s clear that TV chefs today don’t know how lucky they are. Mary recalls her first appearance in the mid-70s on Good Afternoon, ITV’s magazine show, in which she was to demonstrate the principles of a freezer. “I wrote a book for Marks & Spencer about how to freeze things well, because if you put something in the freezer which is grotty, it will come out grotty. “There was no background help [for the TV appearance]. I had to bring in everything, every pot, pan, knife. All the food, vegetables, fish, mince, seasoning. I would be picked up in a taxi in the dark and arrive at Thames Television, where the tables were still set with newspapers from last night’s bulletin. They’d build a kitchen, and stick a clock on the wall, but the drawers didn’t open. There was no drain; water from the tap would empty into a bucket beneath my feet. If I turned the tap on too strongly, to wash a cabbage, say, and got carried away chatting to Judith [Chalmers, the Good Afternoon presenter], the bucket underneath would overflow and we would be paddling in water.” After her initial invitation, Mary became a regular, standing alongside Chalmers, showing viewers how to cook. She could hardly have known it, but her first job for the Electricity Board in Bath, demonstrating how electric ovens can create the perfect sponge, was ideal training. Watching herself back, Mary is helpless with laughter. “My voice! It was so high-pitched. But I had one aim. And that was to get people to cook and enjoy it as much as I did.” Recipes would be provided for viewers, but only ones who bothered to send in that historical artefact, a stamped addressed envelope. “Ask young people today what an SAE is, and they just look at you,” she marvels. As for brand Berry, was there a specially curated look? Zero attention. “There was no make-up. No wardrobe. You just arrived in your own clothes. And I would bring in daisies I’d picked from the garden.” When Mary made her debut on The Great British Bake Off in 2010, it cemented her name with a new generation. She landed the job after an audition, “But I said, ‘I do need someone with a second opinion, and [a rare moment of vulnerability] I’m really not very good at bread. It’s not my forte.’ So that’s how Paul Hollywood came. And gosh, he was very different from me. I don’t want tears. So, if something had collapsed in the middle, I’d say to a contestant, ‘Do you know what you could do with that? You could just scoop a little bit out, fill it with fruit and cream, and you’ve got a pudding.” Later, when Bake Off moved to Channel 4 in 2017, she stayed with the corporation. “I feel very cherished by the BBC, and it was quite right I stayed with them,” she says. And so, Mary’s TV career continued, with series such as Classic Mary Berry and a plethora of Christmas specials. Away from the screen, she likes to play croquet, read, walk her dogs and cook with her grandchildren. She is trim but doesn’t go to the gym. “Why go to the gym when you can walk a dog for an hour?” She has kept up with new food trends (she has a lot of plant-based recipes in her latest show) and technology. “You have to go with the trends, and yes, we are on Instagram.” She regrets her parents weren’t around to see her being made a Dame at Windsor Castle in 2021. “I am a great believer in genes. And my father was a remarkable man. My parents set an amazing example to me. When I found that I was going to be made a Dame, I couldn’t ring and tell them, but they are up there and looking down on me, and I know they’re quite pleased,” she says, smiling. “Your own children don’t notice, of course.” Mary enjoys a positive attitude, which helped following the death of her son William, who was killed aged 19 in a car crash in 1989. It was after this tragedy that she started teaching Aga courses at her home, although I recall there was no indication that she had been bereaved. She was just as charming and chirpy as she is today. Perhaps the whole routine helped keep up her morale. “I think of William every day. Of course I do. And if he were to walk through that door over there, I would say, ‘Where the hell have you been?’ I’m still very proud of him. I think of the joy he gave us. He was a lovely child, but you have to step back and think – I had wonderful parents, I’ve got two more children, Annabel and Tom, and my grandchildren. I mean, it would be devastating if you only had one child. I am very fortunate. And I have a husband who is 93.” She says the recipe for her marital success is that she steps out of the house when she can see an argument brewing. “Paul always says that the secret to our long marriage is his saying, ‘Yes, dear’ to everything, and then going his own way. But we don’t argue. If any disagreements come up, I open the back door and just go out and maybe pick some flowers or get some apples. It’s amazing if you can walk away. “Of course, if I was living in a top-floor flat, that would be difficult. But we respect each other. And I’m very lucky. He has mellowed in his old age and he’s become very appreciative of me. So I look after him, and it’s a great pleasure. That’s what I promised to do. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. And we are very happy in our dotage.” Not that I can see Mary having an argument about much, with anyone. She is totally charming and enjoys a good relationship with all her guests in the new series, particularly Jamie Oliver: “I didn’t get any school qualifications, and neither did he,” she says. Which of her guests learnt the most from cooking with her? “Oh, Alan Titchmarsh,” she says immediately. “We made spaghetti with salmon, and he hadn’t a clue. But he was so keen. To me, the huge reward was that 10 days after we recorded the show, he sent me an email with a picture of a table, all laid with the pasta dish and a glass of red wine. He said, ‘I did exactly what you said, and I’m very proud of this.’” She smiles. “He gets the star. That is what I love. People stop me in the supermarket and say, ‘You inspired me to cook’. That is what television does. It’s a huge cookery class, for two or three million people. If I do things well, people will make them at home.” That was the aim all those years ago. Still is. A new book, Mary 90: My Very Best Recipes, is available now (BBC Books)
Mary Berry reveals secret to happy marriage with 93-year-old husband – leaving the house when an argument starts
At 90, Mary Berry celebrates over 50 years on television with a new series – and is as passionate as ever about her mission to get the nation cooking.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. How to summarise Mary Berry? National treasure, inspirational cook. Yes, of course. But there’s more. Dame Mary is as strategically driven as any business tycoon. It’s just that we don’t consider white-haired ladies who love to cook in this sort of way, especially one who was paid a mere £4.75 for one of her very first TV appearances, demonstrating the principles of a freezer. We’re at a riverside club near her Oxfordshire home for our photoshoot and interview and it’s nice to be greeted by a woman with perfect manners, who looks as pleased to see you as she would when lifting a perfectly cooked chicken out of the oven. In her 91st year [her 90th birthday was on 24 March], she’s here with Freddie, one of her two working cocker spaniels, who, despite already having had an hour-long walk in the countryside, looks up at her imploringly. I know how you feel, Freddie. We all want to have a bit of attention from Dame Mary. I first met her 31 years ago when she was plain Mrs Berry and I attended an Aga cookery course at her home. Three decades on, she’s as beady as ever, inspecting what she’s about to wear and complimenting her assistant on her pink jumper. She’s filmed a new six-part series, Mary at 90: a Lifetime of Cooking, in which she looks back at her long career on television, as well as concocting modern twists to some of her own favourite recipes, with six famous faces, including Jamie Oliver, Gabby Logan and Tom Allen. ITV footage from the 70s shows Mary demure, round-faced, with perfect RP, in a chintzy blouse. But behind those periwinkle eyes and that fluting voice lies ferocious drive. “Life is competitive. And whether you’re going for a job, or playing a sport, it’s good to do everything well,” she says now. She is also a culinary time capsule, noting (and using) the advent of five spice, fennel, fresh ginger. She can pinpoint the arrival of tin foil. “I was working for Home and Freezer Digest, and I remember the editor coming in and saying, ‘Look what’s arrived from America!’ The first thing we said was, ‘Do we use the shiny side or the dull side? Does it matter?’” Today, she has written more than 70 books that have sold over five million copies. Despite her drive, it was Delia Smith who pointed out, years ago, visiting Mary and her husband Paul Hunnings at their home, that she was underpaid. “Oh, Delia was absolutely brilliant. She came to stay with her husband Michael and we chatted about all sorts of things. I mean, you should never discuss money, sex or religion. But we did discuss money. She said, ‘You’re not being paid enough for your writing. I know an agent, Felicity Bryan, and I’ll ring her tonight.’ And the next day I got a postcard from Felicity saying, ‘Can we meet?’ And I’m still with her agency for my books.” [Bryan died in 2020.] Looking back at the archive footage, it’s clear that TV chefs today don’t know how lucky they are. Mary recalls her first appearance in the mid-70s on Good Afternoon, ITV’s magazine show, in which she was to demonstrate the principles of a freezer. “I wrote a book for Marks & Spencer about how to freeze things well, because if you put something in the freezer which is grotty, it will come out grotty. “There was no background help [for the TV appearance]. I had to bring in everything, every pot, pan, knife. All the food, vegetables, fish, mince, seasoning. I would be picked up in a taxi in the dark and arrive at Thames Television, where the tables were still set with newspapers from last night’s bulletin. They’d build a kitchen, and stick a clock on the wall, but the drawers didn’t open. There was no drain; water from the tap would empty into a bucket beneath my feet. If I turned the tap on too strongly, to wash a cabbage, say, and got carried away chatting to Judith [Chalmers, the Good Afternoon presenter], the bucket underneath would overflow and we would be paddling in water.” After her initial invitation, Mary became a regular, standing alongside Chalmers, showing viewers how to cook. She could hardly have known it, but her first job for the Electricity Board in Bath, demonstrating how electric ovens can create the perfect sponge, was ideal training. Watching herself back, Mary is helpless with laughter. “My voice! It was so high-pitched. But I had one aim. And that was to get people to cook and enjoy it as much as I did.” Recipes would be provided for viewers, but only ones who bothered to send in that historical artefact, a stamped addressed envelope. “Ask young people today what an SAE is, and they just look at you,” she marvels. As for brand Berry, was there a specially curated look? Zero attention. “There was no make-up. No wardrobe. You just arrived in your own clothes. And I would bring in daisies I’d picked from the garden.” When Mary made her debut on The Great British Bake Off in 2010, it cemented her name with a new generation. She landed the job after an audition, “But I said, ‘I do need someone with a second opinion, and [a rare moment of vulnerability] I’m really not very good at bread. It’s not my forte.’ So that’s how Paul Hollywood came. And gosh, he was very different from me. I don’t want tears. So, if something had collapsed in the middle, I’d say to a contestant, ‘Do you know what you could do with that? You could just scoop a little bit out, fill it with fruit and cream, and you’ve got a pudding.” Later, when Bake Off moved to Channel 4 in 2017, she stayed with the corporation. “I feel very cherished by the BBC, and it was quite right I stayed with them,” she says. And so, Mary’s TV career continued, with series such as Classic Mary Berry and a plethora of Christmas specials. Away from the screen, she likes to play croquet, read, walk her dogs and cook with her grandchildren. She is trim but doesn’t go to the gym. “Why go to the gym when you can walk a dog for an hour?” She has kept up with new food trends (she has a lot of plant-based recipes in her latest show) and technology. “You have to go with the trends, and yes, we are on Instagram.” She regrets her parents weren’t around to see her being made a Dame at Windsor Castle in 2021. “I am a great believer in genes. And my father was a remarkable man. My parents set an amazing example to me. When I found that I was going to be made a Dame, I couldn’t ring and tell them, but they are up there and looking down on me, and I know they’re quite pleased,” she says, smiling. “Your own children don’t notice, of course.” Mary enjoys a positive attitude, which helped following the death of her son William, who was killed aged 19 in a car crash in 1989. It was after this tragedy that she started teaching Aga courses at her home, although I recall there was no indication that she had been bereaved. She was just as charming and chirpy as she is today. Perhaps the whole routine helped keep up her morale. “I think of William every day. Of course I do. And if he were to walk through that door over there, I would say, ‘Where the hell have you been?’ I’m still very proud of him. I think of the joy he gave us. He was a lovely child, but you have to step back and think – I had wonderful parents, I’ve got two more children, Annabel and Tom, and my grandchildren. I mean, it would be devastating if you only had one child. I am very fortunate. And I have a husband who is 93.” She says the recipe for her marital success is that she steps out of the house when she can see an argument brewing. “Paul always says that the secret to our long marriage is his saying, ‘Yes, dear’ to everything, and then going his own way. But we don’t argue. If any disagreements come up, I open the back door and just go out and maybe pick some flowers or get some apples. It’s amazing if you can walk away. “Of course, if I was living in a top-floor flat, that would be difficult. But we respect each other. And I’m very lucky. He has mellowed in his old age and he’s become very appreciative of me. So I look after him, and it’s a great pleasure. That’s what I promised to do. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. And we are very happy in our dotage.” Not that I can see Mary having an argument about much, with anyone. She is totally charming and enjoys a good relationship with all her guests in the new series, particularly Jamie Oliver: “I didn’t get any school qualifications, and neither did he,” she says. Which of her guests learnt the most from cooking with her? “Oh, Alan Titchmarsh,” she says immediately. “We made spaghetti with salmon, and he hadn’t a clue. But he was so keen. To me, the huge reward was that 10 days after we recorded the show, he sent me an email with a picture of a table, all laid with the pasta dish and a glass of red wine. He said, ‘I did exactly what you said, and I’m very proud of this.’” She smiles. “He gets the star. That is what I love. People stop me in the supermarket and say, ‘You inspired me to cook’. That is what television does. It’s a huge cookery class, for two or three million people. If I do things well, people will make them at home.” That was the aim all those years ago. Still is. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Mary at 90: A Lifetime of Cooking begins Tuesday 28th October at 7:30pm on BBC Two and iPlayer. Check out more of our Entertainment 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.
Sky’s new thriller sees Tom Hollander and Niamh Algar tearing through Italy’s most glamorous locations on a quest to crack a code – and save the world
Add The Iris Affair to your watchlist Tom Hollander may be many things: vulnerable (Rev); literary (Capote vs the Swans); ruthless (The Night Manager); dangerously louche (The White Lotus), but one thing he is not, is an action hero. He’s an Honorary Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge for goodness’ sake. He writes for The Spectator. He’s too learned, too urbane. Hence when Neil Cross, award-winning screenwriter and the man behind Luther, originally envisaged him starring in his new thriller The Iris Affair, it was more as a behind-the-desk mastermind than a fist-swinging, tweed-coat-donning anti-hero. More a fraught middleman. In a cardie. However, what the 58-year-old Hollander does find himself in is a semi-James Bond, semi-Severance eight-part high-tech escapade around Italy and Slovakia. It’s great fun in a witty British way. Hollander plays Cameron Beck, a maverick genius whose job it is to unlock the secrets contained in a giant computer and save the world. To do this, he enlists the help of Iris (Niamh Algar), a brainy Lara Croft type who loves unlocking codes and cracking puzzles. She’s also pretty handy with her fists, guns and syringes and at one point emerges from the waves like a modern-day Ursula Andress. Iris has all the fun. Whereas Hollander? He uses middle-class phrases such as “swapsies” and “thinking cap” and spends a lot of time drinking whisky. We meet on set during the shoot at the legendary Cinecitta Studios in Rome. “Cameron Beck is someone who is an enthusiast for brilliant people,” Hollander explains. “He’s financed the building of this brilliant computer, and he loves games. Now he needs to find someone to break a code that will solve all his problems.” Because if Beck doesn’t unlock the computer with the help of Iris, he will be killed. Hence all the car chases and derring-do? “Yes, there is a very long car chase, interspersed with some very clever philosophical speculation. But I don’t do very much of the former. Although we did go up in a helicopter the other day… “It’s a bit like a live action Wacky Races with a bit of intellectual texture to it, and with Niamh as Penelope Pitstop,” he continues, referring to the classic 1970s Hanna-Barbera cartoon series. Does that make him the evil mastermind Dick Dastardly? “For bits of it. At other times I’m Muttley.” [Dastardly’s canine sidekick who takes all the blame]. Casting directors seem to like sending Hollander off to work in Italy, I say, referring to his role as Quentin, the lavish gay Brit who seeks to trap, and murder Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya McQuoid in the second season of The White Lotus. “Yes, it’s a nice feeling to be back in Italy again,” he says. “There is a lot of pasta. Which is offered and mostly rejected because of the need to stay in shape. Even though I notice Italians are in very good shape, despite the fact they have cake for breakfast and pasta for lunch.” “In many ways, Tom’s got the qualities of an old-style Hollywood leading man,” explains Neil Cross, who says he watches a minimum of eight classic movies every weekend in order to keep his eye on what makes a good story and a great script. “He can get inside the material and deliver elaborate dialogue – which, if it was delivered by a less able actor could spill over into camp. Cameron Beck has to be capable of charm and ferocious intelligence. “In Cameron and Iris, I wanted people who were massively attracted to how the other thinks. It’s the primary driver behind most of Hitchcock’s thrillers, but also old-fashioned comedies like It Happened One Night or Bringing Up Baby. Films with scripts that are quick, and witty. And both Tom and Niamh can do that. “My primary intention was to make a TV show without being arch, and without being post-modern – something refreshingly old-fashioned. I wanted to apply the kind of storytelling that was used by directors who were unfashionable by 1973. “I also wanted the show to look unapologetically, unironically glamorous. When I was pitching it to Sky, I said Iris must never drive a car with a roof, like Grace Kelly. And the sky is always blue, and the mountains are beautiful, and she needs to be beautiful.” Iris may be beautiful but she also has to be able to get dusty, fight in the street, leap on and off motorbikes and push cars over cliffs. “I had to learn how to ride a Vespa and one of those little Italian three-wheelers,” says Niamh Algar. “And a Ferrari! I’m also about to film a huge fight sequence, which is going to be gruesome…” The grittier the better for Algar, it seems. “I started boxing years ago. It has come in handy, because if you’re taking hits and punching people, you need to be able to work seamlessly with the stunt team.” Amongst the car chases and fight scenes is there actually an Iris ‘affair’? “Iris is infatuated by Cameron, his mind and drive,” says Niamh. “But also, these two are constantly trying to kill one another!” That sounds like a nicely deflected no… But how was it working with Hollander? “I’m such a huge fan! Any time you see his name on the credits, you think, OK, this guy is about to steal the scene. There’s this emotional depth he brings to the character, which is fascinating because that changes as you play the character. Particularly with TV because you don’t get much rehearsal time. And Terry doesn’t like to over-rehearse.” Terry is the director Terry McDonough, whose CV includes Breaking Bad and its prequel Better Call Saul. Like those two series, this show makes you root for the baddies, the script is clever, it keeps you on your toes and saves the story from being gratuitously drowned in violence. Hollander is as carefully nuanced as was his star turn in The White Lotus. Is he a baddie? Is he a goodie? Cameron Beck seems very cunning, and you fear for the vulnerable people in his command. But then all of a sudden, he stops talking about cutting people’s limbs off and comes out with a homely British phrase like “Blimey”. The overall effect is to make you feel comforted and reassured, as if he’s going to offer you Marmite on toast and a cup of tea. This acting see-saw is Hollander’s special skill. “Yes, I’ve done a few of those roles where the audience thinks: ‘Oh, he’s quite nice! Oh no, he’s a villain!’” Take his role in The White Lotus – spoiler alert – “We didn’t know that Quentin was necessarily going to kill Tanya,” he says, “but the game was ‘Is he? Isn’t he? Is he? Isn’t he?’” Why does he think he’s cast in such roles? “Because if you do it, and do it reasonably well, then you get asked again.” Dick Dastardly or Muttley? Heartless provocateur or cosy delight? Tom Hollander has a fabulous ability to deploy both.
The Night Manager's Tom Hollander and co-star Niamh Algar take us inside your next TV adventure
Sky’s new thriller sees Tom Hollander and Niamh Algar tearing through Italy’s most glamorous locations on a quest to crack a code – and save the world.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Tom Hollander may be many things: vulnerable (Rev); literary (Capote vs the Swans); ruthless (The Night Manager); dangerously louche (The White Lotus), but one thing he is not, is an action hero. He’s an Honorary Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge for goodness’ sake. He writes for The Spectator. He’s too learned, too urbane. Hence when Neil Cross, award-winning screenwriter and the man behind Luther, originally envisaged him starring in his new thriller The Iris Affair, it was more as a behind-the-desk mastermind than a fist-swinging, tweed-coat-donning anti-hero. More a fraught middleman. In a cardie. However, what the 58-year-old Hollander does find himself in is a semi-James Bond, semi-Severance eight-part hi-tech escapade around Italy and Slovakia. It’s great fun in a witty British way. Hollander plays Cameron Beck, a maverick genius whose job it is to unlock the secrets contained in a giant computer and save the world. To do this, he enlists the help of Iris (Niamh Algar), a brainy Lara Croft type who loves unlocking codes and cracking puzzles. She’s also pretty handy with her fists, guns and syringes and at one point emerges from the waves like a modern-day Ursula Andress. Iris has all the fun. Whereas Hollander? He uses middle-class phrases such as “swapsies” and “thinking cap” and spends a lot of time drinking whisky. We meet on set during the shoot at the legendary Cinecitta Studios in Rome. “Cameron Beck is someone who is an enthusiast for brilliant people,” Hollander explains. “He’s financed the building of this brilliant computer, and he loves games. Now he needs to find someone to break a code that will solve all his problems.” Because if Beck doesn’t unlock the computer with the help of Iris, he will be killed. Hence all the car chases and derring-do? “Yes, there is a very long car chase, interspersed with some very clever philosophical speculation. But I don’t do very much of the former. Although we did go up in a helicopter the other day… It’s a bit like a live action Wacky Races with a bit of intellectual texture to it, and with Niamh as Penelope Pitstop,” he continues, referring to the classic 1970s Hanna-Barbera cartoon series. Does that make him the evil mastermind Dick Dastardly? “For bits of it. At other times I’m Muttley.” [Dastardly’s canine sidekick who takes all the blame]. Casting directors seem to like sending Hollander off to work in Italy, I say, referring to his role as Quentin, the lavish gay Brit who seeks to trap, and murder Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya McQuoid in the second season of The White Lotus. “Yes, it’s a nice feeling to be back in Italy again,” he says. “There is a lot of pasta. Which is offered and mostly rejected because of the need to stay in shape. Even though I notice Italians are in very good shape, despite the fact they have cake for breakfast and pasta for lunch.” “In many ways, Tom’s got the qualities of an old-style Hollywood leading man,” explains Neil Cross, who says he watches a minimum of eight classic movies every weekend in order to keep his eye on what makes a good story and a great script. “He can get inside the material and deliver elaborate dialogue – which, if it was delivered by a less able actor could spill over into camp. Cameron Beck has to be capable of charm and ferocious intelligence. “In Cameron and Iris, I wanted people who were massively attracted to how the other thinks. It’s the primary driver behind most of Hitchcock’s thrillers, but also old-fashioned comedies like It Happened One Night or Bringing Up Baby. Films with scripts that are quick, and witty. And both Tom and Niamh can do that. “My primary intention was to make a TV show without being arch, and without being post-modern – something refreshingly old-fashioned. I wanted to apply the kind of storytelling that was used by directors who were unfashionable by 1973. I also wanted the show to look unapologetically, unironically glamorous. When I was pitching it to Sky, I said Iris must never drive a car with a roof, like Grace Kelly. And the sky is always blue, and the mountains are beautiful, and she needs to be beautiful.” Iris may be beautiful but she also has to be able to get dusty, fight in the street, leap on and off motorbikes and push cars over cliffs. “I had to learn how to ride a Vespa and one of those little Italian three-wheelers,” says Niamh Algar. “And a Ferrari! I’m also about to film a huge fight sequence, which is going to be gruesome…” The grittier the better for Algar, it seems. “I started boxing years ago. It has come in handy, because if you’re taking hits and punching people, you need to be able to work seamlessly with the stunt team.” Amongst the car chases and fight scenes is there actually an Iris ‘affair’? “Iris is infatuated by Cameron, his mind and drive,” says Niamh. “But also, these two are constantly trying to kill one another!” That sounds like a nicely deflected no… But how was it working with Hollander? “I’m such a huge fan! Any time you see his name on the credits, you think, OK, this guy is about to steal the scene. There’s this emotional depth he brings to the character, which is fascinating because that changes as you play the character. Particularly with TV because you don’t get much rehearsal time. And Terry doesn’t like to over-rehearse.” Terry is the director Terry McDonough, whose CV includes Breaking Bad and its prequel Better Call Saul. Like those two series, this show makes you root for the baddies, the script is clever, it keeps you on your toes and saves the story from being gratuitously drowned in violence. Hollander is as carefully nuanced as was his star turn in The White Lotus. Is he a baddie? Is he a goodie? Cameron Beck seems very cunning, and you fear for the vulnerable people in his command. But then all of a sudden, he stops talking about cutting people’s limbs off and comes out with a homely British phrase like “Blimey”. The overall effect is to make you feel comforted and reassured, as if he’s going to offer you Marmite on toast and a cup of tea. This acting see-saw is Hollander’s special skill. “Yes, I’ve done a few of those roles where the audience thinks: ‘Oh, he’s quite nice! Oh no, he’s a villain!’” Take his role in The White Lotus – spoiler alert – “We didn’t know that Quentin was necessarily going to kill Tanya,” he says, “but the game was ‘Is he? Isn’t he? Is he? Isn’t he?’” Why does he think he’s cast in such roles? “Because if you do it, and do it reasonably well, then you get asked again.” Dick Dastardly or Muttley? Heartless provocateur or cosy delight? Tom Hollander has a fabulous ability to deploy both. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. The Iris Affair begins on Sky and NOW on 16th October 2025. Check out more of our Drama 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.
When England cricketer Kate Cross helped coach a girls’ team with Freddie Flintoff, it wasn’t the teenagers’ lack of experience but self-doubt and broken nails that proved to be the real challenge
Add Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams: Ultimate Test to your watchlist With the Women’s Cricket World Cup taking place in Sri Lanka and India in October, and England among the favourites to win, it’s no surprise that cricketing legend Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff wanted to include a girls’ team in the latest series of Field of Dreams, the show in which Flintoff recruits young people for a cricket team and changes their lives along the way. As always, Flintoff hasn’t made life easy for himself, going to communities where cricket is virtually unknown to find players. Not only that, he’s never coached young women before, and he’s also head coach of the England Lions, developing emerging talent for the men’s national side, which means he’s rather busy. So he has drafted in England and Lancashire bowler Kate Cross, to give him a hand and offer a bit of insight. “Crossy” knew Flintoff from afar as a fellow Lancashire player. “Fred texted me, said he had never coached girls and could I help out,” she says. “By the way, this is my hero! He was my role model! So there was no chance I would say no.” While Flintoff goes to shape two groups of lads into viable cricket squads for his new league, Cross heads to South Shore Cricket Club in Blackpool to work with girls for whom team sport of any kind is a new endeavour. Despite being deeply committed to the game and the viability of the women’s sport, this still presented a challenge to the energetic Cross: could she coach 11 teenage girls, most of whom had never thrown a cricket ball? “Historically, cricket was only available in private schools, but what this series is trying to show is that all you need is a bat and a ball. You can play it on the beach or in the street. And so we went into a community where cricket isn’t the norm,” she says. “Team sport was a huge part of my upbringing because I grew up in a very sporty family,” adds Cross, whose father David played for West Ham and was in the team when the Hammers won the FA Cup in 1980. “My journey began by playing in the back garden with my brothers; the biggest influence on me was Heywood Cricket Club, my local club [near Rochdale].” While Cross has been overlooked for the England squad for the World Cup – an omission she has said, on her podcast, “feels savage” – she is a trailblazer nonetheless. She was the first woman to play for the Central Lancashire League in its 123-year history, playing for Heywood at the age of 23 and taking eight wickets in a men’s league match. She confesses that her experience with her Blackpool charges wasn’t straightforward. “I would leave a session so tired and frustrated. They were trying a sport they had never known.” The first episode of Field of Dreams shows Cross and Flintoff managing an introductory session. There are some funny moments. “I see why my mum fancies Freddie,” admits one of the girls candidly. “What if I break my nails?” wails another, waving her hands at Flintoff. “Ever got the sense you’re out of your depth?” he murmurs. But once the team realises TikTok can also be worked in around training, everyone relaxes. Cross also noticed something more fundamental about her team. “They were constantly putting themselves down. When you told them they’d done something well, they didn’t believe you. You wanted them to have fun. These girls were carrying things that 13- to 15-year-olds shouldn’t be carrying. Social media stands out at the centre of all this,” she says. “And none of it is real. People show the best parts of their lives, they don’t show reality. The pressure these young girls are under to look and act a certain way. There is so much pressure to be perfect.” Flintoff doesn’t hold back anything, particularly about his accident in 2022 while filming Top Gear. He is clearly greatly recovered, but it has changed him. “He has spoken very candidly about his accident,” says Cross, “and what this series shows is that cricket has given him something back, and helps him manage. It’s a by-product of the sport.” While the show can change the lives of the young people involved, it’s potentially a demanding voyage for Flintoff and his ego. “Are you from Top Gear, then?” asks one of the girls. “I used to be, but then this happened,” says Freddie, gesturing to his scarred face. “So I’ve gone back to cricket. It’s a bit safer,” he deadpans. “Why do you want to teach cricket?” she persists. “Why? Because I was a cricketer. I played for England,” says Freddie Flintoff MBE, one of the sport’s greatest all rounders. “Oh, did ya?” she says. Flintoff, who played 79 Tests for England, can’t help but laugh. The series shows Flintoff ’s humour and humanity, but it also introduces Cross as a warm and committed presence in the girls’ squad. “Getting to know the girls was the best thing. I had a genuine sense of fulfilment seeing someone mastering a skill. By the end of the training sessions you’re seeing the best parts of their personalities. We had 10 girls who came consistently to training. They became this friendship group. They knew they could have fun. I’m hopeful that they remain friends.” After the final episode was shot, Cross invited them to see her play in a professional game. Was she nervous? “No! It was great to see them there. And it was nice for them to see that I was OK at cricket.” How did she do in front of her charges? “I can’t really remember! Hopefully I picked up a wicket or two!”
'I would never want to be prime minister'
She’s at the top of her game as an actor — but run the country? No thanks. She’s in bed by 9pm
Add Hostage to your watchlist From Coronation Street to Downing Street. The rise and rise of Suranne Jones goes on, and now she’s in charge. And she didn’t even have to audition for the role of prime minister. “No!” she laughs, sitting in a fancy suite in London’s Netflix HQ. “Me and Matt Charman, the writer, have known each other for a long time. We always wanted to do a project together, and I suddenly got an urge to do a political drama. I’ve always loved shows that take the viewer into the halls of power. Matt had done Bridge of Spies and Treason, so I knew that he was the person to go to. We bounced ideas back and forth and then we came up with this idea of me as the prime minister.” But not a lone, Margaret Thatcher figure. “I didn’t want to be the only woman in a room full of men, but one working with another female leader. That’s the thing that’s different about it.” Hostage, a five-part political thriller produced for Netflix, hinges on the relationship between British prime minister, Abigail Dalton (Jones), and France’s female president, Vivienne Toussaint (played by Julie Delpy). Women working together, not pitted against one another. Eventually. “Women are always put against one another, and these two fall for it,” says Jones. “At first there’s a lot of game-playing, and it’s not until later on that they start to see each other properly and realise how they can help each other.” View oEmbed on the source website How did she research the role? “We spoke to people in positions of power. We went to the House of Commons, and we watched Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer battle against each other. We met with the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle. We looked at Nicola Sturgeon. And Jacinda Ardern [the former prime minister of New Zealand]. We looked at Theresa May. And Lucy Powell [MP for Manchester Central]. We had fun developing it. It made me think about what being a woman of power means, and what it costs.” Prime Minister Dalton comes with baggage: a husband (Ashley Thomas), who is a doctor for Médecins sans Frontières, their daughter and also her elderly father Max (James Cosmo). Each one is gravely challenged by the fact that she is prime minister. “The whole thing is about you, your family unit, how women split themselves between work and home, what the cost is, how you want to be portrayed, how the world perceives you as a woman, and what you have to battle with, before you start your day. All of that is going on before you put your heels on. And you might not want to put your heels on. And your power suit. But actually, you have to in order to make a mark in the room.” Clothes play a subtle but crucial part. Delpy is classy in navy and ivory couture, a sort of Catherine Deneuve figure; Jones is smart M&S. “That the French president is effortlessly elegant was important, because her character is so confident. And she’s older, so she has this kind of wisdom on her shoulders, but she’s still making a lot of mistakes within her own personal life. With my character, we wanted to use high-street clothes, as well as British designers. We really thought about it and when you first see me, I’m in something like a Reiss suit with a Bella Freud shirt. But the next time you see her, she’s had an interaction with the French president and she’s dressed just slightly better.” Jones plays a politician who starts with high ideals, and principles, but who has to face up to the compromise that politicians often find themselves forced into, despite themselves. “With politicians, the thing I was interested in, was the hope you give when you’re running for election, and the promises you make. Then the moment you get elected, and the door shuts, you have to go out and tell the world, ‘Actually, we can’t do this, this and this.’ So then everyone that voted for you, has a new opinion of you because you promised all of this stuff, and then you can’t deliver it.” Would she ever want to be prime minister? “I would never want to be prime minister, even for a day. I would never choose it.” Because politicians can’t be truly honest? “Well, they could, but if they were, we’d all be gobsmacked, wouldn’t we? Also, I like to be in bed by 9pm. That’s another reason why I couldn’t be prime minister. There’s far too much to read late into the night. I don’t know how they do it.” That’s why the show is called Hostage. Yes, her husband is taken hostage for real, but Dalton is also hostage to the job. “She’s hostage to Number Ten, to the rules.” Is that pressure more intense for a female PM? “I think it’s harder for women, as it is with most jobs. Breaking down the patriarchy isn’t an easy task. It’s really hard. When a woman stands up, there’s so many labels that she has to fulfil. Abigail Dalton is one person when she’s in front of the cameras but as soon as the door shuts, she’s a right old sweary Mary. And she’s human.” Suranne Jones was born and raised in Chadderton, Greater Manchester and, after performing with Oldham Theatre Workshop and gaining a BTEC in Performing Arts, she went straight into the business. “I started on Coronation Street and I worked my way up. Corrie was like my own form of university and I loved it. And I did my time in theatre and loved it.” Most people will know her from her impressive roster of roles in TV drama; Detective Rachel Bailey in Scott & Bailey, GP Gemma Foster in Doctor Foster (for which she won a Bafta), as well as Vigil and Gentleman Jack. She has her own production company, TeamAkers, that she runs with husband Laurence Akers. Say the company name out loud; it’s witty. She’s also ensuring that other women are able to follow behind her. Not only does Hostage have two astonishing female leads, it has women throughout the team. “We have two female directors. I wanted the best people for the job – but the best people for the job were always going to be women. And Netflix agreed. If women don’t use women writers, or directors, or camera operators, no new women will come up in the industry. We need to train women. And we also need to have older women on screen.” Looking like older women? “Well, as I’m frightened to death of any kind of Botox or anything like that, I’ll get the granny parts!” She reflects a little. “My auntie was talking to me the other day. She said, ‘People always ask me, when did Suranne break her nose?’ I’ve never broken my nose, but because it’s not perfectly straight, or whatever… Anyway, character is about what shines from within. It’s not about fixing what’s outside.” To date, Jones has been extremely sure-footed in her career choices. So what’s next for her? “Well, it’s changed, because I have a family now [a nine-year-old son]. I now think, ‘What’s going to make me happy?’ I don’t work in the summer, because my son is on holiday. I only work when he’s at school.” Throughout the summer, Suranne and her husband will be helping out at a local theatre in Norfolk. Community is vital to a woman whose character and confidence were forged by growing up in a northern, working-class community with a connected, committed family around her. “With my mother and my aunties, we’d go to each other’s houses. You know, when we were kids, they’d all need help, and they were all busy women. Then the cousins had babies, and the cousins would come to the aunties’ houses and bring their little kids, because they needed a break. And so, the women in the family would rally round. I feel like all of that gave me a really good insight into what community is.” The community of theatre was vital, too, to her development. “I wasn’t hugely bright – maths, science, all of that stuff didn’t interest me. I wanted to show my skills in a different way, which was acting. I was creative. Emotionally, I was intelligent. So, finding a group of people that I could express that with, and suddenly realising I was someone who’s got something to say, was important. “Finding out that you are an important part of something is wonderful for a child. I teach kids drama now, and I love doing that. It’s one of the most beautiful things, because you just see a world in a child’s eyes, and when you give them a way to express themselves, it’s the most beautiful, wonderful thing. Keeping communities together is crucial in an age where social media and the rise of AI and technology is so fast, and when we have lost so much. “Stripping everything back and bringing communities together, that’s really important to me. In Norfolk, we have a local community-run café, and the Little Theatre where we help out, is community run. The whole world’s in there.” She may be a prime minister on our screens, but in real life this summer Suranne Jones will be on the beach or in the local theatre. And then tucked up in bed. “The beach, chippy, arcades, a bath at 8pm and in bed by 9pm. Honestly, I get up so early that by 4pm I’m starting to wane. So it’s good that we’ve met today at 11 in the morning!”
'I think possibly the French are ready to elect a woman president'
Women are held to a higher standard, says French star Julie Delpy – who has fought the patriarchy at every turn and now plays the President of France for Netflix
Add Hostage to your watchlist As Vivienne Toussaint, president of the French Republic, Julie Delpy is pitch perfect. Elegant, coiffed, robed in a beautifully cut white coat, she arrives at Downing Street to meet her British counterpart with a frisson of je ne sais quoi. But is it realistic? “I think possibly the French are ready to elect a woman president,” says Delpy, speaking to me on a Zoom call from Paris. “But not Marine le Pen.” Le Pen, the far-right candidate, ran last year, but her campaign has been somewhat derailed by financial irregularities. That, as far as Delpy considers, is le fin. “The French are more horrified by a money scandal than a sex scandal.” Well, of course. Delpy smiles. “Everyone thinks the French are very sexy, but it’s not that true. It’s not about having more sex. It’s more about the French public being more relaxed about their leaders having affairs.” Indeed. One thinks of President Mitterrand’s secret daughter, or President François Hollande on his “love scooter” coming from his love nest, or President Macron and his one-time drama teacher who is now his wife. Ooh la la, the heady stories within the Élysée Palace. “There are, however, some amazing female politicians out there,” Delpy adds, “such as Christiane Taubira (former minister of justice under Hollande). She’s my favourite person.” View oEmbed on the source website The strictures laid on female politicians resound with Delpy, who is a lauded screenplay writer and director. “In politics, women are far more quickly judged than men.” Perhaps this is intimated by a translation of her character’s name; Vivienne Toussaint (literally: living as a complete saint). “People forgive women less. In the film world, it’s the same. As a woman on set, you have to be perfect. Men are excused all sorts of behaviour, but a woman can never have a tantrum. I’m not a difficult person, or easily in a bad mood, but I know that, as a director, I can never raise my voice. It’s the same with politicians. Look at Chancellor Rachel Reeves when she cried in the House of Commons. In the UK, you reacted as if it was something truly extraordinary.” Delpy, who has performed in or created over 30 movies, now lives with her family in New York and Paris, with a joint French/US citizenship. Where is her heart? “My heart is in my chest,” she says, laughing. “I am very practical in that way. My son is at school in the US. But the situation is changing day by day in America, there are arrests every two minutes.” Will she and her family stay there? “I never cave into panic. I’m the kind of person who stays calm until there is reason to be anxious, but I like to prepare. I have a French passport and an American passport, my husband is Greek and my son is half German. “I don’t know what is going to happen, but I’m keeping calm. In the US, the structure of democracy is… wearing out. I am a Democrat, and when that is not legal any more, I will reassess whether it is safe to live there.” She was brought up in a politically and culturally aware environment. “My mother was a campaigning feminist and my father was a hippy who was born in Vietnam. It was a household where culture and politics were of equal importance. My parents had no money and they didn’t give a fig about money. There were four of us, me, my parents and my grandmother, living in a tiny apartment in the 15th Arrondissement, with no bathroom. We would wash in the kitchen sink. When I tell people in New York that they think I’m joking. But my parents took me to concerts, galleries and the theatre all the time. I was exposed to so much culture as a child.” Perhaps it’s not surprising that her career, which began at the age of 14 when the director Jean-Luc Godard cast her in his film Detective, has been distinguished by eclectic choices and a refusal to conform. “I have old enemies in the industry,” she says. “As a young person, I never complied to the rules of the patriarchy. I had a reputation of being strongheaded, because I said ‘no’ to so many directors. I was not, and am not compliant to the rules, in a sexual way. “When I was very young, I was constantly approached. I said no to everyone. That sort of thing stays with you. You get called difficult, but I refused to comply with the system, with the idea of women being the muse to the male director. I remember when I was about 20, one man approached me. He must have been about 60. He said: ‘Are you a prude? Are you frigid?’ It was disgusting. It was the same when I got to the US. Less overt, but it was still a very difficult, long road to keep my integrity.” There were exceptions. Krzysztof Kieslowski, who cast her as the star of his 1993 film Three Colours: White. And, mercifully, Godard. “He wrote me a letter when I was 15. He said: ‘Remember you are like a river. Stay strong and be the river, and remember that your enemies are like the riverbanks, they will try to control you.’” Regardless of the critical acclaim (three César nominations and two Oscar nominations), Delpy thinks her stance has affected her career. “It’s had consequences for me. It takes more effort to make films. I am banned from certain festivals. There will always be people trying to hurt my work. I earn less; I will get $3 million per film, whereas someone else might get $5 million.” Does she care? Pas du tout. “I need to look at myself in the mirror every day, and I’m with people who care about me. My life is full of love. I see people around me who have complied with the system and their personal life is a bit… empty. Because they have followed a certain road, which comes with a cost.”
Suranne Jones's political thriller Hostage affirms her key belief: “I would never want to be prime minister”
She’s at the top of her game as an actor — but run the country? No thanks. She’s in bed by 9pm.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. From Coronation Street to Downing Street. The rise and rise of Suranne Jones goes on, and now she’s in charge. And she didn’t even have to audition for the role of prime minister. “No!” she laughs, sitting in a fancy suite in London’s Netflix HQ. “Me and Matt Charman, the writer, have known each other for a long time. We always wanted to do a project together, and I suddenly got an urge to do a political drama. I’ve always loved shows that take the viewer into the halls of power. Matt had done Bridge of Spies and Treason, so I knew that he was the person to go to. We bounced ideas back and forth and then we came up with this idea of me as the prime minister.” But not a lone, Margaret Thatcher figure. “I didn’t want to be the only woman in a room full of men, but one working with another female leader. That’s the thing that’s different about it.” Hostage, a five-part political thriller produced for Netflix, hinges on the relationship between British prime minister, Abigail Dalton (Jones), and France’s female president, Vivienne Toussaint (played by Julie Delpy). Women working together, not pitted against one another. Eventually. “Women are always put against one another, and these two fall for it,” says Jones. “At first there’s a lot of game-playing, and it’s not until later on that they start to see each other properly and realise how they can help each other.” How did she research the role? “We spoke to people in positions of power. We went to the House of Commons, and we watched Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer battle against each other. We met with the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle. We looked at Nicola Sturgeon. And Jacinda Ardern [the former prime minister of New Zealand]. We looked at Theresa May. And Lucy Powell [MP for Manchester Central]. We had fun developing it. It made me think about what being a woman of power means, and what it costs.” Prime Minister Dalton comes with baggage: a husband (Ashley Thomas), who is a doctor for Médecins sans Frontières, their daughter and also her elderly father Max (James Cosmo). Each one is gravely challenged by the fact that she is prime minister. “The whole thing is about you, your family unit, how women split themselves between work and home, what the cost is, how you want to be portrayed, how the world perceives you as a woman, and what you have to battle with, before you start your day. All of that is going on before you put your heels on. And you might not want to put your heels on. And your power suit. But actually, you have to in order to make a mark in the room.” Clothes play a subtle but crucial part. Delpy is classy in navy and ivory couture, a sort of Catherine Deneuve figure; Jones is smart M&S. “That the French president is effortlessly elegant was important, because her character is so confident. And she’s older, so she has this kind of wisdom on her shoulders, but she’s still making a lot of mistakes within her own personal life. With my character, we wanted to use high-street clothes, as well as British designers. We really thought about it and when you first see me, I’m in something like a Reiss suit with a Bella Freud shirt. But the next time you see her, she’s had an interaction with the French president and she’s dressed just slightly better.” Jones plays a politician who starts with high ideals, and principles, but who has to face up to the compromise that politicians often find themselves forced into, despite themselves. “With politicians, the thing I was interested in, was the hope you give when you’re running for election, and the promises you make. Then the moment you get elected, and the door shuts, you have to go out and tell the world, ‘Actually, we can’t do this, this and this.’ So then everyone that voted for you, has a new opinion of you because you promised all of this stuff, and then you can’t deliver it.” Would she ever want to be prime minister? “I would never want to be prime minister, even for a day. I would never choose it.” Because politicians can’t be truly honest? “Well, they could, but if they were, we’d all be gobsmacked, wouldn’t we? Also, I like to be in bed by 9pm. That’s another reason why I couldn’t be prime minister. There’s far too much to read late into the night. I don’t know how they do it.” That’s why the show is called Hostage. Yes, her husband is taken hostage for real, but Dalton is also hostage to the job. “She’s hostage to Number Ten, to the rules.” Is that pressure more intense for a female PM? “I think it’s harder for women, as it is with most jobs. Breaking down the patriarchy isn’t an easy task. It’s really hard. When a woman stands up, there’s so many labels that she has to fulfil. Abigail Dalton is one person when she’s in front of the cameras but as soon as the door shuts, she’s a right old sweary Mary. And she’s human.” Suranne Jones was born and raised in Chadderton, Greater Manchester and, after performing with Oldham Theatre Workshop and gaining a BTEC in Performing Arts, she went straight into the business. “I started on Coronation Street and I worked my way up. Corrie was like my own form of university and I loved it. And I did my time in theatre and loved it.” Most people will know her from her impressive roster of roles in TV drama; Detective Rachel Bailey in Scott & Bailey, GP Gemma Foster in Doctor Foster (for which she won a Bafta), as well as Vigil and Gentleman Jack. She has her own production company, TeamAkers, that she runs with husband Laurence Akers. Say the company name out loud; it’s witty. She’s also ensuring that other women are able to follow behind her. Not only does Hostage have two astonishing female leads, it has women throughout the team. “We have two female directors. I wanted the best people for the job – but the best people for the job were always going to be women. And Netflix agreed. If women don’t use women writers, or directors, or camera operators, no new women will come up in the industry. We need to train women. And we also need to have older women on screen.” Looking like older women? “Well, as I’m frightened to death of any kind of Botox or anything like that, I’ll get the granny parts!” She reflects a little. “My auntie was talking to me the other day. She said, ‘People always ask me, when did Suranne break her nose?’ I’ve never broken my nose, but because it’s not perfectly straight, or whatever… Anyway, character is about what shines from within. It’s not about fixing what’s outside.” To date, Jones has been extremely sure-footed in her career choices. So what’s next for her? “Well, it’s changed, because I have a family now [a nine-year-old son]. I now think, ‘What’s going to make me happy?’ I don’t work in the summer, because my son is on holiday. I only work when he’s at school.” Throughout the summer, Suranne and her husband will be helping out at a local theatre in Norfolk. Community is vital to a woman whose character and confidence were forged by growing up in a northern, working-class community with a connected, committed family around her. “With my mother and my aunties, we’d go to each other’s houses. You know, when we were kids, they’d all need help, and they were all busy women. Then the cousins had babies, and the cousins would come to the aunties’ houses and bring their little kids, because they needed a break. And so, the women in the family would rally round. I feel like all of that gave me a really good insight into what community is.” The community of theatre was vital, too, to her development. “I wasn’t hugely bright – maths, science, all of that stuff didn’t interest me. I wanted to show my skills in a different way, which was acting. I was creative. Emotionally, I was intelligent. So, finding a group of people that I could express that with, and suddenly realising I was someone who’s got something to say, was important. “Finding out that you are an important part of something is wonderful for a child. I teach kids drama now, and I love doing that. It’s one of the most beautiful things, because you just see a world in a child’s eyes, and when you give them a way to express themselves, it’s the most beautiful, wonderful thing. Keeping communities together is crucial in an age where social media and the rise of AI and technology is so fast, and when we have lost so much. “Stripping everything back and bringing communities together, that’s really important to me. In Norfolk, we have a local community-run café, and the Little Theatre where we help out, is community run. The whole world’s in there.” She may be a prime minister on our screens, but in real life this summer Suranne Jones will be on the beach or in the local theatre. And then tucked up in bed. “The beach, chippy, arcades, a bath at 8pm and in bed by 9pm. Honestly, I get up so early that by 4pm I’m starting to wane. So it’s good that we’ve met today at 11 in the morning!” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Hostage is coming to Netflix on Thursday 21st August. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream. Add Hostage to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Drama 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.
Ashley Thomas AKA Bashy reveals biggest hope for Netflix drama Hostage and how acting came before rapping
The award-winning rapper returns to acting, his first passion.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. In Netflix's new thriller Hostage, Ashley Thomas plays Dr Alex Anderson, the husband of Prime Minister Abigail Dalton and a medic with Médecins sans Frontières who is taken hostage while working in French Guiana. “I read War Doctor by David Nott [the lauded Welsh surgeon who has worked in disaster and war zones across the world] which sort of anchored my character. I also spoke to a doctor from Médecins sans Frontières, who had worked in Haiti. But they are also people with a regular life, and that helped me. At the bottom of it, Alex plays football, he goes to the pub and does what the rest of us do. It was about not getting drawn into acting like a doctor.” Many viewers will know Thomas as the rapper Bashy. Tracks from his debut album Catch Me If You Can were nominated for a slew of awards, and his 2024 album Being Poor Is Expensive won him both the MOBO [Music of Black Origin] album of the year, and best hip-hop act. This year, his track How Black Men Lose their Smile was nominated for a Novello for best contemporary song, and he also played Glastonbury in June. So, is he a rapper who acts on the side? Actually, it’s more the other way round. “I started out as an actor. My mum put me into acting workshops and then I trained as an actor at the Brit school. Acting was my first passion and music came later on.” He thinks that the racial diversity represented by his on-screen marriage to Suranne Jones is par for the course, pointing to the fact that the Conservative party had two people of colour as leader, one of whom was prime minister. “Hostage is art reflecting real life. My hope is that viewers will be open about it and people will just enjoy the characters. That’s what I want people to talk about. The characters and the powerful performances.” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Hostage is coming to Netflix on Thursday 21st August. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream. Add Hostage to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Drama 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.
Hostage star Julie Delpy argues France is ready for a female leader - but not Marine Le Pen
Women are held to a higher standard, says the French star who has fought the patriarchy at every turn.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. As Vivienne Toussaint, president of the French Republic, Julie Delpy is pitch perfect in Hostage. Elegant, coiffed, robed in a beautifully cut white coat, she arrives at Downing Street to meet her British counterpart with a frisson of je ne sais quoi. But is it realistic? “I think possibly the French are ready to elect a woman president,” says Delpy, speaking to me on a Zoom call from Paris. “But not Marine le Pen.” Le Pen, the far-right candidate, ran last year, but her campaign has been somewhat derailed by financial irregularities. That, as far as Delpy considers, is le fin. “The French are more horrified by a money scandal than a sex scandal.” Well, of course. Delpy smiles. “Everyone thinks the French are very sexy, but it’s not that true. It’s not about having more sex. It’s more about the French public being more relaxed about their leaders having affairs.” Indeed. One thinks of President Mitterrand’s secret daughter, or President François Hollande on his “love scooter” coming from his love nest, or President Macron and his one-time drama teacher who is now his wife. Ooh la la, the heady stories within the Élysée Palace. “There are, however, some amazing female politicians out there,” Delpy adds, “such as Christiane Taubira (former minister of justice under Hollande). She’s my favourite person.” The strictures laid on female politicians resound with Delpy, who is a lauded screenplay writer and director. “In politics, women are far more quickly judged than men.” Perhaps this is intimated by a translation of her character’s name; Vivienne Toussaint (literally: living as a complete saint). “People forgive women less. In the film world, it’s the same. As a woman on set, you have to be perfect. Men are excused all sorts of behaviour, but a woman can never have a tantrum. I’m not a difficult person, or easily in a bad mood, but I know that, as a director, I can never raise my voice. It’s the same with politicians. Look at Chancellor Rachel Reeves when she cried in the House of Commons. In the UK, you reacted as if it was something truly extraordinary.” Delpy, who has performed in or created over 30 movies, now lives with her family in New York and Paris, with a joint French/US citizenship. Where is her heart? “My heart is in my chest,” she says, laughing. “I am very practical in that way. My son is at school in the US. But the situation is changing day by day in America, there are arrests every two minutes.” Will she and her family stay there? “I never cave into panic. I’m the kind of person who stays calm until there is reason to be anxious, but I like to prepare. I have a French passport and an American passport, my husband is Greek and my son is half German. “I don’t know what is going to happen, but I’m keeping calm. In the US, the structure of democracy is… wearing out. I am a Democrat, and when that is not legal any more, I will reassess whether it is safe to live there.” She was brought up in a politically and culturally aware environment. “My mother was a campaigning feminist and my father was a hippy who was born in Vietnam. It was a household where culture and politics were of equal importance. My parents had no money and they didn’t give a fig about money. There were four of us, me, my parents and my grandmother, living in a tiny apartment in the 15th Arrondissement, with no bathroom. We would wash in the kitchen sink. When I tell people in New York that they think I’m joking. But my parents took me to concerts, galleries and the theatre all the time. I was exposed to so much culture as a child.” Perhaps it’s not surprising that her career, which began at the age of 14 when the director Jean-Luc Godard cast her in his film Detective, has been distinguished by eclectic choices and a refusal to conform. “I have old enemies in the industry,” she says. “As a young person, I never complied to the rules of the patriarchy. I had a reputation of being strong-headed, because I said ‘no’ to so many directors. I was not, and am not compliant to the rules, in a sexual way. “When I was very young, I was constantly approached. I said no to everyone. That sort of thing stays with you. You get called difficult, but I refused to comply with the system, with the idea of women being the muse to the male director. I remember when I was about 20, one man approached me. He must have been about 60. He said: ‘Are you a prude? Are you frigid?’ It was disgusting. It was the same when I got to the US. Less overt, but it was still a very difficult, long road to keep my integrity.” There were exceptions. Krzysztof Kieslowski, who cast her as the star of his 1993 film Three Colours: White. And, mercifully, Godard. “He wrote me a letter when I was 15. He said: ‘Remember you are like a river. Stay strong and be the river, and remember that your enemies are like the riverbanks, they will try to control you.’” Regardless of the critical acclaim (three César nominations and two Oscar nominations), Delpy thinks her stance has affected her career. “It’s had consequences for me. It takes more effort to make films. I am banned from certain festivals. There will always be people trying to hurt my work. I earn less; I will get $3 million per film, whereas someone else might get $5 million.” Does she care? Pas du tout. “I need to look at myself in the mirror every day, and I’m with people who care about me. My life is full of love. I see people around me who have complied with the system and their personal life is a bit… empty. Because they have followed a certain road, which comes with a cost.” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Hostage is coming to Netflix on Thursday 21st August. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream. Add Hostage to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. Check out more of our Drama 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.
'We were covered with lice and had no proper clothes'
13-year-old Olga Henderson was imprisoned in a camp in Singapore on VJ Day, 15 August 1945. Now, 80 years on, she tells her story of punishments, hunger and the undying dream of going home.
Add VJ Day: We Were There to your watchlist To some, the war in Japan is a distant appendage to the horrors of the Second World War in Europe. Not to Olga Henderson (née Morris). Now 93, she was interned aged ten, effectively as a civilian British prisoner of war along with her family. Olga, her parents and three siblings, Mary, Peter and George, were held captive for three years, first in Japan’s infamous Changi Prison, then in Sime Road Camp, a former RAF base in Singapore. It was little more than a couple of huts run under a system of starvation and fear. By the end of the war, these miserable barracks housed over 4,500 European civilians, including 328 children. On VJ Day, 15 August 1945, Olga was 13, filthy, emaciated, barefoot, her developing body clothed in nothing other than a pair of underpants and a dirty rag. “We were in front of the hut, where there was about eight feet of sandy mud, and we heard the plane,” she says. “What looked like confetti started raining down. But it wasn’t confetti. It was leaflets saying the Allies had won and the war was over. We started playing with the leaflets.” Her description of life at Sime is jawdropping. They ate nothing more than scraps of vegetables and scrapings of rice filched by her mother, who was the camp cook for the Japanese soldiers. “We were like walking bamboo sticks,” she says. “We were covered with lice. We had no scissors to cut our nails, no proper clothes and no food.” The trauma began in 1942 when she and her family were living in British Malaya (now Malaysia) when it and Singapore were both invaded by the Japanese. The family had to flee their home with half an hour’s notice. A British soldier knocked at the door and said the invaders were just behind. After failing to gain passage on an evacuation ship, the family were captured by the Japanese, held in a field and marched to Changi jail. Despite this trauma, she says the family never considered escaping from the camp. “Never. You never bothered planning escape, because the punishment was too horrendous. They say in Singapore you can still walk along a certain road and hear cries of pain. That’s where they tortured escapees. My brother Peter was 11 and was whipped for picking up half a piece of fruit that had fallen from a tree. It was regarded as stealing, and stealing was a very serious crime. We would try very hard never to anger the Japanese guards. They only had to put their hand on their cane and we’d fall into line. They went into a temper quickly, because they were treated brutally, too. They were trying to carry out orders from above and trying to be perfect. So, of course, that travelled down to us.” Yet starvation made the children reckless. “My friend Eileen got up at night and dug up some roots from a tapioca plant. She put the plant back into the ground, but of course the next day it began to wilt. She was caught and her punishment was being made to kneel in the sun all day. Her father, who was in the men’s camp, saw her through the barbed wire. He protested that his daughter was being tortured. They beat him up.” The sun was a terrible punishment. “We had to work in the fields all day, and you were lucky if you had anything to shade you from the bright sun. My father went blind in camp, and my mother and sister eventually lost their sight, too. My smallest brother George, who was only five when we were captured, was the worst affected by the lack of food. He grew up to be a normal height, but all his organs had been starved of nutrition, so they didn’t develop properly. In the end, he died of a heart attack.” Hers was an extraordinary childhood, if you can call it that. Christmas was celebrated with seven pieces of meat floating in a tub. At Changi, there was a modicum of infrastructure. She and other girls were encouraged to join a Girl Guide troupe run by an internee, the remarkable Elizabeth Ennis. The girls would meet once a week in a corner of the exercise yard. As a surprise present for their captain, they managed to secrete scraps of cloth, which they stitched into a quilt for her. It’s now on show at the Imperial War Museum. Toys came in the form of paper dolls, and school lessons did take place. In Sime Road Camp, however, there were no toys or books; school lessons for the children were led by adult prisoners, in the form of chanting by rote. “Our teacher Julie would put some dirt in a piece of cloth and bind it into a sort of ball,” remembers Olga. “She would throw it to us and say, ‘Three times eight,’ and whoever she threw it to would have to say the answer as they caught the ball.” When the Allied plane flew over Sime, Olga and other prisoners were digging a large hole at the foot of a hill. She didn’t know it, but they were digging a mass grave. “We were told it was for food storage. I later learnt it was so the guards could put us all in there and blow us up. They didn’t have enough food for us, so they were going to kill us.” Two years ago, Olga published a memoir, In the Shadow of the Rising Sun. “I had no interest in writing my memories, but I was prompted to do so after experiencing Covid. The strictures of getting food and of seeing people brought it all back.” Her one sadness now is that she feels the reasons behind her harrowing experience have been forgotten. They are not forgotten by her; having been denied so much at a young age, she keeps her clothes carefully and never wastes food. “People don’t know about the Japanese war. They have no clue it ever happened. What are they teaching young ones now?” Did she ever think she would perish? “That was the funny thing. I didn’t think I wasn’t going to make it. We always thought we were going to go home. And after they dropped the leaflets, they started dropping bread.” Olga features in We Were There (Wednesday BBC2) and will be part of Friday’s VJ Day 80 coverage on BBC1
Take an exclusive first look at Suranne Jones as a British PM in Netflix's anticipated new thriller Hostage
Hostage will be on Netflix from 21 August. Fancy attending an exclusive screening in central London, followed by a Q&A with Suranne Jones and Julie Delpy and a drinks reception? We have a limited number of tickets to give away to RT readers for this Netflix event at the Ham Yard Hotel on Monday 18 August 2025 from 6.30pm to 10pm. Tickets will be allocated on a first come, first served basis (and a maximum of two per person). Click here. Mocking up 10 Downing Street was a crucial element to get right in the new Netflix thriller Hostage, in which Suranne Jones plays embattled Prime Minister Abigail Dalton. When her husband is thrown into mortal peril abroad, Dalton has to cope with personal dramas as well as a Cabinet that is ranged against her, while at the same time keeping a doubtful nation on side with regular press appeals from the Downing Street podium, a perfect replica of which was recreated for filming.“That was thrilling to do,” says Jones, who also executive produced the five-part series. “We built the outside of Downing Street so that we could have that interaction. It was just great, being outside No 10 with all the press attention, coming in and going out, recognisable moments that have been in all our lives. Standing at the lectern! Thrilling!” Did it give her a taste of what it would be like to be PM? “I would never want to be prime minister, not even for a day. It’s hard. And harder for women, as it is in most areas. We looked at Nicola Sturgeon, Theresa May, Jacinda Ardern, how they managed and at what cost. Breaking down the patriarchy is not an easy task.” The series features not one but two female world leaders, as it co-stars French film legend Julie Delpy as French President Vivienne Toussaint, who is on a state visit to London. So Delpy also gets to walk the most famous street in politics. View oEmbed on the source website Is the idea of a female French president realistic? “I think the French are possibly ready to elect a woman president,” says Delpy. Madame la president is, of course, extremely alluring. “Everyone thinks the French are very sexy, and having sex all the time. It’s not really true. The reality is that it’s not that we have more sex, it’s that we’re a little more relaxed about people having affairs.” And apparently that dates from an older leadership system. “Yes, it comes from our kings. They were all over the place with women. They would have up to 20 lovers at any one time, and didn’t want them to take showers. They were crazy!”
The pressure of organising the RAF’s VE Day flypast sits lightly on Squadron Leader Dan Wilkes – but its significance is monumental
The 80th anniversary of VE Day is on Thursday 8 May, but will be marked throughout the week from 5 May. Add VE Day 80 to your watchlist There will be no witnesses, bar wind turbines and the odd fish. But at 12.45pm on Monday 5 May, high above the North Sea, an assembly of two dozen RAF planes will gather and fly towards London. At 1.45pm, the formation will fly down the Mall. The RAF VE Day flypast will be led by a sole Lancaster bomber, one of the few planes remaining from the original war fleet. Forty seconds behind will be three aircraft from the air mobility fleet. Then comes “the faster stuff”, according to event organiser Squadron Leader Dan Wilkes. Wilkes himself will be in third place, piloting a RC135 Rivet Joint surveillance plane with two smaller fighter aircraft on each side of him. That sounds pretty hairy. “Yes, the fighter planes will be about 20 feet from my wingtips,” says Wilkes calmly. But then Wilkes is a calm sort of guy. Now 32, he’s been flying since the age of 13. “My great grandfather was an engineer officer in the RAF,” he explains. “His job was to get Spitfires ready for the front line. My grandfather was also an engineer at RAF Cosford. I’d go there as a three-year-old to watch the RAF show from his house. All I wanted to do was join up.” So he did, signing up for the Air Cadets while he was at secondary school in Birmingham and achieving an RAF scholarship that sponsored him towards an aviation qualification. “I got my private pilot’s license when I was 16. I could fly my family around England before I could drive them,” he says. Based with 51 Squadron at RAF Waddington, Wilkes’s day job requires flying alongside other planes at a height of 40,000 feet at around 500mph. So, doing it over London is going to be a breeze? Not quite. There will be a lot to think about. As well as the Lancaster 40 seconds in front of him, and the fighter planes, there will be nine Red Arrows, with their trademark trails, 40 seconds behind him, and then, 40 seconds behind them, a quartet delivering a “signature” package in the sky. Quite the aerial salute. “I’ve helped organise the flypasts for the Queen’s Jubilee and the King’s coronation in the past,” he says. “This one, though, is special. Each of these planes is part of a story to commemorate past sacrifice and look towards what we do in the world. And the flypast will make parallels, between then and now.” He explains why the crowds in London won’t be seeing that totemic symbol of British fighting spirit, the single-seater Spitfire. “The Spitfires are fuel limited; you can only get 30 minutes at a push from them. So, we will be deploying our four Spitfires for smaller VE Day displays elsewhere in the UK. The Lancaster can manage about 21/2 hours, so it will stay airborne after the London flypast and go to subsequent events.” He’s been planning this day since last September and it’s similar to what he does for the RAF normally. “We fly in formation for a conflict, or while delivering humanitarian aid,” he explains. “In a sense, the flypast is in the same vein as any operation we might do around the world.” The whole event will be done and dusted in about three minutes. Then all the planes will disperse to their original bases. “You don’t get the chance to take it all in when you’re in the plane,” says Wilkes. “It’s actually when you get back in the afternoon, and speak to friends and family, or see it on the news, that’s when you get that lump in the throat.” He knows this is probably the last time VE Day will be acknowledged by those who actually fought in the days leading up to that historic moment. “That is why we use the historic planes. We put them into a composition where we can thank people for what they did. This flypast is for the generation who sacrificed themselves for victory in Europe.” Amid much commentary about the size of the UK’s armed forces, he’s proud of what the event might signify today. “There are lessons from how we flew in the Second World War,” he says. “How the Air Force is capable, how it protects allies in Europe, including Ukraine. The key to winning the war, and to what VE Day means, is that there were alliances. Not just with the US, but across Europe. And even 80 years on, VE Day can make us realise how the security of our nation is dependent on the armed forces. That the RAF is ready to defend the UK. We are ready to fly and fight.”
Gareth Malone is back with an Easter choir – but why did he disappear for five years? And how did JS Bach save him?
Add Gareth Malone's Messiah to your watchlist Gareth Malone is back conducting choral music on our screens; as infectiously enthusiastic and impossibly youthful-looking as ever. The Peter Pan of Do-Re-Mi is attempting to coax classical perfection from eight absolute beginners, who’ve never before sung in a classical choir. In just seven weeks from first audition, the novice singers will join the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales for a performance of Handel’s Messiah in Cardiff’s Llandaff Cathedral. It sounds like a huge undertaking, and one that the choirmaster takes very seriously. “It’s about eight people encountering Handel; I chose it because of that. It’s a very wholesome thing to do.” But it’s also embedded within his core: “Messiah is a text I’ve known my whole life. I was introduced to it by my parents; they would sing the Halleluiah Chorus while doing the washing up.” After listening to it on vinyl, he was taken to see Handel’s most famous oratorio performed. “I was seven or eight. I don’t wish to denigrate TV or radio, but it’s not the same as going to the Royal Festival Hall and hearing a massive orchestra play and a choir of 200 sing. “From an early age, I had very powerful reactions to music. I was overwhelmed by it. I still am. Handel comes from a deep place. It is sincere. It is considered, but there is also a lightness to it. He wrote it in a hurry; almost as if he had divine inspiration. You can see it from the score. It transmits that energy when you are conducting and performing it.” That energy is very much not the sort of thing you can get from artificial intelligence. “AI,” he snorts. “It’s a tool. So is a hammer, but you don’t use it all day. As a child, I grew cress. We made a sandwich with it, and I ate it. That was enormous for me. I did something in the real world, not via a screen. You can’t get a computer to sing Messiah and be in an orchestra. It’s organic, and real, and moving. Tech is useful, but when I turn to my piano, it’s real and vibrating.” Malone, best known for series such as The Choir: Military Wives and Boys Don’t Sing, used to be on our screens every year. And then he wasn’t. He was in talks to do his choral magic in the States, but in 2017 chose to walk away. “I had a real case of burnout. I was on a treadmill, going from one project to another. Each got bigger and bigger, and you got to the point when you didn’t have anything bigger to give. Launching in America was very much part of that.” Then came something utterly unplanned: the pandemic. “I didn’t earn any money in 2021 because of Covid. The first year was OK but then, suddenly, all TV, all commissioning, ground to a halt. I was just at home. I got back into the minutiae of looking after the kids, getting their swimming kit ready, cooking their supper. I don’t regret it, because it gave me five years of being at home.” All that sounds great, but what about his creation, Gareth Malone, Boyish Choral Superstar? Did he worry that the public might forget him? “One hundred per cent,” he says, with a candour that’s unusual from a celebrity. “One hundred per cent. My livelihood has been ‘being Gareth Malone on TV’.” He pauses. Was it a crisis? “Yes, it was.” Was he panicking? “Yes, I was. I definitely had moments of panic.” How did he manage? “I confided in my wife [English teacher Becky Malone]. That’s what partners are there for.” Plus, routine. “I would force myself to get up, put a clean shirt on and go to work in my studio. I would work on music and try to generate projects.” And then what? More anxiety. “I panicked that it was all about the streamers, or iPlayer, and nobody was watching TV. I would read [trade magazine] Broadcast, which would be all doom and gloom.” Did he fear he was not diverse enough – too white, too male, too classically orientated? “I’d be lying if I said that didn’t cross my mind. All those demons cross your mind. The one that really concerned me was overfamiliarity. I tried not to spread myself too thinly, but… Anyway, I would work on my music, and try to generate projects. And, slowly but surely, stuff started to happen.” Alongside his wife, one other person helped him: the 17th-century composer Johann Sebastian Bach (Malone took on Bach’s St John Passion for his Easter 2024 series). “I’d listen to Bach. His music is perfect. And he understood loss and grief. Music is always the thing I come back to. That’s what drives me.” And now? “Post-Covid, everything has been more solid. I just know what I am about now. I’m passionate about music education and music.” Like many others, including the pop singer Ed Sheeran, Malone fears that future generations are in danger of missing out, due to a dearth of music education at state schools. “What music does is promote feelings of success. You do one rehearsal, and another, and you feel as if you’re achieving something. I’ve been in music education for 30 years, and I’ve not seen any sea change by any government. I hoped my work might bang the drum for the importance of music; it’s essential to us as human beings. It has the potential to change lives. It’s not just an add-on.” We discuss the fact that Cardiff University recently closed its School of Music. “Wales, the land of song! That was announced when we were recording this series there. It’s so sad. Some of our singers in the Chorus of Wales were students at Cardiff University. We led the world in music for years. Now it’s getting to a tipping point.” He pauses, exasperated. “We all know what it takes to make a musician; it’s a lifetime of commitment and experience. We now have a mental health crisis. Why is music not promoted? Why not give someone a violin and encourage them to play? Why not get the lives of young people to be more fun and rewarding before the crisis hits? Nobody remembers doing maths on a Thursday. But young people all remember when they sang in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” Part one of Gareth Malone’s Messiah is on Good Friday 10.45am BBC1. Part two and the concert itself are on Easter Day. Catch up via iPlayer
Gareth Malone on Messiah and why he walked away from US success: "I had a real case of burnout"
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Gareth Malone is back with an Easter choir – but why did he disappear for five years? And how did JS Bach save him? Gareth Malone is back conducting choral music on our screens; as infectiously enthusiastic and impossibly youthful-looking as ever. The Peter Pan of Do-Re-Mi is attempting to coax classical perfection from eight absolute beginners, who’ve never before sung in a classical choir. In just seven weeks from first audition, the novice singers will join the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales for a performance of Handel’s Messiah in Cardiff’s Llandaff Cathedral. It sounds like a huge undertaking, and one that the choirmaster takes very seriously. "It’s about eight people encountering Handel; I chose it because of that. It’s a very wholesome thing to do." But it’s also embedded within his core: "Messiah is a text I’ve known my whole life. I was introduced to it by my parents; they would sing the Halleluiah Chorus while doing the washing up." After listening to it on vinyl, he was taken to see Handel’s most famous oratorio performed. "I was seven or eight. I don’t wish to denigrate TV or radio, but it’s not the same as going to the Royal Festival Hall and hearing a massive orchestra play and a choir of 200 sing. "From an early age, I had very powerful reactions to music. I was overwhelmed by it. I still am. Handel comes from a deep place. It is sincere. It is considered, but there is also a lightness to it. He wrote it in a hurry; almost as if he had divine inspiration. You can see it from the score. It transmits that energy when you are conducting and performing it." That energy is very much not the sort of thing you can get from artificial intelligence. "AI," he snorts. "It’s a tool. So is a hammer, but you don’t use it all day. As a child, I grew cress. We made a sandwich with it, and I ate it. That was enormous for me. I did something in the real world, not via a screen. "You can’t get a computer to sing Messiah and be in an orchestra. It’s organic, and real, and moving. Tech is useful, but when I turn to my piano, it’s real and vibrating." Malone, best known for series such as The Choir: Military Wives and Boys Don’t Sing, used to be on our screens every year. And then he wasn’t. He was in talks to do his choral magic in the States, but in 2017 chose to walk away. "I had a real case of burnout. I was on a treadmill, going from one project to another. Each got bigger and bigger, and you got to the point when you didn’t have anything bigger to give. Launching in America was very much part of that." Then came something utterly unplanned: the pandemic. "I didn’t earn any money in 2021 because of Covid. The first year was OK but then, suddenly, all TV, all commissioning, ground to a halt. I was just at home. I got back into the minutiae of looking after the kids, getting their swimming kit ready, cooking their supper. I don’t regret it, because it gave me five years of being at home.” All that sounds great, but what about his creation, Gareth Malone, Boyish Choral Superstar? Did he worry that the public might forget him? "One hundred per cent," he says, with a candour that’s unusual from a celebrity. "One hundred per cent. My livelihood has been 'being Gareth Malone on TV.'" He pauses. Was it a crisis? "Yes, it was." Was he panicking? "Yes, I was. I definitely had moments of panic." How did he manage? "I confided in my wife [English teacher Becky Malone]. That’s what partners are there for." Plus, routine. "I would force myself to get up, put a clean shirt on and go to work in my studio. I would work on music and try to generate projects." And then what? More anxiety. "I panicked that it was all about the streamers, or iPlayer, and nobody was watching TV. I would read [trade magazine] Broadcast, which would be all doom and gloom." Did he fear he was not diverse enough – too white, too male, too classically orientated? "I’d be lying if I said that didn’t cross my mind. All those demons cross your mind. The one that really concerned me was overfamiliarity. I tried not to spread myself too thinly, but… Anyway, I would work on my music, and try to generate projects. And, slowly but surely, stuff started to happen." Alongside his wife, one other person helped him: the 17th-century composer Johann Sebastian Bach (Malone took on Bach’s St John Passion for his Easter 2024 series). "I’d listen to Bach. His music is perfect. And he understood loss and grief. Music is always the thing I come back to. That’s what drives me." And now? "Post-Covid, everything has been more solid. I just know what I am about now. I’m passionate about music education and music." Like many others, including the pop singer Ed Sheeran, Malone fears that future generations are in danger of missing out, due to a dearth of music education at state schools. "What music does is promote feelings of success. You do one rehearsal, and another, and you feel as if you’re achieving something. "I’ve been in music education for 30 years, and I’ve not seen any sea change by any government. I hoped my work might bang the drum for the importance of music; it’s essential to us as human beings. It has the potential to change lives. It’s not just an add-on." We discuss the fact that Cardiff University recently closed its School of Music. "Wales, the land of song! That was announced when we were recording this series there. It's so sad. Some of our singers in the Chorus of Wales were students at Cardiff University. We led the world in music for years. Now it’s getting to a tipping point." He pauses, exasperated. "We all know what it takes to make a musician; it’s a lifetime of commitment and experience. We now have a mental health crisis. Why is music not promoted? Why not give someone a violin and encourage them to play? Why not get the lives of young people to be more fun and rewarding before the crisis hits? Nobody remembers doing maths on a Thursday. But young people all remember when they sang in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Gareth Malone's Messiah airs on BBC One and iPlayer on Friday 18th April. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
From ritual vomiting to suffocating goats... Bruce Parry is pushing himself further than ever
Add Tribe with Bruce Parry to your watchlist There is vomiting, and then there is full-on, projectile expurgation. After the first episode of Bruce Parry’s new series, during which he is epically sick standing in a tributary of the Amazon river, I felt I knew the spew almost as much as the man. He didn’t even have a bug. Parry willingly drank a local concoction designed to detox the body in just this way. The likeable Parry, who first leapt onto our screens in a variety of skimpy loin cloths in the original Tribe two decades ago before quitting TV to make a feature film (Tawai: a Voice from the Forest), is back on our screens on the trail of radical tribal custom. It’s his first series since Arctic in 2011. Nothing, it seems, is too challenging. He’ll have his nose pierced with a bone, he’ll be sick in a river, he’ll sleep on a dung floor in a mud hut... Why go through it again? “Well, I am on a continuum,” says Parry, laughing. “I am still on this journey learning about how tribal people can offer some solutions to the world’s problems, and I wanted to share some of the things I have learnt. I feel very lucky they have allowed me back. So much of what indigenous people have to share actually feels more important now than it did the first time.” For the new BBC series, Parry is the first foreign visitor to live within the communities. Filming much of his experience with his own camera, he goes deep inside the Colombian rainforest to visit the Waimaha people, while the second episode sees him walking for a day to find the Mucubal, who live in the Namib desert, southern Angola, and the third follows him to a tropical island in Indonesia to stay with the Marapu. If you can manage the nasty details on top of all that vomiting (eating witchetty grubs, watching an 11-year-old child have her lower teeth knocked out without anaesthetic), you will learn a lot about people whose lifestyle is definitely different. Parry is an enthusiastic and winning guide, and willing to laugh at himself en route. No bodily function is out of bounds. “Right, off for the first dump of the trip,” he confides in us on day two of his Angolan adventure, heading off into the bush. “As for cleaning myself up afterwards…I have been told to use, er… a stone. So I will!” Classic Parry. Definitely out of his comfort zone but in such an engaging way that you, the viewer, are brought along, too. “You have to challenge yourself, otherwise you never do anything,” he says. I am so inspired by this that, after our Zoom call, I sign up to run the Valencia Marathon. Could I, however, suffocate a live goat? Parry can and does. On arrival in an Angolan village, he received the gift of a spotted, fluffy goat from the head of the tribe, from his herd of 150. “Thank you so much. What would you suggest I do with this goat?” he asks, politely. The response? “Kill it. You must kill it. Now.” He didn’t want to cause offence, plus it was on the next day’s menu. So, he had to do it. Without a knife, which does not keep the whole animal intact and is seen as disrespectful. “It was difficult, suffocating a goat. But I could be the most ethically minded person at home in the UK but still by simply getting on a bus, I will have a much larger impact on the planet than any one of these people. Who am I to judge them?” Parry is very keen not to act like the superior white man on a grand tour, and on the whole, he succeeds. “These children have never seen a white person before,” he says before saying hello to about five small Namibian children in a hut. Cue screams of horror from the children. “That’s quite a greeting,” he laughs. “I definitely have this effect on some people sometimes.” But quite soon into his three-week stay, he is considered part of the furniture, accepted by the Mucubal with amused interest. Vomiting with the Waimaha is definitely a Parry takeaway. The tribe see it as a perfectly normal cleansing ritual prior to a night of special festivities. The festival, which goes on until dawn, involves getting high on some natural herb, after which there is much shouting, dancing and throwing up. All night long. How different is this from a Saturday night in many British cities? “I think there is a difference: theirs is a ritual with a beginning and an end, and the young people are overseen by elders who have experience of such events.” How did he get on, taking the strong stuff but still having to interview people and talk to camera? “I feel a sense of trepidation, because you don’t quite know how your body is going to react. It’s pretty hardcore. But there is always something positive to be found. These people are much more aware of what they consume. They have an empathetic relationship with nature, with the forest.” He’d be brilliant on I’m a Celebrity, I say. Being showered by a zillion cockroaches would be a walk in the park for Parry. “I have been asked to be on all these reality shows with physical challenges. I have always turned them down.” In his quest to advocate for indigenous peoples, Parry sportingly allows himself to be bitten by ants in one show, while competing in a fist fight (where the aim is to draw blood) during another. But seeing others in pain is difficult. In the Angolan episode he is invited to observe a young girl willingly getting her lower teeth knocked out with a bloody stone (it is a sign of beauty), plus two young boys being circumcised. Here, the smile fades somewhat. “I struggled watching the young girl go through her ritual, but the male circumcision was definitely the hardest experience. Not only was I experiencing the pain of the boys, but also a deeper cultural pain. Why do we all, all of us, continue with certain practices, which don’t have a reason any more? It is a big part of why I am there. Why do we do certain things if they are so painful?” The tribe does not practise female genital mutilation, he tells me. “This was a male ritual. And it was very public. I was invited to sit in the front row.” When he’s out with his crew, being bitten by ants, using stones for loo roll and sleeping on animal dung, does he ever wish he was back at home with a cup of coffee? “No! I mean, there are times that are hard. Sleeping conditions and food are generally the hardest challenges. But generally, I wake up each morning and pinch myself, thinking how lucky am I, Bruce Parry. I remind myself to remember this moment and never to forget how privileged I am to have the opportunity to share this experience.” He brings it home to you. It’s a good ride, although get ready to squirm.
Bruce Parry: 'Killing a goat for new Tribe was difficult – but taking the bus harms planet more'
Parry spoke with this week's issue of Radio Times magazine about his return to TV.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. There is vomiting, and then there is full-on, projectile expurgation. After the first episode of Bruce Parry’s new series, during which he is epically sick standing in a tributary of the Amazon river, I felt I knew the spew almost as much as the man. He didn’t even have a bug. Parry willingly drank a local concoction designed to detox the body in just this way. The likeable Parry, who first leapt onto our screens in a variety of skimpy loin cloths in the original Tribe two decades ago before quitting TV to make a feature film (Tawai: a Voice from the Forest), is back on our screens on the trail of radical tribal custom. It’s his first series since Arctic in 2011. Nothing, it seems, is too challenging. He’ll have his nose pierced with a bone, he’ll be sick in a river, he’ll sleep on a dung floor in a mud hut... Why go through it again? “Well, I am on a continuum,” says Parry, laughing. “I am still on this journey learning about how tribal people can offer some solutions to the world’s problems, and I wanted to share some of the things I have learnt. I feel very lucky they have allowed me back. So much of what indigenous people have to share actually feels more important now than it did the first time.” For the new BBC series, Parry is the first foreign visitor to live within the communities. Filming much of his experience with his own camera, he goes deep inside the Colombian rainforest to visit the Waimaha people, while the second episode sees him walking for a day to find the Mucubal, who live in the Namib desert, southern Angola, and the third follows him to a tropical island in Indonesia to stay with the Marapu. If you can manage the nasty details on top of all that vomiting (eating witchetty grubs, watching an 11-year-old child have her lower teeth knocked out without anaesthetic), you will learn a lot about people whose lifestyle is definitely different. Parry is an enthusiastic and winning guide, and willing to laugh at himself en route. No bodily function is out of bounds. “Right, off for the first dump of the trip,” he confides in us on day two of his Angolan adventure, heading off into the bush. “As for cleaning myself up afterwards…I have been told to use, er… a stone. So I will!” Classic Parry. Definitely out of his comfort zone but in such an engaging way that you, the viewer, are brought along, too. “You have to challenge yourself, otherwise you never do anything,” he says. I am so inspired by this that, after our Zoom call, I sign up to run the Valencia Marathon. Could I, however, suffocate a live goat? Parry can and does. On arrival in an Angolan village, he received the gift of a spotted, fluffy goat from the head of the tribe, from his herd of 150. “Thank you so much. What would you suggest I do with this goat?” he asks, politely. The response? “Kill it. You must kill it. Now.” He didn’t want to cause offence, plus it was on the next day’s menu. So, he had to do it. Without a knife, which does not keep the whole animal intact and is seen as disrespectful. “It was difficult, suffocating a goat. But I could be the most ethically minded person at home in the UK but still by simply getting on a bus, I will have a much larger impact on the planet than any one of these people. Who am I to judge them?” Parry is very keen not to act like the superior white man on a grand tour, and on the whole, he succeeds. “These children have never seen a white person before,” he says before saying hello to about five small Namibian children in a hut. Cue screams of horror from the children. “That’s quite a greeting,” he laughs. “I definitely have this effect on some people sometimes.” But quite soon into his three-week stay, he is considered part of the furniture, accepted by the Mucubal with amused interest. Vomiting with the Waimaha is definitely a Parry takeaway. The tribe see it as a perfectly normal cleansing ritual prior to a night of special festivities. The festival, which goes on until dawn, involves getting high on some natural herb, after which there is much shouting, dancing and throwing up. All night long. How different is this from a Saturday night in many British cities? “I think there is a difference: theirs is a ritual with a beginning and an end, and the young people are overseen by elders who have experience of such events.” How did he get on, taking the strong stuff but still having to interview people and talk to camera? “I feel a sense of trepidation, because you don’t quite know how your body is going to react. It’s pretty hardcore. But there is always something positive to be found. These people are much more aware of what they consume. They have an empathetic relationship with nature, with the forest.” He’d be brilliant on I’m a Celebrity, I say. Being showered by a zillion cockroaches would be a walk in the park for Parry. “I have been asked to be on all these reality shows with physical challenges. I have always turned them down.” In his quest to advocate for indigenous peoples, Parry sportingly allows himself to be bitten by ants in one show, while competing in a fist fight (where the aim is to draw blood) during another. But seeing others in pain is difficult. In the Angolan episode he is invited to observe a young girl willingly getting her lower teeth knocked out with a bloody stone (it is a sign of beauty), plus two young boys being circumcised. Here, the smile fades somewhat. “I struggled watching the young girl go through her ritual, but the male circumcision was definitely the hardest experience. Not only was I experiencing the pain of the boys, but also a deeper cultural pain. Why do we all, all of us, continue with certain practices, which don’t have a reason any more? It is a big part of why I am there. Why do we do certain things if they are so painful?” The tribe does not practise female genital mutilation, he tells me. “This was a male ritual. And it was very public. I was invited to sit in the front row.” When he’s out with his crew, being bitten by ants, using stones for loo roll and sleeping on animal dung, does he ever wish he was back at home with a cup of coffee? “No! I mean, there are times that are hard. Sleeping conditions and food are generally the hardest challenges. But generally, I wake up each morning and pinch myself, thinking how lucky am I, Bruce Parry. I remind myself to remember this moment and never to forget how privileged I am to have the opportunity to share this experience.” He brings it home to you. It’s a good ride, although get ready to squirm. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Tribe with Bruce Parry starts at 9pm on Sunday 30th March 2025 on BBC Two. 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.
Facing Stephen Graham in the ring isn’t for the faint-hearted, says Malachi Kirby
Add A Thousand Blows to your watchlist The arrival of Hezekiah Moscow, played by Bafta winner Malachi Kirby, is the catalyst for the action as A Thousand Blows begins. Hezekiah is a young man on the make, fresh off the boat from Jamaica and keen to earn his fortune in Victorian London. He has ambitions to become a lion tamer but soon becomes embroiled in the world of bare-knuckle fighting, run by the fearsome Henry “Sugar” Goodson (Stephen Graham). To play Hezekiah convincingly, Kirby learnt how to box. “It’s not just about throwing some punches,” he explains. “You’ve got to know how to read people. You’ve got to know how to get out of the way and survive.” Especially if your opponent is Stephen Graham? “He’s menacing! When you’re standing opposite him, he’s fully in the zone, and so you’re in the zone, too. Of course, we’re not planning to hit each other. But also, you know, it wouldn’t be the first time stuff’s gone wrong on a set, so we’ve gotta take care of each other.” For London-born Kirby, working on a period drama set in the capital had a familiar air. “It didn’t feel like a stretch for me to go back to that period. I don’t really know how much has changed with regards to how working-class Londoners go about life, even down to how we sound.” Countering the observation that actors now only spring from privilege, the 35-year-old tells me how he started. “I grew up in a council flat in Battersea. I’d go past mansions on the way to school, but I didn’t notice them. They didn’t exist. There was Battersea Park, there was the council flat I lived in and there was school.” Yet one thing he shares with his character in A Thousand Blows is the gift of limitless expectations. He’s always had it. “Hezekiah has this fierce ability to dream, and is not defined by the way he looks or his circumstances. It’s the way I feel.” What gave him that confidence? “It’s down to my mama. I grew up as an only child. My dad passed when I was six, so it was just me and my mum. I had a very close relationship with her. She raised me to believe anything was possible. Everyone assumes my mum probably didn’t take to the idea of me acting, but she was the reason I started. I was a very shy kid. She said, ‘This would be good for you. Give it a go.’” Following acclaimed turns in the 2016 remake of Roots and the Black Mirror episode Men against Fire, Kirby won a Bafta in 2021 for his role as Darcus Howe in the Mangrove instalment of Steve McQueen’s Little Axe anthology. He has much to thank his mother for. “My mum never got to choose where she lived. She wanted me to have that choice. She wanted me to grow up and be able to choose where I live. And I’ve been able to do that.” He pauses. “There is this passage in Scripture which says God uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. And even now, I’m confounded. I don’t know how I have got here. I didn’t have the fight that a lot of artists have had. Actually, it was the opposite. I was always trying to run away from the spotlight, but the opportunities kept presenting themselves and challenging me. And it was only about five years into doing it professionally that I went, ‘Oh, I think I can do this.’” Now he wants to pay it forward. “I would say to anyone that aspires to act, you have to dream and protect that dream. It may sometimes feel foolish, but that is part of my strength. That and my faith in God. That all helps me think that anything is possible. “It’s a numbers thing — you’re always going to have more auditions than your parts. And if you are doing great, you’ll get one out of ten auditions. That could feel like rejection, but I see it as redirection. It’s not that people didn’t like me. It’s not that I’m not good enough. It’s just that particular way wasn’t my journey. I’m supposed to be going somewhere else. And so you keep going.”