Radio Times
type: channel
link: https://www.radiotimes.com
date: 2025-10-30T18:04:54.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: 'Knitting is my superpower'
items: Tom Daley reveals his fears for minority communities and how he's smashing knitting stereotypes
items: Love, sex and psychics
items: Rob Rinder and Rylan speak openly on death, parenthood and how everyone thinks they’re together
items: 'It's horrible to watch your child suffering'
items: Paula Radcliffe says London Marathon will be emotional as 18-year-old daughter runs after cancer diagnosis
items: "I was nervous of what they would find"
items: Jessica Ennis-Hill on Who Do You Think You Are?: "I didn't imagine I'd find it so upsetting"
items: "I’m less worried about moving on up"
items: Stephen Fry on celebrating gay war heroes in new documentary and why he quit Twitter
items: Derren Brown on 20 years of blowing our minds and why he's planning to do less TV in future
items: Diane Morgan: "Philomena Cunk is who I’d love to be if I had the balls"
items: Christopher Eccleston: When it comes to disabilities, ethnic minorities and women on TV, we’re still dinosaurs
items: Paul O'Grady: "Love hasn't been the driving force of my life"
items: James Nesbitt on work ethic, being a Lucky Man - and hair transplants
items: The Voice's Tom Jones and Gavin Rossdale talk love, loss, heartache and fame
items: Sir Ben Kingsley's identity is as colourful as his characters
items: Dermot O'Leary on The X Factor: “If I was Simon I'd probably take it off air for a year"
items: Caroline Quentin and Martin Clunes have lived strangely parallel lives – now they're back on screen after 17 years
items: Jerry Hall on her 23 years with Mick Jagger and why life is easier when you're beautiful
items: Greg Davies on Man Down, the death of Rik Mayall and losing his real father
items: Fonejacker Kayvan Novak on returning to the spotlight - and moving on from "brown parts"
items: Next stop USA: James Corden is packing up for Hollywood

'Knitting is my superpower'
type: item
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: App
subject: App features
description: It helped him win Olympic gold – now Tom Daley is championing the benefits of knitting for all
encoded: Add Game of Wool: Britain's Best Knitter to your watchlist Tom Daley is taking over our TV screens. And there’s not a diving board in sight. In the first week of The Celebrity Traitors, the fabulously sceptical side eye he gave Kate Garraway became the talking point of an already much-talked-about show. And now the Olympic gold medallist is hoping to do for knitting what The Great British Bake Off did for the Victoria sponge. That’s why we’re here, on a gorgeous summer’s day in rural Ayrshire on the west coast of Scotland, with Daley salivating about what’s in front of him – wools of all colours, textures and thicknesses, and knitting needles that range from pipe-cleaner thin to the positively pornographic. We’re in the “Yarn Barn” on a picturesque farm where Game of Wool is being filmed. The aim of the new Channel 4 reality series is to find Britain’s best amateur knitter. More than a decade since Daley made his TV reality-show debut in Splash!, mentoring celebrity divers, this is his first presenting gig, and he’s loving it. He tells me about the wonders of knitting and crochet and talks so fast I can barely keep up. “It’s amazing what you can achieve in such a short time with just two needles or a crochet hook, and the benefits you get from knitting and crochet are just unparalleled. “It’s the thing that allows me to get away from everything and be creative, present and to unwind. I stop thinking about all the things that have been in the past and are coming in the future, you’re just in the moment, and I think it’s the superpower that helped me get to an Olympic gold in Tokyo because there was so much time to overthink in the Covid Games, whereas when I was knitting I was able to stay focused and in the moment.” Finally, he takes a breath. Was he ever as enthusiastic about diving? “I don’t think so and that’s because diving always had pressure around it. Maybe the contestants will feel quite pressured in the Yarn Barn because they want to impress the judges, des…

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Tom Daley reveals his fears for minority communities and how he's smashing knitting stereotypes
type: item
date: 2025-10-28T00:01:36.000Z
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: Entertainment
subject: TV
subject: Interview
subject: Magazine
description: It helped him win Olympic gold – now Tom Daley is championing the benefits of knitting for all.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Tom Daley is taking over our TV screens. And there’s not a diving board in sight. In the first week of The Celebrity Traitors, the fabulously sceptical side eye he gave Kate Garraway became the talking point of an already much-talked-about show. And now the Olympic gold medallist is hoping to do for knitting what The Great British Bake Off did for the Victoria sponge. That’s why we’re here, on a gorgeous summer’s day in rural Ayrshire on the west coast of Scotland, with Daley salivating about what’s in front of him – wools of all colours, textures and thicknesses, and knitting needles that range from pipe-cleaner thin to the positively pornographic. We’re in the “Yarn Barn” on a picturesque farm where Game of Wool is being filmed. The aim of the new Channel 4 reality series is to find Britain’s best amateur knitter. More than a decade since Daley made his TV reality-show debut in Splash!, mentoring celebrity divers, this is his first presenting gig, and he’s loving it. He tells me about the wonders of knitting and crochet and talks so fast I can barely keep up. “It’s amazing what you can achieve in such a short time with just two needles or a crochet hook, and the benefits you get from knitting and crochet are just unparalleled. “It’s the thing that allows me to get away from everything and be creative, present and to unwind. I stop thinking about all the things that have been in the past and are coming in the future, you’re just in the moment, and I think it’s the superpower that helped me get to an Olympic gold in Tokyo because there was so much time to overthink in the Covid Games, whereas when I was knitting I was able to stay focused and in the moment.” Finally, he takes a breath. Was he ever as enthusiastic about diving? “I don’t think so and that’s because diving always had pressure around it. Maybe the contestants will feel quite pressured in the Yarn Barn because they want to impress the judges, designers…

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Love, sex and psychics
type: item
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: App
subject: App features
description: No topic is off the table as Rob Rinder and Rylan Clark sit down with Simon Hattenstone ahead of their latest adventure in India
encoded: Add Rob and Rylan's Passage to India to your watchlist Rob and Rylan are back. After the success of last year’s Bafta-winning Grand Tour of Italy, TV judge Rob Rinder and radio and reality show presenter Rylan Clark have undertaken a Passage to India. Like the first travel series, it’s steeped in culture (thank you, Rob), pithy sayings and scatological wisdom (thank you, Rylan), and humour (thanks to both – but mainly Rylan). Because of their obvious differences, they work brilliantly together as a team: Rob is posh, urbane, wordy; Rylan is sweary, very Essex and straight to the point. Rylan is 36 and 6ft 4in, Rob is 47 and quite a few inches shorter. But the longer you watch them, the more you see their similarities. Which are not so much the obvious things (male, gay and single at the time), but the more subtle ones; Rylan can be as angsty as Rob in his own way, while Rob can be as potty-mouthed as Rylan. We meet at a café in London. They love their show and are keen to know what I think. “Did you like it? Honestly?” Rob asks me anxiously. “That means a lot to me.” “I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Rylan adds. “The second album is always a worry!” These two were friends before they made the Italy series but didn’t know each other that well. By the time they had done India, they say they couldn’t have known each other better. Both say that, unlike so much documentary TV, there isn’t a single scene that is set up beforehand. So, when Rylan thinks he’s going to die travelling on a rickshaw in the Delhi traffic it’s honest and heartfelt. Ditto when Rob throws a tantrum at the thought of seeing street puppetry because it’s not true art (it turns out to be his highlight of the tour). Then there is the time they visit an astrologer. “That was without doubt the funniest moment in my life,” Rob says. “It’s not mine,” Rylan replies with a snarl. “F**king astrologer.” The astrologer in question tells Rob that he’s lovely when he’s in a good mood, but a horror when he’s not. “Yes, b…

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Rob Rinder and Rylan speak openly on death, parenthood and how everyone thinks they’re together
type: item
date: 2025-09-08T23:01:11.000Z
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: Documentaries
subject: TV
subject: Magazine
description: No topic is off the table as Rob Rinder and Rylan Clark speak to Radio Times ahead of their latest adventure in India.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Rob and Rylan are back. After the success of last year’s BAFTA-winning Grand Tour of Italy, Rob Rinder and Rylan Clark have undertaken a Passage to India. Like the first travel series, it’s steeped in culture (thank you, Rob), pithy sayings and scatological wisdom (thank you, Rylan), and humour (thanks to both – but mainly Rylan). Because of their obvious differences, they work brilliantly together as a team: Rob is posh, urbane, wordy; Rylan is sweary, very Essex and straight to the point. Rylan is 36 and 6ft 4in, Rob is 47 and quite a few inches shorter. But the longer you watch them, the more you see their similarities. Which are not so much the obvious things (male, gay and single at the time), but the more subtle ones; Rylan can be as angsty as Rob in his own way, while Rob can be as potty-mouthed as Rylan. We meet at a café in London. They love their show and are keen to know what I think. “Did you like it? Honestly?” Rob asks me anxiously. “That means a lot to me.” “I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Rylan adds. “The second album is always a worry!” These two were friends before they made the Italy series but didn’t know each other that well. By the time they had done India, they say they couldn’t have known each other better. Both say that, unlike so much documentary TV, there isn’t a single scene that is set up beforehand. So, when Rylan thinks he’s going to die travelling on a rickshaw in the Delhi traffic it’s honest and heartfelt. Ditto when Rob throws a tantrum at the thought of seeing street puppetry because it’s not true art (it turns out to be his highlight of the tour). Then there is the time they visit an astrologer. “That was without doubt the funniest moment in my life,” Rob says. “It’s not mine,” Rylan replies with a snarl. “F**king astrologer.” The astrologer in question tells Rob that he’s lovely when he’s in a good mood, but a horror when he’s not. “Yes, but that’s true and we both know that,” comme…

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'It's horrible to watch your child suffering'
type: item
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Her daughter’s cancer diagnosis was horrific, admits Paula Radcliffe, so seeing her run this year’s London Marathon will make it even more poignant
encoded: Add the London Marathon to your watchlist Paula Radcliffe always finds the London Marathon emotional, whether competing, commentating or simply watching. But this year she’s going to need an extra pack of tissues. It’s 40 years since her father Peter, who died in 2020, ran his first London Marathon; 20 years since she broke the world record for a women-only marathon; and ten years since she ran her final London Marathon. But most significantly for Radcliffe, her 18-year-old daughter Isla, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2020, will be running her very first marathon. Britain’s most successful female distance runner is speaking by video link from her home in Monaco on a typically busy day. She has just been on a run and is squeezing me in before picking up Isla and her 14-year-old brother Raphael from school. Astonishingly, at the age of 51 and a decade since she retired, Radcliffe is also back running marathons. Although she’s not running in London this year, Radcliffe has been chronicling the build-up to the event with a podcast series, Paula’s Marathon Run Club, offering advice to runners at all levels. The series is, fittingly enough, sponsored by Children with Cancer UK, the charity Isla is raising money and awareness for. Before she was diagnosed in 2020 with a malignant dermal tumour in her right ovary, Isla used to run competitively. “Now she just runs for herself,” Radcliffe says. “She’s not trying to set any record, it’s just a part of her proving that she’s healthy enough to finish a marathon.” Isla was also aware of the anniversaries. “She was the one who said it will now be three generations who have run the London race, and 40 years since Grandad did it.” That marathon 40 years ago, when the 11-year-old Radcliffe not only watched her father run it, but also saw Norway’s Ingrid Kristiansen break the women’s world record, shaped her career. She dreamt of doing the same, first achieving her goal (in a mixed-gender race with pace-makers) in 2003, with a tim…

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Paula Radcliffe says London Marathon will be emotional as 18-year-old daughter runs after cancer diagnosis
type: item
date: 2025-04-22T09:10:29.000Z
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: Athletics
subject: Sport
subject: TV
subject: Magazine
description: Her daughter's cancer diagnosis was horrific, so seeing her run this year's London Marathon will make it even more poignant.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Paula Radcliffe always finds the London Marathon emotional, whether competing, commentating or simply watching. But this year she's going to need an extra pack of tissues. It's 40 years since her father Peter, who died in 2020, ran his first London Marathon; 20 years since she broke the world record for a women-only marathon; and 10 years since she ran her final London Marathon. But most significantly for Radcliffe, her 18-year-old daughter Isla, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2020, will be running her very first marathon. Britain's most successful female distance runner is speaking by video link from her home in Monaco on a typically busy day. She has just been on a run and is squeezing me in before picking up Isla and her 14-year-old brother Raphael from school. Astonishingly, at the age of 51 and a decade since she retired, Radcliffe is also back running marathons. Although she’s not running in London this year, Radcliffe has been chronicling the build-up to the event with a podcast series, Paula's Marathon Run Club, offering advice to runners at all levels. The series is, fittingly enough, sponsored by Children with Cancer UK, the charity Isla is raising money and awareness for. Before she was diagnosed in 2020 with a malignant dermal tumour in her right ovary, Isla used to run competitively. "Now she just runs for herself," Radcliffe says. "She's not trying to set any record, it’s just a part of her proving that she’s healthy enough to finish a marathon." Isla was also aware of the anniversaries. "She was the one who said it will now be three generations who have run the London race, and 40 years since Grandad did it." That marathon 40 years ago, when the 11-year-old Radcliffe not only watched her father run it, but also saw Norway's Ingrid Kristiansen break the women's world record, shaped her career. She dreamt of doing the same, first achieving her goal (in a mixed-gender race with pace-makers) in 2003, …

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"I was nervous of what they would find"
type: item
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Former Olympian Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill knows the courage it takes to excel on the world stage – but nothing prepared her for what she discovered on Who Do You Think You Are?
encoded: Add Who Do You Think You Are? to your watchlist Jess Ennis-Hill promised herself she wouldn’t cry on TV when she agreed to take part in the BBC genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are? “I’m the kind of person who only cries behind closed doors,” the former golden girl of British athletics says. “When I was competing, I was a poker face. I wouldn’t give too much away.” But sure enough, she did break down in front of the cameras. And not surprisingly, given what she discovered about her family. We meet at a London studio for Ennis-Hill’s RT photoshoot. The 38-year-old mother of two is posing in a dazzling red suit and looks as athletic as she did when winning the heptathlon gold medal at the 2012 Olympics. Ennis-Hill, who also won three world championships, has a naturally sunny disposition, but even she has been challenged by the traumatic discoveries. “I didn’t imagine I’d find it so upsetting,” she says. Even as one of the toughest and most inspirational athletes in British history (the heptathlon consists of seven events over two days: 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200m, long jump, javelin and 800m) – she admits she was terrified of taking part in the genealogy series, which is now celebrating its 20th anniversary. “They don’t tell you what you’re about to embark on and what they’ve found. What if they find something awful, like there’s a serial killer in the family? Because they go so far back I was nervous about what they could uncover. I spoke to my mum and she said even if they find something really bad, it’s not you.” She pauses. “But at the same time, it’s your bloodline isn’t it?” She had considered taking part in the show in previous series, but her anxiety got the better of her. So what changed? “The kids are that little bit older. My son turned ten a couple of days ago and my daughter’s six, so it felt like a good time to do it. They’re at an age when they’re taking so much on board and they want to know about their family.” Ennis-Hill was raised …

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Jessica Ennis-Hill on Who Do You Think You Are?: "I didn't imagine I'd find it so upsetting"
type: item
date: 2024-08-05T23:01:19.000Z
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: Documentaries
subject: TV
subject: BBC iPlayer
subject: BBC One
subject: Interview
subject: Olympics
description: The former golden girl of British athletics speaks to Radio Times magazine.
encoded: This interview first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Jess Ennis-Hill promised herself she wouldn’t cry on TV when she agreed to take part in the BBC genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?. "I'm the kind of person who only cries behind closed doors," the former golden girl of British athletics says. "When I was competing, I was a poker face. I wouldn’t give too much away." But sure enough, she did break down in front of the cameras. And not surprisingly, given what she discovered about her family. We meet at a London studio for Ennis-Hill’s RT photoshoot. The 38-year-old mother of two is posing in a dazzling red suit and looks as athletic as she did when winning the heptathlon gold medal at the 2012 Olympics. Ennis-Hill, who also won three world championships, has a naturally sunny disposition, but even she has been challenged by the traumatic discoveries. "I didn't imagine I'd find it so upsetting,” she says. Even as one of the toughest and most inspirational athletes in British history (the heptathlon consists of seven events over two days: 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200m, long jump, javelin and 800m), she admits she was terrified of taking part in the genealogy series, which is now celebrating its 20th anniversary. "They don’t tell you what you’re about to embark on and what they’ve found. What if they find something awful, like there’s a serial killer in the family? Because they go so far back I was nervous about what they could uncover. I spoke to my mum and she said even if they find something really bad, it’s not you." She pauses. "But at the same time, it’s your bloodline isn’t it?" She had considered taking part in the show in previous seasons, but her anxiety got the better of her. So, what changed? "The kids are that little bit older. My son turned 10 a couple of days ago and my daughter’s six, so it felt like a good time to do it. They’re at an age when they’re taking so much on board and they want to know about their family." Ennis-Hill was…

"I’m less worried about moving on up"
type: item
date: 2024-06-04T17:09:57.000Z
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: TV
description: Clive Myrie says being nearly 60 and returning to his roots in the Caribbean have calmed his ambition – but with the election imminent, wouldn’t he still like the top job at BBC News?
encoded: So, Clive Myrie, what made you leave the BBC News studio to make a TV series about paradise on Earth, otherwise known as the Caribbean? “Ha-ha-ha-haaaa! The Mrs Merton question!” replies the News at Ten anchor. As with the legendary question asked of Debbie McGee by Caroline Aherne’s mock chat-show host Mrs Merton (“So, what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?”), Myrie knows there’s no need to answer. Myrie has a great laugh – joyous, life-affirming, with a long trumpet blast on the final “Haaaaaaa!” for good measure. He’s at home in London when we Zoom. “Listen man, there are two sides to my personality. One is pretty serious, and that’s taken care of with the day job. But at the same time there’s a chunk of my personality that likes art and music and literature – and having a laugh, frankly. And it’s great to have that side of my personality taken care of with the other things I can do outside the day job.” Clive Myrie’s Caribbean Adventure is a light and likeable BBC series that sees the man tipped to take the lead presenter role at News at Ten and co-host general election coverage with Laura Kuenssberg visiting his parents’ homeland of Jamaica, riding pillion with Che Guevara’s son in Cuba where Myrie’s grandfather emigrated, learning how to dance with true swag, and much more. He explores his roots the fun way. Myrie, aged 59, joined the BBC as a trainee in 1987 before making his name as a foreign correspondent covering war, natural disasters and mainstream politics in more than 90 countries. He was shot at in Iraq and escaped with a dislocated shoulder when his car somersaulted four times in Ukraine in 2022. His reporting is known for its integrity, depth and humanity. For the past 15 years, he has also presented the news. Last July he was presenting the flagship News at Ten when it was revealed that Huw Edwards, the show’s chief anchor for 20 years, was the BBC presenter at the centre of allegations about paying a young person for sexually ex…

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Stephen Fry on celebrating gay war heroes in new documentary and why he quit Twitter
type: item
date: 2023-03-02T19:00:46.000Z
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: Documentaries
subject: TV
subject: The Big RT Interview
description: The comedian and actor speaks about Willem and Freida – the LGBTQ+ war heroes he's honouring in his latest Channel 4 documentary – as well as his relationship with social media and activism.
encoded: This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. Stephen Fry has made a documentary about the most remarkable Second World War heroes you’ll have never heard of. Willem and Frieda are their names and, once you know of their deeds, you won’t forget them. Willem Arondeus, an artist and writer, and Frieda Belinfante, a cellist and conductor, lived in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands and became prominent members of the Dutch resistance in the 1940s. Both were gay. At least 80 per cent of the Dutch Jewish community were murdered during the war, but Willem and Frieda helped hatch a plot to forge identity cards, saving thousands of Jewish lives. It was a brilliant scam, all the more impressive because Dutch identity cards, which contained their own watermark, were then the most sophisticated in the world. But the forgery was merely the start of one of the most audacious acts of sabotage in the Second World War. Willem and Frieda lived open gay lives in Holland – an act of astonishing bravery in itself at the time. Willem came out at the age of 17 to his father and was disowned by his family. Meanwhile, Frieda, who was Jewish, was invited to form a chamber orchestra at the prestigious Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and, in doing so, became the first female conductor and artistic director of a professional orchestra in Europe. Fry, an actor-writer-director famous for his knowledge, says what amazed him most about the story is that he had never heard of it. “I don’t pretend I know the story of every resistance cell in every occupied country of the war, but I know a bit about [French resistance movement hero] Jean Moulin and [British secret agent] Violette Szabo, people like that. This was all new to me, though, and it’s a story that really should be told. I felt it was something I had to do. It’s the least I could do for such extraordinary people. It’s quite shocking how unknown they are, even in Holland.” Fry is Zooming from Los Angeles, where he is shooting the lat…

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Derren Brown on 20 years of blowing our minds and why he's planning to do less TV in future
type: item
date: 2020-08-16T08:00:41.000Z
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: The Big RT Interview
description: The mentalist, illusionist and author speaks to Simon Hattenstone about his career over the last two decades.
encoded: Derren Brown is sitting at a whisky bar, reminiscing. It’s 20 years since the magician/mentalist established himself on TV with his Mind Control series; he’s now approaching 50 and it’s time to look back. Channel 4 is dedicating a night to doing just that with a new stunt from Brown (“It’s live – that’s all I can say,” he teases) and a documentary in which he reveals his favourite moments from his career. In the past, Brown has said he loathed his earlier self – or selves. “I find anything I did more than ten minutes ago acutely embarrassing,” he says today. Looking back was the last thing he fancied doing (“I thought I’d hate all of it”), but he has been pleasantly surprised by his encounter with his younger self. “I’m kind of fond of him in the way you’re fond of a child that is slightly lost. I didn’t know how to hold a conversation normally without trying to impress, but I get where it was all coming from.” And where he comes from, as Brown admits, is a little bit complicated. The whisky snug is upstairs in his London house. In the documentary we get a brief insight into the eccentricity of Brown’s home. Today, via Zoom, I get a bit more. A stuffed toucan hovers above his head. “I’ve got a lot of taxidermy, but I don’t tend to talk about it because it upsets some people.” He smiles. “It’s all ethically sourced! I’m looking at a couple of pickled brains at the moment.” We’ve barely started – there’s the eight-legged lamb, the two lambs that share one head and the two-headed cow. “Actually, I’ve got two-headed cows!” He gets the giggles. And when he giggles it reminds me of the cutaway shot you often see of Brown in his shows when the unwitting protagonists are about to make life-altering decisions. Derren Brown is just so… weird. And yet to talk to him, he is charming, kind, slightly introverted and boringly normal. He seems so different from the Brown of 20 years ago – the shock of hair, goatee and actorly voice have all gone. I ask him why he’s slimmed down in …

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Diane Morgan: "Philomena Cunk is who I’d love to be if I had the balls"
type: item
date: 2018-05-01T16:39:05.000Z
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: Comedy
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Actor and comedian Diane Morgan discusses her brilliant BBC alter ego ahead of new BBC series Cunk on Britain
encoded: Diane Morgan sits shivering in a scorching hot east London restaurant, staring at the menu. The waiter asks if she would like her water still. “Yeah, or just tap please.” She looks at me. “See how down-to-earth I am?” Then back at the waiter. “Can I have a roast salmon fillet, please?” Back at me again. “Feel how cold my hands are. They go purple. I’ve got Raynaud’s [disease, which affects circulation]. That woman, Doctor Foster, has got it as well. What’s she called? Suranne Jones. Is it too hot for you in here?” Morgan is fast-talking and concerned, with a great hooting laugh. She could not be less like her alter ego, Philomena Cunk – the parody television presenter is slow, unconcerned and bored senseless by the people she interviews. Now Cunk, who first appeared as a character in Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe, has been given her first series – a history of Britain. BBC reveals details of new five-part Philomena Cunk series Cunk on Britain Maxine Peake and Philomena Cunk star Diane Morgan join forces for new sister comedy View oEmbed on the source website And it’s brilliant. Cunk is as ill-informed as she is rude, and fabulously po-faced. Take Lucy Worsley, add sprinklings of Mrs Malaprop, Mrs Merton and Larry David and you might end up with Philomena Cunk. So, for example, she tells us why Henry VIII is such a memorable monarch. “Well for one thing, he was fat, so he takes up more room in the memory. He had six wives called Catherine and killed them all, hence Cath-olicism.” Yet, amazingly, the programmes are also educational. In the episode on the Victorians we learn about Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Charles Babbage, Charles Darwin, Sherlock Holmes, music hall, Jack the Ripper and slavery. What really keeps you on your toes is the interplay between perfect sense and nonsense. “Music hall was the first genre named after a building, and was a huge influence on acid house,” Cunk says, without a hint of a smile. How would Morgan describe Cunk to somebody who had never…

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Christopher Eccleston: When it comes to disabilities, ethnic minorities and women on TV, we’re still dinosaurs
type: item
date: 2017-11-10T12:22:59.000Z
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The A Word actor talks about the return of the BBC drama and the need for casting quotas to bring actors from different backgrounds into the industry
encoded: Christopher Eccleston has starred in a lot of groundbreaking TV drama, but nothing, he says, has had the impact of The A Word. “I’m a runner and people stop me in the street all the time – they stopped me about Our Friends in the North, they stopped me about Cracker, they stopped me about Doctor Who. But this is the one that I’ve got stopped for most. It has touched people.” Peter Bowker’s autism drama is back for a welcome second series. The A Word has had its critics – me included. After two episodes, my autistic daughter and I reviewed it, asking why autistic children were invariably portrayed as unusually gifted. In the case of The A Word, five-year-old Joe appears to know the words to every great song in pop history. But later episodes showed that his ability to recite lyrics didn’t make his life any less of a struggle. As the drama developed it became more and more accomplished – as a soap (about the interconnected lives of an extended family in the Lake District), as a sometime comedy (Eccleston’s well-meaning character Maurice has perfected the knack of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time), and as an exploration of special needs (as well as Joe, there are two other characters with learning disabilities). Today, Eccleston is with Leon Harrop who has Down’s syndrome and plays Ralph, and Pooky Quesnel who plays Ralph’s mother, Louise. In The A Word, Maurice has an on-off relationship with Louise, and offers Ralph a job in his brewery. It’s soon apparent that in real life the three actors have an unusually close relationship. If you didn’t know otherwise, you might well assume Eccleston and Quesnel are Harrop’s parents. “One of the strengths of The A Word,” says Eccleston, “is we’ve not just soapboxed and depressed everybody, we’ve celebrated the fact that people who have a child on the spectrum don’t stop living, they keep moving forward.” He’s also been so impressed by Harrop’s performance that he’d like to see the 25-year-old get his own TV series. “Leon…

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Paul O'Grady: "Love hasn't been the driving force of my life"
type: item
date: 2017-06-17T07:00:00.000Z
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Blind Date’s new host on stepping into Cilla Black's shoes, living with grief, and modern dating
encoded: Paul O’Grady says it felt wrong the first time he stood in a TV studio presenting the new Blind Date. After all, this was the legendary dating show made famous by his great friend Cilla Black, who died less than two years ago. “It was a shock at first when I heard the music, and they said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host, Paul O’Grady’. I thought, ‘This isn’t right, it’s so synonymous with Cilla, she should be here, not me.’ I felt like I shouldn’t be doing it. It was her show. But then I spoke to her sons and lots of people who knew her and they said, ‘You have to do it, because she’d want you to do it for everyone.’” Sixty-two-year-old O’Grady has been thinking a lot about Cilla. In fact he’s been thinking a lot about friends he has lost, in general. The chat show host, animal lover, comedian, former drag queen and successful memoirist prefers to natter rather than do a formal interview, and today he wants to natter about Cilla. He doesn’t need to say how much he misses her. It’s written all over his face. You almost wonder whether doing Blind Date is his way of staying close to her. Cilla gave up Blind Date 14 years ago – had he ever talked to her about the possibility of him taking over the show? “No. We never spoke about work, me and Cilla. We used to go out and enjoy ourselves. Work was the last thing on the agenda. We didn’t want to know. Too busy out having a bloody good time, because she came into her own when she hit 60, Cilla. She’d never been a party animal – she’d always done the show and gone home. After Bobby died she said she was sent a guardian angel but it had hooves and a tail, and that was me.” Within seconds O’Grady is transported back to the golden days with Cilla. They might have been united by grief (Cilla’s husband Bobby died 16 years ago; O’Grady lost his long-term partner Brendan Murphy 12 years ago) but it was a friendship cemented by laughter. Was she different from how we saw her? “Completely,” he says. “Very down to ear…

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James Nesbitt on work ethic, being a Lucky Man - and hair transplants
type: item
date: 2017-02-24T09:00:00.000Z
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: “How many Stan Lee characters get to say, ‘You fickin’ eejits’ in a Northern Irish accent? I like that collision”
encoded: James Nesbitt has done a lot of growing up recently. To be fair, he says, there was a lot to be done. Nesbitt, aged 52, used to say that he felt he was permanently aged 17. The Northern Irish actor says it was the return of Cold Feet after a 13-year gap that made him realise how much he’d changed. Nesbitt plays the charming if feckless womaniser Adam in the drama; many people assumed they were pretty much one and the same – including Nesbitt himself. Not any more, though. “This year I looked down and thought, ‘God, I’m not anything like him at all.’ I assumed I was quite like him because I would put an awful lot of me into him. But now I think there’s a real childishness to him; there’s a little lost boy thing to him that I don’t have that much.” The Cold Feet reunion Nesbitt is a great talker – open, expansive, thoughtful. He’s got views on pretty much everything, and you don’t have to spend long with him to realise many of them are shaped by his Northern Irish background. Take the chaotic state of the world. No, he’s not happy about it. “But it’s hard to focus everything on the worry of Brexit, extremism and Trump because at home we’re just enjoying what I suppose would be called a postwar optimism.” Or on coming of age as an actor, 15 years ago in the Paul Greengrass drama documentary Bloody Sunday: “Paul always said, ‘To a Northern Irish actor the Troubles were like Lear. You have to take it on at some point.’” Football? Like most Northern Irish men of a certain age raised on the feats of George Best he’s a Manchester United fan. Education? He just happens to be the chancellor of Ulster University. As for the latest series of Stan Lee’s Lucky Man, he says it’s a privilege to be able to play a superhero in his own accent. “How many Stan Lee characters get to say, ‘You fickin’ eejits’ in a Northern Irish accent? I like that collision.” In Lucky Man, Nesbitt plays Detective Inspector Harry Clayton, a gambling addict given an ancient bracelet that makes him unnatura…

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The Voice's Tom Jones and Gavin Rossdale talk love, loss, heartache and fame
type: item
date: 2017-01-08T07:15:00.000Z
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: Talent Shows
subject: TV
description: After suffering death and divorce, the two singers and coaches reflect on marriage and the return of the ITV talent contest
encoded: Tom Jones and Gavin Rossdale are the first to admit they’ve had a terrible time of it recently. The two judges for ITV’s newly repackaged The Voice UK are sitting in Rossdale’s dressing room on a dark winter’s day talking with heartbreaking honesty about family life. In April, Jones’s much-loved wife of 59 years Linda died shortly after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. Meanwhile, last year Rossdale, lead singer and guitarist with rock band Bush, was divorced by his popstar wife, Gwen Stefani, after she discovered he’d allegedly been conducting a three-year affair with the nanny of their three boys. Both men, in different ways, have been left distraught. And for both of them, The Voice could not have come at a better time. Jones was famously, and controversially, dropped by the BBC for the last series. Controversially because Jones, at 76, is a national treasure and many viewers regarded him as the show’s best judge. Jones and Rossdale seem to have a natural affinity – both are sex symbols, both have had colourful lives and both know what it’s like to experience deep personal lows. “I’ve been having a fantastic time with Tom,” says Rossdale. “I’ve just learnt how to be gracious.” Gracious is not a word many would associate with Rossdale, a well-spoken 51-year-old who could easily pass for his mid-30s. He accepts that his public image in the UK leaves something to be desired and sees The Voice as the perfect opportunity to do something about it. “I thought, selfishly, it was a chance to be seen as a human being, because having been through the whirlwind media frenzy of a divorce, you get reduced to a couple of sentences.” Rossdale says it was an easy decision, not least because his daughter Daisy Lowe (the result of a relationship with designer Pearl Lowe) lives in Britain. Rossdale talks of the model’s recent appearance on Strictly Come Dancing and says he could not be more proud. But his relationship with Daisy has been complex – he was her godfath…

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Sir Ben Kingsley's identity is as colourful as his characters
type: item
date: 2016-06-19T07:45:00.000Z
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: Interview
description: Krishna Bhanji became Ben Kingsley – and now he's Sir Ben. Just don't call him "babes"...
encoded: Sir Ben Kingsley sits on a sofa, smiling beatifically, hands pressed together like a little Buddha. I have been a fan of his ever since his epic portrait of Gandhi in Richard Attenborough’s film of the same name (Saturday Movie Mix). Among younger people, he might be best known as the sociopath Don Logan in the film Sexy Beast – a man so twisted with rage that he terrified Ray Winstone’s tough ex-con. The roles couldn’t be more different. Sir Ben plays saint and psychopath equally convincingly. Now he’s back beneath the halo in Isabel Coixet’s lovely film Learning to Drive (already in cinemas). As Sikh cabbie/driving instructor Darwan, he rescues Patricia Clarkson’s high-flying literary critic Wendy from the despair of divorce with tender acts of kindness. Darwan is a refugee in contemporary New York where racial tensions run high and brown people are often regarded as terrorist threats. Even though Darwan is Sikh, he is abused, in ignorance, as a Muslim. Kingsley’s own identity is complex and colourful. A Quaker, he was born in the West Riding of Yorkshire and grew up in Manchester as Krishna Bhanji. His father, a doctor, came from Kenya and was a Muslim of Gujarati Indian descent. His mother was an English model and actress, and part Jewish (his maternal grandmother was made pregnant by a Russian Jewish immigrant who abandoned her and, according to Kingsley, she became a vile anti-Semite). By the age of 54, his father had drunk and smoked himself to death; his mother died aged 96 in 2010. As a young boy he was known to his friends as Krish. Krishna Bhanji was such a strange name, he says, a fiction in itself. “The first name is Hindu and the second name is Muslim. Such a name would never exist in the whole of the Indian sub-continent; it’s a nonsense name. It’s more invented than the name I chose.” Does he still think of himself as Krishna? “I don’t think I think of myself. When I was on stage, I thought of myself as a landscape painter. Now that I’m blessed with …

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Dermot O'Leary on The X Factor: “If I was Simon I'd probably take it off air for a year"
type: item
date: 2016-01-16T07:34:00.000Z
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: Talent Shows
subject: TV
description: The former host of the talent on where he thinks the X Factor audience has gone, why he won't be presenting The Voice on ITV and how he'd like his career to shape up in the future
encoded: There's something appropriate about Dermot O'Leary's new television series being called The Getaway Car. After eight years on The X Factor, he has made his getaway. Last March it was announced that he would not present the recently concluded series. And for all that he loved his time presenting the show, you can't help sensing his relief. In the past, O'Leary said he would never criticise The X Factor because it had been so good to him – career-wise and financially. But today he's more open about the show's failings – and why the time was right to leave. Controversially, he even suggests that if he were in charge he would rest it. We meet in a north London gastropub, and he is literally bouncing with enthusiasm about his new show. His handshake is firm, his smile wide, his hair short, and at 42 he still looks like a young squaddy in Civvy Street. O'Leary has got the knack of the golden soundbite. If TV ever failed him, there would always be a career for him in marketing. I ask him to describe The Getaway Car, which sees him move from ITV to BBC for a prestigious early Saturday-night slot. “At its heart, it's Total Wipeout with an element of Gogglebox chucked in.” Like Total Wipeout, contestants take on a number of assault courses. But here they are driving – sometimes blindfolded. For added drama, they are guided by their loved ones. It's a recipe for chaos, smashed cars and domestics galore. In the final round, the surviving contestants get to take on the Stig for a £10,000 prize. O'Leary admits they wrote off a handful of cars in the series, which was filmed in South Africa. It sounds like there's going to be a huge amount of tension in the show? “Yeeeeaaaaaah!” he roars. Are you out to destroy these poor families? He grins. “Only in a fun way. It's all very tongue in cheek. There's a real lovely warm feel to it.” O'Leary's language is interesting. It's not the only time in the interview he talks of the importance of a show having warmth – something he has by the …

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Caroline Quentin and Martin Clunes have lived strangely parallel lives – now they're back on screen after 17 years
type: item
date: 2015-10-05T15:20:00.000Z
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: Drama
subject: TV
description: The Men Behaving Badly co-stars are reunited in tonight's episode of Doc Martin
encoded: Martin Clunes and Caroline Quentin are canoodling on a sofa, giggling and joshing like they’ve never been apart. In fact, it was the late 1990s when they last appeared together on TV as the couple Gary and Dorothy in the legendary sitcom Men Behaving Badly. Now, for the first time in 17 years, they are to be reunited on the small screen in an episode of Doc Martin. (Believe it or not, Sigourney Weaver makes a guest appearance too.) They might look a little more lived-in than they once did, but they have lost none of their zest. Quentin is looking at the photos that have just been taken of them, with Clunes wearing her dangly earrings. “Just look at us Martin, we’re too sweet for words!” she says rocking with joy. Clunes, 53, nods silently. “Well we are, aren’t we?” she shouts, in between giggles. “Particularly me. I look p***ed, obviously.” Ever since Men Behaving ended fans have been talking about a comeback, but Quentin, now 55, never wanted to do it. She couldn’t understand how the four friends (Neil Morrissey as feckless Tony who shared a flat with Gary, and Leslie Ash as girl upstairs Deborah) could be reunited gracefully. This episode of Doc Martin is probably the closest we’ll get. But the parts couldn’t be more different. Rather than lovers, they’re enemies; Quentin plays a vet who thinks Martin is a dysfunctional know-it-all – and she’s the daughter of the GP he replaced in the Cornish village of Portwenn more than a decade ago. The pair reunited in Doc Martin Though its taken them 17 years to reunite on screen, they have remained extremely close since the Men Behaving Badly days, and there is extraordinary symmetry to their lives. Both were divorced young and remarried, both left London to live on farms in the country. They became first-time parents within weeks of each other, and had daughters called Emily who are now 16, good friends and with them today. And both managed to keep on acting while turning their back on showbusiness. Clunes and Quentin could…

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Jerry Hall on her 23 years with Mick Jagger and why life is easier when you're beautiful
type: item
date: 2015-08-11T11:05:00.000Z
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: TV
description: The model and actress tells Simon Hattenstone about her life-changing Who Do You Think You Are? experience and why she won't be getting back together with the Rolling Stones legend anytime soon
encoded: Jerry Hall enters the sunny hotel garden in huge sunglasses and a sprawling floor-length dress, with an exquisite Texan drawl, every inch the 6ft southern belle. The former supermodel, ex-Mrs Mick Jagger, actress, and aspiring poet, has a surprise announcement to make. “Ahv just discovered ahm actually English on both sides of my family.” She lights an organic cigarette, apologises, and settles down to reveal all. She’s just completed an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? and says it’s a life changer. She discovered that her father’s side of the family were Oldham mill workers, while her mother’s side moved from England to become pioneers in Kentucky. It’s the pioneer bit that has made sense of her life. Hall always thought that she and her four sisters were unusually adventurous, but now she realises it’s just part of the family package; it’s in the genes. “Apparently my six-time great-grand- father was a great shot.” She counts on her fingers, and says she thinks it’s six times. “He went round settling places. He then went and settled in Missouri.” She says he was a compassionate settler – “General Dodge was going to shoot men, women and children but my six-time great-grandfather said it would be inhumane to kill these people who are surrendering, and he helped bring about the Lewis and Clark peace treaty with the Indians.” Hall is 60 next year, wearing no make-up, and looks wonderful. It’s more than 40 years since Jerry Faye Hall left Texas for Europe. She and her twin sister were the last of the daughters to leave home. While her twin Terry Jaye headed off on the back of a sailor’s Harley-Davidson for San Francisco, Hall chose Paris and a career on the catwalk. Her mother made her some new dresses and sent her off with her love. "I left Texas with a backpack and sleeping bag, didn't know anyone, had no money and went to Paris at 16. It's a pretty crazy thing to do. Obviously, it was in my blood. Get up and go. The pioneer spirit." But there was another reason …

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Greg Davies on Man Down, the death of Rik Mayall and losing his real father
type: item
date: 2015-06-01T14:19:07.000Z
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: Comedy
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Greg Davies was hit by a double shock last year when both his TV dad and then his real dad died – but now he’s back on top
encoded: It’s been a tough 12 months for Greg Davies. Last June, Rik Mayall, who played his father in the Channel 4 sitcom Man Down, died. Soon after that, his real father died. Not only were their deaths a shock to Davies, but they caused the stand-up comic a creative crisis. We meet in a pub close to his home in south London. There's something staggering about seeing him close up. He's six foot eight, 21 stone, with size 14 feet – more of an obstacle than a man. He cast Mayall because, despite the size difference, they bore an uncanny resemblance to each other – permanently raised eyebrow, quizzical mouth, a face made for mischief. At the time of Mayall’s death, Davies was halfway through writing the second series of Man Down. He pretty much had to start again. Then he was hit with the double whammy. “My dad died a couple of months after Rik. Yes, it was a difficult year.” He comes to an uncomfortable stop. Neither of us knows what to say. To lose your TV father and real father within months, I start to say... “Yeah, it’s a unique set of circumstances. It was incredibly sad.” He sips at his water. “I was very close to my dad.” Last year’s Christmas special concluded with a touching dedication to the two fathers he had only recently lost. Man Down is about drama teacher Dan, who is more childish than his pupils. (This isn’t the first time Davies has played a teacher; he’s possibly best known for his lunatic teacher Mr Gilbert in The Inbetweeners.) When faced with emotional crises, Dan will inevitably “man down” rather than man up – he tries to win his girlfriend back by doing “the helicopter” with his willy (best left to your imagination) or cooking her a bulk load of bargain mince (with nothing else). Rather than an alpha male, Dan is more of a delta. View oEmbed on the source website The relationship between Dan and his father in Man Down is bizarre – Mayall, as his dad, was always trying to humiliate him or brutalise him in one way or another, whether by whacking tennis …

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Fonejacker Kayvan Novak on returning to the spotlight - and moving on from "brown parts"
type: item
date: 2015-05-27T15:57:00.000Z
subject: Comedy
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Prank calls almost killed me, says Novak. So why is he returning to comedy with new series SunTrap?
encoded: Good question,” says Kayvan Novak, as if he’s been wondering the same thing. I’ve just asked the Fonejacker creator where he’s been. “It’s been a transitional period for me.” It’s nine years since the Bafta-winning animated comedy first appeared on E4, and three years since its follow-up, Facejacker, last aired. There has been the occasional acting role (notably in Chris Morris’s Four Lions, the ambulance drama Sirens and BBC4’s Asylum, which he co-wrote) as well as parts in the odd series (including Skins, Doctor Who, Rev and the voice of Brains in Thunderbirds Are Go), but little to write home about. But now Novak is back in SunTrap – a new BBC1 comedy series, and his first conventional lead part. Fonejacker and Facejacker were huge cult hits. In the first, Novak made prank phone calls as a variety of characters, from dodgy car salesman Terry “Talk to me” Tibbs to Nigerian “business- man” George Agdgdgwngo. The show was beautifully animated, politically incorrect, subversive and extremely funny. View oEmbed on the source website In Facejacker, Novak translated the characters into live situations – rather than hiding behind the phone, he appeared in the flesh, heavily disguised with prosthetics. So, for example, he visits his old art college disguised as pretentious art critic Brian Badonde and attempts to oust his former teacher from his class. Or as Terry Tibbs he hosts an episode of Come Dine with Me that results in the house being burnt down after an elaborate fireworks display goes wrong. His prosthetics in Facejacker are so accomplished that it’s a surprise when I see Novak in the flesh – a handsome 36-year-old who morphs into a young Robert De Niro when he smiles. Not an impression – he bears an uncanny resemblance to the actor. So where has he been? Well, he says, things haven’t always been easy. After years of struggle he thought he’d finally made it. Kids would stop him in the street, high-five him, tell him he was the Fonejacker fella and that they loved…

Next stop USA: James Corden is packing up for Hollywood
type: item
date: 2014-12-22T08:06:00.000Z
creator: Simon Hattenstone
subject: Comedy
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: TV
description: Having lost six stone and gained a gig presenting the Late Late Show in America, the writer, actor and comedian is heading stateside
encoded: James Corden is so busy, he can't quite remember why he's here. He tells me how much he's enjoying promoting Into the Woods, the film of the Sondheim musical in which he stars with Johnny Depp and Meryl Streep. Although he's actually here to talk about Esio Trot, the adaptation of the Roald Dahl book in which he stars with Dustin Hoffman and Judi Dench. Corden is moving in elevated, Oscar-winning circles these days. And there’s more. He’s also made two one-hour specials of The Wrong Mans, the comedy drama he co-wrote and starred in with Mathew Baynton about two council workers unwittingly caught up in a world of international crime. But perhaps the most remarkable thing is that he’ll soon be off with his family to live in LA, where he will present the prestigious Late Late Showon CBS five nights a week from March. Corden, 36, looks happily exhausted. It’s not just the work schedule. A few weeks ago, his wife, Julia, gave birth to their second child. Things really couldn’t be better for him. Last time I met Corden he was also on top of the world – although the peak was somewhat less vertiginous back then. It was 2008 and he had just finished acting in and co-writing (with Ruth Jones) two hugely successful, award-winning series of the sitcom Gavin & Stacey. He was about to launch a sketch show with his Gavin & Stacey co-star, Mathew Horne, and had just completed the movie Lesbian Vampire Killers, again co-starring Horne. Both bombed. When I suggest this is a comeback, his hackles rise. “Well, if my career was in a bad place at a time when I was writing probably, give or take, the biggest comedy show in the country, I dread to think what everybody else’s career could possibly be like. And being in a film that doesn’t work, that’s the experience of most people. If somebody was with Michael Fassbender, they wouldn't say, 'Let's talk about The Counsellor,' which was an unmitigated disaster. If you were talking to Benedict Cumberbatch, you wouldn't go, 'Let's talk about Th…