Radio Times
type: channel
link: https://www.radiotimes.com
date: 2026-01-27T14:43:06.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: 10 Questions with Sir Ben Kingsley
items: Ben Kingsley talks returning to the MCU with Wonder Man, his connection to the Beatles and revering Queen Elizabeth II
items: What Lies Beneath…
items: Russell T Davies argues new Doctor Who spin-off tackling climate change is only political because it has "no choice"
items: Partners in crime
items: Pierce Brosnan, Tom Hardy on MobLand: "It's no holds barred"
items: Felicity Jones: "There's a real punk quality to The Brutalist"
items: Ten Questions with Felicity Jones
items: 'You don't know me'
items: Angelina Jolie: "Maria Callas was a punk"
items: How did an Italian waiter bring Hollywood studio MGM to its knees – and live to tell the tale?
items: How did an Italian waiter bring Louis B Mayer's Hollywood studio to its knees – and live to tell the tale?
items: A law unto himself
items: Adeel Akhtar on Showtrial season 2, living in a camper van and the importance of being seen
items: Rory Kinnear on Tom Bombadil, losing his father, and challenges of the Bond franchise
items: Ringing the Change
items: Ten Questions with Miriam Margolyes
items: Miriam Margolyes talks BBC Two travel series, A New Australian Adventure
items: Wonka's Paul King on the character's origins: "He had a life beyond Charlie"
items: Tommy Jessop on his Line of Duty breakthrough and why he went to Hollywood
items: Cillian Murphy on Oppenheimer, the Peaky Blinders movie and struggling with fame
items: Richard E Grant on hosting the BAFTAs: "It’s like a dream come true"
items: Ben Elton: 'My stuff was so unfashionable as to be morally wrong'
items: John Lithgow talks The Old Man, playing Winston Churchill and writing poetry
items: Michael Parkinson talks 50 years interviewing the biggest stars in the world
items: James Nesbitt on new BBC drama Bloodlands and getting the chance to work with Jed Mercurio
items: Divided nations: a snapshot of life on either side of the India-Pakistan border
items: Lady Macbeth’s Florence Pugh: “It’s very interesting to make the audience love you while you are doing horrendous things”
items: Olivia Newton-John on how cancer and the loss of her sister inspired her
items: Dev Patel: I struggled to find "substantial" roles after Slumdog Millionaire

10 Questions with Sir Ben Kingsley
type: item
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Despite the awards and success, the actor values his knighthood from the late Queen above all
encoded: Add Wonder Man to your watchlist Sir Ben Kingsley is one of the most garlanded actors of his generation. An Academy Award winner for Gandhi, he has also received Bafta, Golden Globe and Olivier awards, and worked with directors such as Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. Among his most famous roles are Itzhak Stern in Schindler’s List and Don Logan in Sexy Beast, but now he’s back in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for Hollywood satire Wonder Man, in which he plays Trevor Slattery. So, who is Trevor Slattery? Trevor is an aspiring actor who never quite hit the spotlight. After falling among thieves and posing as a murderous terrorist [in 2013’s Iron Man 3], he is imprisoned, then broken out of prison, and so returns to Los Angeles to try to recreate himself as a serious actor. This is my fourth visit to Trevor. He is a character that I would never have dreamt would span 15 years of my career. View Green Video on the source website You were born Krishna Pandit Bhanji in 1943. Your father was a doctor of Gujarati Indian descent and your mum was an English actress and model — how did they meet? I believe my mother attended a Guy’s Hospital dance, where my dad was training. You changed your name to Ben Kingsley; how did you decide on that? My dad’s nickname was Ben and Kingsley is derived from his father; he was a spice trader on Zanzibar and his nickname was King Clove. As a youngster, you were taken to see the Italian film Never Take No for an Answer, and you were mistaken for one of the young actors in it. This inspired you to pursue acting — how different would your life be if you hadn’t been to the cinema that day? Oh, golly… I’m eternally grateful to the universe for placing me for those two hours in front of that flickering black-and-white screen, because it was an absolutely fundamental, primal moment. And when one looks back and thinks, what if that hadn’t happened – the whole of my life would be different. Absolutely. Without question. In another Sliding Doors…

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Ben Kingsley talks returning to the MCU with Wonder Man, his connection to the Beatles and revering Queen Elizabeth II
type: item
date: 2026-01-26T17:01:56.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Sci-fi
subject: TV
subject: Disney Plus
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
subject: Marvel Cinematic Universe (franchise)
description: Despite the awards and success, the actor values his knighthood from the late Queen above all.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Sir Ben Kingsley is one of the most garlanded actors of his generation. An Academy Award winner for Gandhi, he has also received Bafta, Golden Globe and Olivier awards, and worked with directors such as Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. Among his most famous roles are Itzhak Stern in Schindler’s List and Don Logan in Sexy Beast, but now he’s back in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for Hollywood satire Wonder Man, in which he plays Trevor Slattery. So, who is Trevor Slattery? Trevor is an aspiring actor who never quite hit the spotlight. After falling among thieves and posing as a murderous terrorist [in 2013’s Iron Man 3], he is imprisoned, then broken out of prison, and so returns to Los Angeles to try to recreate himself as a serious actor. This is my fourth visit to Trevor. He is a character that I would never have dreamt would span 15 years of my career. You were born Krishna Pandit Bhanji in 1943. Your father was a doctor of Gujarati Indian descent and your mum was an English actress and model – how did they meet? I believe my mother attended a Guy’s Hospital dance, where my dad was training. You changed your name to Ben Kingsley; how did you decide on that? My dad’s nickname was Ben and Kingsley is derived from his father; he was a spice trader on Zanzibar and his nickname was King Clove. As a youngster, you were taken to see the Italian film Never Take No for an Answer, and you were mistaken for one of the young actors in it. This inspired you to pursue acting – how different would your life be if you hadn’t been to the cinema that day? Oh, golly… I’m eternally grateful to the universe for placing me for those two hours in front of that flickering black-and-white screen, because it was an absolutely fundamental, primal moment. And when one looks back and thinks, what if that hadn’t happened – the whole of my life would be different. Absolutely. Without question. In another Sliding Doors moment, John Lenno…

What Lies Beneath…
type: item
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: App
subject: App features
description: An urgent new drama from Russell T Davies, starring Russell Tovey, is a very modern parable but has its roots in a 1970s Doctor Who story...
encoded: Add The War Between the Land and the Sea to your watchlist When Russell T Davies goes walking near his home in Swansea, he follows the same path: over the hill, down to Langland Bay and along the seafront, until he reaches a weathered bench looking straight out to the water. “They’ve just rebuilt the sea wall there,” he says, “but you watch them, thinking they’ll have to rebuild it again in a few years’ time because of rising sea levels. You can’t live next to the sea and not be aware of this stuff.” Of course, when Davies isn’t staring out to sea, he’s creating some of the most acclaimed television drama of our time – his credits include such landmark works as Queer as Folk, Years and Years and It’s a Sin, not to mention his time as executive producer on Doctor Who. It was perhaps inevitable, given where he lives, that Davies’s anxieties about the environment might inspire his work. But how? “The problem with climate change is that it’s very hard to write about,” he says. “No one has yet worked out how to write about the weather changing slowly while we ignore it.” It was one of Davies’s neighbours who unwittingly helped him crack the problem. “There’s a marvellous woman who lives three doors down from me who is 70 years old,” he says. “I once met her and she was dressed as a fish with her friends marching up and down the seafront – protesting about climate change and saying, ‘This sea front will be gone in 20 years and these houses will be gone.’ “So I started thinking about that and put that together with my Doctor Who mind, which is always looking for new ways to invade the Earth, and it all coalesced into this story.” Enter a whole load of men and women in much more impressive, screen-ready fish costumes. The War between the Land and the Sea, Davies’s new five-part BBC drama, is about climate change, water pollution and the damage being done to the world’s oceans by mankind. But it’s also an enormously entertaining sci-fi series about an ancient species rising …

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Russell T Davies argues new Doctor Who spin-off tackling climate change is only political because it has "no choice"
type: item
date: 2025-11-28T17:01:27.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Sci-fi
subject: TV
subject: Climate - Sustainable contributions within wider content
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: "I don't have to get on a high horse at all... I would be lying if I didn't mention these things."
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. When Russell T Davies goes walking near his home in Swansea, he follows the same path: over the hill, down to Langland Bay and along the seafront, until he reaches a weathered bench looking straight out to the water. “They’ve just rebuilt the sea wall there,” he says, “but you watch them, thinking they’ll have to rebuild it again in a few years’ time because of rising sea levels. You can’t live next to the sea and not be aware of this stuff.” Of course, when Davies isn’t staring out to sea, he’s creating some of the most acclaimed television drama of our time – his credits include such landmark works as Queer as Folk, Years and Years and It’s a Sin, not to mention his time as executive producer on Doctor Who. It was perhaps inevitable, given where he lives, that Davies’s anxieties about the environment might inspire his work. But how? “The problem with climate change is that it’s very hard to write about,” he says. “No one has yet worked out how to write about the weather changing slowly while we ignore it.” It was one of Davies’s neighbours who unwittingly helped him crack the problem. “There’s a marvellous woman who lives three doors down from me who is 70 years old,” he says. “I once met her and she was dressed as a fish with her friends marching up and down the seafront – protesting about climate change and saying, ‘This sea front will be gone in 20 years and these houses will be gone.’ “So I started thinking about that and put that together with my Doctor Who mind, which is always looking for new ways to invade the Earth, and it all coalesced into this story.” Enter a whole load of men and women in much more impressive, screen-ready fish costumes. The War Between the Land and the Sea, Davies’s new five-part BBC drama, is about climate change, water pollution and the damage being done to the world’s oceans by mankind. But it’s also an enormously entertaining sci-fi series about an ancient species rising from t…

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Partners in crime
type: item
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Pierce Brosnan and Tom Hardy are no strangers to violent gangster dramas. But in Guy Ritchie’s MobLand, their frightening characters have nuance, depth – and even a sense of humour…
encoded: Add MobLand to your watchlist Bond and Bane, Mamma Mia! and Mad Max: Pierce Brosnan and Tom Hardy make a somewhat unlikely double act, but the pair have teamed up in MobLand, the ten-part Paramount+ drama that’s already been watched by nearly nine million viewers globally and is set to conclude this week. Brosnan plays Conrad Harrigan, a grizzled Irish “Godfather” at the head of an organised crime family that’s fighting for power within a global crime syndicate, while Helen Mirren is his wife, Maeve. Hardy is Harry Da Souza, their loyal fixer. The series is set in a dimly lit and frequently cloudy present-day London, where mobsters tell their henchmen to “call the Maltese and tell them there’s a gap in the market on the brown” and nightclubs are seemingly only allowed to play the Prodigy. In other words, it’s a gangster series directed by Guy Ritchie. “I have great admiration for Guy Ritchie’s work and the style that he has created for himself. The landscape of film-making that he has embroidered over the years is wildly entertaining,” Brosnan says. “And this family [the Harrigans] is so mangled and warped – it’s twisted, incestuous and dangerous.” Brosnan, a ridiculously well-preserved 72-year-old, is softly spoken and his voice is almost musical in its cadence. Hardy, 25 years his junior, by contrast, radiates an agitated restlessness and each question is met with a waterfall of words. I ask him what attracted him to the role of Harry. “The world [of MobLand] is something that I’ve already been a part of with lots of films and characters,” he says, “but this is long-form so there’s optionality for nuance and depth. It’s a good playground.” Brosnan and Hardy both have form in gangster films – Hardy played both Kray twins in Legend, he portrayed Al Capone in Capone and was in Guy Ritchie’s 2008 London gangster film RocknRolla. “I like to find the differences between similar types, perhaps,” he explains. Meanwhile, Brosnan, who first found fame in the 1980s TV series…

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Pierce Brosnan, Tom Hardy on MobLand: "It's no holds barred"
type: item
date: 2025-05-27T13:26:42.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
subject: On demand
subject: Paramount Plus
description: Brosnan and Hardy spoke with Radio Times magazine ahead of the Paramount+ show's finale.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Bond and Bane, Mamma Mia! and Mad Max: Pierce Brosnan and Tom Hardy make a somewhat unlikely double act, but the pair have teamed up in MobLand, the ten-part Paramount+ drama that’s already been watched by nearly nine million viewers globally and is set to conclude this week. Brosnan plays Conrad Harrigan, a grizzled Irish “Godfather” at the head of an organised crime family that’s fighting for power within a global crime syndicate, while Helen Mirren is his wife, Maeve. Hardy is Harry Da Souza, their loyal fixer. The series is set in a dimly lit and frequently cloudy present-day London, where mobsters tell their henchmen to “call the Maltese and tell them there’s a gap in the market on the brown” and nightclubs are seemingly only allowed to play the Prodigy. In other words, it’s a gangster series directed by Guy Ritchie. “I have great admiration for Guy Ritchie’s work and the style that he has created for himself. The landscape of film-making that he has embroidered over the years is wildly entertaining,” Brosnan says. “And this family [the Harrigans] is so mangled and warped – it’s twisted, incestuous and dangerous.” Brosnan, a ridiculously well-preserved 72-year-old, is softly spoken and his voice is almost musical in its cadence. Hardy, 25 years his junior, by contrast, radiates an agitated restlessness and each question is met with a waterfall of words. I ask him what attracted him to the role of Harry. “The world [of MobLand] is something that I’ve already been a part of with lots of films and characters,” he says, “but this is long-form so there’s optionality for nuance and depth. It’s a good playground.” Brosnan and Hardy both have form in gangster films – Hardy played both Kray twins in Legend, he portrayed Al Capone in Capone and was in Guy Ritchie’s 2008 London gangster film RocknRolla. “I like to find the differences between similar types, perhaps,” he explains. Meanwhile, Brosnan, who first found fame…

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height: 5670

Felicity Jones: "There's a real punk quality to The Brutalist"
type: item
date: 2025-01-21T00:01:47.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Movies
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: The actor has a key role opposite Adrien Brody in the Oscar-tipped epic from director Brady Corbet.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Felicity Jones, 41, is an actor and producer who made her professional debut aged 12 in the 1996 TV drama The Treasure Seekers. Since then, she’s played Jane Hawking in The Theory of Everything — which earned her Golden Globe, BAFTA and Oscar nominations — as well US Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in On the Basis of Sex. Now, in her latest award-tipped film, The Brutalist, she stars as Erzsebet, the wife of Hungarian-Jewish architect Laszlo Toth (played by Adrien Brody), who survives the Holocaust and emigrates to the United States in search of the American Dream. You started acting very young. Were you driven at that age? I definitely had an entrepreneurial spirit quite young. I liked achieving things. I like the intellectual stimulation maybe, and the breadth of experience. My parents were so brave in letting me do a TV series when I was 12. I had a great time – we were a group of actresses living in a hotel together – and my parents were open to those opportunities. But I don’t know if I’d do the same with my children… What did you buy with your first paycheque? I don’t know if it was my very first, but I do remember spending one of my first paycheques on Alanis Morissette’s album Jagged Little Pill. There was something about the independence that obviously comes from financial success. You’re not beholden to anyone, and that was quite core to me. There is definitely an intersection of business and art in being an actor. You're from Birmingham — did you ever have a Brummie accent? I actually didn’t! I grew up speaking RP [received pronunciation] and I remember being really embarrassed and thinking, why can’t we talk like everyone else? Why have we got this different accent? My parents didn’t have strong accents particularly, and my late uncle was a theatre actor and he didn’t have a very strong accent. So, I guess it’s all shaped by what you hear when you are growing up. Do you think the choices that…

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Ten Questions with Felicity Jones
type: item
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: App
subject: App features
subject: The Oscars
description: The former child actor from Birmingham is Bafta-nominated for her challenging role in The Brutalist
encoded: The Brutalist is nominated for ten Oscars, including Best Picture, Actor and Supporting Actress for Felicity Jones. Add it to your watchlist Felicity Jones, 41, is an actor and producer who made her professional debut aged 12 in the 1996 TV drama The Treasure Seekers. Since then, she’s played Jane Hawking in The Theory of Everything — which earned her Golden Globe, Bafta and Oscar nominations — as well US Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in On the Basis of Sex. Now, in her latest award-tipped film, The Brutalist, she stars as Erzsebet, the wife of Hungarian-Jewish architect Laszlo Toth (played by Adrien Brody), who survives the Holocaust and emigrates to the United States in search of the American Dream. You started acting very young. Were you driven at that age? I definitely had an entrepreneurial spirit quite young. I liked achieving things. I like the intellectual stimulation maybe, and the breadth of experience. My parents were so brave in letting me do a TV series when I was 12. I had a great time – we were a group of actresses living in a hotel together – and my parents were open to those opportunities. But I don’t know if I’d do the same with my children… What did you buy with your first paycheque? I don’t know if it was my very first, but I do remember spending one of my first paycheques on Alanis Morissette’s album Jagged Little Pill. There was something about the independence that obviously comes from financial success. You’re not beholden to anyone, and that was quite core to me. There is definitely an intersection of business and art in being an actor. You’re from Birmingham — did you ever have a Brummie accent? I actually didn’t! I grew up speaking RP [received pronunciation] and I remember being really embarrassed and thinking, why can’t we talk like everyone else? Why have we got this different accent? My parents didn’t have strong accents particularly, and my late uncle was a theatre actor and he didn’t have a very strong accent. So, I guess…

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'You don't know me'
type: item
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Angelina Jolie is one of the most famous women in the world, but has never felt seen as an artist – now she’s taken on her most exposing role yet
encoded: Add Maria to your watchlist Maria Callas was one of the most famous women in the world; an opera singer who was arguably as well known for her relationship with the equally famous Aristotle Onassis as her own work. Angelina Jolie is one of the most famous women in the world; an actress who is arguably as well known for her relationship with the equally famous Brad Pitt as her own work. These outward parallels are not, however, what led Jolie to portray the opera diva in Chilean director Pablo Larraín’s latest film, Maria. “It was a challenge,” the 49-year-old says when I ask why she wanted to take on the role. “As artists you want to take on something that you are afraid of, that you’re not sure you can do.” It was also the opportunity to work with Larraín that ultimately convinced her to take on that challenge. “My first step in was Pablo,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to work with him.” Larraín has already made two dramas about famous 20th-century women: 2016’s Jackie (about Jackie Kennedy) and 2021’s Spencer (about Diana, Princess of Wales and written, like Maria, by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight). “Callas achieved such a level of beauty and perfection in what she did,” he says. “She changed opera and had a big influence in the history of fashion and yet really we know very little about her.” In past interviews, Larraín has said that the reason he believed Jolie was right for the role was that she and Callas both had a sense of mystery about them. But surely even those of us not obsessed with the minutiae of celebrity culture know plenty about Jolie. Wild child daughter of John Voight, she married Billy Bob Thornton and the couple wore each other’s blood in lockets around their necks. She then married Brad Pitt and they later divorced, leading to an acrimonious battle over custody of their six kids. She had a preventive double mastectomy after finding out she was at risk of breast cancer, and she is involved in refugee rights and humanitarianism. I know m…

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Angelina Jolie: "Maria Callas was a punk"
type: item
date: 2024-12-10T00:01:59.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Movies
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: The iconic actor plays legendary opera singer Maria in the latest film from Chilean director Pablo Larraín – who also made Spencer and Jackie.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Maria Callas was one of the most famous women in the world; an opera singer who was arguably as well known for her relationship with the equally famous Aristotle Onassis as her own work. Angelina Jolie is one of the most famous women in the world; an actress who is arguably as well known for her relationship with the equally famous Brad Pitt as her own work. These outward parallels are not, however, what led Jolie to portray the opera diva in Chilean director Pablo Larraín’s latest film, Maria. “It was a challenge,” the 49-year-old says when I ask why she wanted to take on the role. “As artists you want to take on something that you are afraid of, that you’re not sure you can do.” It was also the opportunity to work with Larraín that ultimately convinced her to take on that challenge. “My first step in was Pablo,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to work with him.” Larraín has already made two dramas about famous 20th-century women: 2016’s Jackie (about Jackie Kennedy) and 2021’s Spencer (about Diana, Princess of Wales and written, like Maria, by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight). “Callas achieved such a level of beauty and perfection in what she did,” he says. “She changed opera and had a big influence in the history of fashion and yet really we know very little about her.” In past interviews, Larraín has said that the reason he believed Jolie was right for the role was that she and Callas both had a sense of mystery about them. But surely even those of us not obsessed with the minutiae of celebrity culture know plenty about Jolie. Wild child daughter of Jon Voight, she married Billy Bob Thornton and the couple wore each other’s blood in lockets around their necks. She then married Brad Pitt and they later divorced, leading to an acrimonious battle over custody of their six kids. She had a preventive double mastectomy after finding out she was at risk of breast cancer, and she is involved in refugee rights and h…

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How did an Italian waiter bring Hollywood studio MGM to its knees – and live to tell the tale?
type: item
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: App
subject: App features
description: "He bought MGM and it unravelled within weeks. The money just wasn't there"
encoded: Add The Man Who Definitely Didn’t Steal Hollywood to your watchlist Hollywood has always attracted dreamers and storytellers, so it’s perhaps not so surprising that it welcomed Giancarlo Parretti. But Parretti, who certainly was both dreamer and storyteller, was not a writer, actor or director. He was a waiter turned hotel owner turned businessman and his dream was to own his own Hollywood studio. And he made it happen by telling an improbable story about his past and his wealth. In 1990, Parretti bought MGM – the studio responsible for The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind and the Bond films – for $1.3 billion. But his brief tenure was a disaster, characterised by bounced cheques to movie stars, hundreds of job losses and an FBI investigation into alleged financial irregularities. How he did it and why is explored in a fascinating BBC feature documentary directed by John Dower, The Man Who Definitely Didn’t Steal Hollywood, which features interviews with Parretti himself. It’s also now set to to become a Hollywood movie. “It is quite a bonkers story,” says Dower. “I've been making documentaries for 25 years and I'd say he's one of the most fabulous storytellers. There were moments when I was filming when I was wondering why is he telling me all this stuff? It’s nuts.” Parretti was abandoned as a baby only hours after he was born. “He was found on the steps of Orvieto Cathedral,” says Dower. “We managed to stand that [fact] up.” He later became a waiter, working in London during the 1960s where, he claimed, he became friendly with the Beatles and Winston Churchill. Is any of that true? “He was definitely in London.” Parretti went from working as a waiter to owning a string of hotels in the 1970s, but how he did this is somewhat mysterious. “I never got to the bottom of that,” admits Dower. “He was just, like, ‘I'm a self-made man, I became successful. I bought one hotel and I buy a few others.’” By the late 1980s, with the help of what some might call creative accoun…

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How did an Italian waiter bring Louis B Mayer's Hollywood studio to its knees – and live to tell the tale?
type: item
date: 2024-10-22T11:29:36.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Documentaries
subject: TV
subject: Interview
description: "He bought MGM and it unravelled within weeks. The money just wasn't there."
encoded: Hollywood has always attracted dreamers and storytellers, so it’s perhaps not so surprising that it welcomed Giancarlo Parretti. But Parretti, who certainly was both dreamer and storyteller, was not a writer, actor or director. He was a waiter turned hotel owner turned businessman and his dream was to own his own Hollywood studio. And he made it happen by telling an improbable story about his past and his wealth. In 1990, Parretti bought MGM – the studio responsible for The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind and the Bond films – for $1.3 billion. But his brief tenure was a disaster, characterised by bounced cheques to movie stars, hundreds of job losses and an FBI investigation into alleged financial irregularities. How he did it and why is explored in a fascinating BBC feature documentary directed by John Dower, The Man Who Definitely Didn’t Steal Hollywood, which features interviews with Parretti himself. It’s also now set to to become a Hollywood movie. “It is quite a bonkers story,” says Dower. “I've been making documentaries for 25 years and I'd say he's one of the most fabulous storytellers. There were moments when I was filming when I was wondering why is he telling me all this stuff? It’s nuts.” Parretti was abandoned as a baby only hours after he was born. “He was found on the steps of Orvieto Cathedral,” says Dower. “We managed to stand that [fact] up.” He later became a waiter, working in London during the 1960s where, he claimed, he became friendly with the Beatles and Winston Churchill. Is any of that true? “He was definitely in London.” Parretti went from working as a waiter to owning a string of hotels in the 1970s, but how he did this is somewhat mysterious. “I never got to the bottom of that,” admits Dower. “He was just, like, ‘I'm a self-made man, I became successful. I bought one hotel and I buy a few others.’” By the late 1980s, with the help of what some might call creative accounting, Parretti was venturing into the film business, buying mini-stu…

A law unto himself
type: item
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: App
subject: App features
subject: App archive 100
description: Adeel Akhtar turned his back on a legal career to try his hand at acting and made TV history. Now he’s starring in BBC1’s new thriller… as a lawyer
encoded: This article was first published in Radio Times magazine in October 2024. Add Showtrial to your watchlist. Adeel Akhtar was at a crossroads. It was 2002 and he had just graduated with the degree in law he had taken to please his father. He was 21 and on the brink of pursuing a legal career when an opportunity came up. “My girlfriend at the time was auditioning for drama school in New York and I was her scene partner,” he says. “One day I came home and the drama school called to ask if I wanted a place.” Akhtar had been interested in drama since his teens and now faced a choice. “Do I become a lawyer,” he remembers, “or do I run away and start this new life for me that is full of unknowns and really terrifying?” Akhtar took a leap into the dark. He is now one of this country’s most in-demand actors, which suggests the gamble paid off. Since his breakout role in 2010’s Four Lions, he’s appeared in a string of acclaimed television shows including Sherwood, Utopia, Unforgotten and Sweet Tooth. In 2017, he became the first non-white person to win a Bafta television best actor award for his role in Murdered by My Father, and in 2022 received another Bafta nomination for his role in the acclaimed romantic drama Ali & Ava. View oEmbed on the source website We are meeting in a north London photo studio to talk about his latest primetime role in Showtrial, the second series of the BBC legal drama, in which he plays defence solicitor Sam Malik, tasked with representing a police officer (Michael Socha) who stands accused of murdering a climate-change activist. “I’ve definitely cornered the market in being the dishevelled lawyer or police investigator,” Akhtar says. “The parts I get asked to play are usually ones where the idea of them being dishevelled is usually in the stage direction somewhere.” The question bubbling across the five episodes of Showtrial is whether the activist’s death was an accident or something more sinister. The issue of police malpractice is rather timel…

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Adeel Akhtar on Showtrial season 2, living in a camper van and the importance of being seen
type: item
date: 2024-10-01T09:00:36.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: Adeel Akhtar turned his back on a legal career to try his hand at acting and made TV history. Now he’s starring in BBC One’s new thriller... as a lawyer.
encoded: Adeel Akhtar was at a crossroads. It was 2002 and he had just graduated with the degree in law he had taken to please his father. He was 21 and on the brink of pursuing a legal career when an opportunity came up. "My girlfriend at the time was auditioning for drama school in New York and I was her scene partner," he says. "One day I came home and the drama school called to ask if I wanted a place." Akhtar had been interested in drama since his teens and now faced a choice. "Do I become a lawyer,” he remembers, "or do I run away and start this new life for me that is full of unknowns and really terrifying?" Akhtar took a leap into the dark. He is now one of this country’s most in-demand actors, which suggests the gamble paid off. Since his breakout role in 2010’s Four Lions, he’s appeared in a string of acclaimed television shows including Sherwood, Utopia, Unforgotten and Sweet Tooth. In 2017, he became the first non-white person to win a BAFTA television best actor award for his role in Murdered by My Father, and in 2022 received another BAFTA nomination for his role in the acclaimed romantic drama Ali & Ava. We are meeting in a north London photo studio to talk about his latest primetime role in Showtrial, the second series of the BBC legal drama, in which he plays defence solicitor Sam Malik, tasked with representing a police officer (Michael Socha) who stands accused of murdering a climate-change activist. "I’ve definitely cornered the market in being the dishevelled lawyer or police investigator,” Akhtar says. "The parts I get asked to play are usually ones where the idea of them being dishevelled is usually in the stage direction somewhere." The question bubbling across the five episodes of Showtrial is whether the activist’s death was an accident or something more sinister. The issue of police malpractice is rather timely, and I ask Akhtar if he has ever had any run-ins with the police. "I’ve been stopped and searched," he says, "then they realised I had noth…

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Rory Kinnear on Tom Bombadil, losing his father, and challenges of the Bond franchise
type: item
date: 2024-08-26T23:01:33.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Fantasy
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
subject: The Lord of the Rings (franchise)
description: Kinnear is tackling a new challenge as the much-loved Tom Bombadil in Prime Video series The Rings of Power.
encoded: In the course of a career that has spanned film, television and theatre, Rory Kinnear has played Hamlet, Iago, a British prime minister and MI6’s chief of staff. He’s been Lord Lucan, Denis Thatcher and Karl Marx – but it’s safe to say he has never played an ancient and mysterious woodland character with an enormous beard, eclectic wardrobe and a penchant for magical songs. Until now, that is. Kinnear will soon be starring as Tom Bombadil in the second series of The Rings of Power, the Amazon Prime epic set a few thousand years before Tolkien’s original novel, The Lord of the Rings. The role, Kinnear agrees, is something of a departure for him. “I like to do things I haven’t done before,” he tells me over coffee in a Soho hotel. “From doing big action films to studio sitcoms, to television dramas to Shakespeare. But I’ve never done a fantasy thing before. I’ve never really understood it – it’s never been my bag.” Kinnear had met the series’ showrunners and they had explained the character to him. “I told my partner [actor Pandora Colin, with whom he has two children] and she said ‘He’s the best character in the whole book’, so I went away and read the chapters he appears in and thought he seemed really interesting. He has a quite jovial positivity, but there is this notion that he has seen all of life and everything that has gone before – and in that way has a sense of everything that will happen in the future as well.” Apart from the large, bushy beard, there are a few other differences between Bombadil and Kinnear. Bombadil is described by Tolkien as being “older than the old”, while Kinnear is 46; Bombadil lives in Middle-earth while Kinnear lives in London. But what they both do share, according to Kinnear, is that they are both “phlegmatic about the small things in life and not particularly easily stressed or flustered by too much”. This, in Kinnear’s childhood and in more recent years during the Covid pandemic, has clearly proved an invaluable skill. Born in 1…

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Ringing the Change
type: item
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: App
subject: App features
subject: App archive 100
description: Rory Kinnear says that fantasy fiction has never been his bag – so what has reading Tolkien taught him about life?
encoded: This article was first published in Radio Times magazine in September 2024. Add The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power to your watchlist. In the course of a career that has spanned film, television and theatre, Rory Kinnear has played Hamlet, Iago, a British prime minister and MI6’s chief of staff. He’s been Lord Lucan, Denis Thatcher and Karl Marx – but it’s safe to say he has never played an ancient and mysterious woodland character with an enormous beard, eclectic wardrobe and a penchant for magical songs. Until now, that is. Kinnear will soon be starring as Tom Bombadil in the second series of The Rings of Power, the Amazon Prime epic set a few thousand years before Tolkien’s original novel, The Lord of the Rings. The role, Kinnear agrees, is something of a departure for him. “I like to do things I haven’t done before,” he tells me over coffee in a Soho hotel. “From doing big action films to studio sitcoms, to television dramas to Shakespeare. But I’ve never done a fantasy thing before. I’ve never really understood it – it’s never been my bag.” Kinnear had met the series’ showrunners and they had explained the character to him. “I told my partner (actor Pandora Colin, with whom he has two children) and she said ‘He’s the best character in the whole book’, so I went away and read the chapters he appears in and thought he seemed really interesting. He has a quite jovial positivity, but there is this notion that he has seen all of life and everything that has gone before – and in that way has a sense of everything that will happen in the future as well.” Apart from the large, bushy beard, there are a few other differences between Bombadil and Kinnear. Bombadil is described by Tolkien as being “older than the old”, while Kinnear is 46; Bombadil lives in Middle-earth while Kinnear lives in London. But what they both do share, according to Kinnear, is that they are both “phlegmatic about the small things in life and not particularly easily stressed or flustered by …

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Ten Questions with Miriam Margolyes
type: item
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: App
subject: App features
description: The role model for oldies is cashing in on Cameo and always has an onion in her handbag
encoded: Add Miriam Margolyes: a New Australian Adventure to your watchlist As an actor, 83-year-old Miriam Margolyes is probably best known for her roles as Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films, Mother Mildred in Call the Midwife and her Bafta-winning role in Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence. But her talents don’t stop there — she’s also the author of three books, with her memoir This Much Is True selling more than three million copies. In recent years she’s become renowned for her outrageous tell-all appearances on chat shows, as well as her work presenting documentaries. Her latest is a three-part BBC travel series Miriam Margolyes: a New Australian Adventure. So, Miriam, what inspired you to make this new series about Australia? I’ve been going to Australia since 1980 and it has changed a lot. I wanted to make a series about belonging, to find out what tribes people feel they belong to – I hope viewers find it to be truthful, revealing and entertaining. Over three episodes you meet a lot of ordinary Aussies — do you find talking to strangers easy? I love to meet people. I love to ask questions. If I see a park bench that’s empty, I go to the other one where there’s somebody sitting. My gift is that when people meet me they are unafraid, and that is a very big part of why I can get people to talk to me. In the series you’re filmed travelling around on a mobility scooter — how do you feel about being a role model for older people? When I started kind of failing physically, I remember saying to directors and producers, please don’t show me clambering out of a car or climbing upstairs on my hands and knees. I didn’t want people to see that because I was embarrassed to see myself looking so pathetic. But, subsequently, I’ve met loads of people who have said I gave them the courage to do things that they never thought they could. So I’m very pleased about that. You’ve had a long career in acting but in recent times have become as well-known for chat show appearance…

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Miriam Margolyes talks BBC Two travel series, A New Australian Adventure
type: item
date: 2024-07-22T23:01:35.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Documentaries
subject: TV
subject: BBC iPlayer
subject: BBC Two
description: The actress sits down with Radio Times as she discusses her new series.
encoded: As an actor, 83-year-old Miriam Margolyes is probably best known for her roles as Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films, Mother Mildred in Call the Midwife and her BAFTA-winning role in Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence. But her talents don't stop there — she's also the author of three books, with her memoir This Much Is True selling more than three million copies. In recent years she's become renowned for her outrageous tell-all appearances on chat shows, as well as her work presenting documentaries. Her latest is a three-part BBC travel series Miriam Margolyes: A New Australian Adventure. So, Miriam, what inspired you to make this new series about Australia? I’ve been going to Australia since 1980 and it has changed a lot. I wanted to make a series about belonging, to find out what tribes people feel they belong to – I hope viewers find it to be truthful, revealing and entertaining. Over three episodes you meet a lot of ordinary Aussies — do you find talking to strangers easy? I love to meet people. I love to ask questions. If I see a park bench that’s empty, I go to the other one where there’s somebody sitting. My gift is that when people meet me they are unafraid, and that is a very big part of why I can get people to talk to me. In the series you’re filmed travelling around on a mobility scooter — how do you feel about being a role model for older people? When I started kind of failing physically, I remember saying to directors and producers, please don’t show me clambering out of a car or climbing upstairs on my hands and knees. I didn’t want people to see that because I was embarrassed to see myself looking so pathetic. But, subsequently, I’ve met loads of people who have said I gave them the courage to do things that they never thought they could. So I’m very pleased about that. You’ve had a long career in acting but in recent times have become as well-known for chat show appearances, writing books and making documentaries. Why do you think you’re …

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Wonka's Paul King on the character's origins: "He had a life beyond Charlie"
type: item
date: 2024-02-07T08:00:55.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Movies
subject: TV
description: The acclaimed film starring Timothée Chalamet is nominated for Outstanding British Film at this year's BAFTA Film Awards.
encoded: Wonka writer and director, Paul King, is reflecting on the film’s success following its nomination for Outstanding British Film at the BAFTAs later this month. So, how does it feel to have made a film that has earned more than half a billion dollars at the box office? "Well, it's certainly an eye watering sum of money," he says, adding - "it's a lot more than the Paddington films [which he also wrote and directed] combined, so it's definitely new territory for me and very exciting." When King was first offered Wonka he was apprehensive but changed his mind after returning to the original books. When he started - with his writing partner Simon Farnaby - to imagine an origin story for Willy Wonka they were helped by having access to the Roald Dahl archive. "There’s pages and pages of him trying different paragraphs and rewriting each time in longhand and Willy Wonka was a character he came back to time and again," King reveals. "He was obviously aware that he had a life beyond Charlie." Revisiting the books also shed new light for King on the Oompa Loompas which led to the genius casting of Hugh Grant as Lofty. "I think he’s one of the funniest people on the planet," King says of Grant. "As I started reading the Oompa Loompa’s songs which are very sardonic and cutting and judgmental, I began to hear Hugh's voice and then it wasn't a huge leap from there, to imagine him looking like an Oompa Loompa." Grant of course, also starred in King’s Paddington as a master villain so duly agreed to bring King’s vision to life. Both films share are, in the best sense, family films. "We try to craft something that everyone can enjoy equally and in the same way," explains King. "I always think about Charlie Chaplin as a real touchstone because I found those films really funny when I saw them as a kid, and I still find them equally funny now. That’s what the great family films do, it is what we aspire to." The box office success suggests it is an aspiration he has fulfilled but havin…

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Tommy Jessop on his Line of Duty breakthrough and why he went to Hollywood
type: item
date: 2023-08-17T09:30:06.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Documentaries
subject: TV
subject: Interview
description: Tommy and Will Jessop spoke with Radio Times magazine about their new BBC One special Tommy Jessop Goes to Hollywood.
encoded: This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. Tommy Jessop has spent his life surprising people. He surprised his mother when he was born one month early. He surprised the doctor who warned his parents that, because Tommy was born with Down’s syndrome, he might never learn to read (in fact, Tommy went on to not only read but to write his own memoir). And he surprised his family when he told them that he wanted to be an actor. Tommy, 38, made his TV debut in 2004 sibling drama Coming Down the Mountain, while his performance as Terry Boyle in the fifth and sixth seasons of Line of Duty catapulted him to a new level of success and celebrity. "When Tommy was in Line of Duty it felt as if that was an incredible breakthrough," says his older brother Will, 40, a documentary director. "Fifteen million people watched it, and Tommy was at the centre of all the attention." Unsurprisingly, Tommy thought the phone would be ringing constantly with the offer of more acting work. "I kind of expected to get more TV and film roles," he tells me. But the calls never came. "I went to my agent to see what the problem was," he recalls. The problem was more of a question: was there a lack of offers because Tommy was an actor, or because he was an actor with Down’s syndrome? Tommy and Will decided that, instead of getting frustrated, they would get busy. Which is why we’re sitting in a light-filled house just outside Winchester, where Tommy lives and where the siblings are preparing for RT’s photoshoot, to discuss their new BBC1 documentary Tommy Jessop Goes to Hollywood. The programme follows Tommy as he tries to pitch his own movie, featuring a superhero called Roger (named after his teddy bear), in Hollywood. Why a superhero? "I want to play a character who makes his presence felt and saves the day," says Tommy. "It’s about being someone with agency in control of his own story." Will adds, "The thing about being a superhero is that it’s about acceptance and representa…

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Cillian Murphy on Oppenheimer, the Peaky Blinders movie and struggling with fame
type: item
date: 2023-07-21T12:25:53.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Movies
subject: Interview
description: The star talks his collaborations with Christopher Nolan and the similarities between J Robert Oppenheimer and Tommy Shelby.
encoded: This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. Tommy Shelby and Robert Oppenheimer are, at first sight, men with starkly different biographies. Shelby was a gang leader in 1920s Birmingham who wore a razor-trimmed cap, ran gambling rackets, smuggled drugs and killed in cold blood. He’s also a fictional character. Oppenheimer wore a fedora and was the real-life American scientist dubbed "the father of the atomic bomb". But Cillian Murphy thinks they have more in common than you might expect. He played Shelby in the popular, influential Peaky Blinders for six series and returns to 20th-century period drama to take on the title role of Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan’s latest film. What the men have in common, Murphy tells me, is that they’re unusually contradictory. "I love the naughty, strange, weird, unpredictable areas of psychology that you get into where it doesn’t seem straightforward. They’re the best characters." Alongside his cruelty, Shelby defends the oppressed and is traumatised from fighting in the First World War; Oppenheimer, having helped create the atom bomb, becomes deeply ambivalent about his role in history. "Chris [Nolan] used the expression that, in terms of his morality, Oppenheimer was always dancing between the raindrops," says Murphy. "That’s the stuff that I’m interested in – human behaviour and what pressure does to the human psyche." It’s 21 years since Murphy’s major film debut in Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later and, in his relationship with burgeoning fame, he has effected a similar dance. He’s been the star of huge international hits but chooses to live in Ireland rather than London or LA. His face – with distinctive pale blue eyes – is instantly recognisable around the world, but he hates being photographed by fans in public. "When I’m not working, I disconnect completely from the business. I need that. That’s the way I’ve always worked." He prefers, he says, to let the work speak for itself. His roles have ranged from a…

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Richard E Grant on hosting the BAFTAs: "It’s like a dream come true"
type: item
date: 2023-02-19T08:00:27.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Movies
subject: Interview
description: Speaking to Sarfraz Manzoor in Radio Times magazine, Richard E Grant discusses his life, his career and his "dream come true" of hosting the BAFTA Film Awards.
encoded: This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. Richard E Grant is hugely excited. And this is not hugely surprising – because frankly, being hugely excited is very much Grant’s brand these days. It started when he posted a video of himself in 2019 standing outside his flat in London, reacting to the news that he had been nominated for an Oscar for his role in the film Can You Ever Forgive Me? He was, suffice to say, hugely excited. In the same year he was hugely excited when he stood outside the home of his childhood hero Barbra Streisand, with a letter he’d sent to her when he was 14 years old – and even more excited when Streisand replied to his Tweet about it. And he is – you guessed it – hugely excited about his new role hosting this year’s BAFTA Film Awards. "It’s like a dream come true," he tells me when we meet at BAFTA’s offices in central London. "I was astonished to be asked because I always thought that the people who host awards are comedians. I was surprised that they chose an actor… who’s not Ricky Gervais." Usually, when a comedian like Gervais or Chris Rock is given an awards hosting job, their role is to mock and tease the nominees – but Grant sees things differently. "I’ve always been a fanboy," he says, "so having the opportunity to host means [being able to] share my unabashed fandom and celebration of the movies." View oEmbed on the source website I ask what he’s enjoyed the most among this year’s crop of film nominations. "Cate Blanchett in Tár," he says. "It’s the kind of movie that Meryl Streep would have been in in the '80s or '90s. With the vogue for Marvel and superhero stuff, to see a movie that is a real character study is something that I hadn’t expected would come around again so soon." He also loved The Banshees of Inisherin. "I was astonished it had such awards traction," he says. "It is so local and specific to Ireland, and a chamber piece where not really a lot happens – but everything happens. I am so relieved th…

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Ben Elton: 'My stuff was so unfashionable as to be morally wrong'
type: item
date: 2022-10-21T08:00:25.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Entertainment
subject: TV
subject: The Big RT Interview
description: Ben Elton's back.
encoded: I’m on my way to interview Ben Elton and trying to come up with questions, but my brain is too distracted by memories: of how my teenage years were so enlivened by The Young Ones; of how I watched Blackadder so often that I knew the scripts off by heart; and of how much I used to look forward to seeing his stand-up routines on Saturday Live. The interview is taking place in a studio in west London and the reason we are meeting is that Saturday Live, the groundbreaking comedy variety show that launched Elton’s television stand-up career and also introduced the likes of Fry and Laurie, French and Saunders, Paul Merton, Jo Brand and Julian Clary to television audiences (see page 19), is returning for a one-off special as part of Channel 4’s 40th birthday celebrations. The timing of its return feels freakishly perfect. “The last time we did it a right-wing Tory lady was Prime Minister, we had City bankers coining it, and Cliff Richard was releasing a Christmas record,” Elton says. “Literally nothing has changed in 34 years.” The return of Saturday Live (or rather, strictly speaking, its successor, Friday Night Live) is a chance, he feels, to settle some unfinished business. “Channel 4 has never really celebrated a show that changed British entertainment,” he tells me. “It was the most influential variety show since Sunday Night at the London Palladium. The world of modern stand-up started with Saturday Live.” The original Saturday Live aired from 1985 to 1987, followed by Friday Night Live in 1988, and left an awesome legacy. Some of those who made their earliest appearances on the show might have started as part of the vanguard of alternative comedy, but they are now household names. “I have a set of friends who all became very famous, but none were famous when we became friends,” Elton says. “I met Stephen [Fry], Hugh [Laurie] and Emma [Thompson] on the same day in December 1981 when Granada was assembling a group of unknown talents to do a show. The show failed, but …

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John Lithgow talks The Old Man, playing Winston Churchill and writing poetry
type: item
date: 2022-09-29T16:14:06.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Disney Plus
subject: Interview
subject: On demand
description: John Lithgow has played an alien and a prime minister, and is thrilled to be acting with Jeff Bridges – but mostly he's just happy to be working.
encoded: This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. John Lithgow isn’t one for being typecast. He is probably best known to British audiences for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in The Crown, but during his career he has also played, among others, a bumbling alien in 3rd Rock from the Sun and a serial killer in Dexter. “A lot of it comes from the fear that nobody will want me,” he says about his acting choices, which have included roles in films as diverse as Footloose, Shrek and Blow Out. “I have a kind of restless creative energy.” The latest outlet for this restlessness is new Disney Plus series The Old Man, a brooding cat-and-mouse spy drama in which Lithgow plays Harold Harper, an FBI man charged with apprehending his former colleague turned rogue CIA spy Dan Chase, played by Jeff Bridges. The two veteran actors (both in their 70s) had admired each other’s work for decades but this is the first time they have acted together. “I think Jeff is right up there as the biggest reason for me to do this show,” Lithgow tells me. “He’s amazing, and I thought it would be an interesting combination of two actors. He’s got this wonderful, off-hand, relaxed and unfussed style; I am sort of brainy and come from theatre.” Lithgow might have been excited by the prospect of working with Bridges, but he was made to wait. The Old Man tells two separate stories that don’t come together until late into the series, and not only was filming paused firstly for the pandemic, but then also after Bridges was diagnosed with cancer. By the time Lithgow and Bridges were finally able to act together, almost two years had passed since production had started. “It was very disorienting to pick up after 18 months,” Lithgow says. “I had practically forgotten my character’s name, so it was in many ways like a brand new job.” The drama is set in the present day but past traumas weigh down on both the lead characters. Harper, whom Lithgow plays, is reeling from the death of his son wh…

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Michael Parkinson talks 50 years interviewing the biggest stars in the world
type: item
date: 2021-08-28T09:48:30.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Entertainment
subject: TV
subject: Interview
description: Sarfraz Manzoor meets Sir Michael Parkinson.
encoded: This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. I’m on a train heading to meet Sir Michael Parkinson and I have butterflies in my stomach. I rarely get nervous ahead of meeting anyone, but I have spent the past few weeks rewatching old episodes of Parkinson and seen him talking to John Wayne and Fred Astaire, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, David Bowie and Madonna. It was deeply enjoyable to revisit these classic interviews, but it was also rather intimidating to realise that I was about to interview the greatest talk-show host in British television history. I shouldn’t have worried. Sir Michael Parkinson, who is now 86 but in great health mentally and physically, is everything one might wish him to be – engaging, personable and bracingly forthright. It’s 50 years this summer since Parkinson first launched (the anniversary is being marked by a BBC1 documentary on Saturday). The son and grandson of miners who grew up within sight of the Grimethorpe Colliery near Barnsley, Parkinson started out in local newspapers at the age of 16 before being lured on to television at Granada in Manchester. “I was very ambitious,” he recalls in the garden of his riverside home, “and secretly I wanted to be famous as well. I love being in showbiz. I love asking questions. I love meeting people. In that sense I was ideally created for television.” In the early 1960s Parkinson was presenting shows on Granada that frequently featured performances by a new band from Liverpool called the Beatles. Paul McCartney asked for his autograph for his mum. He later worked on a film show called Cinema when he received a phone call from the BBC asking if he fancied presenting a late-night talk show. The first episode of Parkinson aired on 19 June 1971 and guests in the first series included John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Ringo Starr, George Best, Michael Caine and Orson Welles. An impressive list – but not impressive enough for the BBC, who wiped the tapes. Virtually nothing from the firs…

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James Nesbitt on new BBC drama Bloodlands and getting the chance to work with Jed Mercurio
type: item
date: 2021-02-21T09:00:30.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: The Big RT Interview
description: Sarfraz Mansoor talks to Bloodlands actor James Nesbitt.
encoded: There is a scene in the first episode of new BBC One drama Bloodlands in which Northern Irish detective Tom Brannick (played by James Nesbitt) is urged to let go of his investigation into a series of mysterious disappearances whose trail went cold years before. The more he digs, the deeper embroiled he becomes in his own troubled past. A colleague tells him, “At some point the past has to die.” To which Brannick grimly responds, “Not for me.” The line had special resonance for Nesbitt. “I think that relates to me,” he says. “I’ve never really left Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland has never really left me.” Bloodlands was filmed early last year and it was due to wrap almost a year ago, on 13th March. And then lockdown happened, but rather than return to London, Nesbitt remained in Northern Ireland at his house in Portrush, as it offered him a chance to, as he puts it, “continue my relationship” with the country. Nesbitt’s involvement with the drama can be traced back to a party in London at which the actor bumped into Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio. “I said, ‘Come on, Jed, when are we going to get a chance to work together?’” he recalls. “Even though Line of Duty had been shot here for years I was never considered for it, which has always slightly galled me.” Mercurio promised to bear him in mind and sent over a script that HTM Productions, the company he runs with Have I Got News For You supremo Jimmy Mulville, had in development. Nesbitt says he was “immediately arrested” by Bloodlands, the first drama series from writer Chris Brandon. In particular, Nesbitt identified with his character Brannick and his investigation of the disappearance during the Troubles of several figures across the Catholic/Protestant divide at the hands of an assassin known as Goliath. “I recognise a lot in Tom,” says Nesbitt. “There’s an affability, a quiet strength. He’s someone who has really been through a lot in the Troubles, one of the silent ones who never reveal what they’ve …

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Divided nations: a snapshot of life on either side of the India-Pakistan border
type: item
date: 2017-08-14T08:00:00.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: It’s one of the most contentious strips of land in the world – but how is day-to-day living on the partition line? A pair of BBC journalists investigate...
encoded: Adnan Sarwar explains what life is like on the Pakistan side of the border My family is originally from a village between Islamabad and Lahore, and we came to Britain during the 1970s and settled in Burnley in Lancashire. When I was little, I understood little about partition – I knew India and Pakistan had split but I had no idea just how great a tragedy it was. In the programme [Dangerous Borders: a Journey across India and Pakistan, Mon 9pm, BBC2] the film crew and I took a road trip through Pakistan that lasted five weeks, during which we travelled along the spine of the border. India tends to be seen as a safe country, while Pakistan is viewed as the bad one next door, a dangerous place full of terrorists. We expected there to be some security issues, but the Pakistanis we met were really welcoming. One of the crew was white and kept being pulled out of his vehicle. He was worried why it kept happening, but they just wanted to take photographs of him because they hadn’t seen a white person for such a long time. We wanted to get behind the headlines to understand what Pakistan is like today. It was so enlightening to see so many stereotypes turned on their heads – women who were fighter pilots, men who were fashion designers and so on. I asked everybody what they felt about India. The people I met on my travels had less of a problem with Indians than some of the Pakistanis I used to know in Burnley. Partition wrecked people’s lives, and neighbours and friends killed each other. I remember sitting with a Sikh man in a temple in Lahore and thinking, 70 years ago you might have tried to kill me, and me you. That just seems extraordinary. Adnan Sarwar meets members of the Siddi community in Pakistan The British were in India and now we have Indians and Pakistanis in Britain. People in this country need to study partition because it created a massive amount of bloodshed. I remember reading about a British officer during partition who recalled how helpless he had felt…

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Lady Macbeth’s Florence Pugh: “It’s very interesting to make the audience love you while you are doing horrendous things”
type: item
date: 2017-05-06T07:44:00.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Pugh’s character in the new period drama may start out as a victim – but she slowly turns into a villain
encoded: The first thought that crossed Florence Pugh’s mind when her agent called to ask her to audition for a film called Lady Macbeth was: “Oh crap, it’s Shakespeare.” Pugh took the call while on a boat to the Isle of Wight. She promptly took another boat back to the mainland to attend the audition. Two weeks later, she was sent the script. “It was then that I realised,” recalls the 21-year-old actor, “this wasn’t Shakespeare – this was a very different story.” Indeed it was – this Lady Macbeth is an adaptation by Alice Birch of a 19th-century Russian novella, relocated to north-east England in 1865. Shot on a tiny budget in only 24 days and directed by William Oldroyd, the film tells the story of Katherine, a young woman trapped in a loveless marriage who embarks on a passionate but dangerous relationship with a farmhand. The summary makes it sound like a cosy period drama when, in fact, it’s darker, more interesting and a lot more violent than that. Katherine begins the film as a victim but slowly becomes more of a villain. “As an actor, it’s very interesting to make the audience love you while you are doing horrendous things,” explains Pugh. “That is pretty exciting.” View oEmbed on the source website Right now things could hardly be more exciting for her. She is extraordinary in Lady Macbeth, by turns vulnerable, flirty and utterly compelling. The performance has led to Pugh being named as a star of tomorrow by Screen International, and winning a Bafta breakthrough Brit award and the Evening Standard breakthrough award. “It’s always surprising to see yourself on the underground,” Pugh admits when I tell her I have seen her face plastered on three posters on the way to meet her – and what makes it even more surprising is that only four years ago Pugh was still in school. She grew up in Oxford and had always known she wanted to perform. “I played Mary at the age of seven in my first nativity play and I loved it – there is something so fascinating about embodying someone…

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Olivia Newton-John on how cancer and the loss of her sister inspired her
type: item
date: 2017-01-27T09:59:00.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Movies
subject: News
subject: Radio
subject: audio
description: Before Grease, the actress was famed for her career as a country singer, now she revisits music with an album about loss and grief
encoded: Olivia Newton-John is most famous for summery feel - good pop music that’s still loved decades after it was released. She will, for millions, always be Sandy in Grease who wore an off-the-shoulder black top and skin-tight trousers as she danced with John Travolta and sang You’re the One That I Want. But there was always much more to Newton-John than her public image suggested – years before Grease she had been a Grammy-winning country singer and it’s that spare sound that is evident in the 68-year-old’s latest album. Liv On is a collection of 11 songs about illness and death that was inspired by the sudden loss of Newton-John’s sister Rona from a brain tumour aged 70 in 2013. “It was a terrible shock – she was a very healthy fit person who exercised every day and ate well,” she says. “She died very quickly and it put me in a spin for about a year.” To help process the pain, Newton-John wrote a song and recorded it with her friend, the Canadian singer and producer Amy Sky. “It was something I was going to send to family and friends,” she explains, “but after we finished we were discussing that there isn’t much music specifically made for people going through loss and grief. It was then I had the light-bulb moment – maybe there is a need for this music.” Newton-John brought country singer Beth Nielson Chapman on to the project. What made the writing process especially meaningful was that all three singers had personal experience of loss and illness; Sky has depression and Chapman has survived breast cancer and a brain tumour. “Olivia looks like a big pop icon singing Grease,” says Chapman “but she did a fantastic album called Grace and Gratitude – so she has stepped into these waters before.” Grace and Gratitude was written in the aftermath of Newton-John being diagnosed in 1992 with breast cancer at the age of 44. “My father died on the same weekend I was diagnosed,” recalls Newton-John. “It all happened at the same time. I was frightened because I was worried about …

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Dev Patel: I struggled to find "substantial" roles after Slumdog Millionaire
type: item
date: 2017-01-20T08:40:00.000Z
creator: Sarfraz Manzoor
subject: Movies
subject: News
description: “It’s hard when there is nothing good out there that is not your usual goofy best friend/funny sidekick/techie role," says the Lion actor
encoded: Dev Patel has become used to appearing in films speaking in an accent other than his own. In Slumdog Millionaire and the two Best Exotic Marigold Hotel movies he adopted an Indian accent, but in Lion the 26-year-old was finally able to ditch sing-song Indian for an Australian accent. “I’ve been yearning for a role like this where I can play a young, modern guy, he says. “It was such a beautiful, profound script, and the fact that it is all based on a real story makes it even more incredible.” The plot of Lion, which also stars Nicole Kidman, Rooney Mara and an extraordinary performance from newcomer Sunny Pawar, would be dismissed as utterly implausible but for the fact that it actually happened. Patel plays Saroo Brierley, who was born in a tiny village in India but became separated from his older brother in a railway station. The five-year-old Saroo fell asleep while waiting for his brother, but when he awoke, his brother had not returned and Saroo ended up thousands of miles from his home and family. Rooney Mara and Dev Patel in Lion The little boy was placed in an orphanage, where he was adopted by an Australian couple. He was brought up in Australia, but the past would not release its grip, and Saroo set about using Google Earth to try to locate the village that had been his home. All this is depicted in Lion (in cinemas from Friday 20 January), a beautifully made and incredibly moving film that has earned five Bafta nominations, including a supporting actor nod for Patel. “As soon as I got the role,” says Patel, “I called my manager and said for the next eight months I don’t want to do anything else but commit every fibre of my being to getting the journey right.” Patel visited the gym every day to bulk up for the role, he worked on an Australian accent and he visited India to retrace Saroo’s journey. “I was travelling the trains and seeing the landscape change and getting a taste of the isolation he would have felt. I also visited orphanages and wrote a diary…

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