Radio Times
type: channel
link: https://www.radiotimes.com
date: 2026-04-17T16:15:43.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: The heat is on
items: MasterChef fans, welcome to the new era with judges Grace Dent and Anna Haugh: "We take care of each other"
items: 'I swear all the way down. Out loud!'
items: James Barnes-Miller talks final Winter Paralympics: "I admit, I always think I'm going to fall"
items: Escape to the wild
items: 'Chick lit? It's degrading'
items: Gordon Buchanan: "Coming from such a small community, I'm almost embarrassed by my achievements"
items: Beloved author Marian Keyes reveals why 'chick lit' exposes the "hollowness" of post-feminism
items: Dame Mary Berry reveals her dos and don'ts for the perfect Christmas dinner
items: A very Mary Christmas
items: ‘It's good to listen'
items: Equal in arms
items: Mary, Queen of Cakes
items: Mary Berry reveals secret to happy marriage with 93-year-old husband – leaving the house when an argument starts
items: The Ultimate Italian job
items: The Night Manager's Tom Hollander and co-star Niamh Algar take us inside your next TV adventure
items: Girls just want to make runs
items: 'I would never want to be prime minister'
items: 'I think possibly the French are ready to elect a woman president'
items: Suranne Jones's political thriller Hostage affirms her key belief: “I would never want to be prime minister”
items: Ashley Thomas AKA Bashy reveals biggest hope for Netflix drama Hostage and how acting came before rapping
items: Hostage star Julie Delpy argues France is ready for a female leader - but not Marine Le Pen
items: 'We were covered with lice and had no proper clothes'
items: 'I'd never want to be Prime Minister!'
items: Look to the skies
items: 'I had burnout'
items: Gareth Malone on Messiah and why he walked away from US success: "I had a real case of burnout"
items: Back in the tribe
items: Bruce Parry: 'Killing a goat for new Tribe was difficult – but taking the bus harms planet more'
items: 'It's not just about throwing punches'

The heat is on
type: item
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Anna Haugh and Grace Dent are taking over TV’s biggest cooking contest. And they’re unfazed by the challenge
encoded: 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…

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MasterChef fans, welcome to the new era with judges Grace Dent and Anna Haugh: "We take care of each other"
type: item
date: 2026-04-13T16:00:40.000Z
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: Entertainment
subject: Reality TV
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Anna Haugh and Grace Dent are taking over TV’s biggest cooking contest. And they’re unfazed by the challenge.
encoded: 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. “The…

'I swear all the way down. Out loud!'
type: item
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: App
subject: App features
description: James Barnes-Miller on swapping loft conversions for snowboarding – and how a broken back isn’t going to spoil his final Winter Paralympics
encoded: 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,…

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height: 1482

James Barnes-Miller talks final Winter Paralympics: "I admit, I always think I'm going to fall"
type: item
date: 2026-02-23T17:00:37.000Z
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: Sport
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: James Barnes-Miller on swapping loft conversions for snowboarding – and how a broken back isn’t going to spoil his final Winter Paralympics.
encoded: 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 gre…

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Escape to the wild
type: item
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Gordon Buchanan’s difficult home life forced him outdoors – and he’s never looked back
encoded: 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-mak…

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'Chick lit? It's degrading'
type: item
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Marian Keyes’s novels were seen as fluffy fiction, but a new drama about her Walsh sisters is fun and fearless
encoded: 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…

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Gordon Buchanan: "Coming from such a small community, I'm almost embarrassed by my achievements"
type: item
date: 2026-02-16T17:00:41.000Z
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: Documentaries
subject: TV
subject: Contains Trailer
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Gordon Buchanan’s difficult home life forced him outdoors – and he’s never looked back.
encoded: 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 …

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height: 2856

Beloved author Marian Keyes reveals why 'chick lit' exposes the "hollowness" of post-feminism
type: item
date: 2026-02-16T17:00:38.000Z
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: Books
subject: BBC
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Marian Keyes’s novels were seen as fluffy fiction, but a new drama about her Walsh sisters is fun and fearless.
encoded: 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 du…

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Dame Mary Berry reveals her dos and don'ts for the perfect Christmas dinner
type: item
date: 2025-12-21T08:00:23.000Z
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: Documentaries
subject: TV
subject: Christmas
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: We asked Mary Berry how she spends Christmas and she shared her favourite festive traditions, family moments and turkey tips.
encoded: 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 chees…

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A very Mary Christmas
type: item
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: App
subject: App features
description: The culinary queen’s crucial ingredient? Just add family
encoded: 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 k…

‘It's good to listen'
type: item
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: App
subject: App features
description: As The World at One turns 60, Sarah Montague reveals the secrets of its success — and the key to a good interview
encoded: 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; Mic…

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Equal in arms
type: item
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Kevin Bazeley was thrown out of the RAF for being gay – now he’s helping the Armed Forces to embrace inclusion
encoded: 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 …

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Mary, Queen of Cakes
type: item
date: 2025-10-14T13:36:19.000Z
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: App
subject: App features
description: 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
encoded: 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 arri…

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Mary Berry reveals secret to happy marriage with 93-year-old husband – leaving the house when an argument starts
type: item
date: 2025-10-13T23:01:58.000Z
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: Entertainment
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: 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.
encoded: 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 rememb…

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The Ultimate Italian job
type: item
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: App
subject: App features
description: 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
encoded: 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 i…

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The Night Manager's Tom Hollander and co-star Niamh Algar take us inside your next TV adventure
type: item
date: 2025-10-06T23:01:30.000Z
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
subject: NOW
subject: Sky Atlantic
description: 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.
encoded: 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 w…

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Girls just want to make runs
type: item
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: App
subject: App features
description: 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
encoded: 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 i…

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'I would never want to be prime minister'
type: item
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: App
subject: App features
description: She’s at the top of her game as an actor — but run the country? No thanks. She’s in bed by 9pm
encoded: 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…

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'I think possibly the French are ready to elect a woman president'
type: item
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: App
subject: App features
description: 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
encoded: 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.…

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Suranne Jones's political thriller Hostage affirms her key belief: “I would never want to be prime minister”
type: item
date: 2025-08-11T23:01:54.000Z
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Magazine
description: She’s at the top of her game as an actor — but run the country? No thanks. She’s in bed by 9pm.
encoded: 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…

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Ashley Thomas AKA Bashy reveals biggest hope for Netflix drama Hostage and how acting came before rapping
type: item
date: 2025-08-11T23:01:32.000Z
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: The award-winning rapper returns to acting, his first passion.
encoded: 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 al…

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Hostage star Julie Delpy argues France is ready for a female leader - but not Marine Le Pen
type: item
date: 2025-08-11T23:01:17.000Z
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Magazine
subject: Netflix
description: Women are held to a higher standard, says the French star who has fought the patriarchy at every turn.
encoded: 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.…

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'We were covered with lice and had no proper clothes'
type: item
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: App
subject: App features
description: 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.
encoded: 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 planni…

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'I'd never want to be Prime Minister!'
type: item
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Take an exclusive first look at Suranne Jones as a British PM in Netflix's anticipated new thriller Hostage
encoded: 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,” say…

Look to the skies
type: item
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: App
subject: App features
description: The pressure of organising the RAF’s VE Day flypast sits lightly on Squadron Leader Dan Wilkes – but its significance is monumental
encoded: 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 se…

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'I had burnout'
type: item
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Gareth Malone is back with an Easter choir – but why did he disappear for five years? And how did JS Bach save him?
encoded: 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…

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Gareth Malone on Messiah and why he walked away from US success: "I had a real case of burnout"
type: item
date: 2025-04-14T23:01:15.000Z
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: Entertainment
subject: TV
subject: BBC iPlayer
subject: BBC One
subject: Magazine
description: Malone is back with a new series.
encoded: 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 t…

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Back in the tribe
type: item
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: App
subject: App features
description: From ritual vomiting to suffocating goats... Bruce Parry is pushing himself further than ever
encoded: 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 laug…

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Bruce Parry: 'Killing a goat for new Tribe was difficult – but taking the bus harms planet more'
type: item
date: 2025-03-25T00:01:00.000Z
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: Documentaries
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Parry spoke with this week's issue of Radio Times magazine about his return to TV.
encoded: 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…

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'It's not just about throwing punches'
type: item
creator: Rosie Millard
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Facing Stephen Graham in the ring isn’t for the faint-hearted, says Malachi Kirby
encoded: 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 v…

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